Today, astonishing surgical breakthroughs are making limb transplants, face transplants, and a host of other previously un dreamed of operations possible. But getting here has not been a simple story of medical progress. In Blood and Guts, veteran science writer Richard Hollingham weaves a compelling narrative from the key moments in surgical history. We have a ringside seat in the operating theater of University College Hospital in London as world-renowned Victorian surgeon Robert Liston performs a remarkable amputation in thirty seconds—from first cut to final stitch. Innovations such as Joseph Lister's antiseptic technique, the first open-heart surgery, and Walter Freeman's lobotomy operations, among other breakthroughs, are brought to life in these pages in vivid detail. This is popular science writing at it's best.

As I walked into the operating theatre, the sight that met my eyes made me catch my breath. The patient was lying face down on the operating table. The only part of him that was not covered in sterile, green drapes was his bottom. The surgeon had made a circular cut about the size of a dinner plate and the area inside the cut was a mass of warts and red, nodular lumps. And so begins Gloria Burley's compelling view of our hospital system. A nurse with experience in urban and Outback hospitals, Gloria tells it as she saw it: the dedication of medical professionals doing their best for their patients but also the limitations of people who are after all only human. Her story will ring true anywhere the pressures are high and the resources scarce. We all end up in hospital sooner or later, and myths about what we can expect abound, which accounts for the popularity of medical TV shows. Reading this book will show you what really happens after the anaesthetist turns up the gas...

“I pull on my balaclava and step onto the bridge wing. It’s loud outside: I can hear the rumbles of nine vessels’ engines and the hiss of ten water cannons … Suddenly the bridge is full of refugees from the upper deck. They are blocking my view out the back windows, but their faces – afraid, excited, awestruck – illustrate the looming presence of the Nisshin. I bend my knees and grip the bench, ready for the crunch.” In Blood and Guts, Sam Vincent plunges into the whale wars. Vincent sets sail with Sea Shepherd, led by the charismatic and abrasive Paul Watson. He attends the recent case at the International Court of Justice, which finds Japan’s ‘scientific’ whaling in the Southern Ocean to be unlawful. And he travels to Japan to investigate why its government doggedly continues to bankroll the unprofitable hunt. This is a fresh, funny and intelligent look at how Australia has become the most vocal anti-whaling nation on Earth. Vincent skewers hypocrisy and sheds light on motives, noble and otherwise. With Japan planning to relaunch its lethal program in 2015, the whale wars are set to continue. Blood and Guts is a riveting work of immersion journalism that lays bare the forces driving this conflict.

Fascinating short stories that include a rather bloody satire on installation art, including the Edgar Award-nominated story "Still Life No.41", a wonderful story of gruesome revenge involving a wayward son-in-law, a surprising and hilarious tale of a pre-historic serial killer who invents God and psychoanalysis, and, inevitably, a vampire story told with venom and humor. These stories remind one of the best short stories by Stephen King, such as those in the ‘Just after Sunset’ compilation. They can be horrific but are never without a devastating sense of humor. As in the adult short stories of Roald Dahl (the ‘Kiss Kiss’ collection in particular, with its tales of family and other violence) there is great ingenuity, surprising and satisfying endings, and, since it’s Solana, deep cutting satire of contemporary fads and mores.

THE CLASSIC SCIENCE FICTION TALE THAT WILL EAT YOUR BRAINS! Never before in the history of warfare had destruction been so indiscriminate and so universal. Panic descends upon planet Earth once more as H. G. Wells’s terrify- ing cosmic invaders blaze a path of fiery destruction across Victorian England, leaving thousands of undead in their wake. Our adventurous narrator must survive the apocalyptic alien threat while fighting off rag- ing, bloodthirsty zombies. Who will triumph when man, Martian, and flesh-eating monster meet? Packed with fearsome supernatural creatures at every turn, Wells’s original masterpiece is scarier, gorier, and more suspenseful than ever!

John Gordon Smith wrote one of the most vivid, honest and readable personal accounts of the Battle of Waterloo and the ensuing campaign, where he served as a surgeon in the12th Light Dragoons, but his classic narrative was only published in a limited edition in the 1830s and since then it has been virtually unknown. His warts-and-all depiction of the British army in Belgium and France and the fighting at Waterloo rivals many of the more famous and often reprinted military memoirs of the period. That is why Gareth Glover, one of the foremost experts on the battle and the archive sources relating to it, has sought to republish the narrative now, with a full introduction and explanatory notes. Smith’s account reads like a novel, in a chatty, easy-going style, but it often records deeply shocking scenes and behaviour so scandalous that he had to avoid naming names. As well as recalling, in graphic detail, his experience as a medic during the battle, he records the aftermath, the allied occupation of France. His writing, which describes the truly dreadful consequences of the fighting as only a surgeon would see them, also gives the reader a rare insight into his role and a memorable impression of the life in the army as a whole.

Through studying images of blood in film from the mid-1950s to the end of the 1960s, this path-breaking book explores how blood as an (audio)visual cinematic element went from predominately operating as a signifier, providing audiences with information about a film’s plot and characters, to increasingly operating in terms of affect, potentially evoking visceral and embodied responses in viewers. Using films such as The Return of Dracula, The Tingler, Blood Feast, Two Thousand Maniacs, Color Me Blood Red, Bonnie and Clyde, and The Wild Bunch, Rødje takes a novel approach to film history by following one (audio)visual element through an exploration that traverses established standards for film production and reception. This study does not heed distinctions regarding to genres (horror, western, gangster) or models of film production (exploitation, independent, studio productions) but rather maps the operations of cinematic images across marginal as well as more traditionally esteemed cinematic territories. The result is a book that rethinks and reassembles cinematic practices as well as aesthetics, and as such invites new ways to investigate how cinematic images enter relations with other images as well as with audiences.

One of the greatest characters in Western fiction. Two of the wildest tales of frontier vengeance from William Johnstone’s classic bestselling saga. This is how Smoke Jensen became a legend. REVENGE OF THE MOUNTAIN MAN They came in the dead of night like a pack of wolves. They invaded Smoke Jensen’s ranch. They destroyed Smoke Jensen’s dream. Then they finished the job by putting three bullets in Smoke Jensen’s wife. By the time Smoke arrived on the scene, it was too late to save her. Now he lives for revenge. Ruthless, righteous, merciless revenge. . . . VENGEANCE OF THE MOUNTAIN MAN With his darkest days behind him, Smoke Jensen hopes to return to a normal life. Unfortunately, he can’t escape his past. A vicious young gunfighter named Sundance holds an all-consuming grudge against the mountain man. He’s got backup from Mexico, bullets to spare, and bloodlust in his eyes. Tonight, the past is coming for Smoke Jensen. With a vengeance. . . . Live Free. Read Hard.

She had an ass like a heart turned upside down and cut in half--and that's what we call foreshadowing, friend. Gruesome and glam, vicious and violent, this collection of the best new neo-noir fiction will hit you like a biker boot to the skull. Unleashed from the net's most hardcore award-winning site, these down, dirty, and deeply depraved tales don't just cut the edge . . . they pour gasoline on it and toss it in a meth lab full of C-4 . . . "Just because I killed my best friend with my bare hands doesn't make me all that bad. . . Christ, I loved the guy like a brother." Throw down a shot with the last word in badass--a scheming stripper playing one fool too far; the rage-haunted lesbian who's the last word in nightmare revenge; a mercenary sheriff doomed by ruthless payback; avenging street angels unleashing holy hell --and just try and stagger away intact. . . "This country's got a motto. It's pura vida, and it means when life gets you down, put your feet up, sister. But I lift my legs for no man." So settle back with your favorite rot-gut, keep your brass knuckles handy, and hang where the odds are never good, darkness is a permanent state of mind, and the house always takes all . . . Blood, Guts, And Whiskey "Lean, mean stories. . .today's brightest writers provide some of the darkest tales you've ever read." –Max Allan Collins Big Daddy Thug/Todd Robinson's writing has appeared in Plots With Guns, Danger City, Demolition, Out Of The Gutter, Pulp Pusher, Crimespree and Writers Digest's The Year's Best Writing 2003. He was nominated for a 2006 Derringer Award from the Short Mystery Fiction Society, and is the creator and chief editor of Thuglit.com. The stories he's edited for Thuglit.com have been nominated for several awards, including The Derringer and The Million Writer's Award, and been have been selected for The Best American Mystery Stories and Best Noir 2006. He lives and works in New York with his wife (Lady Detroit), a ferret named Matilda, and three freakin' cats.