MAKING PEOPLE

Philip Ball. Unnatural: The Heretical Idea of Making People. Bodley Head, 2011.

A major theme of the modern alien abduction folklore is that of the mass produced 'hybrid' children, fermented in various sorts of equipment from test tubes to incubators via nutrient vats. Being raised thus, these children are assumed to be somehow wan and soulless. Though the alien abduction lore is nowhere mentioned in it, Philip Ball's excellent book shows how such fantasies develop.
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TWO CLASSIC MONSTERS

S. T. Joshi (editor). Encyclopedia of the Vampire; The Living Dead in Myth, Legend and Popular Culture. Greenwood, 2011.

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Bob Curran. Man-Made Monsters: A Field Guide to Golems, Patchwork Soldiers, Homunculi and Other Created Creatures. New Page 2010.

Well, you wait ages for one gigantic encyclopaedia about vampires, and then two turn up! Following on from J. Gordon Melton's 900 page tome (LINK) we get a mere 450 pages in this volume, and the total weight is 1.1 kg. as against Melton's 1.5 kg. However in terms of content it is hard to decide which is the weightier.

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