The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities: Exhibits, Oddities, Images, and Stories from Top Authors and Artists

How do you describe a book so strange and unique it defies genre? The Cabinet of Curiosities is like no other book. Probably closest to steampunk, that doesn't even begin to describe it. The illegitimate child of Monty Python and Umberto Eco.

Full of contributions from dozens of artists and authors, it's "entries" vary from stories inspired by, to descriptions of the items contained (or formerly residing, or related to) in the Cabinet, a sort of organic museum itself that defies description, literally. Illustrated throughout by some of the items, or reconstructions, or artist renderings of some of the missing curiosities.

The writing is mainly on the strange story side of things and doesn't really fall into horror, science fiction, or show more fantasy. There is a wry humor to most of it. Most of the unfortunate people, besides Dr. Lambshead himself, come to some sort of untimely end as a result of contact with the museum's curiosities. Many of the details are lost or unexplained just adding to the weirdness of the whole thing. Ultimately Dr. Lambshead dies (of natural causes, he seems immune to the Cabinet's more deleterious effects)in 2003 and the museum is partially consumed in a fire thereafter. Don't worry though, there is a 1/1000 scale model of the ENTIRE Cabinet still in existence but unfortunately the tiny key to it has been lost (eaten by a pet squid). But you can still peer through the needle sized keyhole and get a glimpse...

It's also a beautifully produce book.

I'm sure a lot of people will think three stars is too few for this, and they probably have a point, but I thought there was a fair amount of filler material here and certain sections of the book dragged a bit and failed to hold my attention.

I would still highly recommend this to anyone interested in the weird tale. Most will probably find the entire book entertaining. show less

An Appraisal of a Unique and Fascinating Tome - The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities - Edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer

The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities
Ann and Jeff VanderMeer (Editors)
Harper Voyager
Publication Date: July 12, 2011
Hardcover
320 Pages
ISBN: 9780062004751

A Word Concerning the Discovery

After the death of Dr. Thackery T. Lambshead eight years ago a startling discovery was made at his manor house in Wimpering-on-the-Brook, England. Buried beneath the stacked detritus of antiques and collectibles in the basement of his Victorian-era cottage and nearly reduced to ash by fire was discovered the most remarkable cabinet of curiosities ever encountered. In it was a vast accumulation of extraordinary show more artifacts and curios. For the first time since that astonishing unearthing a select group of artisans (authors, fantasists, illustrators, and artists – hypnotists all) have assembled together to catalogue and craft to life the oddities recently found in Dr. Lambshead’s Cabinet of Curiosities.

The Curious Contents of the Cabinet

- The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities

- Introduction:

The Contradictions of a Collection, Dr. Lambshead's Cabinet - The Editors

- Holy Devices and Infernal Duds: The Broadmore Exhibits

The Electrical Neurheographiton - Minister Y. Faust , D. Phil

St. Brendan's Shank - Kelly Barnhill

The Auble Gun – Will Hindmarch

Dacey’s Patent Automatic Nanny – Ted Chiang

- Honoring Lambshead: Stories Inspired by the Cabinet

Threads – Carrie Vaughn

Ambrose and the Ancient Spirits of East and West – Garth Nix

Relic – Jeffrey Ford

Lord Dunsany’s Teapot – Naomi Novik

Lot 558: Shadow of My Nephew by Wells, Charlotte – Holly Black

A Short History of Dunkelblau’s Meistergarten – Tad Williams

- Microbial Alchemy and Demented Machinery: The Mignola Exhibits

Addison Howell and the Clockroach – Cherie Priest

Sir Ranulph Wykeham-Rackham, GBE, a.k.a. Roboticus the All-Knowing – Lev Grossman

Shamalung (The Diminutions) – Michael Moorcock

Pulvadmonitor: The Dust’s Warning – China Mieville

- The Mieville Anomalies

The Very Shoe – Helen Oyeyemi

The Gallows-horse – Reza Negarestani

- Further Oddities

The Thing in the Jar – Michael Cisco

The Singing Fish – Amal El-Mohtar

The Armor of Sir Locust – Stephan Chapman

A Key to the Castleblakeney Key – Caitlin R. Kiernan

Taking the Rats to Riga – Jay Lake

The Book of Categories – Charles Yu

Objects Discovered in a Novel Under Construction – Alan Moore

- Visits and Departures

1929:The Singular Taffy Puller – N. K. Jemisin

1943: A Brief Note Pertaining to the Absence of One Olivaceous Cormorant, Stuffed – Rachel Swirsky

1963: The Argument Against Louis Pasteur – Mur Lafferty

1972: The Lichenologist’s Visit – Ekaterina Sedia

1995: Kneel – Brian Evenson

2000: Dr. Lambshead’s Dark Room – S. J. Chambers

2003: The Pea – Gio Clairval

- A Brief Catalog of Other Items

- -- An Inquisitive Review of Cabinet Curiosities by The Alternative One

Paragraph the First: Being a Failing on the Part of the Critic While Indicating a Certain Genius on the Part of the Editors.

The fault on my part is that due to a set of unfortunate circumstances I had never heard of Thackery T. Lambshead before purchasing a copy of the very unique and satisfying Cabinet of Curiosities. The brilliance of the editors is that for the first 20 pages or so (the entire introduction actually) I firmly believed that there really was a collector of oddities named Thackery T. Lambshead. So much so that I had to conduct a Google search to find that he (and the books about him – however vaguely) are pure fabrication. But oh, what beautiful curiosities I have been witness to here. I was spellbound and entranced from the moment I opened the tome. Unique devices, eerie tales, colossal inventions, peculiar stories, and hypnotic illustrations by the likes of Carrie Vaughn, Greg Broadmore, Garth Nix, Naomi Novik, Tad Williams, Cherie Priest, Lev Grossman, Michael Moorcock, Alan Moore, and China Mieville, among others, make this one of the very best collections of dark ephemera, exhibits, relics, keepsakes, antiques, artifacts, illustrations, things in jars, and curiosities ever brought together under the cover of one beautifully etched and illuminated tome.

Paragraph the Second: Being a Review of the Contents in no Logical or Discerning Order but with an Eye Pointed Squarely at the Most Curious of Oddities.

The Introduction overflows with anecdotal information concerning Dr. Lambshead and his wife Helen. Unfortunately, much of Lambshead’s story is missing at this point. Fortunately, it appears that the remaining stories in the collection are rumored to shed more light on the mysterious doctor and his bevy of curiosities and indeed do not disappoint. Entries of significant import include (in order of personal enjoyment by this critic): Naomi Novik’s captivating Lord Dunsany’s Teapot; Cherie Priest’s (a perennial favorite of mine) Addison Howell and the Clockroach; Michael Moorcock’s addition Shamalung (The Diminutions); China Mieville’s always strange and imaginative Pulvadmonitor: The Dust’s Warning, and Amal El-Mohtar’s The Singing Fish.

Paragraph the Third: In Which a Brief Outline of Indelible Art and Outlandish Illustrations is Revealed.

The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities contains some of the very best Steampunk art you may find. With unforgettable illustrations by the hands of esteemed artists such as Greg Broadmore, Sam Van Ollfen , James A. Owen , Jonathan Nix , and John Coulthart there is steampunk curiosity enough for everyone here. Honestly folks, I would own this book just for the artwork alone, sans stories. Fortunately for all, the text matches the illustrations in beauty and elegance.

Paragraph the Fourth: Recommendations by Variety of Like and Kind.

If you enjoyed Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke , Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs , Wisconsin Death Trip by Michael Lesy , or Billy Sunday by Rod Jones then The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities will certainly be an entertaining distraction for you.

5 out of 5 stars

The Alternative
Southeast Wisconsin

Additional Reading:

Thackery T. Lambshead series:
1. The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases (2005)
2. The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities: Exhibits, Oddities, Images, and Stories from Top Authors and Artists (2011) show less

This is a monster that shames but does not shamble, that bites but does not shit, that writhes but does not grasp.

This anthology succeeded as a perfect diversion. Premise is simple: fictional scholar/collector travels the world assembling the merely odd and the paranormally affected. Nothing too ghastly. Just weird. I bought it for the heavy-hitters, Moore, Chiang, Negarestani and especially Miéville, and they did not disappoint. Most of these collections are typically hit-and-miss, this one was uncanny, unheimlich, and ultimately entertaining: no duds. It is no easy task, providing a portrait or provenance in static form with just a hint of unease.

In a generally-obscure English village named Whimpering-on-the-Brink there stands an elaborate mansion, the home of the renowned doctor, adventurer and eccentric, Thackery T. Lambshead. The house, and its occupant, were known as the foci of an ever-expanding collection of odd and interesting things, both material and otherwise. Lambshead’s most famous publication, The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases, exemplified this acquisitive approach to discovery, presenting a varied selection of anecdotes and obscure reports about little-known maladies from around the world.

Following Dr. Lambshead’s death in 2003 at the age of 103, his house stood largely (though not completely) untouched for five years, show more until the British government declared it a national treasure. A year after that, the caretakers discovered, in the basement, the remains of a long-rumored cabinet of curiosities–a set of rooms crammed with unusual and exotic items of all kinds. After extensive research and cataloging, the editors of the doctor’s compendium of diseases resolved to reveal these wonders to the world, and therefore compiled a set of texts describing the strange and tangled history of many of the fascinating objects being brought into the light of day.

So goes the story, anyway.

Specifically, the story contained within the introduction to The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities, edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer. In 2003, Jeff VanderMeer, along with Mark Roberts, gave us the above-named Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases, which brought together such esteemed authors of the fantastic as Michael Moorcock, China Miéville, Kage Baker, Cory Doctorow and Neil Gaiman to assemble an uproarious secret history, seen through the prism of a 19th-century popular medical guide.

Now, in the Cabinet of Curiosities, the VanderMeers revisit their mysterious fictional hero through a meticulous and engaging exploration of his personal cornucopia. The cabinet of curiosities was a remarkable tradition among the well-off in the Renaissance and later, a large room (or set of rooms) in which were kept and exhibited a variety of objects of mysterious provenance and little-understood purpose. Such collections, occasionally open to the public, provided the template for the natural-history museums of today; the British Museum, the Ashmolean Museum, the Grünes Gewölbe, and the Mütter Museum all accreted around the contents of notable cabinets.

Here, Dr. Lambshead’s cabinet is described through several sections or “exhibits”, consisting of short essays organized into subthemes. Such marvelous items as the Electrical Neurheographiton, Dacey’s Patent Automatic Nanny, the Pulvadmonitor, the Clockroach, and the Castleblakeney Key (with its attached hand) have their bizarre and darkly amusing stories told by a collection of authors just as impressive as in the previous volume. Ted Chiang, Garth Nix, Jay Lake, Naomi Novik, Cherie Priest, Tad Williams, Holly Black, and Alan Moore are only a few of the talents on offer, along with previous Lambsheadites such as Moorcock and Miéville.

As with the first Lambshead book, the mood is dryly humorous and satirical, with many of the essays parodying the arch style of 19th- and early 20th-century scientific writing. The scope, however, is far greater. Dr. Lambshead’s artifacts span all of the world’s cultures and thousands of years of history, and many have seemingly magical properties that have unpredictable effects on the lives of those who encounter them. This structure allows for a considerably greater variety of characters and stories than in the previous volume.

For example, Carrie Vaughn’s contribution, “Threads”, tells the story of several people who, visiting the doctor’s mansion, encounter a worn, faded tapestry of a unicorn. The tapestry, due to some mystical property that is never explained, has a powerful influence on all of them–and while the experience is brief, for some the result is life-changing. Vaughn uses this device to paint vivid portraits of average people who are perplexed by situations of which they are only vaguely aware.

Another example, “Lot 558: Shadow of My Nephew by Wells, Charlotte” by Holly Black, begins with the auction of an unusual item of taxidermy–a bear cub with diamond eyes and a speaker in its chest–and tells the sad and strange story of its creation, of a bear who falls in love with a human woman and who tries, and fails, to live as a man.

These surrealistic tales conjure up a world that still has room for mystery, in which not every phenomenon is understood and cataloged, in which there are more things than are dreamt of in our philosophies–and where a dedicated bricoleur such as Thackery Lambshead can be a caretaker of those mysteries for our benefit. Each of these stories, much like the items from the cabinet, serves as a little capsule of wonder and inspiration.

At its best, the so-called New Weird–a genre inextricably linked to the VanderMeers–masterfully evokes this feeling of wonder, usually in a modern setting that would normally be incompatible with such fantasies. The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities is a landmark of this style, probably even more so than its predecessor. It is a dense read, and perhaps not suitable to be tackled all in one go. But the intrepid explorer who stumbles upon this Wunderkammer will find treasures well worth the journey. show less

I was saddened to learn of Dr. Lambshead’s passing. The world will be a poorer place without him, but what a legacy he’s left behind. Thankfully, we have luminaries from his inner circle, such people as Jeff and Ann Vandermeer, China Mieville and Naomi Novik, to name just a few, hard at work cataloging the many curiosities collected over the good Doctor’s lifetime and enlightening us of these finds.

While the world of Dr. Lambshead’s younger years was not ready for it, maybe now is the time to revive interest in such automata as Dacey’s Patent Automatic Nanny. I could see a modernized adaptation utilizing a tablet computing device and a more anthropomorphic mannequin, replacing the crude Victorian model collected by the Doctor, show more to help modern families with their child rearing burdens. Yes indeed. Thanks to Ted Chiang for revealing this wonder to us.

This is but one of the many wonders to be found in this very tongue in cheek collection of short stories and ramblings from some of the brightest fantasy writers publishing today. While not all of the stories are of the same level of enjoyment, unlike other anthologies with a common theme I’ve recently read, I did not find one substandard offering among them. All range from more than just very good to outstanding. Some were pure fantasy, such as Naomi’ Novik’s Lord Dunsany’s Teapot, others were decidedly steampunk influenced, as was Cherie Priest’s offering for this collection, Addison Howell and the Clockroach; the latter not surisingly bearing a resemblance to her wonderful novel Boneshaker.

Being short stories, most were quick reads and each story stands alone on its own merits. The ones that were not such a quick read were so good, I did not want them to end. If you are a fan of the good Doctor, or a fan of Steampunk or fantasy that is not all Damsels and Dragons but maybe something more of an alternate reality bent, you should try this collection. I think you will find something here to like.
This is an exceptional collection and well worth a full five stars. There is quite a collection of talent in this volume and each author adds to the persona of Dr. Lambhead in their own unique way. show less

A pretty remarkable anthology that bored me, which in itself is also remarkable? There are so many amazing writers that contributed to this and so many of the stories are fantastic. But the gimmick of the book wore thin very quickly and it took me four months to get through this. The anthology itself isn't bad, but I just found myself totally uninterested in the repetitive nature of the stories.

I liked the background theme about the sad people who were destroyed by the strange objects. It carried me through the book.

As befits the fictional collection, Cabinet harbours a myriad of delights, along with gorgeous paintings, sketches, and photographs (the book itself is gorgeous). Luminaries such as Michael Moorcock, China Mieville, Mike Mignola, Alan Moore, Lev Grossman, Tad Williams, Minister Faust, and dozens beside contribute tales, descriptions, and more, resulting in an anthology of vastly differing styles and themes. The entries, bearing titles such as Dunkelblau's Meistergarten, The Electrical Neurheographiton, the Clockroach, and The Thing in the Jar, are wondrous and strange, completely original, and sadly fictional (I want an Automatic Nanny).

Read the rest of the review here.