Literature is powerful: books have inspired revolutions and renaissances, toppled kingdoms and changed the course of human existence. But books themselves aren’t dangerous—that is, unless you’re talking about any of the fictional books-within-a-book below. From the simply malicious to the deeply malevolent, all of them are definitely dangerous, and sometimes even deadly.
Science fiction and fantasy lift us up, showing us marvelous worlds fired by pure imagination, encouraging us to dream of a better future or a more magical existence… except when they descend into horrific descriptions of torture and sadistic devices that almost break your will just by reading about them. In fact, some of the greatest torture […]
Dystopia is—ironically for something pretty terrible—disturbingly popular these days. While a good dystopian government has always been a fun way to depict our inevitably awful future (I patiently await my sexless utilitarian jumpsuit and dish of Soylent Green), there are often a lot of missing details. Like, for example, how can an incredibly ridiculous (but evil) government […]
In The League of Regrettable Superheroes: Half-Baked Heroes from Comic Book History, author Jon Morris uncovers the saddest costumed avengers from the long history of funny books, heroes probably better left crumpled in a ball at the bottom of their creators’ trash cans. Luckily, they hit print, if usually only for an issue or two, providing plenty of hilarious material […]