The Monster, Capital. This item is unavailable.The Monster, Capital

There is something monstrous about capital, something alive and creeping about it. It’s been compared to a parasite, a vampire, a zombie-maker; one that transforms human lives into dead labour, and marshals all creative, free-thinking individuality into the long trudge that is work, money-making, aspiration. The philosopher Mark Fisher famously compared capital to the alien in John Carpenter’s The Thing: an ‘infinitely plastic entity capable of metabolising and absorbing anything with which it comes into contact.’ For the latest book in its acclaimed horror series, Comma has invited ten authors to explore this emergent, monstrous property of capital through supernatural and surreal means. Thus, we see characters disappearing into algorithm-driven spending addictions, property development spreading like a virus across cityscapes leaving buildings empty and people homeless, and citizens so addicted to the ‘news drug’ that promises everything is about to change that nothing does. We may think of capitalism as the ghost in the machine, driving things forwards. But what happens when we become the ghosts?

Matthew Holness is a writer, director and actor. He created and starred in Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace for Channel 4 and his short films include A Gun For George, The Snipist and Smutch. His stories have appeared in Phobic, The New Uncanny and Protest (all Comma). In 2018 he directed his first feature film, Possum, based on his contribution to The New Uncanny. Before Christine Poulson turned to writing fiction, she was an academic with a PhD in History of Art. Her Cassandra James mysteries are set in Cambridge. Deep Water, the first in a new series featuring medical researcher Katie Flanagan, appeared in 2016. The second, Cold, Cold Heart, set in Antarctica, came out in 2018, and the third, An Air That Kills, in 2019. Her short stories have been published in Comma Press anthologies, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Crime Writers’ Association anthologies, the Mammoth Book of Best British Mysteries and elsewhere. They have been short-listed for the Short Mystery Fiction Derringer, the Margery Allingham Prize, and the CWA Short Story Dagger.