
The Monster, Capital
Ra Page(Editor)
Comma Press
Published on 26. March 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
240 pages
978-1-910974-46-9 (ISBN)
Description
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 forward. But what happens when we become the ghosts?
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Mytholmroyd
United Kingdom
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 130 mm
Width: 198 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
262 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-910974-46-9 (9781910974469)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Ra Page is the CEO and Founder of Comma Press. He has edited over 20 anthologies, including The City Life Book of Manchester Short Stories (Penguin, 1999), The New Uncanny (winner of the Shirley Jackson Award, 2008), and most recently Resist: Stories of Uprising (2019). He has coordinated a number of publisher development initiatives, including Literature Northwest (2004-2013), and the Northern Fiction Alliance (2016-present). He is a former journalist and has also worked as a producer and director on a number of short films. He read Physics at Balliol College, Oxford and has an MA in English