Carrion comfort (1989)
Carrion comfort is a 1989 american horror tales book written by Dan Simmons.
A few people are born with the Ability: the power to slip inside another mind and use its body like a worn glove. Some of them are very old now, and very practiced. In Charleston, three genteel friends meet as they have for decades to tally the murders they have committed through borrowed hands, strangers' lives spent as moves in a private game. Saul Laski, a psychiatrist who survived the camps and encountered one of these creatures there, has spent his life trying to prove they exist. Simmons plays the vampire story as pure predation: no fangs, only appetite and control.
Quick answers
What is Carrion comfort about?
A few people are born with the Ability: the power to slip inside another mind and use its body like a worn glove. Some of them are very old now, and very practiced. In Charleston, three genteel friends meet as they have for decades to tally the murders they have committed through borrowed hands, strangers' lives spent as moves in a private game. Saul Laski, a psychiatrist who survived the camps and encountered one of these creatures there, has spent his life trying to prove they exist. Simmons plays the vampire story as pure predation: no fangs, only appetite and control.
When was Carrion comfort published?
Carrion comfort was published on 11 October 2000.
Who made Carrion comfort?
Carrion comfort was written by Dan Simmons.
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Carrion comfort in our writing
- Companion guide: Hyperion Cantos: The Complete Guide to Dan Simmons' Far-Future Epic
A few thoughts on Carrion comfort
Jordan Peele's Get Out shares the core horror of privileged predators steering other people's bodies, and The Manchurian Candidate built the mind-control thriller these monsters would treat as a manual. In comics, Parasyte literalizes the violation, creatures wearing humans as vehicles while the original self watches helplessly from inside.
Horror where the monster steals your mind, not your blood
Carrion Comfort's Ability lets a handful of people slip inside a stranger's mind and drive their body like a rented car. Get Out, The Manchurian Candidate, BioShock and The Institute build horror from the same premise: someone else's will replacing your own while everyone around you assumes free choice. Parasyte pushes that same invasion into literal biology.
Predators that pass as ordinary people until they feed
Carrion Comfort's genteel Charleston trio pass as pillars of the community while borrowing strangers' hands to kill. Tokyo Ghoul, The Promised Neverland, Tomie and Future Diary all put a predator behind an ordinary or even caring face, feeding while the people around it notice nothing. Bloodborne turns the same idea loose on a whole plague-ridden city.