Read the Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities and win a Jake von Slatt Somnotrope

Steampunk maker Jake von Slatt built a "Mooney & Finch Somnotrope" as part of the promotion for The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities (the followup to The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases, a collection of fictitious and whimsical illnesses); writer Charlie Jane Anders wrote a "microfiction" (see below) to accompany it. You can win the von Slatt original by buying a copy of the book.

Contributors include Holly Black, Greg Broadmore, Ted Chiang, John Coulthart, Rikki Ducornet, Amal El-Mohtar, Minister Faust, Jeffrey Ford, Lev Grossman, N.K. Jemisin, Caitlin R. Kiernan, China Mieville, Mike Mignola, Michael Moorcock, Alan Moore, Garth Nix, Naomi Novik, James A. Owen, Helen Oyeyemi, J.K. Potter, Cherie Priest, Ekaterina Sedia, Jan Svankmajer, Rachel Swirsky, Carrie Vaughn, Jake von Slatt, Tad Williams, Charles Yu, and many more.

Mooney & Finch Somnotrope - These sleep simulators have become rare artifacts--even though they were mass produced in the Mooney & Finch Sheffield facility, each one of them emerged as a unique object due to the pressures of the oneiric centrifuge. However, they were only sold for three months, prior to the first reports of somnambulance addiction and peripatetic insomnia. The idea of experiencing four or five hours of sleep within a mere few minutes held almost unlimited allure for the world's busiest captains of industry and harried matrons. But few were prepared for the intoxication of the Somnotrope's soothing buzz, the sheer pleasure of watching its central piston raise and lower, gently at first and then with increasing vigor, until your mind flooded with dream fragments and impression of having sailed to the nether kingdom and back, all in a few minutes. It only took a few unfortunate deaths for the whole line to be recalled. (Charlie Jane Anders)

Lambshead Cabinet: Win Jake von Slatt's Mooney & Finch Somnotrope! (Thanks, Jeff!)

• [Anonymous]

  Soooo disappointing it’s not open to people in other countries…such a fab looking contraption and brilliant idea for a prize. The disappointment is fierce :-(

• [JonStewartMill]

  I don’t even know what it does and I must. have. one.

• [Boomer]

  How wonderful. A steampunk C-Pap machine. Thanks to VA, one of them social entitlement programs, I have one and couldn’t sleep without it.

• [Palomino]

  Sell your soul to the Facebook Gods.

  Pain in the ass to find this:

  4. ALTERNATIVE MEANS OF ENTRY: You may enter the Sweepstakes without a purchase by printing your name, e-mail address, date of birth and the phrase “Thackery T. Lambshead Sweepstakes” on a standard-size postcard (“Mail-in Entry”) and send to: Harper VOyager’s Thackery T. Lambshead Sweepstakes, Harper Voyager 10 E. 53rd Street,5th Floor, New York, New York, 10022. Postcard entries must be postmarked during the Sweepstakes Period and received by August 30, 2011 to be included within the random drawing.

• [Anonymous]

  Like the recent Neil Gaiman contest, this is only open to US residents. Harper-Collins, you annoy me. It’s almost as if you were owned by Rupert Murdoch! Oh, wait…

• [malathion]

  Sort of like trying to find info on a gronicle.

• [NeonCat]

  I like everything about it but the base. It just looks cheap. If they’d made it a glossy black it would have been better, IMHO.

  • [Thylacinthine]

    Or lovingly carved mahogany.

    I can’t enter either, alas.

• [Anonymous]

  no wiki, no web search results.

  is this a made-up machine?

• [nixiebunny]

  The two hard-disk platters lend a nice modern touch to this ancient machine.

• [Anonymous]

  Somnotrope? Wait. I need an oneiric centrifuge. Really

• [g0d5m15t4k3]

  Sounds like something I’d love to buy but would never be rich enough to own. Kind of like those “iPad” things.

• [Anonymous]

  @ # 3 any luck at finding out anything about it? How does it work? How did it kill people?

  • [Bubba]

    It’s very simple, you use it in a darkened room and and activate the [redacted]