The Gas

An accident at a secret germ warfare laboratory allows a deadly vapour to infect all of Southern England. The vapour is an aphrodisiac that releases every pent-up human urge. Within twenty-four hours society self-destructs in a vast orgy of lust, aggression, and psychosis, as men and women everywhere act out their deepest, weirdest obsessions. ‘The Gas’ is a work of vicious satire and blackest humour, offering little comfort from the relentless horror, other than very bleak laughter at its absurdism. A serious, although hysterically funny, work that deserves to sit next to ‘Naked Lunch’, ‘Clockwork Orange’ and ‘The Kindly Ones’ in its merciless exploration of our darkest impulses, and what humans are capable of under the right – or wrong - circumstances. Incunabula is reprinting this book now as we feel that in the current climate of rampant unreason, it’s more relevant than ever before.