Horror is one of the clearly defined genres and emotions.
As someone who writes and analyses horror and has a keen interest in neuroscience, I had to read this book.
Our perceptions, primal fears, survival mechanisms, mental health are coupled with examples from fiction in this well-researched book.
I wish it were slightly differently edited, but I would love to read more by this author, and more on the topic.
The more scientific evidence, the better.

My thanks to NetGalley and The Globe Pequot Publishing Group, Inc.- Prometheus Books for an advance copy of this look at the many mysteries of the human brain, how it processes and deals with horrific and amazing events, the problems the brain can cause, and how authors have used these wonders, and difficulties to create some of the most enduring works of fiction.

My parents and my neighbors across the street shared a rotating duty when I was growing up. Each one one of the parents would bring myself, possibly my brother, and my two friends to the movies. My parents were pretty cool about movies, my neighbor had no idea. Name it and she would take us. Which is how I at a young age saw a little film by John Frankenheimer movie called Prophecy. Imagine Jaws, in the woods of Maine, with a mutated bear, blood, babies, and all other sorts of things that I, used to Saturday Morning Cartoons, had never seen before. For some reason this movie has stayed with me, more than Evil Dead, Necromantic, all the other gross vile, and horrific movies I have seen. Even now I look at the woods out my window, wondering what that noise was. That was my first real experience with horror, and it is something that has stayed with me. The genre has been popular since the early days of sitting around the campfire, or when Mary Shelley created science fiction. Things scare us. Sometimes they are real, sometimes they are in our heads. Sometimes they are in the minds of others, or created from the minds of others, and that can scare us even more. Horror on the Brain: The Neuroscience Behind Science Fiction by professor of neuroscience Austin Lim, looks at why we feel fear, why certain stories speak to our fears, and why sometimes the brain turns on us, and used as a basis for stories that still scare us.

The book is broken down in chapters that look at different ways the brain can feel, can process or be consumed by fear. Each chapter starts with quotes from various books of fiction, from Shelley, Welles, Clarke and of course the master of monster, myths and nightmares H. P. Lovecraft. Science fiction is in the title, but many of the references are of the horror genre. Lim takes a look at different events that could effect the mind, and could be used to create stories. Lucid dreaming and sleepwalking, along with other conditions that are sleep related like sleep paralysis. Lim looks at real cases and studies, talking about a woman who couldn't feel pain, and how this changed her outlook on life. Lim uses real studies detailing how things were in the past, and how things might be in the future, and what stories could be taken from them. Lim discusses the fears that people have of someone who acted different, how fear of the outsider is the basis of many stories, and why. Lim also includes many examples from literature, using popular and in some cases almost forgotten writers.

The book is well written, and told with a lot of experience in both neuroscience and horror. There is a lot more neuroscience than literature, which might cause some consternation, but I liked the information, and found much of quite enlightening, and again well presented. As a person who enjoys quotes I also liked the use of bits from stories to enrich the chapters. I must admit some of the case studies were a bit more unsettling than some of the fictional stories. Not mutant bear scary, but close.

One can see a person going through sleep paralysis, or lucid dreaming, or seeing and hearing things that weren't there, could be used as inspiration by creative people for stories. A lot of horror is just seeing something that should not be, being right there. An interesting look at the brain and how it can be right, and something really, really wrong.

This was a fascinating concept and enjoyed the science and how it works with the brain in this book. It is a more scientific read and thought it worked overall. I was invested in what Austin Lim worked and appreciated getting to read this.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for this advanced reader's copy and the opportunity to this early. Review has been posted on Waterstones and Amazon.

Very heavily scientific. Not an easy read at all. It is like reading scientific article after article. Many of the topics are good and interesting but it is. Very taxing to read. This is not what I was expecting. The focus isn't horror but how the brain works.