Badass: The Birth of a Legend: Spine-Crushing Tales of the Most Merciless Gods, Monsters, Heroes, Villains, and Mythical Creatures Ever Envisioned

by Ben Thompson

Overview

Ben Thompson—author of Badass, creator of the epic website badassoftheweek.com, and the Internet’s foremost expert on badassitude—is back to enthrall lovers of skull-smashing, bone-crushing bad behavior with his latest compendium, Badass: The Birth of a Legend. Like its macho predecessor, Badass: The Birth of a Legend celebrates fearless berserkers of every stripe, male and female, but this time pulls them from the hoary pages of mythology, fantasy fiction, and the silver screen—from Zeus to Beowulf to Dirty Harry Callahan, the most merciless gods, monsters, heroes, villains, and mythical creatures ever envisioned. Forget your whiny Twilight vampires and werewolves, these badasses kick butt!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062001351
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	03/15/2011
Series:	Badass Series
Edition description:	Original
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Ben Thompson has run the warhammer of a website badassoftheweek.com since 2004, and has written humorous history-related columns for outlets such as Cracked, Fangoria, Penthouse, and the American Mustache Institute. Even though he's never flown a jetpack over the Atlantic Ocean or punched someone so hard that his head exploded, he is considered by many to be the world's foremost expert on badassitude. He is the author of Badass and Badass: The Birth of a Legend.

Editorial Reviews

Long before there was a Marvel Comics, there were potent superheroes who strode the earth and sometimes swam the seas. Ben Thompson's Badass demonstrates, in fact, that these behemoths and warriors against wrong have been around since the most distant days of recorded history. By retelling the vivid stories of cosmic battlers from Rama and Thor to Dirty Harry Callahan, he introduces modern readers to the excitement and ethical splendor of myth, folklore, and literature.

In his first book, Badass, Thompson, creator of the Web site badassoftheweek.com, focused on warlords, samurai, pirates, and gunfighters who actually existed; in this follow-up, he turns to mythological badasses throughout history. From Anubis and Zeus to Capt. James T. Kirk and Godzilla, Thompson delivers detailed and adrenaline-fueled screeds on 40 characters "whose stories of ball-crushing conquest are still awesome enough to make even the tamest readers want to snatch up a sword and go hunting for dragon meat." Subjects include El Chupacabra ("this freakadelic ass-reaming spawn of Satan"); Diomedes ("the wanton slaughter of faceless jobbers is just the beginning of awesomeness"); and, in a long-overdue tribute, the Daleks from Doctor Who ("these murderous, automated salt-shakers are vile constructs of pure evil"). Fortunately, the book includes badass women as well as men, and Thompson's overheated prose rises even further when describing the Indian goddess Kali: "When she's not consuming the entrails of the gods, getting drunk on human blood, performing her Dance of Annihilation... she shoots blood out of her mouth like a fire hose... she's pretty much the most totally metal being ever." (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly