This is my new book, the fourth, about Goth, published in May 2002 by Reynolds & Hearn. 276 pages, with 174 photos, including 20 stunning full-page photos. This book concentrates on what is on the Net that is Goth-related, and breaks it down into sections - but not into geographical boundaries like my last book.

Some people have asked whether this offers anything that they couldn't find themselves through standard searches. Obviously, I wouldn't have bothered afterwards. Given that I was online nearly all day, every day, for over a year writing this, and most people have only a few hours a day available for such activity, you can work it out yourself, or have a look at the review from the well respected Sentamentalist magaine:

"Mr. Mercer has done it again! His fourth book chronicling the gothic culture, and it's affiliate sub-genres of the scene (i.e. ethereal, industrial, ambient, etc...), succeeds in the overwhelming feat of capturing all the best of what's going on in the ever-changing internet realm. With a striking full-colour cover, and thoughtful, clever introduction by the author, Mick shows that he sincerely cares for this scene which he has been writing about for the past two decades ~ expressing his concerns, and hopes for it's future. The book itself is a vast directory of just about any website related to the gothic scene that you could imagine ~ from bands, to online shops, webrings, to personal pages, there are well over 5,000 sites reviewed! The ambitious book is kept visually interesting with almost two hundred photos, twenty of which are stunning full page images! This is an amazing resource as well as a treasured example to save for posterity a moment in time in a constantly evolving culture."

I've have already had excellent, supportive publicity through Starvox, Dark Culture and Morbid Outlook, and across sites worldwide who are also conducting interviews with me. You don't get experienced commentators on the scene stating their respect for something unless it's valid.

It is a huge resource, and something I got very excited about, going 50,000 words past my original word limit, but the publisher liked it so much he didn't even complain!!! I have looked specifically for things which are of use but also the very best of everything else I found. For every site included many of the more boring ones have been ignored.

Sites are either reviewed or listed within the sections. The contents are as follows:

Bands (960 reviewed - 982 listed/categorised)

Clothes/Goth-related Businesses (371 reviewed - 34 listed/categorised)

Clubs (159 reviewed - 60 listed/categorised)

Goth People (709 reviewed - 404 listed/categorised)

Goth Sites (285 reviewed - 108 listed/categorised)

Locations (241 reviewed - 124 listed/categorised)

Resources (44 reviewed - 47 listed/categorised)

Zines (192 reviewed - 27 listed/categorised)

Webrings (47 reviewed - 76 listed/categorised)

Visual Rock (33 reviewed - 31 listed/categorised)

Sites Of Interest - which contains much weird material (417 reviewed - 166 listed/categorised)

There are also two interviews, because I wanted to play around with the layout! One with Laura McCutchan who does Morbid Outlook zine, which many of you will be familiar with, and then the band Mothburner, who you may not. They have only a tiny net presence and have serious problems even affording recording. They represent Goth at its finest, but also Goth on the edges of the genre's society!

If this book does well then I should be able to do a new Goth book every eighteen months, concentrating on bands and individuals, so if any of you can please include news on your own sites about this and direct people here so that they can order it through the Amazon link on my site, I'd appreciate it.

Focusing on Goth through the internet, this indispensable book details bands, clothes, clubs, people, sites, fanzines, web rings and more in the biggest single resource of Goth and Goth-related information ever published.

Mick Mercer reports from the Goth scene in the UK, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Holland and the USA, as well as Japan, South America and some more unexpected parts of the old world. If you are new to the Goth world, start here. If you have read any of Mercer's previous books on the subject, 21st Century Goth is the update you have been waiting for.