*LONG-LISTED FOR THE EDGE HILL SHORT STORY PRIZE 2018*
M. John Harrison is a cartographer of the liminal. His work sits at the boundaries between genres – horror and science fiction, fantasy and travel writing – just as his characters occupy the no man’s land between the spatial and the spiritual. Here, in his first collection of short fiction for over 15 years, we see the master of the New Wave present unsettling visions of contemporary urban Britain, as well as supernatural parodies of the wider, political landscape. From gelatinous aliens taking over the world’s financial capitals, to the middle-aged man escaping the pressures of fatherhood by going missing in his own house… these are weird stories for weird times.
'The essential collection of the year' - Locus Magazine
'The wit and effortless elegance of the writing are impeccable.' - Ursula K Le Guin, The Guardian
'[A] quiet giant of British writing... extraordinarily flexible prose. It's restrained and luminous' - The Daily Telegraph
'In the far-distant future, when hyper-intelligent scorpions are looking back on the culture of the upright apes that once cluttered this planet, I think they will be frankly bemused that Kazuo Ishiguro won the Nobel Prize for Literature, that Ian McEwan won the Man Booker Prize, that Donna Tartt won the Pulitzer and yet all the time M John Harrison was staring them in the face.' - Stuart Kelly, The Scotsman
'Harrison draws out his ghostly characters from behind the bones of the plot, allowing their stories to be emotional, poignant and disquietingly possible...' - Lamorna Ash, The Times Literary Supplement
'His novels have been likened to J.G. Ballard’s, but these stories are more like satirical set pieces than brooding psycho-fictions: genial and generous, finding wry mirth in absurdity.' - Houman Barekat, The Spectator
'A new book by M. John Harrison in an event. The recurring idea in many of the stories is the need for escape, and the impossibility of it... In other hands, this might come across as cynical or hectoring, but Harrison is far too subtle a writer for that. There is genuine sorrow here... and genuine anger too...' - The New Scientist
