ISBN-10: 1905583044
ISBN-13: 978 1905583041
£7.95 or £6.50 if you buy online now.
Published: 7 Dec 2007

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**Short-Listed for the inaugural Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award**

Robotic insects, in-growing cutlery, flesh-serving waiters in a zombie cafe... Welcome to the surreal, misshapen universe of Adam Marek’s first collection; a bestiary of hybrids from the techno-crazed future and mythical past; a users’ guide to the seemingly obvious (and the world of illogic implicit within it). Whether fantastical or everyday in setting, Marek’s stories lead us down to the engine room just beneath modern consciousness, a place of both atavism and familiarity, where the body is fluid, the spirit mechanised, and beasts often tell us more about our humanity than anything we can teach ourselves.

Praise for Adam Marek

'Adam Marek writes tales of the fantastic, the grotesque, and the impossible – all set in familiar, even mundane worlds. The effect may be unnerving or moving or hilarious, but always there is the gripping sense of an idea gestating to a point just short of revelation. Underpinning Marek’s fantasies there is a nagging psychological realism. In this debut collection, the English short story receives an injection of something new and compelling and spooky.'
– Alex Linklater, founder of the National Short Story Prize

'Marek’s fabulously meaty, funny writing makes the short story look really exciting again, pulling you, frame by frame, into a bright, strange future.'
– Maggie Gee

'There's a transgressive thrill to Adam Marek's debut collection of short stories that's not simply a result of the potency of the subject matter... delightful.'
- The Guardian.

'Early McEwan meets David Cronenberg.... genuine, unsettling talent'
- The Independent.

About the Author

Adam Marek was born in 1974. His stories have appeared in Prospect magazine, New Writing 15 edited by Maggie Gee and Bernardine Evaristo, The Bridport Prize Anthology (2003 and 2005), Parenthesis, The New Uncanny, When It Changed edited by Geoff Ryman, and on-line at Pulp.net. In 2007, his story 'Testicular Cancer vs the Behemoth' was performed by Ian Hart (Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Dirt) at the WordTheatre event in London. His first full collection, Instruction Manual for Swallowing was published by Comma Press in 2007. He has since contributed shor stories to Comma's anthologies The New Uncanny (2008) and When It Changed (2009). He is currently working on a second collection and a novel. He lives in Bedfordshire with his wife and sons.

**Longlisted for the Frank O'Connor Short Story Prize**

FREE MP3 STORIES - LISTEN NOW
Adam Marek reads 'The 40 Litre Monkey'.
Adam Marek reads 'Testicular Cancer vs the Behemoth'.
To listen for FREE just left-click on the link to listen now, or right-click and click 'Save Target' to download it to your computer and listen later.

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