A mesmerising SF thriller from a master of the genre. Hap Thompson is a REMtemp, working the night hours, having people's anxiety dreams for them. For the first time in his life, Hap's making big money - and that should have been enough... Hap Thompson has finally found something he can do better than anyone else. And it's legal. Almost. Hap's a REMtemp, working the night hours, having people's anxiety dreams for them. For the first time in his life, Hap's making big money - and that should have been enough. But then Hap is made an offer he just can't refuse: proxying memories instead of dreams. This is not almost illegal - this is illegal in bold with flashing lights. The last thing the cops want are criminals who can pass lie detector tests and Hap knows it, but he's relying on the promise that he won't have to carry anything that relates to a criminal offence. Big mistake. Before he knows what's happening, Hap is locked in a vicious nightmare that threatens to tear his mind and his life apart... And, as in all Michael Marshall Smith novels, that is just the start.

Michael Marshall Smith's surreal, groundbreaking, and award-winning debut which resonates with wild humour interlaced with dark recollections of an emotional minefield. May we introduce you to Stark. Oh, and by the way - good luck. Stark is the private investigator who goes to work when Something Happens to you. And when a Something happens it's no good chanting 'go away go away go away' and cowering in a corner, because a Something always comes from your darkest past and won't be beaten until you face it. And that's not easy in a city where reality is twisting and broken, a world in which friends can become enemies in a heartbeat - and where your most secret fear can become a soul-shredding reality. And the worst of it is, for this nightmare you don't even have to be asleep... Considered a modern classic, and consistently featured in lists of Books To Read Before Your Head Explodes, ONLY FORWARD is a novel you'll never forget.

The first ever collection of Michael Marshall Smith's award-winning short stories. The first piece of fiction Smith ever wrote -- a short story called The Man Who Drew Cats -- won the World Fantasy award. It's included here along with many others, some unpublished, which show the incredible versatility of one of the most exciting writers working in Britain today. The collection is stuffed with surreal, disturbing gems including: 'When God Lived in Kentish Town' Someone comes up to you when you're quietly eating your stir-fried rice in a great Chinese take away, and tells you: 'I've found God'. You try to ignore them, right? But what if they have, and what if He works in a drab old electrical store on Kentish Town Road and he's not getting many customers? 'Diet Hell' Some people will do anything to fit into their old jeans. 'Save As...' What if you could back up your life? Save it up to a certain point and return to it when things went horribly wrong? 'Everybody Goes' An idyllic childhood day from a long, hot summer. The kind you want to last for ever. All good things must come to an end, mustn't they?

'Spares' – human clones, the ultimate health insurance. An eye for an eye – but some people are doing all the taking.

'Spares' – the story of Jack Randall: burnt – out, dropped out, and way overdrawn at the luck bank. But as caretaker on a Spares farm, he still has a choice, and it might make a difference…if he can run fast enough.

'Spares' – a breathless race through strange, disturbing territories in a world all too close on our own.

'Spares' it’s fiction. But only just…

“ Comic, cruel, twisted and surreal.”
EMPIRE

“Some books stretch the imagination.This one mugs it.”
DAVID BADDIEL

“Tense, exciting and at times very, very funny…He’s worth every penny.”
TIME OUT

“Witty, hard – edged and coruscatingly imaginative…Compellingly off – kilter.”
NEW SCIENTIST

“'Spares' blurs imaginative surrealism and hard – bitten horror with a storytelling skill that can only be described as pure genius.”
'VENUE'

“A compulsively readable melding of hardboiled narrative and hardware invention.”
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

An unpredictable, poignant, and captivating tale for readers of all ages, by the critically acclaimed author of Only Forward. There are a million stories in the world. Most are perfectly ordinary. This one... isn't. Hannah Green actually thinks her story is more mundane than most. But she's about to discover that the shadows in her life have been hiding a world where nothing is as it seems: that there's an ancient and secret machine that converts evil deeds into energy, that some mushrooms can talk - and that her grandfather has been friends with the Devil for over a hundred and fifty years, and now they need her help.

Michael Marshall Smith's surreal, groundbreaking, and award-winning debut which resonates with wild humour interlaced with dark recollections of an emotional minefield. Stark lives in Colour, a neighbourhood whose inhabitants like to be co-ordinated with their surroundings - a neighbourhood where spangly purple trousers are admired by the walls of buildings as you pass them. Close by is Sound, where you mustn't make any, apart from one designated hour a day when you can scream your lungs raw. Then there's Red - get off at Fuck Station Zero if you want to see a tactical nuclear battle recreated as a sales demonstration. Stark has friends in Red, which is just as well because Something is about to happen. And when a Something happens it's no good chanting 'Duck and cover' while cowering in a corner, because a Something is always from the past, Stark's past, and it won't go away until you face it full on.

Welcome to a landscape of ancient evil . . . with stories by masters of horror Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, H. P. Lovecraft, M. R. James , Ramsey Campbell, Storm Constantine, Christopher Fowler, Alison Littlewood, Kim Newman, Reggie Oliver , Michael Marshall Smith, Karl Edward Wagner, and more! The darkness that endures beneath the earth . . . the disquiet that lingers in the woodland surrounding a forgotten path . . . those ancient traditions and practices that still cling to standing stone circles, earthworks, and abandoned buildings; elaborate rituals that invoke elder gods or nature deities; the restless spirits and legendary creatures that remain connected to a place or object, or exist in deep wells and lonely pools of water, waiting to ensnare the unwary traveler . . . These concepts have been the archetypes of horror fiction for decades, but in recent years they have been given a name: Folk Horror. This type of storytelling has existed for more than a century. Authors Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, H. P. Lovecraft, and M. R. James all published fiction that had it roots in the notion of the supernatural being linked to objects or places "left behind." All four writers are represented in this volume with powerful, and hopefully unfamiliar, examples of their work, along with newer exponents of the craft such as Ramsey Campbell, Storm Constantine, Christopher Fowler, Alison Littlewood, Kim Newman, Reggie Oliver, and many others. Illustrated with the atmospheric photography of Michael Marshall Smith, the stories in The Mammoth Book of Folk Horror tap into an aspect of folkloric tradition that has long been dormant, but never quite forgotten, while the depiction of these forces as being in some way "natural" in no way detracts from the sense of nameless dread and escalating horror that they inspire . . .

Jeffrey Thomas' collection Punktown explored the streets and back alleys of a futuristic and nightmarish urbanscape in a series of unconnected short stories. In Punktown: Third Eye, Thomas has teleported authors Simon Logan, Jonathan Lyons, Charlee Jacob, Paul G. Tremblay, Michael McCarty, Mark McLaughlin, Garrett Peck, Thomas Andrew Hughes, and Scott Thomas into the city to pen their own tales of its citizens, aliens, mutations, and sentient machines. These talented authors bring a new perspective, a personal vision, a third eye view to the phantasmetropolis that is Punktown.

In the city they call Punktown, on a planet where a hundred sentient species collide, you can become a creator of clones. You can become a piece of performance art. You might even become a library of sorrows...

1948. Harry Truman is president. The Marshall Plan is about to save Europe. Israel declares its independence and Ed Sullivan has just become Toast of the Town. But, for the staff of the Silver Detective Agency, 1948 may be the year they all look for another job, unless they can find a client who will save their business and restore their once glowing reputation. Then, in walks the kind of client they've dreamed about or, at least, the men. Blonde, flowing locks. Porcelain skin. Ruby red lips. A body to die for. Carolyn Hambrick's visit brings hope, as well as danger. Frank Magruder and the Vermin Gang interrupt her visit and decide to permanently shutter the Silver Detective Agency with a hail of bullets. Fortunately, famed explorer Lassiter Shane arrives in the nick of time. Taking command of the situation, Shane, together with the Silver detectives, his intrepid World Travelers and the brave men and women of the Light City Police Department, will face mad scientists, machine-gun toting Metal Men, remote-controlled drones, genetically-engineered monsters, deadly androids, zombies and the dreaded Flying Horror Corps. But, can even Shane and his allies stop an enemy armed with futuristic weapons and technology, hell-bent on succeeding where their mentors - Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo - failed? The odds are stacked against him, but when you're Lassiter Shane, long odds and certain death are par for the course.