Hassan Blasim

Ra Page

Noor Hemani

Iraq + 100 poses a question to contemporary Iraqi writers: what might your home city look like in the year 2103 - exactly 100 years after the disastrous American and British-led invasion of Iraq? How might that war reach across a century of repair and rebirth, and affect the state of the country - its politics, its religion, its language, its culture - and how might Iraq have finally escaped its chaos, and found its own peace, a hundred years down the line? As well as being an exercise in escaping the politics of the present, this anthology is also an opportunity for a hotbed of contemporary Arabic writers to offer its own spin on science fiction and fantasy.

Stories from a Century After the Invasion

Iraq + 100

Sarah Eyre

In 1919 Sigmund Freud published an essay that delved deep into the tradition of horror writing and claimed to understand one of its darkest tricks. Like a mad scientist, he performed literary vivisection on a still-breathing body of work, exploring its inner anatomy, and pulling out mysterious organs for classification. His aim: to present to the world a complete theory of das unheimliche', the uncanny. In the spirit of this great experiment, 14 leading authors have here been challenged to write fresh fictional interpretations of what the uncanny might mean in the 21st century, to update Freud's famous checklist of what gives us the creeps, and to give the hulking canon of uncanny fiction a shot in the arm, a shock to the neck-bolts.

The New Uncanny

Martyn Amos

This is an anthology of specially-commissioned stories imagining life in 2070. The stories explore the future of robotics, and the possibilities promised by the next generation of computers.

Stories from an A-life Future

Beta-life

Is medical research always fully aware of its consequences? Does science need to grow a conscience? Or are we in danger of being too distrustful of science? Of demolishing it, even? These, and other questions, are explored in this anthology, featuring specially commissioned short stories by acclaimed British authors.

Stories from the Far Side of Research

Bio-punk

Magda Raczynska

A celebration of Polish science fiction writer Stanisław Lem, this anthology brings together writers, critics, and scientists who continue to grapple with Lem’s concerns. Featuring short stories, essays, and especially commissioned translations, this account speculates on Lem’s life and vision while delivering brand-new fiction. From computer games (The Sims was inspired by one of his short stories) to films (the red and blue pills of The Matrix owe much to his Futurological Congress), the presence of this masterful writer can be traced far and wide. Contributors include Brian Aldiss, Frank Cottrell Boyce, Mike Nelson, Jacek Dukaj, and more.

A Celebration of the Work of Stanisław Lem

Lemistry

Penelope A. Lewis

The science of sleep is changing. Recent studies are revolutionising the way we think about 'nature's second course' and its relationship to memory, decision-making and motor skills. And yet very little of this new research has so far been touch by fiction writers. Despite storytelling's age-old fascination with sleep and dreams, authors have yet to properly address even the basics of contemporary sleep science. This commission is the first attempt to incorporate some of this new theory into storytelling and popular fiction: from memory consolidation, to the 'printing' of new memories during sleep, from sleep disorders like parasomnia, to genetic theories about insomnia - these stories cover everything the modern field has to offer, whilst staying in touch with the age-old mythology that still surrounds and informs our understanding of sleep.

Stories from the Science of Sleep

Spindles

"This collection of short stories by 15 contemporary writers shows a remarkable variety. Journalists Mark Kermode and Paul Morley make first forays into fiction, and dramatists Amanda Dalton and Shelagh Delaney recast themselves as narrators. The anthology features leading poets as storytellersùDavid Constantine, Clare Pollard, Matt Weltonùand novelists at the outset of their careers, including Gwendoline Riley, a Guardian new novelist of the year. Also included are Gerard Woodward and Carl Tighe, both of whom were shortlisted for last year's Whitbread First Novel Prize. There is a Manchester feel to the book, the city at once strange and strangely familiar, in which friendships break up or never quite begin. There are decaying bars and anonymous high windows; lives are relived on home video, deaths are pawed over in a crime photographer's developing fluid; a woman dozing in her bathtub feels a wooden boat sprouting from her head. Real or surreal, the stories prove that, far from being a genre of undeveloped ideas, the short story is alive and well in Britain."

Comma

'Bracket' brings together 20 of the country's best new writers - from the cream of the MA courses to award winning newcomers on the cusp of their first book deal.

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