Serif imprint: 20 books

Smithereens gathers 19 stories of misfortune, madness and malady, including ‘The Man Whose Head Expanded’, set in a world where it is ‘undisputed’ that ‘if you tape the average man’s mouth shut he’ll lie through his nose’. Heads are no longer fashionable and are instead encased in...

‘“Hundreds of famous brains,” beamed the newsgirl … “What. A. Mess.”’ Even Atom, a detective who harasses anyone who comes near him, wants to get to the bottom of what happened on the night the City Brain Facility blew up. Blince, Benny, mobster Eddie Thermidor and the other denizens...

After strangling a mime in the King’s court, Fain encounters a crazy old man who offers to grant him three wishes. What will Fain ask for? ‘Fain knew at once what had happened – he had travelled back in time as he had wished, but his clothing hadn’t. "I’ve read about how tricky this...

21st-century revolutionary Leo finds himself at the End of Time, surrounded by decadent sorcerers whose childlike incomprehension is his worst nightmare. How to be effective when consequence is removed? What can have meaning when everything is transformed into fashion? Can love exist here? Leo storms...

‘Smithereens are hard to aggregate. Penguins can slide on their bellies but the humour is wasted on those stiff-billed bastards – yet put a paper hat on an owl and it’s you who feels like a fool.’ Corpses rain down from the sky as punishment for the massacres of the last century. A...

'To those who know that the inhabitants of heaven and hell are political prisoners, that the law is as preventative as next year's weather, that the post-human's too predictable, South London has always been a playground.' What if god were found to exist? What if revenge were possible? Competing...