This selection of short stories is compelling, with all of them evoking very different emotions. Some are horrifying, others funny, others suspenseful, so the range is excellent. 'If the Worst' will have you laughing at Ellen's metamorphosis; 'Her Ready-to-Wear Life' is like one of the better Twilight Zone episodes; 'How the World Turns' gives a fable's p.o.v. on thermodynamics; 'Bed Death and Breakfast' is straight-up suspense/horror, cinematic in its intensity. Several of the stories sent me off on thought experiments, tangents, musings about my own life, an influence that fiction only rarely has on me. Enjoy!
From the book description:
He thinks that when he walks, his own feet propel the earth: that his movements keep the world going round. Literally. Each stride supplies the momentum for another motion forward, the ground shifting backwards beneath him, away into the distance.
Except, when he stops walking.
But then, it's quite possible that the earth doesn't need to move all the time, that in fact, it could probably manage quite well, hanging around, as it were, while he sits in the Cafe Noir, sipping his cappuccino, listening to the idle chittering of the waitress birds.
