The Best of Michael Marshall Smith
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- £5.49
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- £5.49
Publisher Description
In 1990, British-born author Michael Marshall Smith burst on to the literary scene with his first story “The Man Who Drew Cats.” It won the prestigious British Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction, and he went on to win the award again the next year. In a career that has now spanned three decades he has written nearly 100 short stories, published more than a dozen best-selling novels around the world, and scripted numerous movie and television projects.
Now, to celebrate his three decades as a writer, The Best of Michael Marshall Smith brings together thirty of his most emotive and powerful stories (including all his award-winning short fiction), along with extensive story notes by the author.
Featuring evocative heading illustrations by Les Edwards, this career-spanning collection includes such memorable tales as “Hell Hath Enlarged Herself,” “More Tomorrow,” “To Receive is Better,” “What You Make It,” “Later,” “The Dark Land,” “What Happens When You Wake Up in the Night,” “Always,” and many others, in their definitive versions.
By turns touching, disturbing, and frightening, these stories are not limited by theme or genre, but reveal a writer always in command, and whose imagination knows no bounds. The Best of Michael Marshall Smith is the ultimate compilation of the author’s work, and stands as a testament to his mastery of, and commitment to, his craft.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The 30 stories in this standout collection showcase Smith's facility at imbuing genre tropes with humanity. Every entry offers something unexpected, while grounding inventive paranormal situations in recognizable emotion. Smith (Everything You Need) crafts a plausible sequel to Lovecraft's "The Music of Erich Zann" with "Window of Erich Zann," successfully transplanting the tale from Europe to Haight-Ashbury and exploring the protagonist's capacity to see into a terrifying alternate reality. Smith's first published short story, "The Man Who Drew Cats," which won the British Fantasy Award in 1991, offers a searing window into domestic violence, examining the passive group-think of unhelpful bystanders on the way to a chilling denouement. "Dear Alison," which takes the form of a letter a husband is drafting to the wife he both loves and is abandoning, incrementally reveals the horror at its heart in a masterful slow burn. Smith conveys his fantastical plots in evocative prose; in one story, he describes the rustling of a femme fatale's dress as sounding "like a shiver of leaves outside a window in the night." This collection makes for a perfect introduction to a gifted writer who merits a larger audience.
