Simon Kernick writes great plots, great characters, great action.

Simon Kernick writes with his foot pressed hard on the pedal. Hang on tight!

Simon Kernick uses every trick in the book to keep the action breakneck.

Pace, pace, pace is what Simon Kernick does best.

Simple, rich with dialogue and precious

[Pancake’s] words…combined with an unsparing vision of humanity create the spine-tingling sense that you’re reading an original

Haunting brilliance

By any standards, [the story “Trilobites”] is a masterpiece; that it is an artistic debut is astonishing… To say that Breece D’J Pancake is not well enough known is a massive understatement… Quite simply, a literary genius

Impressive

Misfits and twisted individuals loom large throughout these urbane stories . . . satirically edged.

Paul Theroux combines the traveller's hawk eye with the novelist's keen insight. . .[he has] an uncanny ability to rivet the reader.

A masterpiece of wit and elegance.

The author charts the various stages of life with engaging curiosity and earthy compassion... The publishers, Jonathan Cape, have done a fine job with this handsome and substantial collection.

All the customary satisfactions of Burnside's writing – anomie, menace, flashes of violence and cruelty, hallucination and snow – but multiplied.

Even Burnside’s most routine stories have beauty and intelligence. He is never less than something like brilliant.

A tremendous collection from a writer working at the full tilt of his gifts.