You Should Come with Me Now - by M John Harrison (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

M. John Harrison is a cartographer of the liminal. His work sits at the boundaries between genres - horror and science fiction, fantasy and travel writing - just as his characters occupy the no man's land between the spatial and the spiritual. Here, in his first collection of short fiction for over 15 years, we see the master of the New Wave present unsettling visions of contemporary urban Britain, as well as supernatural parodies of the wider, political landscape. From gelatinous aliens taking over the world's financial capitals, to the middle-aged man escaping the pressures of fatherhood by going missing in his own house... these are weird stories for weird times.

Review Quotes

"...his exhilarating originality is evident in this collection... With resolutely dry wit, the stories in this subversive collection are by turn strange, weird, and outlandish, while at the same time extremely humane." --Rabeea Saleem, Book Riot

"A new book by M. John Harrison in an event. The recurring idea in many of the stories is the need for escape, and the impossibility of it... In other hands, this might come across as cynical or hectoring, but Harrison is far too subtle a writer for that. There is genuine sorrow here... and genuine anger too..." --Abigail Nussbaum, The New Scientist

"Harrison draws out his ghostly characters from behind the bones of the plot, allowing their stories to be emotional, poignant and disquietingly possible..." --Lamorna Ash, The Times Literary Supplement

"Harrison's most interesting work picks and chooses multiple genres, mixing them into fictional brews of dreamlike intensity that can haunt your mind for days after reading them... You Should Come With Me Now cements his reputation as a master of what Mark Fisher has termed the 'weird and the eerie'. --Patrick Langley, The White Review

"His novels have been likened to J.G. Ballard's, but these stories are more like satirical set pieces than brooding psycho-fictions: genial and generous, finding wry mirth in absurdity." --Houman Barekat, The Spectator

"I came late in the year to M. John Harrison's You Should Come With Me Now, but this collection of stories, fragments, and such manages to come together into one of the year's very best books, which really isn't surprising when you consider Harrison's body of work." --Jonathan Strahan, Locus Magazine

"M. John Harrison moves elegantly, passionately, from genre to genre, his prose lucent and wise, his stories published as SF or as fantasy, as horror or as mainstream fiction. In each playing field, he wins awards, and makes it look so easy. His prose is deceptively simple, each word considered and placed where it can sink deepest and do the most damage." --Neil Gaiman, English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, audio theatre, and films, including American Gods.

"The wit and effortless elegance of the writing are impeccable." --Ursula K. Le Guin, The Guardian

"With an austere and deeply moving humanism, M. John Harrison proves what only those crippled by respectability still doubt--that science fiction can be literature, of the very greatest kind." --China Mieville, English fantasy fiction author, comic writer, political activist, and academic. He often describes his work as weird fiction and allied to the loosely associated movement of writers sometimes called New Weird. He is the author of Perdido Street Station

About the Author

M. John Harrison is the author of eleven novels (including In Viriconium, The Course of the Heart and Light), as well as four previous short story collections, two graphic novels, and collaborations with Jane Johnson, writing as Gabriel King. He won the Boardman Tasker Award for Climbers (1989), the James Tiptree Jr Award for Light (2002) and the Arthur C Clark Award for Nova Swing (2007). He reviews fiction for the Guardian and the Times Literary Supplement, and lives in Shropshire.