War Fever

First US edition. 8vo. Pp. [ix], 175, [1]. Quarter-bound beige cloth over brick-red paper boards, lettered in black to spine. Jacket illustration by Peter Maynard (priced $18.95 to front flap).

A collection of 14 short stories, his first for almost a decade. The title story is set in war-ravaged Beirut, while the last in the collection, appropriately titled 'The Index', includes a "fictional index". 'War Fever' first appeared in Fantasy & Science Fiction; 'The Secret History of World War 3' and 'Answers to a Questionnaire' first appeared in Ambit; 'Dream Cargoes' first appeared in Omni; 'The Object of the Attack', 'The Man Who Walked on the Moon', 'The Enormous Space' and 'Memories of the Space Age' first appeared in Interzone; 'Love in a Colder Climate' first appeared in Interview; 'The Largest Theme Park in the World' first appeared in the Guardian; 'The Air Disaster', 'Notes Towards a Mental Breakdown' and 'The Index' first appeared in Bananas; 'Report on an Unidentified Space Station' first appeared in City Limits.

"A writer of enormous inventive powers, he has, like Calvino, a remarkable gift for filling the empty, deprived spaces of modern life with the invisible cities and wonder world of the imagination." –Malcolm Bradbury