Ray Vukcevich's new collection includes 33 previously uncollected stories, all with his trademark whimsical skewed look at the world around us. It's a world seemingly not our own, and yet if we look hard enough we'll find that world just out of sight around the corner. A world of hidden stairs, funny smells, vampire girlfriends, fire women, missle boys, secret libraries, and outlandish (and yet frightenly real) airline procedures. Wonderfully inventive and wildly unpredictable, these stories are sure to entertain and surprise you.

* Philip K. Dick Award finalist* Locus Recommended ReadingHere are 33 weird, wonderful stories concerning men, women, teleportation, wind-up cats, and brown paper bags. By turns whimsical and unsettling—frequently managing to be both—these short fictions describe family relationships, bad breakups, and travel to outer space.    Vukcevich's loopy, fun-house mirror take on everyday life belongs to the same absurdist school of work as that of George Saunders, David Sedaris, Ken Kalfus, and Victor Pelevin, although there is no one quite like him. Try one of these stories, it won't take you long, but it will turn your head inside out."What other writer could make you start laughing halfway down the first page of a story about a man putting on a sweater? Thurber maybe, a long time ago. Buy this book."—Damon Knight"These stories cannot be compared to anyone else's. There is no one in the same class as Ray Vukcevich. The...

The Man of Maybe Half-a-Dozen Faces by Ray Vukcevich The first victim is found dead with a number painted all over his body. The second victim is also murdered by strangulation with a computer printer cable. And there seems to be something fishy about beautiful Prudence Deerfield, the woman who brings the case to Skylight Howells. Skylight confers with Dennis, and they both discuss the case with Scarface, Dieter, and Brian Dobson's other personalities before taking the case. Once they do, we're in for one of the wildest, wackiest mysteries to come down the pipe in years. You won't need six heads to crack this case, but they probably wouldn't hurt.