Instruction Manual for Swallowing

Revealing a bestiary of hybrids from the techno-crazed future and the mythological past, this surreal short story collection takes imaginative leaps through a science fiction influenced landscape. Reflecting a cinematic feel, young couples reach defining stages in their relationships as zombies fall in love, a stalker tracks a young woman through time only to discover he’s related to her, and a young man battles Godzilla in order to prove a point to his girlfriend. Blurring the boundaries between reality and hallucination—from robotic insects and in-growing cutlery to a woman impregnated with 37 embryos—these fantastical tales offer a world where the body is fluid, the spirit is mechanized, and the beasts know more about humanity than the humans do.

Adam Marek is an editor and an author whose short stories have appeared in The Bridport Prize Anthology, New Writing 15, and Parenthesis, as well as in Prospect magazine and Pulp.net.