Flare and Falter — R. Michael Conley

How many ways can the world fall apart? A smug superhero belittles the very people he's supposed to save. An Aztec god escapes the sacking of his city to take refuge in modern-day Manchester. Rebels topple a despotic regime, much to the disappointment of the dictator's body double, and even the penguins decide to rise up against their human captors.

Welcome to the unforgettable worlds of Michael Conley: horrific, hilarious, and forever on the brink of collapse. Lives are turned upside-down by ducks, the alphabet attacks every country on the planet, and civil unrest breaks out when we realise that only half of us can see the kraken clinging to the Gateshead Millennium Bridge. Sly and silly, chaotic and carnivalesque, often poignant and always unpredictable, Conley's stories shred the thin veil that protects our familiar reality from an apocalypse of the bizarre.