A selection of John Fraser's short stories and poems together with the novella 'Black Masks'. The distinguished poet, novelist and Booker Prize nominee John Fuller has written of Fraser's fiction:

One of the most extraordinary publishing events of the past few years has been the rapid, indeed insistent, appearance of the novels of John Fraser. There are few parallels in literary history to this almost simultaneous and largely belated appearance of a mature uvre, sprung like Athena from Zeus's forehead; and the novels in themselves are extraordinary. I can think of nothing much like them...

The theme of the three stories that make up John Fraser's latest literary tour de force, Animal Tales, is sacrifice. Sacrifice for others, for those close to one, or as a once-religious, generalised act.

The context is a nature 'personalised' in the form of its animals - animals as the screen on which humans project their aspirations and their failures.

In the first tale, the female protagonist suffers a series of disappointments - in her art, her civilisation, and the violation of her body. There remains for her only the self-denial and cleansing of consumption by an animal.

In 'The...

Blue Light comprises two novellas by John Fraser: "Blue Light: After the End" and "Starting Over."

We may like to imagine we know what the end of the world will be like - and maybe it will not be dissimilar to our own individual ends. "Blue Light" shows what it's like, the running down, the onset of rigor mortis, the new life sprouting, notwithstanding.

Living for ever may not be too bad - but do we really want it? When the world has ended, how attractive is rebirth, or resurrection? "Starting Over" may mean we have to piece a whole new world together - just using the ruins of the...

In Down from the Stars, John Fraser's latest speculative novel, an assistant to a distinguished astrophysicist, is tormented by the fate of the Soviet space dog, Laika, incinerated above the earth. Losing the confidence of his master, and losing his girlfriend, he is increasingly drawn into local political life. Having an affinity with the arts, he becomes responsible for the policy of art tourism, which, with organised crime, is the speciality of the place. After many adventures and disasters, and growing complicity with criminality, a new boss forces him and his associates to leave....

John Fraser's Medusa is a stunning fable for our times, in which the stories of Medusa, the Gorgon and the French ship Medusa are intertwined to create a Pilgrim's Progress for the 21st century. 'Medusa is a trip, a bending of the legends. It is a symphonic poem, where at the end, we even hear a few notes of a hymn to joy. The fragments of myth, legend and belief drift round like harmonies that seek resolution. But this mode is post-modern, post-Christian; it is about the end - yet there is no end: it is story. The resulting tale is an apocryphal blast and a literary tour de force that...