Mark Samuels--"the contemporary British master of visionary weirdness," as Ramsey Campbell has called him--stands at the forefront of 21st century Horror, combining an unparalleled understanding of the Weird Fiction tradition with his own modern take on cosmic dread. An acknowledged influence on numerous writers in the field, his stories depict the isolation and despair of urban life giving way to vistas of universal alienation and, on occasion, spiritual transcendence.

Now, in this collection of original works inspired by Samuels'writing, his characteristic themes are extended...

Vehicle for warped desire or major contribution to the modern novel, The Cutest Girl in Class steals the prosthetic hand of modern existence, gloves it in the leopard-skin of amazing style and idiom, and then proceeds to slap modern existence in the face with its own stolen hand.

Zak is a man who likes to play with dolls - Real Dolls. Clive is a boy longing for Marybeth, the girl next door. Now their disparate streams of lust and longing are about to cross, thanks to Thad, an aspiring, almost heartbreaking criminal, and Clive's father, whose obsession with "inorganic women"...