Bad Timing and Other Stories [Paperback]

Watch out! Molly Brown's Bad Timing And Other Stories is not so much a short story collection as an explosion of parallel universes and provocative ideas! Wow!"

"Molly Brown is the best company imaginable. If you can't get a date with her (and you probably can't), the next best thing is reading her stories - which are funny, creepy, sweet, touching and wicked in equal parts. If you buy this book, you won't regret it in the morning."

"One of the most popular contributors to Interzone, Molly Brown's short stories are extremely crisp, clever and a joy to read... a collection is long overdue."

"Bad Timing and Other Stories is a blast: an effervescent mix of comedy, horror, and sheer weirdness... If you have a friend who's currently enamoured of Bridget-Jones-esque thirty-something fiction and you want to seduce them to the sf/fantasy side of the force with something different (and a lot better), then this collection would be a good starting place. It's an excellent gathering, and it would make a great birthday or Christmas present."

"Identity-challenging SF with a hint of Philip K. Dick mixes with light comedy and outright horror... If there's a dud tale in this collection I've skipped over it. The gems would be enough to make up for them anyway."

"Molly Brown has long been one of the most idiosyncratic and distinctive of writers, dealing in fiction that frequently defies category (or more precisely, creates its own category). This beguiling collection is a demonstration that the short story is a particular metier of hers, and the disturbing offerings here present a panoply of dark imagination... Is it a crime piece? a horror story? Forget the categories - simply enjoy the fractured visions that Brown provides in this astringent collection."

"This book is brilliant, go forth and spend your money now."

Anthology of short stories from the first 10 years of Molly Brown's writing career.

Any bookshop will tell you “anthologies don’t sell.” It’s not that people don’t want to read short story collections, it’s just that not enough people want to read them to make bookshops want to stock them. They want to use the space on their shelves to sell the latest Tom Clancy. And who can blame them? They have a business to run as well.

So, someone has to shoulder the mantle of bringing short story collections to the public that wants to read them, and Big Engine modestly decided to be the one. This first collection is an excellent example of why. Every story, every few thousand words, brings the reader to a whole new world -- fresh characters, a different setting, and of course great writing throughout. Molly Brown excels across the entire spectrum, from comedy to romance to horror, whether she’s subverting the genre of heroic fantasy (“Return of the Princess”), blowing the reader’s mind with time travelling paradoxes (“Women on the Brink of a Cataclysm”) or showing a side of vampirism that Anne Rice and Buffy never imagined (“Agents of Darkness”).

This book is why anthologies should sell.

An Earthman's stranded spaceship is besieged by thousands of cuddly aliens whose idea of war is to commit ritual suicide; a teenage princess is kidnapped by an army of undead skeletons; a Chinese demon rides through the streets of Soho; and Toni Fisher tells Joanna Krenski, "I'm working on a calculation that will show density of shoulder pad to be in directly inverse proportion to level of intelligence. I'm drunk by the way."

From the satire of the award-winning Bad Timing to the horror of Feeding Julie, via the mind twisting paradoxes of Women On The Brink Of A Cataclysm and the out-and-out comedy of Agents of Darkness, these stories from the first 10 years of Molly Brown's writing career show her range and her versatility, and never fail to enthral. Several of the stories have been specially updated for this collection.

Molly Brown has been everything from an armed guard to a stand up comic. Her work has been translated into more than a dozen languages and she writes in a wide range of genres. Her short stories have been included in such "Best of" collections as: The Best of Interzone, The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, The Mammoth Book of Comic Fantasy, and The Best Time Travel Stories Ever Written. Other works include a novelisation based on the Cracker television series, Cracker: To Say I Love You ("Brown's taut novel is compelling, complex, dark - and a guaranteed page-turner." Booklist) and a science fiction thriller for teenagers, Virus ("A thoroughly readable thriller, especially recommended to young people who are (or should be) interested in computers, to the newcomer to SF (regardless of age), and to people who read to be entertained." Interzone).