Mammoth Books presents Substitutions

by Michael Marshall Smith, Stephen Jones (Editor)

Overview

Taken from The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 22, edited by Stephen Jones.

As Smith recalls: "This story came about in the simplest way, the way I always enjoy most - something happening in real life that makes you think 'What if?' "Our household gets a lot of its food via an online delivery service, and one day when I was unpacking what had just been dropped at our house I gradually realised there was something...not quite right about the contents of the bags.
"There's two things that are strange about that experience. The first is that - given that every household is likely to buy at least some things in common - you don't realise straight away that you've been given the wrong shopping. You don't immediately think 'This is wrong', more like . . . 'This is weird'. The second is how personal it is, gaining accidental access to this very tangible evocation of some other family's life. You can't help but wonder about the people the food was really destined for.
"In real life, I just called up the delivery guy and got it sorted out: but in fiction, you might tackle things slightly differently . . ."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781472102614
Publisher:	Little, Brown Book Group
Publication date:	07/26/2012
Series:	Mammoth Books , #434
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Pages:	300
File size:	269 KB

About the Author

Michael Marshall Smith is a novelist and screenwriter. Under this name he has published seventy short stories and three novels - Only Forward, Spares and One of Us - winning the Philip K. Dick Award, International Horror Guild Award, August Derleth, and the Prix Bob Morane in France. He has also won the British Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction four times, more than any other author.

Writing as "Michael Marshall", he has also published five international best-selling thrillers, including The Straw Men, The Intruders, Bad Things and, most recently, Killer Move.

He is also involved in screenwriting projects that include a television pilot set in New York and an animated horror movie for children. The author lives in North London with his wife, son, and two cats.

Stephen Jones is the winner of three World Fantasy Awards, four Horror Writers Association Bram Stoker Awards and three International Horror Guild Awards, as well as being a multiple recipient of the British Fantasy Award and a Hugo Award nominee.

A former television producer/director and genre movie publicist and consultant, he has written and edited more than 130 books, including the Fearie Tales: Stories of the Grimm and Gruesome, A Book of Horrors, Curious Warnings: The Great Ghost Stories of M.R. James, Psycho-Mania! and The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror and Zombie Apocalypse! series.