A son worries he is becoming too perfect a copy of his father. The co-owner of a weight-loss camp for teens finds himself running the black market in chocolate bars. A man starts melting and nothing can stop it, not even poetry. This terrific collection of stories by an exciting new talent moves from the serious and realistic to the humorous and outlandish, each story copying an element from the previous piece in a kind of evolutionary chain. Amid pigeons with a taste for cigarette ash, a rash of moa sightings, and the identity crisis of an imaginary friend, the characters in these eighteen entertaining stories look for ways to reconnect with people and the world around them, even if that means befriending a robber wielding an iguana.

Author Biography

Craig Cliff was born in Palmerston North in 1983 and grew up near the airport. He has since travelled to six continents and experienced office life in Australia and Scotland. His short stories have appeared in several publications, including Essential New Zealand Short Stories edited by Owen Marshall. He lives in Wellington with his forensic scientist girlfriend.