The ancient and venerable distinction between funny haha and funny peculiar is blurred and occasionally obliterated in these macabre little stories, of which Fowler says: "here you will find horror, fantasy, reality and humour; there's hardly any blood, and only a few deaths . . ." Hmm. I seem to remember quite a lot of blood - but maybe it was only tomato sauce. Fowler is willing to have a go at any style of writing, from the Arabian Nights-type fable of the man who was obliged to wind the sultan's thousand clocks, to the Kafka-esque nightmare of The Cages, with its portrayal of humanity as so many battery chickens, to Spanky's Back in Town, whose elegantly demonic central character wouldn't be out of place in an Anne Rice novel. All good, gory fun.
