“Stanley’s Last Trip and Other Stories” is volume 1 of the Urban Tales short story series: eight yarns exploring strange and quirky situations, set mostly in present-day and sometimes dystopian worlds of Berlin, New York, London, Lisbon and Dublin, with an illustration for each story. Stanley’s Last Trip. Stanley Braun is trapped on an S-Bahn train in Berlin, but he can’t remember how he got there. Noise and Death. After a noisy start to his trip to Lisbon, Charlie’s upstairs neighbour, Marie, uses her charms to entice him to cover up a murder. Vengeance. Louis plans revenge after Annalise’s death at her apartment block in London. Throwbacks. A research project in Berlin uncovers a group of people with ancient genes. Survival of the Species In London, the slow realisation that some humans have previously unknown brain mutations prompts new discrimination laws. Tube Travel A new form of super-fast travel in the near future runs into difficulties. Obsession Jack’s brief meeting with an elusive woman at an art exhibition in New York leads to fantasy and obsession. After the Blackout Jake is surprised at how fast everything descends into the ‘law of the jungle’ after a blackout in Dublin.

Louis Theron is a quiet man who works from his apartment at Primrose Hill, London. When his neighbour, Annalise is attacked, he is incensed, and it spurs him to take revenge, but it has unexpected consequences. This story is also included in the book “Stanley’s Last Trip and Other Stories”.

Louis Turner takes the law into his own hands, to avenge the actions of a rapist after the failure of the police to bring him to justice. But it’s the catalyst which changes his life forever. All he wanted was the continuation of his comfortable life when he was a successful writer. But now he has lost his muse, got into serious debt, is facing bankruptcy and death threats from a vicious London crime gang. His streetwise ex-con brother, Henry comes to stay and maybe he can help him. But it catapults Louis into a life of crime from which he thought he’d escaped many years earlier. If you liked the Vengeance short story, you will love this expansion to a full-length novel.

Twelve stories by science fiction master Stanisław Lem, nine of them never before published in English. Of these twelve short stories by science fiction master Stanisław Lem, only three have previously appeared in English, making this the first "new" book of fiction by Lem since the late 1980s. The stories display the full range of Lem's intense curiosity about scientific ideas as well as his sardonic approach to human nature, presenting as multifarious a collection of mad scientists as any reader could wish for. Many of these stories feature artificial intelligences or artificial life forms, long a Lem preoccupation; some feature quite insane theories of cosmology or evolution. All are thought provoking and scathingly funny. Written from 1956 to 1993, the stories are arranged in chronological order. In the title story, "The Truth," a scientist in an insane asylum theorizes that the sun is alive; "The Journal" appears to be an account by an omnipotent being describing the creation of infinite universes--until, in a classic Lem twist, it turns out to be no such thing; in "An Enigma," beings debate whether offspring can be created without advanced degrees and design templates. Other stories feature a computer that can predict the future by 137 seconds, matter-destroying spores, a hunt in which the prey is a robot, and an electronic brain eager to go on the lam. These stories are peak Lem, exploring ideas and themes that resonate throughout his writing.

We never know how long we have with the people we love, but even when they're gone, the people we love have a way of staying with us. This book is an ode to "The Man", from the son who lost him, and through memories and love, found him again.