Once and Future Cities

London: Eibonvale Press, 2010. Trade paperback, New,. David Rix. London: Eibonvale Press:, 2010. Trade paperback, New, 476 pp.<br/> Cover artwork by: David Rix Twenty-two stories. Like most Eibonvale collections, the stories herein have mostly appeared in British magazines or anthologies. Although Ashley has been growing in popularity stateside, most of these tales will be completely unfamiliar to the American reader. Some reviewers refer to many of these stories as "depressing" while others call them "horrific and absurd." I like this literary confusion. How 'bout this blurb: "Allen Ashley's tales of Urban Fantasy are intensely surreal, savagely satirical, subtly subversive and despairingly funny. Possessed of a unique vision and a distinctive prose style, Allen Ashley exposes the absurdities of modern British society like no other writer. Every waking moment is a struggle for continued sanity and survival as we muddle thoughtlessly through this surrealist joke called civilization. The challenges - factual, fictitious, mythical, eminently plausible - just keep on coming. Ashley demonstrates that, if you have the nose for it, apocalypse can be smelled everywhere - in the latest media circus; in the latest dubious laws or government measures; in celebrity culture or the surveillance state; in the mindsets and prejudices of the population and in the tiniest actions we all perform." Yo, no skimping on the page count either - this baby comes in with nearly 500 pages.