A conspiracy that dates from World War Two starts to unravel in the aftermath of an act of piracy: a genre-defying thriller from a critically acclaimed British author.Off the coast of Sri Lanka, a tramp steamer is seized by pirates. The captain has his wife and son aboard and knows that their survival depends on giving the pirates exactly what they want. But what can they possibly want with his worn-out ship and its cargo of junk?On the island of Bali a tsu...

Simon Ings' The Smoke is about love, loss and loneliness in an incomprehensible world.Humanity has been split into three different species. Mutual incomprehension has fractured the globe. As humans race to be the first of their kind to reach the stars, another Great War looms.For you that means returning to Yorkshire and the town of your birth, where factories churn out the parts for gigantic spaceships. You're done with the pretentions of the capi...

A fast-moving cyberpunk thriller set in a world of thinking cities, ruthless corporations and mad orbital AIs. A novel that links the groundbreaking works of William Gibson to the new generation of writers such as Charlie Stross and Hannu Rajaniemi.Ajay had a future once, birthing intelligent cities for the Haag Agency. First Delhi, then Milan. But then he is seduced into betraying his employers and finds himself working for a city that wishes to become human.Ajay must stea...

Sightlines (abridged). Written and read by Simon Inglis. Simon Inglis was a sports fan with a mission. Fed up with being labelled an ‘anorak’, yet repeatedly led astray by the glimpse of a grandstand across a crowded city, in the late 1990s he travelled the world in search of some deeper meaning behind his fascination. What is it, he asked, about men and neatly-edged turf, and about Irish priests and hurling? Why are two cricket grounds in Mumbai so close together? Why do freeloaders rever...

Enter our mysterious realms where the stories are as varied and rich as the types of soil on this and other planets. Enchanted forests are knotted with roots and vines. Dreaded paths take us through strange, unexplored places.Investigate new worlds and houses frequented by ghosts. Come across witches and wizards and an assassin tasked to kill Death.Meet hot robots, hungry winds, and the goddess of chaos. Explore alien lands, purgatorial realms, and a shocking place where pe...

Nominated for the 2019 Kitschie Awards for best novel, Simon Ings' The Smoke is about love, loss and loneliness in an incomprehensible world.Humanity has been split into three different species. Mutual incomprehension has fractured the globe. As humans race to be the first of their kind to reach the stars, another Great War looms.For you that means returning to Yorkshire and the town of your birth, where factories churn out the par...

An ambitious SF novel that is at once post-cyberpunk and post-modern. Complex, multi-layered, it combines hard science, tarot and images of late 20th-century Europe to make something utterly original. And introduces a memorable new heroine to the genre ...Malise has a problem. She's come downwell to Earth, but years of space combat have ruined her: her muscles have wasted away, her past is a confused torture of events and her brain is wired to addictive military hardware that's ill...

Four writers. Four dictators. One world, changed out of all recognition. ENGINEERS OF HUMAN SOULS is an intimate and shocking shadow history of creative vanity in a time that turned writers - once the faithful servants of authority - into figures of political consequence.Maurice Barrès, who first wielded the politics of identity. Gabriele D'Annunzio, whose poetry became a blueprint for fascism. Maxim Gorky, dramatist of the working class and Stalin's cheerleader. T...

"Like Don DeLillo's Underworld, Simon Ings's remarkable new work delivers nothing less than a secret key, a counter-history, of the last sixty years."—Mark Costello, author of Big IfThe Weight of Numbers describes the metamorphosis of three people: Anthony Burden, a mathematical genius destroyed by the beauty of numbers; Saul Cogan, transformed from prankster idealist to trafficker in the poor and dispossessed; and Stacey Chavez, ex-teena...

Artificial intelligence in 100 stories.To ready us for the inevitable, here are 100 of the best short stories ever written – most of them by humans – about artificial intelligence. Simon Ings has assembled anthropomorphic cyborgs and invertebrate AIs, thuggish metal lumps and wisps of manufactured intelligence so delicate that if you blink you might miss them in the new overlord of all robot literary compendiums.It's Alive! is about inventors and their creat...

Winner of the O2 X Award'Dynamic'-- Daily Telegraph'Dazzling'-- Guardian'Ambitious and virtuoso'-- Financial Times'Unforgettable'-- The Times'Ingenious... shimmering'-- New StatesmanOn July 21, 1969 two astronauts set foot on the moon; far below, in ravaged Mozambique, a young revolutionary - hailed ...

Simon Ings has written a surreal adventure probing the very fabric of existence, tearing it open to reveal a sometimes horrifying world within. It is a work that will delight any fan of China Mieville.Only a fool would question the strange magics that maintain the cool haven of the City of the Iron Fish in the middle of an inferno of scorching heat and splintered rock, for the well-watered streets of the city hide secrets in their shadows.Thomas Kemp is just such a fool ......