J is for Job Centre

If you could travel through your mind what would you find? Ever been stuck on a stuffy train carriage and let your thoughts wander, making up imaginary stories about the people you are sitting next to? An A-Z Of Possible Worlds, inspired by several such journeys, is a box set of 26 interlinking short stories, each seasoned with the unexpected and absurd. They are stories for people who wish to journey around the mind and go somewhere that does not exist. A.C. Tillyer’s ‘countries’ are an assortment of light and dark witty tales, mixed with a healthy amount of satire and relevance to the contemporary world. Tillyer provides enjoyable escapes from otherwise monotonous journeys, transporting the reader to worlds where a city of idealists try to build the perfect ship, or a golf course where only robots can play, discovering an archipelago where an entire race are burying themselves alive or, aptly, a rail network where passengers can get lost forever. Generally speaking, novels tend to focus on the individual characters as protagonists, whereas A.C. Tillyer turns that around and makes the crowd the central character of her stories to see what happens when people follow the herd.