The Songbirds of Pain

Garry Kilworth's first collection shows him to be one of the most original and enjoyable writers in the field. The thirteen stories in The Songbirds of Pain mix science fiction and fantasy, with a dash of unclassifiable strangeness. Kilworth is particularly adept at evoking colourful and exotic locales in distant parts of the world, as in 'The Dissemblers', a story set in the Arabian deserts, about a man resorting to bizarre self-torture in his attempts to see beyond the veil of death. 'Bli...