Purpose of Reality

Steve Simpson's mesmerizing collection of short fiction and illustrations is surreal and wildly imaginative, with touches of playfulness throughout. Here is a selection of the beings within:At Claire's school, the walls were cardboard, and her chain-smoking math teacher never allowed numbers to be mentioned. He used a drawing of a press to flatten slices of air into tissue paper for kites, and he was Claire's favorite, because all the other teachers were ghosts. One day, with a little pasta and a little mambo, everything changed. The negentropy wars didn't end the world, there were survivors, and in Santarém, the gringo electrician needed medicine to save his daughter's life. To get it, he had to cross the Amazon River, where the Negentropy Horizon divided Brazil. The locals believed you could look across the river and see directly into hell. The electrician wasn't superstitious, but he decided netting was a good idea, to keep the insects off. Aldona worked in the Damasco Auto scrapyard, and when the electromagnet on the crane burned out and dropped the blue Passat, no one saw the electric-winged shape that had been trapped by the magnet. After all, there was nothing to be concerned about: the alien space fleet had been driven away by the earth's nuclear defenses.

Steve Simpson's remarkable collection of poetry and illustrations is dream-like, playful and wildly inventive. Here is a selection of the beings within: The detective, who carelessly morphs into birds and insects, and cannot choose between brooding and moping, until a stylish grayscale client with retrolescent highlights appears. Proteus, Homo Sapiens Beta, who discovered fire and put it out, who created a rudimentary encyclopedia that he pedaled across Gondwanaland on weekends. Millie, the intrepid librarian, unperturbed by the Dark Solarian or the fearsome kilowasp, who insists that her underlings pay for bibliotactical losses. The adorable Deija Vitro, Martian Princess of Glass, whose fans line the streets waving Windex spray. Wollongong will never be the same, because her armies have razed it to the ground. "No one will miss it," she reassured an infatuated follower.