Search Worlds Without End

A tale of border warfare, military and erotic, set in the twenty-third century, where the women rule the kingdom and the men play war games. This is the fictional memoir of Wat Dryhope - edited, annotated and commented upon. History has come to an end, war is regulated as if it's all a game. But Wat, the History Maker himself, does not play entirely by the rules, and when a woman, Delilah Puddock, joins the fray, this 'utopian' history is further enlivened. Alasdair Gray cleverly plays with the notion and writing of history, as well as perennial modern debates on war, sexism and society - entertaining and thought-provoking, this is a delightful satire illustrated throughout by the author.

A man finds a bald patch on the back of his head that looks curiously like a face, then discovers he's splitting in two. A bored student suggests digging a tunnel into the foundations of the art school. An elderly man is healed by hundreds of tiny people working on repairs inside his own head.

Contents:

• 1 - The Star - (1951) - short fiction
• 4 - The Spread of Ian Nicol - (1956) - short fiction
• 8 - The Problem - (1983) - short fiction
• 11 - The Cause of Some Recent Changes - (1957) - short story
• 17 - The Comedy of the White Dog - (1970) - short story
• 37 - The Crank That Made the Revolution - (1971) - short story
• 44 - The Great Bear Cult - (1983) - novelette
• 67 - The Start of the Axletree - (1979) - short story
• 85 - Five Letters from an Eastern Empire - (1979) - novella
• 134 - Logopandocy - (1983) - novella
• 197 - Prometheus - (1983) - novelette
• 233 - The End of the Axletree - (1983) - novelette
• 272 - A Likely Story in a Nonmarital Setting - (1983) - short story
• 273 - A Likely Story in a Domestic Setting - (1983) - short story

A modern vision of hell, Lanark is set in the disintegrating cities of Unthank and Glasgow, and tells the interwoven stories of Lanark and Duncan Thaw. A work of extraordinary imagination and wide range, its playful narrative techniques convey a profound message, both personal and political, about humankind's inability to love, and yet our compulsion to go on trying. Widely recognized as a modern classic, Alasdair Gray's magnum opus was first published in 1981 and immediately established him as one of Britain's leading writers. Comparisons have been made to Dante, Blake, Joyce, Orwell, Kafka, Huxley, and Lewis Carroll.