The history of the world. All of it. Its wars, its empires. Each and every one of its decline-and-falls. It's really terribly simple. It's the story of a bunch of mediocrities who are trying to look special. And it is my duty, it is my pleasure, to expose the lot of them.

A little boy who betrays his father to the mercies of Santa Claus. An assassin whose personality is so insipid he erases people with his very presence. A kitty cat that likes to hunt only endangered species. Camel marriages, killer angels, and conjuring tricks that cause worldwide plague.

The history of mankind. As told through twenty-one tales of the comic and the macabre. Frightening and funny. Heartbreaking and wise.

Robert Shearman's stories have won the World and British Fantasy Awards, the Edge Hill Reader's Prize, and the Shirley Jackson Award.