It's certainly a possibility...

When is a book not a book? When it's a series of 26 very short stories, printed in individual booklets, and then packaged together in a nice red box.

A.C. Tillyer is a film editor, and has worked on various TV documentaries. She was inspired to write "An A-Z of Possible Worlds" after spending a lot of her life stuck on trains, wondering what the other passengers were up to, where they were going, and where they lived.

"An A-Z of Possible Worlds" contains 26 short stories, each connected to one letter of the alphabet, e.g. A is for Archipelago, J is for Job Centre, L is for Labyrinth, O is for Orbital Road and Z is for Zero Gravity Zone. They are all vaguely interconnected, often taking place in different areas of imaginary lands, and they all look at similar themes of how we live and exist (or don't) together.

There's an archipelago where the population are busy burying themselves alive, another town where the population are trying to build a perfect ship, an orbital road which hypnotises its users and even a golf course where robots play golf.

There are a few interesting ideas here, like the road that induces a hypnotic state. Before the opening of the M1 motorway there were concerns about what driving at great speed would do to drivers, so it's interesting to see a similar theme explored. Essentially these stories are a series of parables, fables and allegories. 

That's all the positive stuff. Sadly I now have to start on the negative. I was disappointingly ungripped by most of these stories. Around 3 or 4 held my attention, but most of them did not capture the imagination. With stories ranging from 4-16 short pages, there's never enough time for me to get involved in the story. Some of these felt like heavy handed parables, the sort of thing that I wrote for GCSE English coursework. I know that sounds like a nasty thing to say about a published author, but it was the the thing that really struck me.

As a set it is startlingly different to any other book that's out there right now. Hats off to Roast Books for making an effort to put out a special set like this. It's just a shame that it felt like presentation over content to me. However, if you're looking for something that will be a bit of a talking point, this could be the book to own this Christmas. Twenty six little booklets in a nice red box, with a fictional underground map and an introduction from A.C. Tillyer. And each copy is numbered and signed.

If you like little short parables and fables, this is for you, and if you're looking for something a bit different for the book lover in your life, this will fit the bill.