First published in Harper’s Bazaar (UK) in 1969, the story is short but impactful. The future is overcrowded, but people are lonelier than ever. The richest can eat whatever they want and stay slim, thanks to a robotic tapeworm. They can change their holographic windows to lovely views, rather than the dreadful reality. Narrated in the third person, the story alternates between Henry Swinton (who is involved with developing and marketing artificial life), housewife Monica, and their son David. Monica is having difficulty bonding with David, who is trying to express his love for her. Teddy is a sort of go-between, and I always assumed he’s the ‘supertoy’ of the title, but I wonder if it’s actually David. If you’ve seen the film AI: Artificial Intelligence (I’ve written a ‘film of the book’ post about it) you’ll know that David is a robot, a stand-in for a real child. However, this is not revealed in the story until near the end, which makes it emotionally stirring because it’s not written as if he’s a robot. Nor is he aware of this, beyond asking Teddy if they are both real. As David is taken back to the factory for a reset, I thought he might be the supertoy, discarded when something better comes along (the Swintons are granted permission to reproduce). Teddy has been working fine, so he’ll be kept, we assume as a companion to the real child.

What I find quite interesting about older stories about robots is that they run very logically and keep within some kind of rules, even if they go rogue, whereas artificial intelligence today keeps on learning and seems to make its own decisions in ways that can be harmful.

I’ve read the story in two anthologies, We, Robots and Deadly Dolls. It’s also currently free to read on the author’s website.

I do have a favourite food, though. Chips! Hot or cold, fresh or old, crispy or soggy, plain or with sauce. The moment I spot someone eating chips, I’m there like a shot. I’ll grab those delicious, greasy fries, before anyone has time to react. If I’m feeling generous, I’ll share my loot with my friends. If not, I’ll fight them off. I won’t deliberately hurt anyone, but sometimes accidents happen. When I decide I want your food, you’d better let me grab it.

Today is brilliant. The hottest day of the year! I hang out at the busiest beach, where every person holds an ice cream in their hand. Dodging swipes and kicks, I weave through the crowd, stealing delicious cones. While children cry over their lost treats, I scream with laughter. When my belly is full of ice cream, I take a dip in the sea. It’s so refreshing. I’m waiting for the sun to start going down, when my favourite beachfront café gets busy.

They have an open side, with an awning over, so I can storm right in and help myself to chips. This one time, an entire family abandoned their meal when they saw me coming. I had a fantastic feast before the owner threw me out. This owner is my nemesis. Fortunately he’s always busy and by the time he spots my invasion, I’ve always eaten a fair amount.

I feel a little sleepy. I wander the back streets until I find somewhere secluded to have a nap. I settle down and slip into dreams of the sea, and clouds, and food. By the time I wake, it’s evening. I realise I slept for too long. I must get to the café, right now! With any luck, a lot of customers will be there, tucking into fish and chips. I rush to the café and without stopping to observe the diners, I barge straight in.

Bam! Crash! Stunned, I fall to the ground. My head throbs and I feel confused. I don’t know what happened. I can hear my mates laughing in the background. I’ll show them! I try and get into the café again and bump my head. That’s when I realise the café owner has put up glass. It’s not open to the air any more. I look through the glass and the owner is right there, smug and very clever. He must have been waiting for me. I suppose I should feel honoured he put in the glass specially for me. Right now I feel angry. I yell at him and thump the glass. My mouth waters as I see people stuffing their faces with fried food. The owner points at me and laughs.

I have the last laugh, though. I go around the back to where the bins are. The lids are unlocked, so I wrench them open and pull out the contents. I eat some discarded food, which tastes great even though it’s cold and half-chewed. Then I scatter the rubbish around and make a total mess.

Pleased with my handiwork, I wing it to the seafront, where I boast to some mates of what I’ve done. We have a good chuckle about it. Then I perch on a sign which says DO NOT FEED THE SEAGULLS. Someone gives me a piece of doughnut and photographs me eating it.

The life of a gull can be tough, but summer is super!

These stories are all disturbing in some way and have a vaguely early 20th century setting. I’m not sure they’re brilliant enough to be considered classics, but they were worth a read. All the male characters were annoying in their attitudes towards women, but perhaps this is a commentary on the time from a female author (Dorothy Kathleen Broster, 1877 – 1950). The spookiness of the stories was varied; we have ghosts, obsessions, time-travel and murder. Often they are in European continental settings. I was reminded of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray for the story ‘Couching at the Door’, as it has a corruption theme. An older debauched man haunted by a fur boa attempts to transfer the haunting to a young innocent man, the illustrator for his book. The other stand-out story in the collection is ‘A Taste of Pomegranates’, where two sisters become trapped in a cave while looking for prehistoric paintings. I felt that the stories often ended in a disappointing way and could have made a more frightening impression on the reader.

Published by Wordsworth, 2007.

Thank you to the publisher Brigids Gate Press for the advance copy via NetGalley. Publication date: 16th June.

Thank you to the authors and Zooloos Book Tours for the review copy.

Thank you to the publisher MacLehose Press for the review copy via NetGalley. English translation by Anton Hur, 2026.

Step into Springtime with this collection of quirky stories!

A bout of Spring-cleaning turns into a crazy journey to parallel universes. On an egg hunt, a harassed father questions his sanity when only he can see the Easter bunny. A woman named April Showers is embarrassed about her name, but a date with a clown gives her a new perspective. When a magnolia tree is under threat, the forces of nature must work together to save the garden. Among the daffodils, invisible beings whisper of a planet where it is always Spring.

Five unique stories with N S Ford’s trademark mix of weird and wonder, darkness and light.

‘Sunrise on Mercury’ by Robert Silverberg

‘The Hell Planet’ by Leslie F Stone

‘Foundling on Venus’ by John and Dorothy De Courcy

‘The Lonely Path’ by John Ashcroft

‘Garden in the Void’ by Poul Anderson

‘Desertion’ by Clifford D Simak

‘How Beautiful with Banners’ by James Blish

‘Where No Man Walks’ by E R James

‘A Baby on Neptune’ by Clare Winger Harris and Miles J Breuer

‘Wait it Out’ by Larry Niven

The only stories I found very memorable were ‘The Lonely Path’, in which explorers on Mars discover the purpose of an ancient tower; and ‘Garden in the Void’, a story of a symbiosis on an asteroid. The stories by Simak and Blish were familiar as I’d read them before. This will probably be the last book I’ll read in the British Library Science Fiction series, as the writing style isn’t as good as the concepts and I find them a bit of a chore to read, only discovering an occasional gem.

Stories first published between 1929 – 1968. This book published in 2020.

Independently published in 2023.

‘Mushrooms’ by Sylvia Plath. This is a fantastic poem, very famous. It is apparently metaphorical but in the context of this book it really is all about mushrooms.

‘The Voice in the Night’ by William Hope Hodgson. It’s a very atmospheric, chilling tale, but I have read it before in the brilliant collection Evil Roots.

‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ by Edgar Allan Poe. I’ve read this a few times before and never considered that fungus is a main theme of the story, despite the decayed house. Even if the story is indeed about fungus, I thought its place could have been given to a lesser known author or story.

‘The Yellow Wall-Paper’ by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Another super-famous story, often anthologised, it’s brilliant but I’ve read before (studied it, actually) and although the patterns on the wallpaper are described as toadstools, again it’s not exactly the main theme and I’d rather have read something more obscure.

‘The Shunned House’ by H P Lovecraft. I’ve read this one before too, but I don’t think it’s one of his best. The history of the house and its occupants is difficult to follow, but it does get very creepy towards the end. The fungi either work with, or are a symptom of, the evil force buried beneath the house.

‘The Purple Pilaeus’ by H G Wells. It was nice to read a Wells story that was new to me. This one is about a rather downtrodden but morally strict man whose personality changes for the better after eating a purple mushroom. However, it’s one of his comical stories about society and is not exactly weird horror.

‘The Fiddler in the Fairy Ring’ by Julia Horatia Ewing. I liked this story, which had the quality of a fairytale. The mushrooms are not a big part of the tale, and it’s not a particularly weird tale either, but they form the fairy ring which the characters get pulled into.

‘How Fear Departed from the Long Gallery’ by E F Benson. I didn’t enjoy this story, which was a bit gruesome, had a lot of characters and wasn’t much about fungus.

‘The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis’ by Clark Ashton-Smith. Now that’s what I call weird fungal horror. Along with the Hodgson, this one matched most closely with the theme of the book. Set on Mars, an expedition to ancient ruins disturbs a colony of toadstool-creatures which drop on people’s heads, eat their brains and control the bodies.

‘The Great Fog’ by H F Heard. This story had an environmental theme and was cleverly thought-out, but the writing style was dull. It’s about a sort of mildew fog which changes everything.

‘The Stains’ by Robert Aickman. A long story which I didn’t enjoy. Nothing much seemed to happen until the end and perhaps I’m wrong (I fell asleep while trying to get through it) was more lichen than fungus.

‘Cesare Thodol: Some Lines Written on a Wall’ by Mark Samuels. I didn’t quite understand this one at first, but by the end I thought it was very good. It’s about a sentient fungus which controls everyone and partly takes place in a mental hospital.

‘The Mykophagoi’ by Aaron Worth. Written in an exaggeratedly historical style and with obvious influences from other authors in this book, this story is about two stranded men that can’t stop eating mushrooms.

This book was published by the British Library, 2025.