The four long pieces in this volume show Lewis Shiner writing “hard edged, often political genre fiction at its finest,” as Publishers Weekly said about his Collected Stories. These are some of the most accessible stories Shiner has ever written, featuring, as he says in his introduction, “car chases, ticking clocks, and things blowing up in slow motion.” At the same time, all four stories deal with the abuse of power in a way that has never been more timely.

For those new to Shiner’s work, Heroes and Villains is an ideal starting point, offering the complex characters and moral issues of his acclaimed novels in condensed and action-packed form.