330:, Daniel Eilon contrasted the variable quality and experimental nature of the first seven stories with the next five, which he called the "real achievement of this work", and the final two shorter pieces. While suggesting the collection could have benefited from some editing out of weaker material, he described "Logopandocy" as "an extraordinary feat of imaginative insight." Theo Tait, in
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The second part of the "Axletree" story begins two thousand years after the events of the first. Generations of work on the building culminate in reaching the sky, which is a physical object. Competing teams of scientists from different nations try to be the first to penetrate the sky to explore what
259:. In this first part, an emperor ruling a vast circular swathe of territory conceives a building project which will be his tomb and symbol of power, and the building of which will provide a perpetual central focus for the empire.
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The story examines the power of state artists Bohu and Tohu to make a political difference in a hierarchical society where whole sectors of the population are declared "unnecessary people". It was inspired by a line from
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by
Douglas Gifford, was released in 2010. "Logopandocy" is retitled "Sir Thomas's Logopandocy", and "Prometheus" as "M. Pollard's Prometheus" in this edition. In 2012 the entire work was included in Gray's collection
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paperback was issued in 1984. "Five
Letters from an Eastern Empire" was issued as a stand-alone work in 1995 as part of Penguin's
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A revised edition with the extra stories "A Unique Case" and "Inches in a Column" in thirteenth and fourteenth place, and a new
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about a star falling into an urban back garden. Written when Gray was a teenager, it was first published in
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features in a story, written as a television script, about a 1930s cult when people dressed up as bears.
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lies beyond. When they succeed, an enormous flood washes away the building and the entire civilisation.
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slip was inserted into the first edition that read "This slip has been inserted by mistake." A
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A radical intellectual discovers the limits on his ability to change how language is used.
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Cromarty, who is trying to create a "multiverbal logopandocy", or universal language.
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Some bored art school students dig a tunnel with terrible consequences.
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is Gray's best short-story collection, and is influenced by Kafka,
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548:"Every Short Story from 1951 to 2012 by Alasdair Gray: review"
413:"Lanark man short on double vision: 'Ten Tales Tall and True'"
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A sexual comedy set in the 1950s, involving a woman and a dog.
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486:"Every Short Story 1951–2012 by Alasdair Gray – review"
196:A man has an unsatisfactory conversation with the
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312:"A Likely Story in a Nonmarital Setting"
224:Vague McMenamy invents an enhanced duck.
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315:"A Likely Story in a Domestic Setting"
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411:Taylor, Paul (10 October 1993).
184:A riveter who begins to undergo
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601:(July 1984). "Critical Mass".
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240:"The Start of the Axletree"
155:Like Gray's best-known work
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145:Every Short Story 1951–2012
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574:"Unlikely Stories, Mostly"
303:"The End of the Axletree"
181:"The Spread of Ian Nicol"
168:A fantasy in the style of
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229:"The Great Bear Cult"
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251:story. They satirise
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583:24 December
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381:White Dwarf
245:Franz Kafka
170:H. G. Wells
165:"The Star"
133:Penguin 60s
781:Categories
398:References
270:Ezra Pound
257:capitalism
233:Pete Brown
140:postscript
394:in 1983.
374:reviewed
54:Publisher
390:won the
351:Rasselas
176:in 1951.
135:series.
77:Scotland
366:epigram
186:fission
151:Summary
125:erratum
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