In Martin Amis's short stories whole worlds are created - or inverted. In'Straight Fiction', everyone is gay, apart from the beleaguered 'straight'community; in 'Career Move', screenplay writers submit their works tolittle magazines, while poets are flown first-class to Los Angeles; in'The Janitor of Mars', a sardonic robot gives us some strange news aboutlife in the solar system. In 'Let Me Count the Times' a man has a madaffair with himself. 'Heavy Water, portrays the exhaustion ofworking-class culture, and 'State of England' its weird resuscitation. Andin 'The Coincidence of the Arts' an English baronet becomes entangled withan African-American chess hustler.