An A-Z Of Possible Worlds
If you could travel through your mind what would you find? Ever been stuck on a long, dull journey, and let your thoughts wander, making up imaginary realities about the people around you?
An A-Z of Possible Worlds, inspired by several such journeys, is a collection of 26 short stories that explore a series of dystopian societies where the main protagonist is not an individual but the crowd.
The human ability to renounce responsibility when we find ourselves part of a group is charted across Tillyer’s series of darkly original possible worlds.
The stories are really varied including a reality TV show in outer space, a golf course where only robots can play, a lap dancing club that would put of even the most lecherous of men and a city of cannibals.
Playing on a theme of travel and transport the stories were inspired by and written during the author’s daily commute when she could observe the flavour and character of the crowds around her.
The stories constantly question how far we are willing to agree with what society demands before we realise that we have lost our individuality to the crowd?
An A-Z of Possible Worlds challenges the way books look and how they should be read, as instead of being bound as one book it comes as twenty-six individually bound stories in a beautifully crafted box set, a real treat for book lovers. I thoroughly recommend this to anyone wanting to try something different.
Anne’s inspiration for writing An A-Z of Possible Worlds came from being stuck on trains. As a daughter of trainspotter, she grew up spending a copious amount of time on trains and began to wonder what the other passengers were like and where they lived.
As ideas emerged Anne would capture them in novella form and soon she become absorbed in these make-believe ‘countries’. From this the design for An A-Z of Possible Worlds grew, fitting with the timetables and maps associated with travelling and train journeys.
Anne’s background is largely in film and she has an HND in Audio Visual Design from Central Manchester College and an MA in Film Studies from the University of Westminster. Anne found her inspiration from the early Soviet silent films and from that discovered her talent for editing.
Some of the programmes which Anne has worked on as a film editor include ‘The Great Nazi Cash Swindle’ which aired on Channel 4, the story of how a group of Jewish prisoners survived the Holocaust by assisting the Nazis in forging British currency, and a BBC 2 programme called ‘Darcey Bussell: Britain’s Ballerina’ which was a bio-documentary looking at her career which was broadcast on Christmas Day.