THE KING AND OTHER STORIES, the second collection by Christopher Ruz, combines five pieces of contemporary fiction and modern counter-culture literature into one exciting package. In THE HARD SELL, a disaffected photographer finds his world flipped upside-down by a group of graffiti activists called the Four Horsemen. But the Horsemen and their enigmatic leader, Fiver, are operating without a plan and without a clue. Can they really change the world, or will they tear themselves apart in the process? In THE KING, Derek and his misanthropic friends chase enlightenment through suffering. But Derek isn't playing by the rules. He has a plan that'll make him the idol of his friends and get him into Sylvia's pants. All he has to do is quit heroin while they all watch. Except, Derek has never used heroin. And so begins the greatest lie of his life... a lie that might be too big to back away from... And in HERCULE AND THE DOCTOR, Harold is a middle-aged Agatha Christie aficionado, still obsessing over the day twenty years earlier when his little sister vanished into the old mansion known as the Bonehouse. But when Harold meets an out-of-town cosplayer dressed the fourth Doctor - Harold's childhood hero - he decides to do as Tom Baker would have done, and to return to the Bonehouse in search of answers, in search of a little girl still crying out for her brother. THE KING AND OTHER STORIES is a 21,000 word collection of hard-hitting contemporary fiction fuelled by heroin, graffiti and Doctor Who. It contains: The Hard Sell The King No Exit Back to Civilisation Hercule and the Doctor