Planet Earth
Stories
Will be published approx. on 18. December 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
184 pages
978-1-4870-1356-1 (ISBN)
Description
International-award-winning stories of life and love in the midst of planetary decline.
In Planet Earth, Nicholas Ruddock moves nimbly through a range of styles-from conventional to flash-fiction to his unique mastery of the long sentence-in stories exploring themes of love and passion, all with an awareness of our species-specific carelessness burning up the world.
This collection showcases a gifted writer at the top of his game, each story fresh and unexpected: the time Mario Vargas Llosa sucker-punched Gabriel Garcia Marquez at a theatre in Mexico City inspires a young Marxist couple's violent act of revenge in Toronto years later; an anxious young man finds solace in the employ of Prince, the musician; we get a haunting glimpse of Toronto's polio epidemic at its peak in 1953; a young Canadian student bears witness to the Algerian protests and police violence in 1961 Paris; a pair of naive young women find themselves involved with a mysterious circus troupe in Nice. These provocative but contemplative stories are paradoxically positive and quick-witted, with a humorous fondness for humans and all our failings.
In Planet Earth, Nicholas Ruddock moves nimbly through a range of styles-from conventional to flash-fiction to his unique mastery of the long sentence-in stories exploring themes of love and passion, all with an awareness of our species-specific carelessness burning up the world.
This collection showcases a gifted writer at the top of his game, each story fresh and unexpected: the time Mario Vargas Llosa sucker-punched Gabriel Garcia Marquez at a theatre in Mexico City inspires a young Marxist couple's violent act of revenge in Toronto years later; an anxious young man finds solace in the employ of Prince, the musician; we get a haunting glimpse of Toronto's polio epidemic at its peak in 1953; a young Canadian student bears witness to the Algerian protests and police violence in 1961 Paris; a pair of naive young women find themselves involved with a mysterious circus troupe in Nice. These provocative but contemplative stories are paradoxically positive and quick-witted, with a humorous fondness for humans and all our failings.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Concord
Canada
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
Illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 175 mm
Width: 137 mm
Thickness: 15 mm
Weight
295 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4870-1356-1 (9781487013561)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
NICHOLAS RUDDOCK is a writer and physician whose novels, short stories, and poetry for adults have won multiple prizes in Canada, the UK, and Ireland. His novel The Parabolist was shortlisted for the Toronto Book Award in 2011. Most recently, in 2023, he has won the Nona Heaslip Prize from Exile Quarterly and been shortlisted for the CBC Short Story Award. He lives in Guelph, Ontario.