The Three Stigmata of Pac-Man and Other Future Fairytales Hot

Beyond the impending economic apocalypse, what kind of future awaits our children? What fairytales need to be written now to warn future generations against making the same mistakes as ours? Assuming 99% of our children are knife-wielding bezerker nihilists, one thing is for certain: the stories are going to have to be grim(m).

This is the tongue-in-cheek starting point for Ross Sutherland's all-new collection of fairy tales for the next-but-one generation. The award-winning writer and stand-up comic presents a series of vignettes on life inside the labyrinth: stories, animations, poems, and songs, set inside a collapsing digital culture; a world of inescapable regulations, spectres of past mistakes, and florescent anti-depressants. In other words, a culture marked by The Three Stigmata of Pacman: Maze, Ghosts and Pills.

'Sublimely twisted' ? The Scotsman

With dry wit, lyrical dexterity and boundless imagination, Ross playfully explores the cultural symbolism of tomorrow: empty CVs are padded out into all-singing, all-dancing musicals; the humiliation of getting ID'd in Spar becomes a near-religious experience; love poetry is whittled down to long descriptions of horses.

'Does with words what I try to do with art'- Ralph Steadman

Over the last year, Sutherland has wowed crowds at Glastonbury festival, Latitude, Reading festival, Manchester Literature Festival, and comedy/cabaret/poetry clubs around the UK. His last production, Poetry Boyband, was Time Out Critic's Choice of the Year for 2005. The Times included him on their list of Top Ten Literary Stars of 2008. His poems have been a regular feature on Radio 1's Colin Murray Show.

Ross Sutherland's debut poetry collection, Things To Do Before You Leave Town, was published by Penned in the Margins in January 09.

'Refreshingly fearless and bleakly funny' ? Luke Kennard.