The history of the world. All of it. Its wars, its empires. Each and every one of its decline-and-falls. It's really terribly simple. It's the story of a bunch of mediocrities who are trying to look special. And it is my duty, it is my pleasure, to expose the lot of them.

A little boy who betrays his father to the mercies of Santa Claus. An assassin whose personality is so insipid he erases people with his very presence. A kitty cat that likes to hunt only endangered species. Camel marriages, killer angels, and conjuring tricks that cause worldwide plague.

The history of mankind. As told through twenty-one tales of the comic and the macabre. Frightening and funny. Heartbreaking and wise.

Robert Shearman's stories have won the World and British Fantasy Awards, the Edge Hill Reader's Prize, and the Shirley Jackson Award.

PRAISE FOR EVERYONE'S JUST SO SO SPECIAL

"EVERYONE’S JUST SO SO SPECIAL intertwines the strange and the everyday in a broad examination of the relationship between individuals and the grand sweep of history. . . Whether the characters are special or not, Shearman's collection certainly is."
– The Huffington Post

"Shearman's third collection gathers 21 bizarre, psychologically quirky stories . . . They read more like sections cut from the lives of humdrum characters who become, under the author's microscopic scrutiny, endearingly extraordinary."
– The Guardian