Heroes and Civilians is a collection of short stories and very short stories.
It’s got a story about a rabbit, one about a robot, one about a magician, one about giant monsters, a few about superheroes and one about bears on bicycles. There’s also a subject index.
A couple of people have said nice things about Heroes and Civilians, like:
- Simon from Happiness is a Warm Simon Gray, who said, “I loved reading the content of ‘Heroes & Civilians'” while also musing wisely on the merit of electronic-only publications.
- Thomas DeMary from PANK, who said: “Adam Ford exudes a control of the flash form, as well as an adherence to the principles of fiction, in a way not seen before by this reviewer.”
You can read a sample below.
Rabbit.
Yeah, we were close once. Back before I cleaned up. Thing is, he didn’t leave immediately. I was sober for years before the last time I saw him. Over time we bumped into each other less and less frequently. Initially it would just be that he would be waiting for me in the kitchen at breakfast instead of standing at the foot of my bed. After a while I’d only see him outside the house – at the coffee shop or the library, and occasionally on my lunch break. It was always good to see him, but our conversations were becoming stilted. Awkward. Forced. In time the awkwardness became embarrassing. The last time I saw him he was drunk. Really drunk. I’d seen him tipsy before, seen him trip giggling over cracks in the sidewalk, pulling me down with him as he collapsed in a huge furry mess, but I’d never seen him angry drunk like this. I was standing in line at the bank and he stormed up to me out of nowhere. I turned to face him and he dug a finger into my chest so hard that I could feel his claw through my jacket. I looked into his pink, bloodshot eyes. His breath stank of bourbon. I managed a smile and asked him how he’d been these last few months. He hawked and spat a wad of orange saliva into my face. I stumbled back, reaching for my handkerchief. “I got somethin’ to say to you, pal,” he said, his Irish brogue slurring with the booze. “I don’t believe in you either.” I closed my eyes and wiped my face clean. When I looked up he was gone. That was eighteen years ago.
Where to find Heroes and Civilians
You can download Heroes and Civilians as a FREE ebook from:
- Smashwords (.epub, .mobi, .pdf)
- iTunes (.epub)
- Barnes & Noble (nook format)
The Other Adam Ford 
Had some trouble downloading the pdf – any chance the link s bung somehow?
works okay for me – opens up a dialog box that lets you save the pdf wherever you want. are you on pc or mac? if pc, try a bit of right-click-save-as, maybe.
Works okay now! Am on PC and tried it in Firefox and Explorer but it’s up now.
Have flipped through just now and looks great – lost of short form stuff that lewads into longer pieces. Will read deeper soon.
thanks for this! just downloaded it and saved it and am looking forward to reading it.
excellent. hooray for freely available content!
yes, well, the hoops you’ve got to jump through to make content that people have to buy, coupled with the despondency that results from their not buying it after all that mucking around, makes this option rather peaceful and releaxing by comparison.
Hi Adam,
Just downloaded your collection (I was flicking through an old Going Down Swinging yesterday when I found two of your stories). Looking forward to reading the lot. Thanks!
Look forward to reading it Adam – your rabbit story had me thinking about re-watching Donnie Darko too. But maybe the rabbit is more like the one John Cusack battled against in an old 1980s film? I’m liking your characters in what I would call more of a vignette than a short story. Cool :D