A riotous collection of ethical fever dreams from an internationally recognised master of the short form, Alex Cothren’s Playing Nice Was Getting Me Nowhere is a book for anyone struggling to tell the difference between the news and satire.


A conspiracy theory about bees divides a nation.
A haunted pokie machine seeks revenge.
A ‘smart’ home becomes a little too clever.

In Playing Nice Was Getting Me Nowhere, Cothren explores the ethos of the end times, testing the limits of technology, humanity and modern media. His predictions are incisive, shocking and terribly plausible, tracing our contemporary obsessions to their logical – and often dire – conclusions.

Yet amid the horror are moments of hope and resistance, and possibly even a path to redemption – or at least instructions on finding a good place to hide when it all comes crashing down. Cothren’s multi-award-winning short stories will stop you doomscrolling and keep you guessing.