A truck driver has the fright of his life in the woods of Finland. A couple who've never met make a strange and sinister pact. A teenage runaway finds himself the plaything of an older woman. A man seeking oblivion in a small Australian town unexpectedly finds friendship. A seagull takes revenge on a perverted teacher. English football hooligans in Russia discover a terrifying new drug. Post-Brexit Islington falls apart.

Two thirds of the stories in this collection have been published in, on or at anthologies, magazines, and literary websites, and are joined by nine original stories. Set in the US, Australia, Finland and Iceland, plus London, his home for over 30 years, this is Mark Piggott's debut collection. Bleak, humorous, erotic and shocking, the stories are very different but are all, in their own way, examples of a style the author calls "savage whimsy."

Militant Factions also contains some of Mark's creative non-fiction, including some acclaimed travel pieces, brief sketches of his strange life, and a 20,000-word examination of homelessness in London in collaboration with artist Martin Toft. Extracts from Mark's three published novels ("Fire Horses", "Out of Office" and "Kidology") complete the anthology, demonstrating the incredible versatility of this provocative, original writer.

Praise for Mark Piggott’s short stories

"Ten thousand hours", first published by Prole Books (2011)

"Ten Thousand Hours” was a very striking story; its plot is masterfully conducted; the setting is oppressive but never stagnant, as the story ultimately has an interesting twist."

-The New Yorker

Praise for Midnight Hollow (first published in "Still" anthology, Negative Press, 2015)

“An old man named Edward explores the empty town hall where he used to be a caretaker. He finds his old floor buffer, and gives the place a polish for old times’ sake. This piece is a poignant evocation of time passing, and reflecting on what’s been lost in a life. And the ending is a real shock to the system…”

-David Hebbelthwaite (Huff Post)

Praise for Hatful of Holloway (first published in the "Down the Angel and Up Holloway" anthology, Pulp Books 2006)

“’Hatful of Holloway’ by Mark Piggott is a helter-skelter, cultural reference loaded pub-crawl around Holloway, with the suicidal son of a Scottish Earl, and his pal, Murf, a loquacious Dubliner with an appetite for a nasty brand of porno mag. This is a mad-cap adventure, deserving of a few readings to fully appreciate its density and tragi-comic heart.”

— Small Press Review Issue One, July/August 2007

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*From 20-24 December 2021, all four of my published books will be available FREE on Amazon Kindle.

#MilitantFactionsQuotes 100:

Peter took rejection badly. He felt the only reason his book had failed to ingratiate itself to a publisher’s heart was because it didn’t fall into any of the niches which seem to preoccupy the Booker judges and review sections so much. In his admittedly jaded eyes these included the sub-continental, ‘scent of lotus blossom’ genre; the surreal, ‘zebra with Munchausen’s trying to get a job’ genre; the William Trevor genre; too many novels where posh lady authors try to imagine the exotic poverties of their domestics; and the ‘I took ecstasy at a footie match’ phony-phonetic bullshit, wanked over by suburban kids and swooned over by publishers who hadn't heard of Burroughs and who wouldn't know a good writer if Peter kicked their fucking heads in!

It was this, rather than actually having anything to say (let alone the means, ability or drive to do so), that kept Peter at his untrustworthy type-writer in search of the perfect metaphor. Metaphors bothered Peter. Metaphors, like oil, coal and the humour of John Bishop, were a diminishingly limited resource. There were only so many ways to describe snow, for example, and that bastard Updike had stolen most of those. What Peter needed was a metaphor, but they don’t just swoop out of the sky: one must search high and low in the hope that just once, one might drop on your head.

From “White Hawks”, one of the stories in Mark Piggott's fiction/non-fiction collection "Militant Factions" available in paperback or Kindle from Amazon.

*From 20-24 December 2021, all four of my published books will be available FREE on Amazon Kindle.

#MilitantFactionsQuotes 99:

Brad brought flowers and pills and a packet of condoms and by the time they reached the bed was so blasted he couldn’t get hard. Honey was on her knees trying to work him with her mouth when out the corner of her eye she was movement: behind Brad’s stupid blonde head and his closed eyes mom tiptoed in on the thick wool shag and hit Brad over the skull with the claw end of a hammer.

-From "Honey Trap and the Trolls", one of the stories in Mark Piggott's fiction/non-fiction collection "Militant Factions" available in paperback or Kindle from Amazon.

#MilitantFactionsQuotes 98:

Sis open her legs and I tried waggling around. She sure thought it funny. But then a weird thing happen and little man grow big. Sis’s eyes bulge and her bit gets all gloopy and it slides in sweet as syrup. Felt a feeling never felt before, then it pass and I’m in the squished up van all hungry and too dirty to feel dirty.

-From "Little Man Inside", one of the stories in Mark Piggott's fiction/non-fiction collection "Militant Factions" available in paperback or Kindle from Amazon.

*From 20-24 December 2021, all four of my published books will be available FREE on Amazon Kindle.

#MilitantFactionsQuotes 97:

He wakes mid-afternoon. Miller rises, groggy, picks up the tumbler, sniffing the pink stain and proud he feels no urge to lick. Taking the glass over to Joanne’s bungalow he knocks: no answer. Pushing the kitchen door open he listens but hears nothing except the ticking of a clock. Her bedroom door is slightly ajar: she’s lying on her stomach, snoring. Her dress is hiked up, white lace on show. Miller puts down the glass on her dresser and goes to the kitchen, writes a note, then he takes her car keys, gets in the Holden and drives.

-From "Ten thousand hours", first published by Prole Books (2011), and one of the stories in Mark Piggott's fiction/non-fiction collection "Militant Factions" available in paperback or Kindle from Amazon.

“Ten Thousand Hours” was a very striking story; its plot is masterfully conducted; the setting is oppressive but never stagnant, as the story ultimately has an interesting twist." - The New Yorker.

*From 20-24 December 2021, all four of my published books will be available FREE on Amazon Kindle.

#MilitantFactionsQuotes 96:

On the computer she watched barbarous men dynamite ancient mosques and crucify non-believers, make women their chattels and bury crying children to their necks in the earth. She watched villagers flee up mountains to disappear into the thin air of the desert heights where eagles hovered, vultures dined.

-From "The Night News", one of the stories in Mark Piggott's fiction/non-fiction collection "Militant Factions" available in paperback or Kindle from Amazon.

*From 20-24 December 2021, all four of my published books will be available FREE on Amazon Kindle.

#MilitantFactionsQuotes 95:

Now I remembered where I was: amongst the enemy, a thousand miles from home. I knew what the Russians did to captives: I had heard of a woman from NKVD who was worst of all, with terrible ideas and never expecting answer.

I was pushed into a cell much like the fox-hole, which had already taken on an alluring air, wrapped in warm nostalgia: here was a small room excavated out of the side of the river bank with hole for toilet and luckily no window. There were twenty within, German and Ukraine; no others of my country.

-From "The Angel of Stalingrad", first published in “Greetings” anthology (Enthusiastic Press, 2019), and one of the stories in Mark Piggott's fiction/non-fiction collection "Militant Factions" available in paperback or Kindle from Amazon.

*From 20-24 December 2021, all four of my published books will be available FREE on Amazon Kindle.

#MilitantFactionsQuotes 94:

It couldn't last. One by one we were picked off by the streets. Mainline fell under a train - one of his bouts of narcolepsy; Mekong put his dick where it had no business: Pedo likewise, an outraged stepfather. Just me and Mick: drinking and fucking and doing our best to change things.

-From "Meat City", broadcast by 4'33" (2011) and one of the stories in Mark Piggott's fiction/non-fiction collection "Militant Factions" available in paperback or Kindle from Amazon.

#MilitantFactionsQuotes 93:

The place looked closed, but the guy waved happily enough when he saw us squinting through the door. I thought all these guys were meant to be depressed. Maria flirted with him as we browsed. Not that we needed much: cigarettes, snacks, whiskey for Maria. I could sense him looking at the car; his eyes screamed we were crazy. It was winter, and this was the only road. The only place it led to was the glacier. He followed me out to the car and as I pumped gas he looked solemnly at me, his cheeks red from generations of cold.

“You know the glacier is closed.”

Behind him I watched Maria lift shit from the till. Chocolate, water. In a world of ice she wanted water.

“What?”

“The glacier. It is closed. For winter. The snow gets too serious. Tourists stop, the fishermen go elsewhere. There is no rescue for people. I close in two days and I go to the city.”

Maria laughed shrilly. I knew what she was doing: impressing herself upon him, upon his consciousness. She was chickening out. I was angry. I didn’t like her much, but she was cheating on herself. It was like exams: as the teachers always told you, when you cheat, you only cheat yourself. I never cheated in school and I failed. Failed in everything.

How the hell could they close a glacier?

-From "Crystallize", first published by Aesthetica Magazine 2006, and one of the short stories in Mark Piggott's fiction/non-fiction collection "Militant Factions". Available in paperback or Kindle from Amazon.

*From 20-24 December 2021, all four of my published books will be available FREE on Amazon Kindle.

#MilitantFactionsQuotes 92:

On that strange afternoon when I heard my novel had been accepted I sat in my study, Linda’s photograph looking down. When I thought of those who’d hurt me I felt vindicated; when I thought of those I’d hurt, I felt sad. The two cancelled each other out: I just felt numb.

They might not believe me but I never set out to hurt anybody – except, sometimes, myself. Nevertheless, sometimes people got hurt. All the pain, selfishness, friendships forsaken and lovers forced out by my obsession; was it really worth it? As I sat there, I had to remind myself I had no choice. There was nothing else I’d ever wanted to do. So: now what?

-From "This is the fierce last stand of all I am", first published in “The View From Here” magazine (2009), now published in Mark Piggott's fiction/non-fiction collection "Militant Factions" - available in paperback or Kindle from Amazon.

#MilitantFactionsQuotes 91:

London, June 2010

It was that journey around Europe that first gave me some idea as to the size and complexity of the world, giving me a travel bug that ails me to this day. It was probably the only time I was both young, and knew that I was young. It wasn’t so long ago, yet there were these things called lira and franc, drachma and peseta; instead of cybercafés we had post restante; there was no Eurotunnel, just the cold dock at Dieppe. Not long in terms of the universe; but in terms of my life, a distant age, fading memories: fading pictures.

-From "Beware the Undertoad", first published @ 3:AM Magazine (2010), and one of the stories in Mark Piggott's fiction/non-fiction collection "Militant Factions" available in paperback or Kindle from Amazon.

#MilitantFactionsQuotes 90:

Nothing has prepared me for Cable Beach: the dinosaur layers, the vicious reds, the camel trains and 4WDs leaving temporary signatures on hard wet sand – the perfect sun, slipping into the ocean, the fucking SCALE. So awesome your heart hurts – I taste blood, tears form unbidden, my throat betrays me. It’s like Mars underwater. We go driving across the Martian sand (because we’re not allowed): it’s like skippering a hovercraft, afloat but not quite in control.

-From "The Boab Sentinels", first published @ 3:AM Magazine (2008), and one of the stories in Mark Piggott's fiction/non-fiction collection "Militant Factions" available in paperback or Kindle from Amazon.

*From 20-24 December 2021, all four of my published books will be available FREE on Amazon Kindle.

#MilitantFactionsQuotes 89:

We head north east to Soria, a small town in Castilla y Leon of Oi! graffiti and churches capped with the enormous nests of white storks and their broods. But I can’t take it in: I’ve been struck down with a combination of sun stroke and a heavy cold, and insist we stay in a pension: the Hotel Viena (36 euros), with cramped toilets, a bar, TV, and two soft beds.

To recover Hemingway would have jumped out of bed and wrestled a bear, or shot a fascist. I just lie and groan, allowing Lynda occasionally to dab at my brow with a damp cloth as I wait for the Paracetamol to work. It doesn’t take long - they’re soluble. I can’t swallow pills.

A real low point: I sneeze, and bang my head on the corner of the bed unit, puncturing the skin, snot everywhere. Hemingway would have taken a goat skin of wine to recover; I take Ibuprofen. Of course, Hemingway had the advantage that global warming hadn’t then been invented. He might have found blowing up a fascist bridge harder if he’d had to worry about applying Factor 4 to his moustache first.

-From " Fever Espana: the sun also surprises” (or, “The Road to Pamplona: Fiesta In A Clio)", a shorter version of which appeared in TNT Magazine (2002), and one of the stories in Mark Piggott's fiction/non-fiction collection "Militant Factions" available in paperback or Kindle from Amazon.

*From 20-24 December 2021, all four of my published books will be available FREE on Amazon Kindle.

#MilitantFactionsQuotes 88:

Floating above the paddy fields in an Indian helicopter, flashes of colour all around: painted elephants, greedy buffalo, colonial villas ruined by the sun and the vines. Everywhere we visit becomes short hand for somewhere else, other paths we have travelled: the blue/white houses of Panaji could be Portugal, the sleaze and sloppy pancakes of Calungate Benidorm, Vagator and Chapora’s Hampstead posse smugly smoking bongs on the beach with cows Kohs Samui or Pha-Ngan.

Travelling nowhere, but eating well; fish curries swell. Only I go to India and gain weight.

-From "The Cockroach Clause", first published @ The Writers Link (2001), and one of the stories in Mark Piggott's fiction/non-fiction collection "Militant Factions" available in paperback or Kindle from Amazon.

*From 20-24 December 2021, all four of my published books will be available FREE on Amazon Kindle.

#MilitantFactionsQuotes 87:

In the summer of 1983, I was fortunate enough to spend a night under the stars. Although I had known homelessness with my mother as a small child, and would know many more years of housing insecurity, I can point to that night on a park bench in a place called Three Bridges and say, 'you made me.' Everything in my life I place before or after that night, full of revelations, an epiphany worthy of Joyce; I finally resolved that, for me at least, there was no God- my own personal a priori was established, as I stood (or rather lay) on the brink of adulthood. I resolved that I would always have to do things, 'get on', for and by myself. And, most relevant perhaps to this essay, the recurring themes of homelessness, rootlessness and alienation in my writing would be given a legitimacy no-one will ever be able to snatch away.

-From "Pixelation", a collaboration with photographer and artist Martin Toft. Read the whole text in Mark Piggott's fiction/non-fiction collection "Militant Factions" available in paperback or Kindle from Amazon.

#MilitantFactionsQuotes 86:

It was Mickey’s idea to go on holiday: me, Mickey, Marsha and her mate from police school, Deirdre. Deirdre scared me: she always wore pink dresses and pink bows in her hair like a little doll but beneath those flounces and frills she was pure evil: just Mickey’s type. Deirdre’s folks had a caravan in Wells-next-the-Sea and Deirdre had a key cut without them knowing.

“It’ll be canny,” said Mickey on the Thursday, as we planned the trip in the Favourite. “Norfolk and Broads, eh? Norfolk and Broads!”

He liked playing on words, Mickey: I knew what he meant, but with his accent, it sounded like he was saying “no fucking broads”.

-From "Norfolk & Broads", first published by Literary Commune (2015), and one of the stories in Mark Piggott's fiction/non-fiction collection "Militant Factions" available in paperback or Kindle from Amazon.

#MilitantFactionsQuotes 85:

The woman sat in the booth watching the film, frowning, puzzled: so was Donald. The world portrayed - some rich American suburb of golden retrievers, wide grassy sidewalks and detached square houses - was his world, according to the papers: the West, where even the sun went, destination for the hungry world. She drank hot cocoa and ate plain bread as her blankets dried on radiators. When the last film was over she went out to the street with her warm blankets and full tummy and disappeared.

She never said thank you. He respected her for that.

-From "Titanic II", one of the stories in Mark Piggott's fiction/non-fiction collection "Militant Factions" available in paperback or Kindle from Amazon.

#MilitantFactionsQuotes 84:

A truck pulled up past the charred hotdog stand by the empty grey beach dotted with driftwood or dead seals. Honey looked round: mom nodded from her Cherokee. Teetering in her heels Honey walked up to the cab and smiled. The little ladder was like a ladder, leading up to a trapdoor which was open. A hairy hand reached down. A giant in his cloud.

-From "Honey Trap and the Trolls", one of the stories in Mark Piggott's fiction/non-fiction collection "Militant Factions" available in paperback or Kindle from Amazon.

#MilitantFactionsQuotes 83:

-When I was a kid, he said, -mum took me to the big shop in town and I sat on Father Christmas’s knee and he got a boner. Never liked Christmas since.

Well that set them off, Giles spraying warm mist, Coll fluttering those long eyelashes and Smithy looking round to make sure they were laughing then laughing too with additional gusto. Gaz a bit irritated at the way they’d received his little anecdote he’d held inside like a hairy great turd these forty years and decided he didn’t fancy getting pissed tonight he’d see his kids ex or no.

-From "Fathers 4 Jaundice", first published by Literary Commune (2015), and one of the stories in Mark Piggott's fiction/non-fiction collection "Militant Factions" available in paperback or Kindle from Amazon.

#MilitantFactionsQuotes 82:

The first tethered hot air balloon flight took place in Paris on 19 October 1783, designed by the Montgolfier Brothers and carrying Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier, Jean-Baptiste Réveillon and Giroud de Villette. Almost exactly sixteen years later, on 22 October 1797, André-Jacques Garnerin became the first human to jump from a balloon using a parachute he designed himself. Garnerin had beforehand undertaken a series of experiments with varying levels of success, using more than one dog. To Adam, cats made more sense: they had more lives to spare and anyway, he didn‘t like them.

-From "Never Trust a man with Egg on his Face", first published by Prole Books (2011), and one of the stories in Mark Piggott's fiction/non-fiction collection "Militant Factions" available in paperback or Kindle from Amazon.