Sheep-shearing galas, Antarctic ponies, human clones, the Queen's visit to Dunedin, a pounamu decoder, a childhood in the pubs of the South Island, the last days of Robert Louis Stevenson-this is Bill Manhire as backyard inventor, devising stories in which the fabulous and the everyday collide. The Stories of Bill Manhire collects the stories from The New Land: A Picture Book (1990) and those added to South Pacific (1994) and Songs of My Life (1996). In addition there are previously uncollected and unpublished stories, the choose-your-own-adventure novella The Brain of Katherine Mansfield (1988), and the memoir Under the Influence (2003).