William by Mason Coile (Baskerville, £14.99)
Henry is a robotics engineer who suffers from intense agoraphobia, unable to leave the house he’s turned into a digitally controlled fortress that responds to commands only from him or his wife. When she’s out, he works on improvements to William, possibly the creepiest robot in fiction. Even Henry finds his creation unsettling – he has nightmares about it, and keeps it locked in the attic, hesitant to reveal it to others. Bestselling Canadian horror author Andrew Pyper is using a pseudonym for his SF debut. It’s a gripping modern take on Frankenstein that skilfully plays on fears about AI and the dangers posed by new technologies. The tension mounts in a brilliantly plotted story combining horror tropes, suspense and metaphysical speculation about the nature of the soul: a terrifying, thought-provoking read.
The Tapestry of Time by Kate Heartfield (HarperVoyager, £16.99)
Set in England and France during the second world war, this novel centres on a family with the gift of second sight. As rational young women, the Sharp sisters dismiss their experiences as coincidence (Kit), imagination (Ivy) or a talent for pattern recognition (Rose), until they realise they may be able to aid the war effort. Their father has a theory that the Bayeux Tapestry was begun before 1066, to be used as a predictive tool in warfare. In the summer of 1944, Ivy is an undercover agent in France, and art historian Kit has stayed on in Paris, when they learn of a Nazi plan to take the tapestry, leaving Paris to burn. The sisters are the only ones who can stop them – if they survive long enough. Paranormal elements are expertly woven with real history to create a convincing and exciting tale.
The Wilding by Ian McDonald (Gollancz, £25)
The latest from one of Britain’s best writers of speculative fiction is an excursion into folk horror. Set in a rewilding project in present-day Ireland, the action unfolds rapidly over two fraught days and one terrifying night among a small group of guides, teachers and schoolchildren on a hike and sleepover on the shores of Lough Carrow. They are there to learn about the natural world, but find that world turned against them, in ways far from natural. It seems that in returning an area of peat bog to the wild, long-hidden forces have come to life, and they are not at all sympathetic to humans. Vividly written, this is perfect scary fare for the Halloween season.
Of the Flesh: 18 Stories of Modern Horror by various authors (Borough, £16.99)
Proof of the horror genre’s resurgence is found in this collection of new stories by critically acclaimed authors, few of whom could be classified as horror writers. Things have changed a lot since the 1980s, when the genre was dominated by men (of the 23 stories in Kirby McCauley’s 1980 anthology Dark Forces, only two were by women). Here, female writers are the majority: 13 out of 18. Not all the pieces hit the highest mark, but some, especially those by Mariana Enríquez , JK Chukwu, Evie Wyld and James Smythe, are outstandingly weird and memorable.
A Christmas Ghost Story by Kim Newman (Titan, £11.99)
For Angie and her teenage son Rust, Christmas starts on 1 December. But dread replaces cheer after the arrival of a series of sinister Christmas cards from an unknown sender. Although addressed to Rust, they trigger Angie’s memory of a television play called The Cards that terrified her as a child one Christmas Eve … but there is no evidence that anything like what she remembers was ever televised. A spooky situation and interesting characters set up a story that draws on family dynamics, festive ritual and the uncertainty of memory. A welcome addition to the tradition of Christmas ghost stories.
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