Joanna Corrance: John’s Eyes
In an age of wearable and smart technology John’s Eyes (2021), a novella by Joanna Corrance, imagines a near future where eyes can be wholly replaced with artificial versions. This…
Thomas Hinde: The Day the Call Came
Thomas Hinde was the pen name of Sir Thomas Chitty, novelist for thirty years before ditching fiction for books on English country gardens and other pastoral pursuits. The Day the…
James Herbert: The Fog
If James Herbert’s debut The Rats was a flawed horror classic, then his follow-up, The Fog (1975), seemed to right some of those wrongs while serving up more of the…
James Herbert: The Rats
When James Herbert’s The Rats (1974) arrived on the scene, it must have felt like a massive fuck you to much that had gone before. Regular anthologies of ghost stories…
Jacob Kerr: The Green Man of Eshwood Hall
The Green Man of Eshwood Hall (2022) is the first of an unknown number by Jacob Kerr set in Northalbion, a fictional spin on Northumberland. Set over 1962, it’s a…
Loranne Vella: What Will it Take For Me to Leave
What Will It Take For Me To Leave (2019, tr: Kat Storace, 2021) by Loranne Vella is one of the first offerings from Maltese specialists Praspar Press. It’s a set of…
Brandon Sanderson: Elantris
Brandon Sanderson’s Elantris (2005) is an epic fantasy but also, unlike much in this vein, a standalone. I’d be lying if it weren’t the major appeal in choosing this over…
Andrea Mayo: The Carnivorous Plant
It only takes two mirrors to build a labyrinth, said Borges, and in The Carnivorous Plant (2021, tr: Laura McGloughlin, 2022) metaphorical mirrors are hung “in front, behind, above and…
Annie Ernaux: A Man’s Place
Attention (for those of us who hadn’t been looking that way) turns to Annie Ernaux after her Nobel Prize win and to the body of work that got her there.…
Nona Fernández: Space Invaders
The Pinochet years continue to inspire Chilean writers and Space Invaders (2013, tr: Natasha Wimmer, 2019) by Nona Fernández is one further addition to that canon. Here it’s a short…