Halcyon Years by Alastair Reynolds (Gollancz, £25)
Yuri Gagarin, the Russian cosmonaut who was the first man in space, is reborn as a private eye on board the starship Halcyon as it draws nearer to the end of a centuries-long journey. Yuri knows he died for the first time back in the 1960s, long before the technology existed to launch such sophisticated spaceships, but believes his remains were preserved and stored for future revival. Onboard life is modelled on classic crime noir from the 1940s: men in hats, cigarettes and whisky, with no futuristic tech beyond some clunky, glitching robots. As he doggedly pursues the truth about the seemingly unconnected deaths of two teenagers from the most powerful families on the ship, Yuri gradually learns about himself. There’s a conspiracy that goes back generations in this clever, entertaining blend of crime and space opera.
Paris Fantastique by Nicholas Royle (Confingo, £9.50)
The third collection after London Gothic and Manchester Uncanny captures both the reality and the mysteries of contemporary life in Paris in 14 short stories, 11 published here for the first time. Royle is a genius at blending the ordinary with the eerie, and his stories range from displays of outright surrealism to sinister psychological mysteries that play out as suspensefully as Highsmith or Hitchcock. It’s a memorable, unsettling excursion through the streets, passages and banlieues of Paris, and a masterclass in writing evocative short fiction.
All Tomorrows: The Myriad Species and Mixed Fortunes of Man by CM Kosemen (Wilton Square, £18.99)
Inspired by the art of SF/fantasy illustrator Wayne Barlowe, and by writers from Olaf Stapledon to Larry Niven, this book began as a teenager’s project, as he worked out his ideas of various extreme ways humans could conceivably evolve over millions of years – whether by genetic manipulation, out of necessity to adapt or by slow, natural processes. An earlier version appeared online in 2006, but this is the first print edition in English, including new material and notes explaining the origins of imaginary species including Spacers, Asteromorphs, Swimmers, Symbiotes, Tool Breeders and Bug Facers. A fascinating, horrifying work of the imagination: beautiful, complex and surreal.
The Salt Oracle by Lorraine Wilson (Solaris, £18.99)
Set in the same fantastical post-internet world as the author’s previous novel We Are All Ghosts in the Forest, this standalone takes place at sea. We are on the Bellwether, a ship that functions as a university outpost. Scholars study a strange girl known as the Oracle and record her cryptic utterances, which may provide information vital to marine traffic formerly reliant on weather satellites, GPS and other now-useless tech. But it is dangerous to spend too much time near the Oracle, as she attracts digital ghosts to the air around her. These appear as fragments of old films or snatches of audio broadcasts. Despite their insubstantial appearance, merely to brush against one can leave a person “ghost-infected”, a degenerative state worse than death. The story is told through three different viewpoints, one of them the traumatised Oracle. Involving murder, conspiracy, academic rivalries and a misunderstanding that keeps two yearning lovers apart, it is possibly a bit overcomplicated, but this is a weird, rich and ultimately rewarding journey.
The Witching Hour by various authors (Sphere, £18.99)
Here, 13 original ghostly tales take as their starting point any sort of supernatural event that might occur in the hour after midnight. All but one are set in the past – from 1718 Massachusetts to 1770s Paris to the Antarctic in the 1920s – with most occurring somewhere in 19th-century Britain. They are old-fashioned narratives in the best sense, with the classic virtues of a shivery, satisfyingly surprising story. Standouts for me include entries by Elizabeth Macneal, Catriona Ward and Natasha Pulley, but there’s not a dud in the lot. A superb anthology for these dark winter nights.
