I spent a fair bit of my reading and viewing time on my other favourite genre (crime fiction) last month (revisiting the late Ken Bruen’s Jack Taylor series, among others) and made what is becoming an increasingly rare foray into literary fiction with Lawrence Osborne’s Children of Wolves (highly recommended). I did manage some speculative fiction, however, presented below in the order in which I read, watched, or listened to them.
Never Flinch, a 2025 novel by Stephen King.*** Strictly speaking this is a crime novel, but I include it here because it features King’s late-career occult detective, Holly Gibney. Like all of the best occult detectives, some of her cases are supernatural and some natural so we’re never sure what the dénouement will reveal. Where most of Holly’s previous outings have fallen into the former category, this one belongs firmly to the latter, a solid mystery in which Holly must both solve an ongoing series of murders and prevent a new client from being murdered by right-wing extremists. In 2020, King revealed that Holly had become one of his favourite creations, six years after her debut as one of the supporting cast in Mr Mercedes. While I liked it, I thought it was ultimately a little overlong.
Leave the World Behind, a 2020 novel by Rumaan Alam.***** I came to this via a work project on digital technologies, started reading it, and realised that I’d seen the film several years ago (probably when it was released in 2023), enjoying it without finding it especially gripping (or memorable for that matter). The novel is something else entirely, which is surprising because the cinematic adaptation was clearly very faithful to the original. I’m not even sure how to describe this extraordinary narrative because on the one hand it is a masterclass in pacing and foreshadowing that combines a handful of characters with limited action in a completely compelling way and on the other hand the action isn’t limited at all because it is the end of the world (or the end of the world as we know it, at least). That, for me, is where Alam achieves greatness, producing a rare narrative that successfully represents – or perhaps even replicates – the lived experience of an apocalypse-in-progress. Real apocalypses are nothing like, for example, Roland Emmerich’s The Day After Tomorrow (2004), and this is very real indeed.
Him, a 2025 feature film directed by Justin Tippings.***** Much to my embarrassment, I only watched this because I somehow got the idea that it was Jordan Peele’s latest and only found out his contribution was as producer when I was already halfway through it. Perhaps precisely because of my ignorance it was one of those rare occasions where I came to a film without knowing much about it, except its genre and (not its) director. What quickly became obvious was that the narrative is a sustained satire on American football as a sport, the NFL as an institution, fandom, celebrity culture, and perhaps a few other aspects of contemporary life in the US and beyond as well. As such, I loved it, revelling in pretty much every minute from beginning to end. Revisiting Wikipedia after my Peele gaffe, I was surprised to see that it was a critical failure and that it’s classified as ‘sports-supernatural horror’ – whatever that is, how many sports horror films can there be? – with no mention of the satirical commentary which was, for me, the whole point.
The Prospero Machine and Other Stories, a 2026 short story collection by Mark Valentine.*** As I’ve noted before, I prefer Valentine’s essays to his short stories, though I’ve enjoyed some of the latter very much, including almost all of the tales in The Collected Connoisseur (2010, co-authored with John Howard) and Herald of the Hidden and Other Stories (2013), both of which are collections of occult detective fiction. The highlight of this volume is the first tale, ‘Kraken Tide’, which is as original as it is intriguing and haunting. I found most of the following six stories slightly underwhelming, at times too explicit and at times too facetious. The production values were also below Tartarus’ usual high standard, which was disappointing given the expectations I always have (and which, I should add, are almost always met or even exceeded).
Unhallowed Gifts, a 2026 short story anthology edited by Dan Coxon.*** It’s rare to find an anthology where there isn’t much variation in quality and when that quality is high, it really is a treat to read (or listen to, in my case). If there is a qualitative difference, then it would be at the halfway point, with the first six stories superior to the final six, though that may well be the result of my idiosyncratic tastes rather than any failings of the authors. This is certainly one of the best anthologies I’ve come across in some time and my only actual criticism is that I’m not sure how prominent the theme of unhallowed gifts (based on W.W. Jacobs’ ‘The Monkey’s Paw’, first published in Harper’s Monthly in 1902) is across the full dozen. Not that it really matters. My favourite was ‘Archies’, by Paul Tremblay, which happened to be the only one I’d read before.
