Status Updates From After Sundown

Branch Line, Paul Finch

A pacy taste of 1970s England as one man is interviewed over the disappearance of his friend back in 1973. Brings a nice sense of place and time, and ends with a little twist that you sort of see coming, but then don’t, because you’re hoping for something else.

A Hotel in Germany, Catriona Ward

A deliciously odd study in love and servitude told through the relationship of Cara and the movie star. The ambiguity of Cara - petlike, sentient, obedient, and almost ageless - brings a whole layer of mystery to this seemingly symbiotic couple, and the world beyond the hotel, fleetingly glimpsed - is tantalisingly speculative.

The Naughty Step, Stephen Volk

Definitely on e if the best offerings in this anthology. In the aftermath of a domestic murder, a social worker tries to break bread with a young traumatised boy. Devastating stuff and very well observed and characterised.

The Mirror House, Jonathan Robbins Leon

A story of an unhappy marriage as a woman comes to realise that she’s something of a box-ticking exercise to her older husband. Its secondary element feels underdone, even though it leads to the inevitable conclusion.

Alice’s Rebellion, John Langan

This riffs on Lewis Carroll’s Alice and Wonderland, with an encroachment into the real world where Tweedle Dee and Dum are Trump and Johnson. About martyrdom, and what rises up from that sacrifice to make the world sensible again, but, despite all the blood, is more dark fantasy than horror.