The best recent science fiction, fantasy and horror – reviews roundup

The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera (Solaris, £9.99)
Published last year in the US, this debut novel by a Sri Lankan writer has been garlanded with awards. Set in a world where demons and antigods prowl the streets and the ruling powers regularly call for pogroms against various groups, this is the tale of Fetter, a young man without a shadow. He was raised by his mother to be her weapon against his father, a revered prophet known as The Perfect and Kind. Leaving home for the big city, Fetter tries on new identities among actors, immigrants, scholars and revolutionaries. He is fascinated by the mystery of the “bright doors” that appear whenever an ordinary door has been left closed for too long. When he learns that The Perfect and Kind is on his way to visit the city for the first time, he realises he will have the opportunity to assassinate him without being suspected. Neither the plot nor the various classic tropes of fantasy develop in ways the reader could expect: thrillingly new and different, this bears comparison to works by Kafka and Samuel R Delany. An outstanding, genre-shattering work.

Withered Hill by David Barnett (Canelo, £9.99)
A young woman stumbles naked out of the woods, into the village of Withered Hill. She knows her name is Sophie, but she doesn’t remember anything about her previous life. The locals are friendly but strange. Attempts to escape meet with failure, but her new friends promise that she will be able to leave when the time is right. The dual timeline moves between Sophie’s life in London in the month before her arrival, and what happens in Withered Hill, as she uneasily adjusts to its odd customs and seasonal celebrations. At times this folk horror, while engaging, may seem a bit predictable, but the narrative rug is pulled out from under the reader with a terrific unexpected twist.

Crypt of the Moon Spider by Nathan Ballingrud (Titan, £10.99)
In this new novella by the award-winning short story writer, Veronica is taken to an exclusive sanatorium where her melancholy might be cured with a simple, terrifying operation. It is 1923, but far from our own reality: the sanatorium is on the moon, and the operation involves a very special type of spider silk. A brilliantly original, unsettling blend of gothic madness, retro-science fiction and scenes that would make a great Hammer Horror movie.

The Stardust Grail by Yume Kitasei (HarperVoyager, £16.99)
Maya Hoshimoto was formerly an accomplished thief, taking artefacts stolen by humans to return them to the alien civilisations they came from, but now she’s a graduate student learning about ancient cultures. When her archival research reveals a clue to the whereabouts of a long-lost object, she is inspired to plan another heist to help her best friend, one of the last surviving Frenro. This alien race is dying out, unable to reproduce without the aid of the very object she intends to steal. But other humans want it for their own reasons, and the whole journey is fraught with danger. An enjoyable, richly imagined, space-faring adventure populated with intriguing characters.

The Specimens by Hana Gammon (Tartarus, £40)
In brightly lit white rooms, a young man known only as BEC-04 is subjected to daily tests, restrained and sedated by his masked keepers. He has two sets of eyes and the ability to read minds, but he knows no more about his origins than the scientists who study him. Elsewhere in the facility is BEC-03, a female said to be his twin. The mysteries presented at the beginning of this remarkable first novel by a young South African writer are never resolved, but the tension and powerfully eerie atmosphere are sustained throughout in a compellingly weird tale involving doubles, masks and a search for understanding.