Five recent science fiction, fantasy and horror books

Five recent books explore survival, dread and the uncanny across science fiction, fantasy and horror, ranging from civilisational collapse to modern gothic, Cold War unease, folklore and campus hauntings. Temi Oh’s Not With a Bang follows four daughters of a doomsday prepper who were taught to head for a well-stocked bunker.

When a world‑shattering event scatters the family, each must weigh how best to survive amid devastated streets or shelter in place. The novel’s strength lies in its complex characterisations, conflicted relationships and the multiple perspectives that make its characters feel flawed, human and real.

Clare Cavenagh’s Tillinghast centres on Stutley Tillinghast, a solitary former minister now caring for an empty church who buries his victims in the cellar. The arrival of Sarah, searching for her mother, reveals she shares his mysterious illness and he refuses to let her die; inspired by the 19th‑century New England vampire panic, the debut reads as a haunting, original modern gothic.

science fiction, fantasy, horror, temi oh, survival, doomsday prepper, bunker, clare cavenagh, tillinghast, vampire panic