| Category: | Fiction |
|---|---|
| Author: | Martyn Rhys Vaughan |
| Publisher: | Martyn Rhys Vaughan |
| Publication Date: | February 12, 2026 |
| Number of Pages: | 328 |
| ISBN-10: | 1036956199 |
| ISBN-13: | 978-1036956196 |
Martyn Rhys Vaughan’s Descending Darkness is
a gorgeous collection that blends horror, black comedy, and science fiction. A
captured fighter struggles to escape a cell while the ceiling slowly descends
on him, armed only with desperation and bedsheets in “A Room with No View.” A
smug con man plunges into a haunted manor overnight, wins his bet but loses his
sanity in “Alone.” In “Dia de los Muertos,” a walking skeleton named Ralph
comes after a husband killer, calling with a knife. “How They Won the War” presents
a stunning twist as humanity’s victory ends with the city lights snapping out. Santa
fakes senility to retire to Barbados in ''The Perfect Christmas,” while “The
Water of Life” dotes on a baby Loch Ness Monster. The longer pieces are the
highlights of the book: “The Pitiless Ones” brings back survivor Irina Miller,
now deadlier than the aliens she serves, while “A Stranger in Our Midst” pits
parapsychologist Dr Richard Cross against a demon wearing Lady French's face.
Vaughan works in the classic weird-fiction tradition, with
tight, twisty plots and endings from wickedly ironic to hauntingly ambiguous.
His characters are exceptionally sculpted. Irina is a ruthless antiheroine who
ticks all the boxes for a morally gray character; you might not love her role,
but you will enjoy how elaborately drawn and complex she is. These characters
are flawed and believable, and even minor ones get affectionate, witty
sketches. The prose is clean, dry, and very British, with a fondness for dark
humor. True to the title, the atmosphere this collection evokes is creepy, with
fog-bound manors, shrinking cells, and sterile alien labs. The pacing is fast,
slowing only in the longer tales to let dread build. Descending Darkness is
a collection of intriguing stories about survival, retribution, and betrayal, and
how the human mind deals with the unknown.
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