Gliff is set in a near-future dystopian version of what seems to be somewhere in England. In it we meet two children, the slightly older Briar/Brice/Bri and their younger sister Rose. Their mother has been taken away for dissent and we initially find them in the care of her boyfriend Leif. They come home to find their house with a red line painted around it, which they take as a cue to flee. When the same happens to their camper van, Leif takes the children to a 'safe house' and sets off alone to look for their mother. From there on in, Bri and Rose are left to fend for themselves.

Prophet Song focuses on Eilish, a microbiologist and mother of four (ranging in age from a baby to a seventeen year old) living in Dublin. In the background is the looming threat posed by a new authoritarian government in Ireland. Her husband Larry is an official in the Teachers’ Union, at the start of the novel still absorbed in his work and organising protests against the new government, believing the protections he has been used to in a democratic society still apply. Relatively rapidly, though, we learn that this is a new and significantly darker world, in which protests are violently suppressed and Larry himself is taken in for questioning by the stasi-esque Garda National Services Bureau (GNSB). Within days, he has disappeared, along with many other men in Eilish’s immediate circle.

For the first time on here I’m tackling a collection of short stories. Liberation Day contains nine of them, with no immediately obvious uniting theme. They move between realist character studies, packed with humour and insight, and much darker mini-dystopias.