Eight years on, the work keeps getting stranger.

Year Eight brings together a new set of stories from writers who aren’t interested in playing it safe. These are pieces about people pushed into corners—by grief, by love, by hunger, by the slow realisation that something has gone badly wrong and there’s no clean way out.

Some stories stay close to home: families cracking under pressure, memories that won’t behave, bodies that refuse to remain familiar. Others step further out, into futures that feel thin and unstable, or landscapes shaped by old beliefs and quiet cruelties. Not every monster announces itself. Some of them pass as help. Some of them feel necessary.

The collection moves across horror, dark speculative fiction, and the spaces in between. There’s body horror, psychological unease, folk elements, and moments of blunt brutality—but also restraint. These are stories that know when to stop talking and let the damage speak for itself.

Year Eight isn’t about topping what came before. It’s about writers trusting the dark places they’re drawn to, and readers who are willing to sit with discomfort rather than rush past it.

If you’ve been here before, you know what you’re in for.

If you haven’t—this is as good a place as any to start.

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