The 2013 Clarke award-winning Chris Beckett is a major force in British SF, and his second collection, The Peacock Cloak (NewCon Press, £10.99), collects a dozen stories published over the past five years. He is an audacious writer, not afraid of examining big issues, but always through the humanising lens of fully rounded characters, whether they be a downtrodden husband making a life-changing decision after meeting a visitor from another dimension, a loner coming to the end of his posting on a bizarre alien world, or a pair of thieves suffering the consequences of their greed on a far-future Earth. The two standout tales are „Rat Island“, about a boy’s attempt to come to terms with his father’s suicide against a backdrop of global despair, and „Greenland“, which portrays an overpopulated future Britain and the plight of a refugee forced to submit to a horrific scientific experiment in order to ensure his family’s survival. Unmissable. (Eric Brown, The Guardian)