There are some good stories in this book, I think unfortunately the problem for me is that I've just read too many other short story collections that are similar. It feels like these days every first collection by a woman has to include stories about dating with some supernatural or sci-fi angle - and as a bookseller I have read them all! Despite feeling lukewarm about it myself I would still recommend this to other readers as they're unlikely to have the same problem!

Kate Folk's debut collection of short stories, Out There, shares a lot of concerns and themes with many collections I've read recently from female writers; body horror, AI infiltrators, the hidden violence of heterosexual relationships, female sexuality, mysterious medical conditions, folktale themes, returns from the dead. I'd place it alongside collections such as Julia Armfield's salt slow, Carmen Maria Machado's Her Body And Other Parties, Mary South's You Will Never Be Forgotten and Irenosen Okojie's Nudibranch. However, unlike these earlier books, all of which I found disappointing to one degree or another (although both the Armfield and Machado contain some excellent individual stories), Out There delivers. This is not to say that I loved every story in this collection - I don't think that's possible with short stories. But the hits definitely outnumber the misses, retreading familiar ground while making it convincing and chilling in a way that earlier writers haven't managed, for me.

Two stories about 'blots', robots who impersonate men so they can steal women's data, bookend the collection, and indeed, enrich each other when they're read together. The first, 'Out There', is a really good take on the uncertainties of online dating and how fake men may be better than the real variety, but I found it a bit predictable. The second, 'Big Sur', expands the premise very cleverly by giving us a blot's point of view, alongside the perspective of a woman who gradually realises what he is - and finds it refreshing to know exactly what a man wants from her, even if it's not good. Other stories didn't quite work for me as stories but contained truly unforgettable premises: from the ward of people whose bones dissolve at night and reconstitute in the morning, the man who becomes obsessed with moisturising the walls of his house, the trapped woman who builds a scale model in foil of the city being destroyed below her. The weaker stories of this kind are the ones that lean on what have become familiar body horror-female sexuality tropes; 'Heart Seeks Brain', 'The House's Beating Heart'. This kind of story feels like it works on shock value (women! violence! gore!) rather than because it actually has anything to say.

However, what Folk brings to Out There that other writers in this sub-genre lack is an incredible use of voice. My major problem with other collections of this kind is that they can feel a bit samey. Folk's voice-led stories are not always her best, but they're so engrossing in their versatility. I loved the narrators of 'The Head In The Floor' ('There was like. The top of a head. With straight brown hair. It was cresting, you know, like when they talk about the baby's head poking out. Out of the woman. It was the same thing, but you know. My floor.') and 'Tahoe' ('One of us, maybe Mike, or it could have been Jim, or Joel, or even me for that matter, said we should rent some scuba gear... But only Mike and Jim, or maybe Mike and Joel, but definitely Mike, were certified for scuba and the next day we ended up getting the ATVs instead and one of us toppled his ATV onto himself... Come to think of it, it might have been me'.) Meanwhile, 'Turkey Rumble' is perhaps not the most ambitious offering here, but I found it the most satisfying in its deliberately shlocky twist ending. Definitely a collection to try, even if the synopsis sounds a bit too familiar.

What an absolute storming debut we have here!

A fantastic collection of short stories ranging from the sublime to the horrific and bookended by two linking stories.

We're taken through the dangers of dating apps, the last woman on earth's prime time talk show, a head growing through a floor, a hospital ward dedicated to those who experience total bone loss, a woman desperate to be shot for the thrill of it, a house of body parts, a somnambulist who brings unknown terrors back to bed, a secret santa with a disastrous difference, and then a final story of AIs harvesting women's personal data through sex.

It is a bizarre, wonderful and mind-bending set of stories. Not one misses the mark. Think Twilight Zone meets Outer Limits meets Black Mirror. This debut collection is not just out there, it's way out there.

Highly recommended.

#OutThere #NetGalley

What if Edgar Allan Poe, Ray Bradbury, Margaret Atwood and Angela Carter wrote some episodes of Black Mirror together? The result might be something like this debut short story collection by Kate Folk. I thought this was a fantastic book, every story surprising, weird and thought-provoking. They engage with the concepts of masculinity and femininity and with the complexities of contemporary relationships.

I enjoyed these stories very much. I was gripped by the writing style, I loved the dark humour and the strangeness. My favourite stories included 'Heart Seeks Brain' (beauty is on the inside... literally), 'Dating A Somnambulist' (what bizarre item will he bring back to bed this time?!), 'The Turkey Rumble' (a shocking family Thanksgiving tradition) and 'The Bone Ward' (all the characters are really spineless...)

The world of Out There is one where the most attractive guys might be robots who are out to scam you, where a head might grow out of your apartment floor for no reason, where everything is vanishing into a void and you have to choose who you want to spend the last moments of existence with. It's a creepy world, but I like it.

Thank you to the publisher Hodder for the advance copy via NetGalley.

[This review will be on my blog, 29th March]