No One Will Come Back for Us and Other Stories

Mohamed’s (The Void Ascendant) 17 stories span the entirety of today’s dark speculative landscape and present a vision of its emerging future. Many are set in the author’s “real gods” universe, exploring the well-trodden cosmic concepts of hopelessness and fear with a fresh vision. They often incorporate parent-child relationships, such as the Pushcart Prize–nominated story “Willing,” which features a farmer and his beloved younger daughter who is summoned by the gods to be sacrificed. There’s also the eco-horror tinged “The Evaluator,” presenting a possessed child in a landscape where the old gods have been destroyed by pollution. No matter the plot or setting, however, each story is marked by a strong narrative voice, confident worldbuilding, and an unease that seeps into every corner, leaving readers unsettled but also looking at their world from a new perspective.