Aliya Whiteley’s Skein Island (Titan, £7.99) is a fine example of understated horror, whose accumulating sense of unease is only enhanced by being set in the familiar milieu of contemporary Britain. The eponymous island lies off the Devon coast, and is a refuge for women that offers week-long stays for selected guests. The sole payment required from each woman is a written story, a personal declaration which is then lodged in the island’s library. In measured, quietly assured prose, Whiteley introduces librarian Marianne Percival who, out of the blue, receives an invitation to stay on the island; before she goes, she suffers a terrible sexual attack. Her time there is interspersed with details of how and why the community was founded, and chapters from her husband’s viewpoint, as events conspire to bring about the break-up of their marriage. Whiteley skilfully blends Greek myth with the horrors of the second world war and scalpel-sharp observations of contemporary society in a compelling, disturbing read that examines gender roles and the power of individuals to take control of their lives.

Few contemporary writers have Adrian Tchaikovsky’s range, excelling at chunky far-future hard SF as well as high-fantasy epics. Made Things (Tor, £9.99) is a fantasy novel that at just under 180 pages packs in some impressive characterisation and world-building. The city of Loretz is a place of magic, and the suburb of Fountains Parish is the stamping ground of 17-year-old Coppelia, puppeteer and thief, who as a child escaped from an orphanage after the disappearance of her parents. She leads a precarious hand-to-mouth existence, staging her shows and engaging in petty theft, but her fortunes change when she makes the acquaintance of two magical homunculi who give her the gift of imbuing her puppets with life. Add to the mix a monstrous golem, evil crime lords, surprising plot twists and political revolution: Made Things is a thrilling parable about the abuse of power and the ability of the disenfranchised to effect change.

After more than a dozen novels for children, Andy Briggs has turned his hand to adult SF in the fast-paced, hi-tech thriller CTRL+S (Orion, £8.99). We are in a future where global warming is a thing of the past and citizens enjoy the benefits of SPACE, a virtual reality realm in which players can live out their dreams – but all is not as it seems. Twentysomething Theo lives with his mother, works in a burger bar to make ends meet and in his spare time loses himself in VR with his friends. When his mother vanishes, he finds his life under threat from a cabal which will stop at nothing to prevent Theo from locating his mother and discovering the secret at the heart of SPACE. CTRL+S more than makes up for its scant characterisation with a slick plot and a neat resolution.

Genevieve Cogman’s popular fantasy series features librarian Irene, her dragon companion Kai, and a secret society set up to collect literary texts from a plethora of alternative worlds; it has reached book six and the author’s enthusiasm and inventiveness show no signs of flagging. In The Secret Chapter (Pan, £8.99), Irene is given the task of securing a rare volume entitled “The Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor” from the Caribbean island of the villainous Mr Nemo – who agrees to give her the book only if she will team up with a rag-tag band of thieves to steal a work of art from a hi-tech 21st-century Vienna. The ensuing shenanigans are wittily told, with some great one-liners and comic set pieces, and the resourceful Irene is a delightful protagonist. This is light-hearted fantasy at its page-turning best.

Scotland in Space (Shoreline of Infinity/The New Curiosity Shop, £14.95), edited by Deborah Scott and Simon Malpas, is part of an initiative to explore the future of Scotland’s relationship with space. Building on the country’s ambitious recent history – Glasgow already designs and makes more small satellites than any other European city, and Scotland has plans to build the UK’s first spaceport – the volume showcases the work of three science fiction writers, two illustrators and a broad range of academics. Pippa Goldschmidt’s short story “Welcome to Planet AlbaTM!” is a humane meditation on colonialism, in which an Arab American works on a remote Scottish spaceport that offers virtual reality tours of Mars. In “A Certain Reverence” by Laura Lam, a group of scientists and artists from Scotland are invited by a race of enigmatic extraterrestrials to visit their home planet. Russell Jones’s moving “Far” is a long prose poem about lovers who are separated by light years when Scotland is granted its physical independence and shifted to the far side of the universe. Each story is followed by essays commenting on and developing themes raised in the fiction. Scotland in Space is by turns enlightening and entertaining.

• Eric Brown’s latest novel is Murder Served Cold (Severn House).