“BASED on the motion picture” is not always the most enticing slogan to find on a book cover. But please don’t let it put you off reading Robot Overlords by Mark Stay (Gollancz, £7.99), in which an empire of spacefaring robots has conquered the Earth.

Their instructions to the beaten natives are simple — stay inside your houses for the next eight years while we study you.

If you co-operate, we’ll eventually let you have your planet back. If you step outside, we will vapourise you.

But, if you were a teenage boy whose RAF dad is missing in action and whose mum is being sexually harassed by the local quisling, what would you do if you accidentally discovered a way to switch off your robot implant?

Older children, and adults of all ages, will enjoy this inventive, witty and humane adventure.

The House of War and Witness by Linda Carey, Louise Carey and MR Carey (Gollancz, £9.99) takes place in a Silesian village in the 1740s.

An Austro-Hungarian garrison arrives to defend the nearby border against Prussian invasion — and keep an eye on the unreliable border dwellers.

The villagers have a secret and the colonel in charge is determined to uncover it no matter what the cost.

The billet housing the officers has its secrets too. But only one person knows them — camp follower Drozde, who’s always been able to see ghosts. Yet even she has never met ghosts like these before.

Terrible violence is coming to the village of Narutsin and the only question is, can anyone be saved from it? Exceptional writing and real originality make this story of war, ghosts and time one which will seize the imaginations even of those usually with no interest in such narratives.

A police officer answers a call to a small town on the Tasman Bay in New Zealand in Wake by Elizabeth Knox (Corsair, £12.99), and finds herself in a nightmare of madness and death.

But, even after that, worse is to come. She and the handful of others left standing can’t get out and no-one from outside can get in.

As the survivors struggle to deal with the dead and keep themselves alive, the terrifying mystery of their isolation gradually unfolds. What chance any of them will ever see the outside world again?

Concentrating on characterisation, but without sacrificing plot or suspense, this is a haunting and moving mixture of SF, horror and a literary novel about people under pressure.

Fantasy authors who believe all the best ideas have already been done to death will be kicking themselves when they read The Incorruptibles by John Hornor Jacobs (Gollancz, £8.99).

How could they not have thought of writing a romantic cowboy horror story featuring a steamship powered by inter-dimensional demons, set in a world where the still-thriving Roman empire is opening up the Wild West?

It sounds like a mess but this book’s a feast of good prose, good ideas and good fun.