Mercurio D Rivera has been tipped as ‘the next big thing’ by critics and readers alike.  He first burst onto the scene in 2006 with “Longing for Langalana”. Featured in Interzone, “Langalana” won the magazine’s readers’ poll for best story of that year and became the first of many pieces to gain honourable mention in Gardner Dozois’ Year’s Best anthology.  Since then, Mercurio’s work has appeared regularly in Interzone, as well as such venues as Asimov’s, Nature, Black Static, and Solaris Rising 2.  In 2010, his story “Tu Sufrimiento Shall Protect Us” was shortlisted for the World Fantasy Award and gained honourable mention in Ellen Datlow’s Year’s Best Horror.  Across the Event Horizon contains the very best of Mercurio’s work to date; fourteen stories selected by the author himself, including “Langalana” and “Tu Sufrimiento”. I don’t read a massive amount of science fiction but when Newcon Press got in touch and offered me the opportunity to check out this collection of short stories by Mercurio D Rivera I had to admit I was intrigued. I thought I’d give it a go. Fourteen stories, there was bound to be something that piqued my interest… Turns out I may have under-estimated just a little, this is an utterly splendid collection from beginning to end….