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FORTY afterlives: the thought of one is quite enough, yet as a literary conceit it is beguiling. In this collection of supershort tales, – neuroscientist by day, dark chronicler by night – has turned himself into a David Deutsch figure of the hereafter, but with a multi-afterverse rather than a multiverse.

Try the title story, where all your earthly experiences are reshuffled into category order: think 27 hours of continuous intense pain or six days clipping your nails. My favourite, though, is “Mirrors” – the process of death will never seem the same again.

Sum has been so well received, from ‘s “terrific” to “provocative”, you can smell a cult forming. There was even a last month, with an original score by Brian Eno. Eagleman will find Sum a hard act to follow.