See my GR review here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3328828890


I enjoyed a lot of these stories, but there were some stinkers as well. My average rating was 3.2 stars.

Twenty-three stories that range from "pretty weird?!" to "oh, that's an interesting concept!" the further along in the anthology you get. The common theme, weird stories, doesn't capture it all. Most stories are bleak and depressing.

I'm not sorry I read this - and trust me, I stretched this out over years - but I'm glad I am done.

Short stories are like comfort food in that you can turn to them for a quick diversion from “real” life and slip into the fantastic for a short spell. I love to read short stories, but I will admit that I do not really enjoy reviewing short story collections or anthologies. It is difficult to do because short stories can vary so much within one book. That is the great appeal: you never quite know what you are going to get. I started Weird Dream Society, edited by Julie C. Day, with no expectations. This is an un-themed anthology, so I did not know what I was going to find. But I was still eager to find out.



There is no central theme for the stories in this anthology. It is instead explained as a collection of stories that are “playful, whimsical, or dark, but always thoughtful and tinged with the inexplicably weird.” I would agree with the thoughtful, weird, and dark descriptions but found the book lacking in stories that are playful and whimsical. This is not an easy anthology to read and most of the stories are very dark indeed. That is not a bad thing, but it also means that it is not for all readers. There are also a lot of stories that focus on the aspect of differentness: From society, from the ruling class, or from humanity. This is not surprising since the anthology is in support of RAICES, a human rights organization that puts a special emphasis on migration. This does give the anthology a bit of a central theme although the stories within are not held tightly to that central theme.



Some of the stories are sure to change the way in which the reader views the world forever. One of these is “Snow as White as Skin as White as Snow” by Karen Bovenmyer that puts princesses in an entirely new light. “And Sneer of Cold Command” by Premee Mohamed takes the reader to a world conquered by creatures and the desperate search for a man before night sets in and the constructs of the monsters come out to hunt. “The Bricks of Gelecek” by Matthew Kressel is a poignant tale of a demon created for destruction learns to love the forces of creation, even if it destroys him. There are stories amid these gems that did not work for me, but that is not surprising given the nature of the stories and their fantastical premises as well as the varying execution of each.



Weird Dream Society is a mixed bag of an anthology that has stories that are very good mixed in with others that do not work well. This is not surprising given the premise of stories that are well outside the norm. I was surprised by the bleak nature of many of the tales and some lighthearted tales mixed in would have made the book more effective. Overall, however, Weird Dream Society delivers many thought-provoking stories that make the book worth a read. Readers will find stories that are not suited to their tastes but there are several gems in the rough here.



I would like to thank Reckoning Press and NetGalley for this review copy. Weird Dream Society is available now.

I received a free digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Good book, but it was a bit predictable. I liked it though.

Thank you kindly to the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for this review copy.

Weird Dream Society by Julie C. Day
Genre: Horror, Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Publisher: Reckoning Press
Publish Date: 26 May 2020
Star Rating: 3 stars

The ‘Weird Dream Society’ is as the tin says a book full of weird dreams from many different sources. I love dreaming, I love escaping into another world for a few hours and and not knowing whats going to happen but also being aware that I’ll get to wake up, so if it’s a nightmare that’s reassuring!

Twenty three dreams live in this book, and as an anthology this is a great way to discover the next author to become obsessed with. Unfortunately, like most anthologies some stories are better than others and sadly these stories fell short of how weird I like a dream. That being said the authors wrote well and I would give some of them another go. In summary I loved the conception but the execution left something to be desired.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an E-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

This one was mwah for me. I liked some short stories, while others were not it.
I like weird stories, but these just didn't fall right.

Thank you Netgalley for providing and giving me this opportunity to read this arc in exchange for a honest review.

Weird Dream Society is a collecting of short stories. Sadly, these short stories did not entice me or have my mind reeling for the next exciting twist I was hoping for. I am a fan of weird and bizarre stories/fiction and these just did not do it for me.

Each story is well written by each debuting author. The stories are okay but did not capture me. This is okay though because I was given the opportunity to read this for free and I appreciate it.

Thanks again Netgalley.

This was an interesting collection of short stories. I really liked some stories and others fell flat. I love the cover though.

I appreciate the concept of Weird Dream Society, but it just wasn't for me. That does not mean it is not well done, because it is. The writing is solid and it lives up to it's title, Weird Dream. The stories read like Weird Dreams and The basic theme is rather dystopian, which is not my thing. However, because this is more personal taste I'm not take off any stars based on that. I did enjoy The Ghost who loved a Mannequin quite a bit. I could really let my imagination go as I followed "ghost" around the mall and found the final ending to be very sweet and satisfying. Thank you netgalley and Weird Dream Society for allowing me to read and review this ARC.
#netgalley #WeirdDreamSociety

Weird Dream Society is a collection of short, weird stories. I love short, weird stories and was excited to read this but none of the stories really caught me and it ended up being an unpleasant reading experience. Each story left me hoping the next was better, but that didn't happen.

Thank you NetGalley and Reckoning Press for the opportunity to read an advance reading copy.

This seems to be a collection of debut authors. The writing did not appeal to me and I love weird fiction. The stories here just didn’t work. None of them captured my attention in the least. Those that seemed to have a spark of promise quickly fizzled out.

I appreciate the effort and support the cause but these stories weren’t for me.

First i would like to thank the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

First I want to say the introduction was beautiful. The cause the proceeds of this book go to is wonderful.

I love short story collections and I love weird stories. Stories that aren't the typical status quo you find on every bookshelf. I live for stories that make you think. I love unreliable narrators. This book contains stories that have all of those things.

Skin like carapace and Crossing were both beautiful stories that made my heart soar. Crossing was a breath of fresh air in an LGBTQ+ coming of age story. That story alone is reason enough to purchase this book honestly.

My love of reading stories with unreliable narrators was met in Jewel of the Vashwa. That one left me with my jaw on the floor with a twist I didn't see coming.

Thin Places was a gut wrenching look at loss. "when you're in mourning it hurts that things don't always hurt" -- man i felt that.

The Hoof Situation was an incredible look at aging and trying to hold on to your youth.

The Bricks of Gelecek is the one that actually made me cry. The story was so unique. Told from the point of view of destruction who falls for creation or at least thats how I interpreted it.

That's not to say there weren't stories i didn't like. The first story had me worried going into this book as it was slow and didn't hook me or interest me at all.

Overall this is a solid collection that I would be happy to add to my bookshelf and would recommend other lovers of story collections add to theirs

A collection of super weird stories and all of them are from new-to-me authors, I'm guessing a lot of them are debut authors. There's horror, sci-fi, magical realism, post apocalyptic, dystopian, parallel universes and more. And like any anthology, I loved some stories, and didn't care for others, and skimmed/skipped a few that didn't grasp me at all.

Some of the stories that stayed with me: The Ghost who loved a Mannequin, Crossing, Glasswort,Ice, Flyover Country, And Sneer of Cold command, The Bricks of Gelecek, Meat for Skritches, The Pyramid of Amirah.

I thank Netgalley and Reckoning Press for the digital ARC.

The Weird Dream Society anthology holds a host of wonderfully weird and weirdly wonderful stories. The contributing authors themselves originate from across the English speaking world, with varying notoriety and existing bodies of work. The profits from this collection are to go to RAICES, a Texas-based non-profit which provides legal and educational services to migrants which is certainly a great cause to support.

I absolutely loved the diversity of setting, from clear references to our current pandemic predicament to entirely new fantasy words somehow brought to life in just a few pages. So many of these stories left me wanting to read more in their worlds, from the scarred faces of 'Skin Like Carapace' to the floating ice whales of 'Glasswort, Ice'. I know that weird may at times be a rather intimidating moniker, but that each of the contributing authors was able to fully embrace it meant that the extraordinary became ordinary and the worlds and happenings far more unique and captivating. The short story format enabled even small ideas to be explored for their practicalities and implications. One example of this is 'The Hoof Situation', which explores how being faced with the realities of aging can affect our perception of youth through a society where old women grow hooves in place of feet.

Moreso than the worlds, many of these stories left me sitting, quiet and pensive, contemplating what on Earth had just happened (in a good way.) This is certainly not an anthology to be read in one sitting, as you will almost certainly need time to consider and imagine. The characters were overwhelmingly well developed and despite the format also often grew with the progression of the story. One thing that did annoy me was that a couple of the stories used 'they' as a singular pronoun, which for me at times made it harder to understand and didn't always feel necessary. Although this might just be a me thing. I ended up vehemently googling several of the authors following these reflection comas and will almost certainly be exploring more from A.C. Wise, Steve Toase, Emily Cantaneo, and Chip Houser; the authors of 'Crossing', 'Skin Like Carapace', 'Glasswort, Ice' and 'Meat for Skritches' respectively.

I have to give this a 5/5 stars, and though I read this as an eBook I am certainly looking to buy it in paperback when I can.

I received a free ARC and I am leaving my honest review.

The proceeds of this anthology goes to RAICES. While I appreciate the charitable intent, I didn't enjoy many of the stories nor any which were standouts.

‘Weird Dream Society’ is an accurate name for this collection. It is weird, in so many different ways and it makes for an interesting collection, that is incredibly bleak at times. It’s described as ‘whimsical or dark’, and I would say that it definitely leans more towards the latter, although not to the point where it was overwhelming or completely devoid of hope. The strongest stories in the collection, were those that were not weird just for the sake of being weird, but used the strangeness, the sense of otherness to make a point.
Now, this was not universal and there were a few stories, especially the first that didn’t work for me, either because they fell short of having this ‘point’ or were too weird for me, but that might be personal preference more than anything. Something else that some of the stories suffered from was the concept and writing was fantastic, but the idea needed more than a short story to really do them justice, and if they’d had more space, they would have been my favourite stories.
This was not a comfortable read, some of the stories made my skin crawl, or left me with the need to think and rethink the story, an almost niggling desire to make sense of the ‘weird’ and why it is weird. ‘The Application for the Delegation of First Contact: Questionnaire, Part B’ in particular was guilty of this, and while it was strictly a ‘story’ it was one of my favourite pieces of the entire collection, because it made me THINK. Other favourites included ‘Glasswort, Ice’ which was beautiful and eerie, and I just loved the idea of Ice Whales; and ‘Skin like Carapace’ and I do feel that this collection, for the flaws there were, grew in strength and made for a fascinating, albeit uncomfortable read.
This will not be a collection for everyone, but if you are intrigued by the weird and other, I think you will find at least a few of the stories appeal to you. It was hard to rate this one, because there were ups and downs, and I feel this is one that if very much down to personal preferences but I would recommend it to anyone looking for something a little out there.

A haunted desert, consciousness rotting away, statues that move after dark, woods that kidnap and devour, beings that can erase you from memory with only their touch – all of this and more is found in the 23 short stories of the Weird Dream Society anthology.

The blurb for Weird Dream Society describes the tales as “playful, whimsical, or dark, but always thoughtful and tinged with the inexplicably weird.” I agree with most of this, but I can’t think of many tales that I interpreted as playful or whimsical, the vast majority would be better described as bleak, though not entirely hopeless. What I appreciated about these strange, dark stories is that most of them, and all of my favorites, were not weird for the sake of being weird but rather delivered a point. There were only a few that missed the mark and, to me, seemed aimless. These were, predictably, my

This anthology is often an uncomfortable read, but that doesn’t mean it’s not an enjoyable one. If you know you’re not a fan of stories that make your skin crawl or questions that might not have satisfactory answers, this is not the book for you. That doesn’t mean that this anthology is only for fans of horror; I’m certainly not one and I really liked most of the stories. If you were intrigued by the premises listed in the intro of this review, I’m willing to bet that you will find at least a couple of stories here that you love.

Averaging my ratings for every individual story, Weird Dream Society is a 4 out of 5 star read for me. This anthology does not only contain great stories but also supports a great cause, with proceeds from the book going to support RAICES, an organization that “envisions a compassionate society where all people have the right to migrate, and human rights are guaranteed” and works towards this vision by providing legal services for immigrants and refugees. It’s worth mentioning that a number of the short stories in this book contain themes of immigration and/or otherness. Weird Dream Society will be published on May 26th, 2020, and I recommend you pick up a copy if you’re a fan of weird speculative fiction.

Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing a free ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Weird Dream Society is a collection of twenty-three short stories that should most definitely be called weird fiction. In all honesty, the first few stories in this book fell flat for me. It’s one thing to be weird. It’s another thing to be pointless. (For example: a story with the title ‘Application for the Delegation of First Contact: Questionnaire, Part B‘ is literally a list of bizarre questions. That’s it. No answers. No reference point.)

While a few of the stories had me shaking my head wondering why I’d just wasted precious minutes of my life reading them, there’s good news: the further you get into the book, the better the stories become. There were a few stories that made me wish I could read more about their world, their characters, stories like:

And Sneer of Cold Command – a world overtaken by monstrous entities whose statues come to life at night to destroy anyone out after curfew
The Bricks of Gelacek – nameless demons of destruction in the desert and the one demon who learns to love creation instead
The Pyramid of Amirah – young girls who volunteer to have their entire homes enclosed by great pyramids and live alone inside them until they are blessed with “meaning” which then blesses the town around them

One story really got to me: ‘Thin Places‘ details a mother’s grief over the loss of her son. As a mother myself it hit deep, especially the line, “When you’re in mourning, it hurts that things don’t always hurt.” Ouch. Conversely, the story ‘You Go Where It Takes You’ features a horrible mother and the story itself made me so angry I had to stop reading for awhile.

The collection’s unifying theme seems to be simply weird stories and a lot of barren landscapes and desperate mindsets. The whole book was bleak and depressing. It’s honestly one I’m more than happy to delete from my collection without a second thought.

However, if weird fiction is your thing, if you like your stories to make you feel like the world is horrible and life is pointless, OR if you just want to support the RAICES foundation, which the proceeds of this book go to, then pick up Weird Dream Society: An Anthology of the Possible & Unsubstantiated, available May 26, 2020 from Reckoning Press.

I received a free electronic copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

trigger warning
<spoiler>child abandonment, gore, internment</spoiler>

A child ascending to goodhood in a pyramid. A guy during a pandemic, patting his cat. Somebody on the run, a ghost: All this and much more you can find in this short story collection.

This is a perfect example for speculative fiction short stories in the sense that you won't know what you'll be getting. Some stories could be contemporary, some are set in the distant future, some in a setting that feels like the past but could be another planet. You don't know. You have to look and see.
We have single people, parents, enbies, white folk and people from all over the globe, which I liked a lot. Some stories appealed more to me than others, but there was not one I actively disliked. In more than one case I was upset at the ending, because I wanted more. I would have read hundreds of pages by that author on that setting and these people.

On top of this, the proceeds from this anthology go, at least in some part, to RAICES, an organisation that works on human rights for every human being. So it's a win all over. You get a way to look into different authors, get some weird tales, and give something in return, more than the usual support to the creators, but to another good cause.

I recieved a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I came out of reading this book with mixed feelings, especially where it concerned some of the bleaker tales of speculative fiction and the reality of what’s going on in the world at this moment. However, I felt the anthology on the whole was well written by the authors who contributed to it. The stories that stuck out to me were as follows.

‘The Ghost who Loved a Mannequin’ by Marianne Kirby – A story that in of itself I was uncertain of after the first few paragraphs, but I found myself drawn to that ghost and their adventures in the mall. Properly placed as the first chapter as I wanted to move forward in the anthology because I had enjoyed the payoff of reading it when I first felt uncertain about the story concept.

‘Crossing’ by A.C. Wise – I thought this tale was beautiful and uplifting. It felt like a beautiful threading of a coming of age slice of life story with a dark fairy tale. It was a refreshing breath of air.

‘The Pyramid of Amirah’ by James Patrick Kelly – The crushing feeling expressed in the story really held weight with me.

‘Application for the Delegation of First Contact: Questionnaire, Part B by Katherin Köhler – I’m a sucker for questionnaires and it told a story without telling a story? I don’t know. Weirdly my favorite of all of the stories.