**Thank you to NetGalley and Titan books for the free copy of this book in exchange for honest feedback**

I am obviously way behind on getting this one posted, but I have just circled back to finish this one up. While I really enjoyed some of the stories in this collection from Whiteley, I really disliked others.

A mix of horror, sci-fi, and fantasy had me excited for some crazy concepts and impactful stories. Unfortunately the wide variety of topics ended up making this one feel really disjointed for me and I found myself unable to get into a good reading flow for this one.

I will definitely check out more from this author in the future, but I would like to read something in a longer format such as a novella or novel. Whiteley clearly has some interesting and unique ideas, but I think with a longer format her character and plot development could definitely be improved.

I am delighted with Alina Whiteley’s short story collection, she effortlessly seems to manage to create a blend of horror, fantasy and science fiction. I think she has a fantastic way with words and a brilliantly detail for the psychology of the characters, the tales are delightfully creepy and many of them are going to stay with me for a long time

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

7.5/10 stars

My full review on my blog (link attached).

A collection of 16 short stories from the murky border of fantasy, horror and science fiction. Whiteley has a penchant for infusing the mundane with the strange and the uncanny, successfully punching holes in the surface of our perception of everyday life with her creepy little tales. She is a skillful writer, seemingly seamlessly combining lightness of style and a wide range of topics with socio-philosophical observation. As usual with collections of short stories, the quality is uneven – but I did find a few gems here, and I’m quite happy I gave this anthology a chance.

As usual, I will review and rate each story separately and in conclusion I will give a general rating which may, or may not, be a simple average of the stories’ scores.

Brushwork 8.5/10 stars

A cli-fi novella, almost 80 pages long, about a world roughly resembling that from Snowpiercer: the Gulf Stream stopped, the land started becoming colder and colder, the vegetation died off under heavy snow and frost, and only corporate farms offer a possibility of a secure live – for the price of freedom. There is a lot going on in this novella: reflections on aging and the division between young and old; meditation on living with one’s past regrets and difficult choices; inequality and terrorism, slavery and trust. It’s one of the strongest stories in the collection, and I enjoyed it quite a lot.

Many-eyed monsters 2/10

Meh. Didn’t care for this one at all. I had the impression that the author was trying too hard for the uncanny, which made the whole story feel forced and artificial. Also, it couldn’t seem to decide what it wanted to be: a satire, a horror, a critique of modern society and its propensity for artificially enhanced and groomed physical beauty, or something else altogether.

[...]

From the Neck Up 8/10

A sweet story of an early mid-life crisis and of finding meaning in life outside of the limits of the usual rat race. As the whole story starts off with a severed head, it’s at once gory and delightful, and highly imaginative. It’s a perfect example of Whiteley’s style, mixing uncanny with everyday: a severed head, talking and dirtying the duvet, becomes a source of a small epiphany after it sprouts leaves and roots.

The Tears of a Building Surveyor, and Other Stories 2/10

Eh meh. Didn’t care about this one. The main protagonist, Violet, struggles with an unprocessed trauma from the past, exacerbated by the ongoing trauma caused by the exhausting and painfully slow dying of her husband Tom. Her way of coping is to escape into her imagination, Walter Mitty-like, and experience grand adventures around the world. Neither her life nor her confabulations held any interest for me.

To the Farm 8/10

A popular theme in SF, the humanity of androids/AI. Lem, Asimov, Dick, all the greats have written about it at some point, and for a reason. Whether we ascribe humanity to sentient beings speaks more about us than about them. While Whiteley writes nothing new, I liked her melancholy little story, both for its careful optimism and its clean, precise structure. No word wasted.

The Spoils 7/10

An intriguing dragon story, with worldbuilding nicely tucked between the story threads and some skilled use of vignettes to create an immersive experience. Highly enjoyable, slightly nostalgic, evoking the cadence and rhythm of fairy tales.

All in all, I’m very pleased with Whiteley’s short story collection. She manages more often than not to hit that sweet spot between horror, fantasy and science fiction, keeping the genre trappings mostly elusive and symbolic, and concentrating on the psychology of the characters instead. Her stories are delightfully creepy and unusual, and while not every story in this collection worked for me, there are some gems that will stay with me for a long time.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. My thanks.

3.5 stars - These stories are so interesting and imaginative! I liked that several were allegorical, but didn’t hit me over the head with the message. The writing was very immersive and fun.
Thank you to NetGalley and Titan Books for providing me access to this eARC for my honest opinion!

Good stuff. A very nice set of stories that are unique and well executed. I like short stories and this is a solid collection. Recommended.

Thanks very much for the free review copy!!

From the Neck Up and Other Stories

[Blurb goes here]

As far as anthologies go, this is a good one. The author leaves each of the stories with a sort of moral, a hidden message. If you're an horror fan, this anthology is a must.

Thank you for the free copy!

Award-winning author Aliya Whiteley is certainly no stranger to horror. Her latest collection of short fiction, From the Neck Up, is another foray into this familiar land that marries horror with the uncanny. Sixteen wonderful tales comprise this collection, with something for every reader.

Many of these sixteen short stories follow themes that may be familiar for many of Whiteley’s fans. The horror found in Whiteley’s tales is a slow, creeping thing. Common themes that run through these stories are the horrors of the everyday. Very normal, mundane settings grow increasingly uncanny, odd, or strange in wonderful ways that can’t always been foretold, even by seasoned readers.

Body horror is played with in very interesting ways here. This isn’t the sort of horror that it may first sound like, either. Rarely does Whiteley venture into the territory of the bloody and gruesome. No, this is something slower, something gets under your skin and lingers. However, it is also something that is oddly comforting in many ways. That may sound strange to some, but what is horror if not searching for answers to our own fears and anxieties, no matter how outlandish or unreal a fashion they may be presented?

Age and the human body play major parts in many of the tales within From the Neck Up. Many of the main characters in these stories are much older than typical main characters, dealing with issues that, one day, we all shall face. Relationships, especially long-lasting, well-established relationships are also explored.

Short stories included vary greatly in length. A few of the shorter tales could stand to be just a few pages longer, which would allow for a more thorough exploration of the themes presented. However, there’s a certain chill that comes with such short vignettes. Having the window onto someone’s life snapped shut without, say, knowing that everything will work out okay for them is a certain horror in and of itself.

Fans of Whiteley and readers looking for horror of a slower, creeping nature will find a lot to love in his collection, which is perfect for the coming fall season.

For me the delight of the short story is how very quickly the reader can be sent on a journey very different to what the first page suggests. Aliya Whiteley I’ve long been a fan of for providing tales that are memorable and unique and in From the Neck Up we have a collection of their short stories and one novella length tale that provide plenty of surprises and insights on humanity to ponder. Whiteley can create tales of beauty that should be treated with suspicion, joy and grief that made this a rather delicious reading experience.

Among the stories I enjoyed were

Brushwork - an old woman in a greenhouse is painting pollen onto planets. This unusual image starts the longest tale in the story that explores a near future earth where environmental collapse has made the U.K. a frozen tundra but some corporations still have area from grow food. Our narrator is prickly and the delight of this tale as she sees an attempted revolution by those who live outside is both the character study of someone who really just wants to keep their head down and the life they may be keeping their thoughts away from. Filled with snapshots to explain why she acts in this way made this a fascinating read and really will suck you into the collection from the off.

Many Eyed Monsters - a woman coughs up a fatty living ball of tissue with very very human eyes. And then another and then another. Sounds like a horror story but this story examines growing old, relationships and embracing change despite some body horror. Pretty unique , beautiful and it will stick in your mind long afterwards

Three Love Letters From An Unrepeatable Garden - a Gardner writes to his beloved from a garden he will never return from. Beautiful flowers, a boxer and pressing crowds make this tale feel slightly unnerving as we see the change in our narrator. Objects can make people a lot more obsessive than you’d think.

Loves of the Long Dead - this tale keeps taking amazing rights turns from An isn’t Egyptian Murders to the Mariana Trench and the present day. Unnerving and an absolutely terrifying final paragraph. I will let you discover why alone…

From Glass - a dark family secret, art, love and a tale that is both disturbing and heartwarming. One of my favourites in the collection

Compel - an alien invasion tale with a difference. You can’t mention the aliens. A cranky elderly man diarises the tale but there is a sting in the tale exploring our own society and our lack of holding power to account. A sobering thoughtful tale.

Blessings Erupt - a far future tale of a world destroyed and in recovery. Our narrator though has reason to hate this new shiny world they see exploitation and pain. A newly healing world contested with body horror makes this an eerie readThis tale covers environmental collapse, sacrifice and I can’t still work out on whose side I stood.

From the Neck Up - a woman whose life has imploded reads a news story about a veteran beheaded by a crashing helicopter and then she finds the head in her bed…alive. This is brilliant story despite the gruesome situation because it’s about growth and learning to adapt. Mysteriously heartwarming.

The Tears of a Building Surveyor, And Other Stories - my absolute favourite tale thanks to a very skilled use of character voice. An elderly woman recounts her life but warning contains Clowns, spies and nuns and a lot of truth and untruths. A collection of tall stories are used to cover a tale of love, grief and most of all loving your life. Absolutely beautiful to read

This is a wonderful collection and there is even more to discover. Thank such story takes you in for a surprise as if you can see a figure coming to your front doors and you’ve no idea if you’re going to be delighted or scared when you open it. Whiteley is one of speculative fiction’s best writers and this is a very rewarding read. Strongly recommended

Bluntly, I don't know anyone working in speculative fiction today who consistently writes such disturbingly weird shit. But not like in a gratuitous way. Aliya Whiteley doesn't want to shock you, necessarily, but she is unafraid to plumb into the deeper, uglier parts of the human psyche to examine the monstrous and strange, to ponder how humanity might react to the far futures that seem like science fiction now but might very well turn out to be reality, if humanity keeps on going in the direction we're headed.

This volume of 16 stories written between 2014 and 2020 covers a wide range of Ms Whiteley's interests, tho tend to circle back round to a world ravaged and, perhaps, recovering from a disaster all too often of humanity's own making. Other strongly recurring themes are the complexity of two people's interpersonal relationship, often via marriage or parenthood, and the convergence of minds. Fans of her terrific <a href="https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/03/19/skyward-inn-by-aliya-whiteley/">Skyward Inn</a> will find exquisite variations on the main themes of that novella reflected in the stories here.

But this isn't just a book for fans such as myself, tho it's definitely a book that will bring her more admirers! I enjoyed these stories so much that I'm actually hard pressed to pick a favorite! So many of these stories land so well that it's hard to rate any of them better or worse than their fellows in this overall extremely strong, consistently entertaining collection. If I had to choose, I'd say that the opening novelette, Brushwork, stood out in large part because it gave Ms Whiteley more room to explore the macro of the world she'd created and the micro of the protagonist's feelings, especially towards Lucas. The bit where she admires the subtlety of his brushwork was like a shot through the heart for me.

Granted, there were moments where I felt less hit in the feels than missed by a reference flying far overhead. I didn't really understand the identity of the aliens in Compel, for example, which is pretty hilarious given my often grumpy insistence that words have meanings and people should say what they mean. I also felt that the title story was carrying a possibly British subtext that I just wasn't seeing somehow.

Otherwise, each story was filled to the brim with relatable, often subtle reactions in the face of huge and often creepy twists, with surprising acts of selfishness and generosity peppering the narratives. And that's the greatest strength of Ms Whiteley's collected body of work, her on-going depiction of the human determination to strive for better even in the face of the odds, no matter how trivial or seemingly insurmountable, no matter our weaknesses or flaws. She gives equal weight to courage and fatigue and love and restlessness, acknowledging that these are all valid human emotions for people to feel, whether faced with the mundane or the extraordinary.

Ms Whiteley might not yet be a household name amongst lovers of literature now, but she certainly should be, with stories that just keep getting better and stronger with the years. This is a book for anyone with any interest in modern speculative fiction, with its blend of science fiction and fantasy and horror, written by a master of the genre.

From The Neck Up by Aliya Whiteley was published September 14 2021 by Titan Books and is available from all good booksellers, including <a href="https://bookshop.org/a/15382/9781789094756">Bookshop!</a>

Holy horror!! This collection of dark short stories is something worth remembering. I think my favorite of the short stories had the focus of eco dystopian. The stories are each their own separate entity but didn't come together to form a single cohesive unit connecting them. There are a bunch of content warnings so definitely check into those. As with any collection of short stories, there will be something for everyone and there may be some that don't mesh. From the neck up is perfect for the autumn/spooky season!

Aliya Whiteley has been on my radar for quite some time. Between The Beauty and The Loosening Skin, I have heard a slew of wonderful things all pointing towards the notion that her work is weird AF. Does it take more than that to intrigue me? No, it does not.

Thank you to @titanbooks for an advanced digital copy for review. I don't typically gravitate towards short story collections. However, I've been wanting to mix things up with my reading habits and I'm really glad that I did. Whiteley has been promoted to an auto-buy author for me and all it took was sixteen short stories.

From the Neck Up is an interesting blend of science fiction and speculative horror with plenty of lines to read in-between for the reader. I was surprised to discover that almost all of the stories worked for me. Collections can go either way and that's never a bad thing. Only a few left me feeling more confused than not, and even after a re-read, I still couldn't grasp what was going on. Several stories left me wanting more, not due to lack of closure, but because I was truly invested in the small and brief world that was created.

It's incredibly hard to pick favorites, as there truly were only a few stories that I didn't care for. I won't post a synopsis about any of them because I feel like it's better to go in blind. Also, I don't think I could properly summarize Whiteley's ability to create unique and vivid worlds in such a short amount of words. If you've been on the fence about her work, this collection is perfect for getting your toes wet. It certainly worked for me. I highly recommend this book if you're a fan of: surrealism, dystopian settings, and science fiction with a dash of the bizarre.

I got my first taste of the weirdness that is Aliya Whiteley when I read Skyward Inn, and I fell in love with her storytelling then.

Her latest short story collection, From the Neck Up and Other Stories, doesn’t disappoint in the weird department either. This collection is a trip into the uncanny and the bizarre through speculative fiction. The stories range from anything from a talking severed head to a city that continuously grows—all of them filled with an underlying strangeness that is utterly captivating.

However, my personal favorites are as follows:

“Many-Eyed Monsters.” An oddball dark comedy about a woman who keeps coughing up little many-eyed creatures and she must wrestle with her growing attachment to them.

“Into Glass.” An introspective story about a woman who has inherited a strange ability from her family. She secretly removes pieces of her husband in order to turn them into glass sculptures at night. However, she begins to questions the effects this might have on him.

“Star in the Spire.” An unnerving and Lovecraftian tale about a girl plagued by memories and dreams who visits an old village filled with scarecrows only to uncover a startling truth.

All in all, Whiteley’s wild imagination and her ability to craft vivid, surreal imagery never ceases to amaze me, and I cannot recommend this collection enough for lovers of the fantastical and the bizarre.

From the Neck Up collects 16 of Whiteley's stories, originally published between 2014 and 2020. The longest ("Brushwork") is an 80 page near-novella, most though are shorter, between 10 and 20 pages. The themes are riotously diverse, but often concern - or are set among - environmental and societal collapse which has taken place and whose consequences are being explored. In many cases we're located in an - literal or emotional - which has escaped the worst consequences of the catastrophe. I was reminded at times of Joan Aiken's short stories in that, but also in the skilful juxtaposition of the weird and the normal. One can't, I think, fully appreciate the weird if it's presented in isolation, we need it to be interweaved with everyday life.

That's certainly true of the first story, "Brushwork", where we meet elderly Mel (many of the stories features older characters) who's working on a farm, tending melons in a greenhouse. Only gradually does Whiteley reveal the complexities of the setup; the catastrophe that leads Mel and her colleagues to be near prisoners, her background and the wrenching choice she was forced to make as things got worse - and the extent to which she has, since then, been sheltered (though it might not seem like it) from the harsh world outside. But she won't be able to escape reality forever.

In "Many-Eyed Monsters" the narrator is living an ordinary life until she begins to worry about something truly strange in - or from - her body. Initially trying to hide the problem, she's forced to accept that she is creating - or becoming - something new. Moving from unease and the desire to suppress what is happening, she finds a sense of acceptance and solidarity. This story catches well, I think, the drive to try and contain the strange.

"Three Love Letters from an Unrepeatable Garden" describes not only an "unrepeatable" garden - one that can't be duplicated or, once lost, restored; its creator is lost - but seemingly one of those precious islands of beauty and normality (well, for certain values of "normal") left in a hostile world. That's why it needs protecting and nurturing. But if it's doomed anyway, might it not be justified to just, well, enjoy it before the end? Posing questions about the fragility of beauty and our duty to protect it, this one left me thinking hard.

Corwick, in "Corwick Grows", is one of those elusive islands amidst a wider world, albeit an elusive, always teasingly distant one that the narrator has hunted for can't find until one day when they stumble into a remote farmhouse. Nothing will ever be the same again for them, or for Corwick - a place that seems to thrive on the imagination of its residents. Combining a calm acceptance of what is happening with a somewhat body-horror aesthetic, "Corwick Grows" suggests that some, at least, of those elusive places may be better left unfound.

"Loves of the Long Dead" takes an imaginative journey from Ancient Egypt to the abyss of the ocean to a modern research lab. When a spirit from the past seeks revenge, she becomes frustrated that time hasn't stood still and that the villain whom she hates no longer exists to suffer. Perhaps a substitute can be found...

In "Reflection, Refraction, Dispersion" the optical terms hint at some sort of phenomenon - the Effect - that is ill understood, indeed, whose nature and effects are argued and disagreed over but which seem to be dire - cancer? Suicide? It is something to which Eliza, the narrator, was subject but about which she seems ambivalent. She does, though, want to understand and perhaps even re-experience it which leads her on a strange quest.

"Farleyton" is another of those islands of wholeness and order amidst a chaotic and sickening world. Many wish to travel there, lured by the stories of its wonders. Told in the voices of various groups - the enclaves guards, a travel agent facilitating migrants, workers seeking good jobs in the place, a girl en route to it - we see jarring and contrasting pictures, hinting that perhaps Farleyton is a different place to each, that perhaps it may not be able to be the same Heaven on Earth for all, that it may have limits, small print and endings. Trying to assemble a picture from the pieces given here is frustrating, concerning, suggesting truths that Whiteley avoids spelling out directly. One of my favourites in this volume.

"Into Glass" is a deeply weird story which opens with the unnamed narrator about to cut her sleeping lover with a scalpel. Only a small cut, the tiniest nick, blood from which she hopes will reveal something wonderful. It is an act that to her is deeply ominous - not just an assault, a violation of consent but a recapitulation of a dark history involving her parents and grandparent. But at the same it's a family inheritance, a gift. What to do? And what will happen? The story ponders on the value of love - is it finite, can it be bled away? - as well as secrets. An achingly beautiful and sad story.

"Compel" posits an alien a invasion, swift and sudden and complete, but not the normal death-ray wielding tripods, rather a glitch, an anomaly in time and space that leaves most humans literally speechless and lost. In face of this, Whiteley's narrator feels some duty to resist, but can only record, losing coherence and the ability to tell of what's happening even as they start to grasp more fully the causes of the catastrophe.

"Chantress" is a fun story revolving around three women, the Chantress of the title, the Enchantress and the Disenchantress. Somehow unmoored from modern society - the Chantress has a mobile phone but signal is poor on the mountain - they seem to be acting out roles in a near fairy-story for the villagers, but why, and where will it lead? Again, the mundane, human and normal are seen alongside the frankly weird.

"Blessings Erupt" is about Hope, a woman who has some kind of healing gift against the contamination caused in the near future by plastics and toxins. But it's a gift that takes its toll. Hope has the gratitude of so may whom she has saved, but she has become cynical about the whole process; are we to believe that she's now seeing through things to the truth, or has herself become corrupted? In this story about a life drawing to its close we are also shown Hope's beginnings and left to wonder what version of the future is the truth. A moving and powerful story about community and responsibility.

"Star in the Spire" sees Sammie, travelling alone in the blighted waste of the future, find an oasis, a little patch of life and growth. But it also seems to contain death - there are some gruesome sights described. Whether, though, they represent a catastrophe, or a transformation, is very ambiguous.

In the titular story, "From the Neck Up", Megan is obsessed with decapitation and reality seems to meet her interest, offering a head if not on a platter, then on a bed. But despite being severed it seems to be a head with business of its own and not to be finished, not at all, with life. Veering from comedy as Megan tries to control the situation to a strangely moving depiction of the head's ongoing life, "From the Neck Up" was another of my favourites here, whether it's to be taken literally or as expressing something of Megan's (rather desperate) life and the changes she needs to make in it.

"The Tears of a Building Surveyor, and Other Stories" could be seen as the Walter Mitty-like fantasies of aging Vioilet - in a chaotic narrative of running away with a "chaperone", joining a nunnery, escaping a massacre and then becoming a clown - if it was so touchingly and tenderly wrapped around glimpses of Violet's reality, of her life with Tom. The two ways of describing Violet's world are so different, yet so closely linked, that the reader needs, I think, to see them both as true to to unpick what each needs for the other. A beautiful, sad, and funny story.

"To the Farm" explores the potential darker consequences of artificial intelligence and both the limits, and unexpected graces, more love. Another very sad story (or it could be) leading up (as did "Brushwork") to a moment of letting go, of allowing for growth and change.

In the final story, "The Spoils" we return to a community living after some apocalypse (never made clear). They're an underground people, with a ritualised way of dealing with their world illustrated when a great beast - an Olme - is killed and divided between the community. Like a baffled Victorian explorer describing the customs of an unknown people, a lot doesn't make sense, even as it does. Again the story dwells on the different roles and lives of those who receive the body parts of the unfortunate Olme, and we might wonder why there is such a complicated routine here as there is no suggestion for example that they will all eat it. Some exploration is given when a daring member of the group decides to take her share to the surface, but story - both obscure and slightly menacing - leaves a great deal to the reader. A haunting story.

Altogether, there is a lot to think about bin these excellent stories. If you have read her Skein Island or Skyward Inn, you're recognise some of the atmosphere, and themes, but the exploration of them across different fragments of story adds new depth (and enjoyment).

I adore Aliya Whiteley's writing. I have loved her novellas and novels so far, so when I saw the chance to read more of her short fiction I, naturally, jumped at it. From the Neck Up collects previously published stories into a single volume for the first time and I loved seeing how strongly the themes of her writing come through in each of them. Thanks to Titan Books and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

In From the Neck Up Aliya Whiteley gently but precisely analyzes and dissects some of our own worst fears. While I would describe these stories as purely Horror, there is a definitely unease and 'shiver down the spine'-feeling to each of them. After From the Neck Up your skin will itch, you'll look over your shoulder, you'll stumble over your words, you'll double check yourself for scars. Looming large in each story is nature, the way it is suffering, the way it is in decline, the way it reconquers, the way it thrives even on ruins and bones. In each of these stories you can recognize yourself and your own world, and yet there is a distance, a difference that makes certain ideas and thoughts stand out more sharply. But there are phrases in these stories, moments, that have utterly stuck with me. They defined a feeling I have, or a realization that came to me, in a way no other author has been able to. Below are two of my favourites:
'Why should I be falling apart, a little more every day, at the age of twenty-seven?' - 'Reflection, Refraction, Dispersion'
or
'But did she really want to be marked in such a way? Impregnated, forever, by this one event?' - 'The Spoils'

What I found really fascinating was that many of From the Neck Up's stories feature old, female protagonists. Thankfully these days we have many novels in many genres which feature female main characters. But we're still largely focusing on teenage/new adult protagonists. In From the Neck Up we get to encounter characters who have lived a full life, have loved and lost, have regained and lost again. This works brilliantly with the speculative nature of the stories and I also just found it a pleasure to read from a new perspective. A great example of this is the first story 'Brushwork', which is the longest and split into chapters. It tells the story of an old woman who works on a farm in a new Ice Age, looking after water melons. Through her eyes we don't just see what the world has become, but also how it got there. Another favourite was 'Into Glass', in which love creates art. It was a stunning take on our need to see we're loved, to quantify the love people have for us, but also the sacrifices we're willing to make. 'Chantress' is a fascinating tale that plays with fairy tale themes, our desire for messages and advice, and our need for a destiny. 'Three Love Letters from an Unrepeatable Garden' is, as the title implies, told through three letters which spin a fascinating tale of love, desire, and knowing oneself. 'Corwick Grows' was a riot of body horror and it was beautiful. 'The Spoils', a strong contender for my absolute favourite', can hardly be described without spoiling it but features subterranean communities and having to be careful what you wish for.

The difficult thing with collections is that not every story hits the spot equally at once. There were some stories in From the Neck Up which really gripped me straightaway, while others were good but not for me right now. The upside to this is that I know that when I reread From the Neck Up I will gain new insights from it each time. What I can say is that Aliya Whiteley knows how to write a great story, to create a scene that grabs you by the throat, to find the humanity in meta-discussions of climate change. All of the stories are connected by her interest in humanity and nature, the push and pull between the two, the way the former denies the latter only to fall victim to it regardless. What From the Neck Up also shows is the sheer variety of modes in which Whiteley can write.


Aliya Whiteley crafts beautiful and detailed stories, stories that will stay with you for a long time. While not every story in From the Neck Up may connect with all readers equally, some will hit their mark and change you.

The review will go live on publication day.

Summary: From the Neck Up by Aliya Whiteley is a wild and wonderfully weird short story collection. Over sixteen stories it takes us into worlds not unlike our own, but with sometimes shocking differences

Recommended for fans of weird short stories
Not recommended if you like settings with overt magical abilities
Recommended if you enjoy stories that explore earth in a future that sees human life transformed
Not recommended if you like all ideas to be explored in depth
As always, reviewing a short story collection can feel like a lesson in madness. But Whiteley has made it easier on me by providing common threads and themes I can discuss, as well as an astonishingly good opening novella.

We’ll start at the beginning, with Brushwork. Brushwork is set in an approximate future, where Britain is in an ice age, and the elderly are given jobs growing fruit and vegetables for the wealthy in special facilities. Mel is one such worker, and she paints her memories using the same brushes that she uses to pollinate the melons she looks after. A group of ‘agro-terrorists’ takes over the facility, and Mel strikes up a singular friendship with a young man in that group. The whole story is exquisitely crafted, both heartbreaking and heartwarming, and is the only story in the collection that I will outright state my rating for. It got a rare 10/10 for me.

So now, moving onto more overall themes, the future and our relationship with nature after we ruin the planet seems to be one that crops up a lot, whether it is the strange adaptations that occur when children ended up living on plastic islands in the sea, or plants trying to form a symbiosis of sorts with humans.

Other themes explored more than once are: dissatisfaction with the life you’ve found yourself living; revelations as to core meanings in your life; things imposing on human bodies; memories; rituals.

Whiteley manages to always write with a subtle beauty, which kept me going for stories that didn’t quite work for me as well as the others. Her worlds are rich with half glimpsed details, but often ideas come so fast that there is so little time to mull on them before the story is over. Out of all of the stories there was only one that I didn’t end up finishing.

Highlights (other than Brushwork) include Three Love Letters From an Unrepeatable Garden – a perfectly plotted epistolary story about a flower with a transcendental aroma; Into Glass – a dark introspective story about turning love into beautiful sculptures; Blessings Erupt – a sci-fi tale about a now bitter woman who can take away a disease of others, but to the detriment of herself; and The Spoils – which follows the ritual butchering of a strange underground creature, and the effect it has on the people chosen to receive its parts.

The construction of this collection may have made a mistake by putting the very best story at the start, and following it up with two other of the stronger stories – I couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed when the quality of the stories dropped for several in a row, and then became more varied after that. That said, the overall quality balances out to the point where I would heartily recommend From the Neck Up to anyone looking for short stories that surprise, haunt and touch your heart.

Rating: 8.5/10

An excellent collection from one of the most exciting writers of weird fiction. Whiteley blends elements of science fiction and horror to offer something fresh and surprising. The stories contained in this collection cover a variety of themes (environmental apocalypse, body-horror, etc.). All are unnerving and trippy but the author's prose makes them a pleasure to read.

What an absolutely wonderful selection of tales is to be found in "From the Neck Up and Other Stories". I loved each and every story (but I do have my favourite - and I'm not telling!). Spread throughout this collection is a delightful array of characters, eye-widening plots, superb settings, and it's all carried by beautiful writing. I'm definitely a fan!

My thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley. This review was written voluntarily and is entirely my own, unbiased, opinion.

I've read two Aliyah Whiteley books before From The Neck Up, and have found that her writing is a very unique, almost lyrical style, one that lends itself well to her unusual way of writing. This new book presents readers with a collection of sixteen short stories that I think give a good taste of what Aliya's writing is like, and shows how even when trying out different genres and themes there's something to her work that's so distinctly, and uniquely, hers.

The best way to describe this book is speculative. I know that's a term that is often used in conjunction with other genres, but Whiteley manages to write across so many different genres and themes in this book that this is really the best way to describe it as a whole. Whether it's a story that's leaning more towards horror, or is more obviously sci-fi, or one that seems to be only a few steps removed from our current world, the one thing that unites all of these stories is speculation.

Everything in this book is asking a question, whether that's wanting us to look at how we treat our planet, how we think of human lives, how we view love, sacrifice, or even mental illness. Whiteley seems to like challenging her readers, but in ways that don't feel confrontational, or like she's tying to make a point or teach a less. Instead, she simply presents her stories and her characters, and allows those events to lead the reader to a certain point, without them necessarily realising they've been made to thin about a difficult subject.

One of the downsides of a collection like this, however, is that not all of the stories feel as strong as the others. I'm not saying any of them are bad, as they're certainly no bad ones in this collection, but I've found that when work is being selected from the body of a single author there are sometimes examples that are so much stronger than the others it can lead to some of the stories feeling less effective.

Some of the stories in this collection that I feel are so good that they kind of overshadow some of the others include 'Into Glass', a strangely beautiful body horror story that touches on love, abuse, and sacrifice; 'Blessings Errupt', a eco-dystopia story that speculates on a possible future where we've begun to live with nature, but the sacrifices some people are having to make to keep that society going and the pain it causes them; 'From The Neck Up', an odd ghost like story featuring a severed head and a young woman learning to pursue her passions and the things in life that bring her joy; and 'Brushwork', which imagines a future where the elderly are employed in special farm domes to grow produce whilst the world experiences a second ice age outside.

'Brushwork' in particular stuck out to me as better than most of the other stories in the book due in part to it being the longest story in the book. It was more of a novella than a short story, and was longer than several of the others combined. It gave readers the chance to really get to know the characters, and spend time in that world. However, because it was the first story too it really felt out of place. I ended up expecting all of the stories in the book to be longer in length than they actually were because of the way the book began, and I was somewhat disappointing that they weren't all given the attention 'Brushwork' was.

I think that's perhaps my biggest criticism with the book, that I felt that I wanted more from the vast majority of these stories. I wanted to spend more time learning about these strange worlds what Whiteley had created, to see how these characters evolved and grew, and to have more of my questions answered. There are many stories here that felt like they could have gone on to become their own novel length fictions, and I'm a little sad they didn't.

Overall, there's a ton of stuff in this book to like. There are so many stories on offer here, of various different genres and themes that I think you'd be hard pressed to come away without liking at least one; or more realistically several. It's amazing to see how this author is able to turn their hand to so many different types of stories and make them all feel engaging and strange in some way, that they all end up drawing you in an wanting more.

If you're a long time fan of Aliya Whiteley you're going to love this book, and if you've never read any of her work before this book is definitely going to end with you wanting to read more of her work.

It's too often the case that a collection of short stories can feel off; as if there is one solid story, followed by a weak, etc. This is most definitely not the case with Aliya Whiteley's collection From The Neck Up.  This collection is phenomenal from beginning to end. Whether it is the horrifying idea of a world where the elderly work in farming biodomes and are buried beneath the soil as they pass, or creatures that pop off the body before globbing back on and forming dark hair patches, Whiteley's work will always leave you with something to think (and worry) about. Whiteley is no stranger to works about body horror, and she continues to thrive with that style. Her writing is thoughtful, smart, and paced perfectly. I found myself reading long into the night, flipping through pages and falling more in love with her stories with each new horrifying situation.

From the Neck Up is available from Titan Books September 14th.

3.5 stars! (coming out Sept 14!!!)

**Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.**
#FromtheNeckUp #NetGalley

Pros
+ dark short stories from the same author who wrote Skyward Inn
+ English author
+ The stories I loved the most were all eco-dystopian body horrors (no one is shocked)
+ common themes: eco-dystopian setting, body horror & physical mutations, dead heads, plants/nature, older person POVs, slow deaths
+ 4-stars (6 stories): Brushwork (eco-dystopian, fruit/veg biodomes, elderly workers, eco-terrorists), Many Eyed Monsters (flesh balls with many eyes, body horror), Corwick Grows (literal city growth, body horror), Into Glass (glass animal art, toxic love), Blessings Erupt (eco-dystopian, mutations, tumor-eating), Star in the Spire (eco-dystopian, body horror, scarecrows)
+ 3.5-stars (2 stories): Three Love Letters from an Unrepeatable Garden (love letters, gardener of a magic bloom), To the Farm (chauffeur, synthetic child)

Neutral
/ I didn't really feel like the stories were a family. Some were very short and some were much longer. Some were fantastical and others were very realistic. I wish there had been some curating to provide a more cohesive collection.
/ 3-stars (4 stories): Loves of the Long Dead (vengeful murdered Egyptian princess spirit, modern scientist), Reflection, Refraction, Dispersion (rainbows, dead heads), From the Neck Up (severed head, flower nursery), The Spoils (butchering, subterranean beast corpse)

Cons
- The stories which I didn't really like involve secondhand narrative styles (someone telling a story to someone else, diary entries, or memoir chapters). However, if you DO like those styles, then these stories may work better for you.
- 2.5-stars (1 story): Chantress (singer of useless songs)
- 2-stars (3 stories): Farleyton (utopian city), Compell (old man writing a diary, aliens), The Tears of the Building Surveyor, and Other Stories (old woman writing fantastical memoir)

TW: murder, dementia, death, frostbite, body horror, vomiting, tube insertion, spirits, cutting, partner/child abuse, scars, tumors, decapitation, cancer, pedophilia (off-page), butchering an animal corpse