The thing I love most about anthologies is that they showcase a range of voices, providing different entry points for readers so that each person that comes into it can find a story that speaks to them. Beyond the Bounds of Infinity accomplishes this beautifully, delivering on the subtitle “An Anthology of Diverse Cosmic Horror” both within the authors identities and the scope of the subgenre it covers. There is a good mix of expansions to classic Lovecraftian mythos and new concepts introduced by the authors that personalizes the cosmic horrors to modern fears. Along with solid entries from well-established authors in the horror genre like S.A. Cosby and Mary SanGiovanni, this anthology provides impressive selections from the open submission contributors that give readers a great table of contents of names to watch out for.

Standouts for me included: Cracks by Mary SanGiovani - a stressed out teacher tries to make sense of horrific events that begin occurring after her students develop a strange obsession with a glowing rock; A Dampened Embrace by Christopher Hann – after the death and subsequent grave robbery of a man’s shaman mother, he visits his aged father to discover what his cryptic call about coming “into possession of a mermaid” could possible mean; 24 Points by S.A. Cosby – a family hunting trip goes wrong after an unbelievable creature is shot; On the Shores of Midnight by Marnie Desdemona – a woman attempting to reach a mysterious Church that appears when the sea recedes each night meets a stranger who might have the answers she seeks; Gyges by Vaughn A. Jackson – two exorcists struggle against an eldritch being that proves more difficult to exorcise than the demons they are used to. While these stories stuck with me the most, there are several other great entries that explore the depths of cosmic horror in exciting ways making this anthology well worth the read.

Thank you RDS Publishing (Raw Dog Screaming Press) for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

This is a cosmic horror collection that consists of 20 stories (even though Foreword says 19 for some reason).

Unfortunately, I didn't like this collection at all. Most of the stories were 2 stars, that's why my overall rating is also 2 stars. The stories were so boring and, honestly, very forgettable. Most of them are actually already slipping from my mind, even though I've read them in the last couple of days. The only one that I really liked was Cracks by Mary SanGiovanni but even this one was just 4 stars. There were also some that I gave around 3 stars to:
- The Silent Letter by Chris Nelson
- In The House, There Were Teeth and There Were Eyes by Ichabod Cassius Kilroy
- Fractures of Her Reflection by Amanda Headlee
The rest was just meh.

Theses stories were just not my style, I did enjoy a few out the collection but overall wasn’t impressed

Let me tell you how much I loved this. I'm an old school lover of short stories and I also love horror and this was so much fun -- such a variety of stories, everything from virgin sacrifice to hunting. My favorite story here was the S.A. Cosby, but that's not surprising because Cosby is one of my new favorite writers. Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read this

I really enjoyed this book! I thought it was amazing that they published so many authors of marginalized groups as well as their guest authors. I saw at the end that this was kickstarter backed (I feel like I missed out). The story that stood out to me the most (there were so many amazing ones) was “Effigies of Monstrous Things” by Pedro Iniguez. I keep thinking about that one in my head. It really got me. I’ve been telling everyone to keep an eye out for this anthology, it deserves all the recognition!

I’m pretty open about my struggle with the short story. I want to read more anthologies and collections, but tend to do better with those door stopper books I can fully immerse myself into for days. I love flowing prose and extensive world and character building, and obviously there’s less of that within shorter stories. It’s also no secret, though, that I Stan hard for S.A. Cosby. I tend to fall in the “everyone likes different things” train of thought, but find myself almost offended when someone doesn’t think Cosby’s work is amazing. So between his inclusion and the fact that this is cosmic horror, I went for it.

The first half had some good ones, but I really found myself into it by the second half. These are SHORT stories, but a few of them really packed a punch.

My favorites included:

Effigies of Monstrous Things by Pedro Iniguez
The Things We Did in the Dark by Julia Darcey
24 Points by S.A. Cosby (obvs!)
On the Shores of Midnight by Marnie Desdemona
Like Ants We March by Jorja Osha
Gyges by Vaughn A. Jackson
Beggars Can’t be Choosers by L. Marie Wood

There were a couple stories I struggled to understand and vibe with, but I’d absolutely pick up a book from any of these authors in the future. All of them had some unique imagery and fantastic writing.

Highly recommend this to cosmic horror lovers looking to mix up the genre a bit.

cosmic horror leans heavily into the bizarre and that was definitely the case with this anthology. i always find it hard to rate short stories since there’s always some i’ll love more than others. unfortunately there were more stories that i didn’t care for than ones i actually liked.. so it ended up being more of a miss for me overall.

favorite short stories in the collection:

• You Have Joined the Livestream by Jessica McHugh
• Cracks by Mari SanGiovanni
• 24 points by S.A. Cosby
• On the Shores of Midnight by Marnie Desdemona

Beyond the Bounds of Infinity is a diverse anthology of cosmic horror with a wide variety of stories written by POC and queer authors. Like every anthology, it has some stories that stood out and some that were just okay. All in all, I'm glad I managed to finish it as unfortunately, it's not always the case with anthologies. My favorite stories were:

Cracks by Mary Sangiovanni
Gyges by Vaughan Jackson
Fractures of Her Reflection by Amanda Headlee
Effigies of Monstrous Things by Pedro Iniguez
The Things We Did in the Dark by Julia Darcey

I'd absolutely recommend this to people who are looking for more diverse cosmic horror and people who like the genre in general.

I really liked this collection of cosmic horror stories. A diverse TOC and creepy, strange stories! Each one was very different and unique and had a fun twist on the Lovecraftian theme.

I love seeing what people do with creature tales and this doesn’t disappoint. You never know who or what the monster is going to be…

Sometimes it feels like cosmic horror is overdone but this was such a refreshing read for me.

This collection was full of new voices for me and I’m so happy to have been introduced to a bunch of new authors.

Like many horror anthologies there are really good stories and some stories that just don’t make the grade. If you like your stories on the cosmic horror tip this might be for you.

There was a lot of creativity and imagination, however, none of the stories dragged me in. Horror is hard to pin down, everyone's definition of horror is different. One thing can scare someone, the same thing can make somebody laugh. Stories that stick in your head and crawl through your mind are often hard to do. The images are hard to make, capture and put into words. Here I had none of that, nothing stayed in my mind and the images did not creep into my thoughts. I applaud the writers and publishers for their work, it's a hard industry and we need more publishers and writers like this so they can develop their talents. I have no doubt that these writers will improve and in the future I am sure their stories and anthologies such as these will stick in my mind.

Beyond the Bounds of Infinity is a short-story anthology about mostly cosmic horror and things beyond what you can imagine.
As with many collection this was very hit or miss for me, even though none of them were outright bad, I just found myself being unmoved by a lot of them.

I think that choosing The Birth of Sound to open up the collection was a smart choice because it was definitely the wildest story in my opinion. It is really hard to grasp what is happening but it gets you in the mood.

Fractures of Her Reflection was excellent in my opinion as it blurs the lines between what could be real and what truly is. It is a story about a woman with OCD who is convinced that if she does not tap her bedroom door every morning it will cause the end of the world.

I also enjoyed :
- Effigies of Monstruous Things : a single father of two decides to fix things in his building but finds something he shouldn't have.
- Cracks : A group of young children find a pretty glowing rock and bad things start to happen to the people around them.
- The Things We Do In the Dark : unwanted girl is sent down a pit to take care of a slumbering evil.
- A Dampered Embrace : the son's mother dies, her grave is robbed, and his father calls him to tell him he found a mermaid.
- 24 Points : hunting trip gone wrong.
- Passage : expedition stuck in the ice and blood sacrifices
- Gyges : a surprisingly fun exorcism

I would like to mention that some short stories such as The Silent Letter or Burning Slumber had very interesting premises but did not work for me. But I think they still deserve to be mentionned here.

It was not the best short story collection I was given to read, I already knew many of the tropes, but I think it could be a good introduction to the genre of cosmic horror. There is body horror but truly not that much so definitely beginner friendly.

Thank you NetGalley for giving me an ARC of the book.

You can find my reviews on Goodreads and The StoryGraph

I received an arc from NetGalley. This collection of horror short stories is perfect for those who don’t need gore to be haunted and like thought provoking stories. A lot of these stories left me wanting to know what would the next scene be and had me imagining in my head how the story would continue.

I loved this anthology !
I often say that it's tricky to rate a collection of short story because we can't enjoy each one on the same level of interest.
But in this genre of horror/sci-fi everything is subjective and it's easier for the reader to interpret the story the way they imagine it.
Having this "freedom" is a thing that I really appreciate, an open ending is even exciting because the story can stay with me a little bit more.
Thank you netgalley for the copy.

A couple really hit in this one, but a few did not keep be invested.
I may not be the biggest fan of cosmic, but most were quite interesting and fun.

This is an exciting idea for a collection that spreads its tentacles out wide and encompasses a massive realm of possibilities. Unfortunately, the overall collection was a little underwhelming for me. In a collection of this size, I generally hope for a few really stand-out stories, complemented by a handful of really good stories, with the rest filled out by enjoyable but not great, and maybe a stinker or two just to keep things balanced. Well, there weren’t any stinkers. There just wasn’t too much that really excited me, instead it was a solid collection of just-so. There were some that stood out of the pack, notably the stories by Julia Darcey, Christopher Hann, S. A. Cosby, Jessica L. Sparrow, and Vaughn A. Jackson.

The collection is diverse and explores different shades of the cosmic and unthinkable. It is a solid effort, but didn’t always reach its potential, in my opinion.

(Rounded up from 2.5)

I want to thank the author, the publisher Raw Dog Screaming Press, and NetGalley, who provided a complimentary eARC for review. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I was excited to see this at first as cosmic horror is easily one of my top favorite genres, and it advertised a story by SA Cosby, who've I've enjoyed from the little I've read of her so far. I enjoyed that the collection of stories in Beyond the Bounds of Infinity were varied and diverse, and there is likely at least one story here that a reader will enjoy... but that's the rub. I think most people will walk away from this liking and/or remembering only a few of the stories in this collection, and I've been trying to think of why.

While every story is related to cosmic horror in some way, a few stretch the connection. Some are more drama than horror. Some are not horror at all (or weren't to me). Some are a bit too derivative of more famous stories Most are strange, which I appreciate. I also appreciate a bit of experimentation with medium, which is done in some of the stories, through the use of transcripts or text-speech. I know that might annoy some people but I enjoy it!

The stand-outs to me:

Live Free or Die by Danny Brzozowski - I like the mix of cosmic and folk/rural horror here

The Silent Letter by Chris Nelson - Derivative, very SCP or There Is No Antimemetic Division but I still enjoyed it. Also reminiscent of The Empty Man.

Effigies of Monstrous Things by Pedro Iniguez - reminded me of Evil Dead Rises meets The Black Phone. I liked the idea of it a lot and Iniguez is a good writer.

24 Points by SA Cosby - Another spooky nature-y story. I'm also super into nature horror, so this was tickled me. Reminiscent of Annihilation or The Fisherman.

On the Shores of Midnight by Marnie Desdemona - a spooky and unsettling story that maybe affected me more because I used to live on a foggy beach coast lol

Burning Slumber by Jessica L Sparrow - turns colonialism into cosmic horror and it works.

Passage by Cyrus Amelia Fisher - Some truly classic cosmic horror. Very much At the Mountains of Madness or The Terror. Also reminded me of the world of Dishonored lol

The Comfort of a Cold Pit by Michelle Tang - probably the story that stuck with me most, and weirdly the second story about a pit in this collection, but the better of the two. I really wanted a whole novel out of this one, it was so good.

Not a bad collection overall, but one I'd probably only recommend to those open-minded lovers of weird fiction or cosmic horror.

I love anthologies and I love diverse horror, so was really keen to give this one a read. A few of the stories were really strong. They felt polished and impactful. A few also fell a bit flat, they were a bit juvenile and I think needed a bit more editing to pack a bigger punch. Overall, I support the emerging writers involved in this project and would love to see more from them.

This was a good collection overall! I’m giving three stars because there were some stories that I loved and some that I felt very neutral toward. Still worth a read!

I rarely dip into cosmic horror as there isn’t much out there aside from your Lovecraft which I don’t go near. THIS WAS EXACTLY WHAT I NEEDED. Every single story was engaging and held you until you realised that you hadn’t let out a breath for a minute.

I loved this and it is so necessary for the genre to grow and adapt and for new voices come forward to put their stamp onto it.

Brilliant.