Calvaria Fell

by Cat Sparks, Kaaron Warren

Calvaria Fell is a stunning collaborative collection of weird tales from two acclaimed authors, Kaaron Warren and Cat Sparks. It features previously published stories from both authors, along with a new novella by Kaaron Warren and four new stories by Cat Sparks. The collection offers a glimpse into a chilling future world that is similar to our own. Readers will be drawn into experiences at once familiar and bizarre, where our choices have far-reaching consequences and the environment is a force to be reckoned with. The title of the collection tethers these stories to a shared space. The calvaria is the top part of the skull, comprising five plates that fuse together in the first few years of life. Story collections work like this; disparate parts melding together to make a robust and sturdy whole. The calvaria tree, also known as the dodo tree, adapted to being eaten by the now-extinct dodo bird; its seeds need to pass through the bird’ s digestive tract in order to germinate. In a similar way, the stories in Calvaria Fell reflect the idea of adaptation and the consequences of our actions in a changing world.

Genres: Short Stories, Horror, Science Fiction, Gothic, Anthologies, Dystopia, Dark

224 pages, Paperback

Published April 30, 2024

About the author

Cat Sparks is a multi-award-winning Australian author, editor and artist whose former employment has included: media monitor, political and archaeological photographer, graphic designer, Fiction Editor of Cosmos Magazine and Manager of Agog! Press.

A 2012 Australia Council grant sent her to Florida to participate in Margaret Atwood’s The Time Machine Doorway workshop. She’s currently finishing a PhD in sci fi and cli fi.

Her short story collection The Bride Price was published in 2013. Her debut novel, Lotus Blue, was published by Skyhorse in March 2017.

Reviews

[Austin Beeman · Rating 4 out of 5]

RATED 88% POSITIVE. STORY SCORE 3.85 OF 5

13 STORIES : 1 GREAT / 9 GOOD / 3 AVERAGE / 0 POOR / 0 DNF

Calvaria Fell is the first ARC (Advance Reader Copy) that I’ve received since beginning this blog in January of 2020. I’m glad the published - Meerkat Press - reached out, because it would not have been on my radar. The collection is pretty strong, feeling intensely focused on both its themes and mood. This is good because of how immersive the experience becomes, but can be challenging because of an emphasis on bleak, post-collapse, and dystopian worlds. The people and worlds both feel beaten down. Sometimes making it hard to tell the stories apart. If you are in the mood for it, this is a powerful artistic impact.

The authors vary a bit how they deal with the collections dark themes. FWarren's storytelling often leans towards the psychological and the hauntingly emotional, whereas Sparks’s narratives tend to be more expansive, exploring societal and environmental dynamics in speculative settings. This distinction in their narrative approach offers a diverse reading experience within the shared thematic framework.

One glaring absence from the book is the lack of an introduction. Specifically, the choice to publish these two authors together is never explained. Are they friends? Lovers? Collaborators? Did they merely share the same literary agent? While I am certain that this has been done before, I have never read collection with dual (or dueling) authors. I felt the absence of that framing. Some of what I was missing appears in the marketing copy for the book, but it should have been in the book.

There is one new entry in my All-Time Great List:

The Emporium | Kaaron Warren (2024). Children live and work in the remnants on an abandoned shopping mall. Alternating perspectives between the children and a doctor sent in to vaccinate them, more information about the outside world and the children’s families are slowly revealed. Great human characters, atmosphere, and world building mystery.

CALVARIA FELL: STORIES

13 STORIES : 1 GREAT / 9 GOOD / 3 AVERAGE / 0 POOR / 0 DNF

How do I arrive at a rating?

Witnessing | Kaaron Warren (2014)

Good. A post apocalyptic roller skating gang and a futuristic take on the surveillance state.

Some Kind of Indescribable | Cat Sparks (2024)

Good. We made the machines that are transforming the world into inhospitable coral infecting people with the immobilization of ‘plastic cancer.’ In this story a mother of an infected daughter is at the inflection point of a a desperate choice.

68 Days | Kaaron Warren (2016)

Good. A terminally ill young woman finds connection and purpose at a secret science project that is preparing humans for the challenges of living on Mars in this intense and vulgar story.

The Space Between All Possible Ways | Cat Sparks (2022)

Average. “Mad Max” inspired post apocalyptic story of special “trees” that are growing to protect and heal communities.

The Emporium | Kaaron Warren (2024)

Great. Children live and work in the remnants on an abandoned shopping mall. Alternating perspectives between the children and a doctor sent in to vaccinate them, more information about the outside world and the children’s families are slowly revealed. Great human characters, atmosphere, and world building mystery.

Mandala | Cat Sparks (2024)

Good. Vignette of a woman living in a world were “coral” growths continue to transform the world and make it inhospitable to human life.

Gardens of Earthly Delight | Cat Sparks. (2024)

Good. Young children are sold to a wealthy family and their bodies transformed to perform the fantastic. It isn’t much of a life, but it is going to get worst when one of the children can’t resist their curiosity about what is in the rest of the house.

Air, Water and the Grove | Kaaron Warren (2013)

Good. The crystal trees create new and powerful drugs. A mother tries to keep her sun from going out in a “purge like” Saturnalia and responds to his obsession with a grove of Saturn trees.

Dreams of Hercules | Cat Sparks (2021)

Average. Chaotic tale of a young boy trying to determine what do with a hostage who is claiming to be a government minister.

Everything So Slow and Quiet | Kaaron Warren (2022)

Good. Bittersweet. A woman making beach art out of the detritus of a collapsed society, discovers that there is a another artist who had been working on the same piece with her.

Doll Face | Cat Sparks. (2024)

Good. Atmospheric dystopia story of the connection between Aloha Joe and the woman he scavenges dolls for.

In the Drawback | Kaaron Warren (2005)

Average. A young man in a isolated society discovers a giant facedown in the sand.

Hacking Santorini | Cat Sparks (2020)

Good. A boatman who collects exotic postcards is hired by three brides who want to go to the actual island of Santorini, but nobody comes back from Santorini.

[Leanbh Pearson · Rating 5 out of 5]

** I received an ARC for an honest review **

This is a unique collection of dystopian tales alternating from Kaaron Warren to Cat Sparks with each holding fragments and slivers of the previous stories.

We are initiated to this dark fantasy and dystopian worlds, a futuristic ecohorror that hints at origins of the destructed worlds of the past but offers only glimpses of what might have been. The first story “The Witnessing” by Warren shares a sense of kinship with Orwell’s classic novel, 1984. This theme is followed by “68 Days” where again, Warren plays with memory, timelessness as well as a sense of forgetting humanity. The story “The Emporium” carries this theme more boldly and in a dystopian future where organisations control lives, worthiness and there is a palpable loss of memory and selfhood.

In these new savage worlds, Cat Sparks blends ecohorror and cyberpunk in her marvellous but hearterenching story “The Space Between All Possible Ways” which is continued in the speculative story “Mandalla” and “Doll Face”. Elements of dark fantasy shift throughout the ecohorror and science fiction with subgenres woven seamlessly in stories like “Gardens of Earthly Delights” by Sparks and echoed in the darker tale “Air, Water and the Grove” by Warren, before moving to the surrealist “Everything so Slow and Quiet” by Warren and to the final story“Hacking Santorini” by Sparks which offers a thoughtful reflection on environment, life, death and the nature of humanity.

Conclusion

A highly recommended collection for fans of ecohorror, climate fiction, dystopian, science-fiction, cyberpunk and dark fantasy. An exciting new dark fiction collection focused on sociopolitical issues, climate destruction, questioning humanity and the future we create now for ourselves. A beautifully written and engaging series of stories that is as quick-paced as it is a thought-provoking read. Put this on your to-read list!

** This is my personal opinion and does not reflect any judging decisions **

[Amy ☁️ (tinycl0ud) · Rating 4 out of 5]

These thirteen short stories offer snapshots of what the end of the known world might look like. Most are set in Australia, I think. It took me moment to realise that the collection was Australian because I finally noticed the colloquialisms. I initially thought it was just a stylistic choice but by the second story when there was talk of surfing and coral reefs, it clicked. Some stories were stronger and made me wish that they could be full-length novels instead, while some were too abstract in terms of their ending for me to understand what was being implied. They're largely bleak. I mean, this is postapocalyptic fiction, of course people are either suffering or dying.

Interestingly, the implied cause in most of them is the environment becoming hostile to life. The earth itself has become an unknown force. It always has been, but given the SF genre and tendency to tie everything back to the question of humanity, what surprised me was the lack of that impulse. You know that line from a poem: some say the world will end in fire / some say in ice? The characters here have no great love or hate that can help make sense of what’s happening to the very land, air, and earth around them. All they can do is try to survive.

It's possible to focus on just the ecocrit aspects but some of the stories use the extraterrestrial, some the technological, and some a semi-supernatural mix of both—it's never clear what made the world end, that's consistent throughout and I think quite realistic. We can theorise, but no one can be 100% certain why the world suddenly became unrecognisable. I mean, we've seen it happen with Covid, and even now, five years later, we're not done talking about its true origins.

Brief synopsis of each story:

1) 'Witnessing'
In a world reminiscent of Burgess' 'A Clockwork Orange,' a man in a gang gets taken in by the surveillance state to have his memories extracted for an investigation. Everyone is a potential witness and there are tangible rewards for having witnessed something important.

2) 'Some Kind of Indescribable'
A single mother of a sick child living in a post-apocalyptic (en)clave has run out of options. It is implied that the plastic cancer is correlated to the environmental degradation—floods, fires, famine, dried-out ocean, the works—but also to a great unknown "them" out there that originated from man-made machines.

3) '68 Days'
The narrator has a terminal disease that makes her look jaundiced, develop a bad rash, and be able to see the planet Mars. Destitute and with no other recourse, she signs up for the Mars Mission, where she lives in a commune with a other terminally ill (but very attractive) people. They start to merge mentally and feel like they've done this before, and there is a very good reason for it.

4) 'The Space Between All Possible Ways'
In a very high-tech future, an ex-con who has undergone "refurbishing" (voluntary amnesia in exchange for a mission) takes care of a magic metal tree that grows into a protective forest. His mission complete, he sets off to start a new life.

5) 'The Emporium'
A group of children are living inside an abandoned shopping mall. The outside is a wasteland ravaged by fire and far off there is a forest. A nurse arrives at the mall to immunise the kids. She ends up staying and falling in love with life inside with them, even though she knows that the inevitable ending will be bittersweet.

6) 'Mandala'
The universe in this story seemed to be the same one as in story no.2, which mentioned a harmful "coral." This "coral" is not actually coral. It wipes out populations and takes over landscapes in waves. There are hypotheses of it being of alien origin, of its sentience, and of its intentions. A character weaves protective amulets—mandalas—out of plastic trash. Some survivors get ready to relocate; others get left behind.

7) 'Gardens of Earthly Delight'
In a future where the sea levels have risen, a woman buys a pair of twins to be augmented with wings so they can work as faeries in an amusement park full of automatons. They try to look for their friend and in the process, they uncover just how sinister their circumstances are.

8) 'Air, Water and the Grove'
Years ago, a ship that returned from Saturn exploded and rained metal that then grew into crystal trees. The trees seemed great for the environment, but as time went by it became too late to reverse their effects. A woman struggles to keep her son by her side, but his very existence is the result of these Saturn's Trees and we all know what Saturn does to his children.

9) 'Dreams of Hercules'
A boy from the Badlands is left to hold the fort for a couple of weeks. His father has a woman locked up for ransom. The boy finds out that she is a Minister from Sydney. He helps her get to a plane wreck so that she can send a signal back to Sydney.

10) 'Everything So Slow and Quiet'
A woman is making a sculpture out of debris. The ocean spews up all kinds after an apocalyptic event that involved the earth cracking open and releasing gases. She is all alone and has no idea if anyone else is still out there. One day, she finds that someone has added to her sculpture.

11) 'Doll Face'
This is also set in the same world as story no.2 and seems to be a direct sequel. Aloha Joe is a scavenger. He has been searching for the girl he brought to the other side all those years ago after she got taken by something. The coral problem is getting worse and his friend, Sinead, thinks that an entity has been allowing the clave to exist to farm from them.

12) 'In the Drawback'
A boy is living by an ocean that retreats further and further. One day, a giant's preserved body surfaces during low tide. The giant was one of the old ones, back when human were four times the size they currently are. They thought the giant was dead but it comes alive and unleashes its terrible voice. This story reminded me of Brian Aldiss' 'Hothouse' and also 'Gulliver's Travels'.

13) 'Hacking Santorini'
Decades after the 88-minute war, some teenagers approach a sailboat captain to marry them all. The captain inherit the boat from his grandmother, who crashed it here shortly after the war. Little does the captain know, the brides are actually pirates on a mission to find out the secret of the island Santorini.

[Sheena Forsberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although thematically tied together in the backdrop of a world where things have gone very, very wrong due to humans, we still find humanity, a fair bit of hope and sheer perseverance in these stories. A lot of this is bleak, but what ultimately remains with me after having read these stories is a sense of community, belonging and resistance that flies in the face of what could be the endtimes for these characters.
It might clock in at just above 200 pages, but this is by no accounts light reading material. It is a brilliant, cerebral and melancholy collection from the minds of 2 authors at the top of their craft. There’s a reason why I blindly buy anything Meerkat Press sees fit to publish, and this is it.

I’ve written an overview of the stories below and marked my favorites with an “*” (spoilers below, I recommend stopping here if you haven’t read the collection yet)

-Witnessing by Kaaron Warren:
Black mirror-vibes. Parallel world to ours, the near future? Regardless of where or when; this world seems to be divided into classes: techos who seem to run it by gathering data from the subconsciousness of certain inhabitants (we follow a “witness” in a skater gang) & “homebodies” (those lucky enough to have a home). This raises more questions than answers, but it’s an interesting one that I’d love to see expanded upon. 1984esque (surveillance/control)

-Some Kind of Indescribable by Cat Sparks:
Told from the POV of a single mother, we encounter a world not wholly unlike our own, but maybe far progressed down the road of bad decisions, ineptitude re:climate change and where tech has finally outrun the humans. People no longer live in cities (can barely live), but claves. A strange condition called plastic cancer leaves its victims helpless. A mom is desperate to help her daughter but it won’t be easy. Odd, deeply unsettling in all it’s unknowns and open questions. What exactly happened in this world and why are people trying to keep her away from the one thing that might help? I get the impression that this is a world where tech has churned so much that it’s become part of the evolutionary chain and is out-competing its makers/humans

-68 Days by Kaaron Warren:*
The MC in this story has had a rough go of it: stuck in a toxic relationship, diagnosed with an unnamed terminal illness and recently lost their mom to suicide, they decide to participate in a Mars-related experiment. The dying participants stay at a former resort, the aim of the stay is.. fuzzy: “how much can be done in 68 days”. A meteorite from Mars, a sense of deja vu, booze & sex.
On a deeper level it deals with complex thematics about connection, meaning & memory. Soylent green but elevated*

-The Space Between All Possible Ways by Cat Sparks:
Rumors of a magic tree able to produce whatever you might want out of the air brings soldiers to a village. Although unsuccessful as the tree protects itself and the town, one of the dying soldier’s last words about knowing him rattles around one of the villager’s mind.

-The Emporium by Kaaron Warren:*
A group of kids working together in an abandoned shopping center (their parents in jail) and the nurse tasked with vaccinating them against the flu. The manager who used to watch the children bounced and Irma eyes a fairly cushy opportunity for herself. But as it often is, it’s not as easy as she imagined when she starts to care about them and struggles with the knowledge of what likely happened to their loved ones, the children who get called away for “school/training” and the greater (and bleaker world) they find themselves in. I loved this story. It’s so bleak but yet retains a core of hope in the children and the stories they tell each other.

-Mandala by Cat Sparks:
A vignette where coral growths have overtaken the world.

-Gardens of Earthly Delight by Cat Sparks:**
A woman has a pair of refugee twins bought because they’ll be perfect as the “fairies” of her menagerie of folkloric acts meant to entertain the non-children of the mansion. Unfortunately for the twins, they find signs of a missing friend and go looking for him with unforseen and regrettable results. Deeply engaging, moving and sad; possibly my favorite story of this collection

-Air, Water and the Grove by Kaaron Warren:*
A space shuttle’s ill-fated return from Saturn has ripple effects no one could have foreseen; strange crystalline trees that although the do not bear flowers, offer solace and sorrow in equal measure. One of the more inventive, fresher and unsettling takes on Saturnalia I’ve ever read

-Dreams of Hercules by Cat Sparks:
A bit of a postapocalyptic mystery in which a boy is thrown a prisoner/abducted minister to deal with while he awaits his father. Trauma on both bigger and smaller scale is eventually partly revealed.

-Everything So Slow and Quiet:*
A woman beachcombs for items to add to an art piece in a world where gas seeping up from the ground has made the world inhospitable for most and towns have disappeared. A story about loneliness and connection within the frame of a place where things have gone very wrong but where hope yet remains.

-Doll Face by Cat Sparks:
Apocalyptically set with odd coral & maladies, this story explores the link shared by Aloha Joe, the strange woman he forages dolls for and her motivation for it.

-In the Drawback by Kaaron Warren:*
A former fishing community forages for items along what used to be the coast. The water has long since receded but a drummer boy spies something further away eventually revealed to be a bound giant laying on his stomach. Unable to resist themselves, they decide to turn him over, an act that will have dire consequences. The impression I’m left with is that the things you run away from, be it sorrow/despair or truth, has a way of catching up with you when you least expect it.

-Hacking Santorini by Cat Sparks:*
A captain is fooled into bringing a couple of brides to the long closed-off isle of Santorini. Part of the exclusion zone, no one really knows what awaits at their destination; radioactive hellscape, preserved bit of ‘what used to be’ or something quite different? All they know is that no one has ever returned from Santorini since the war.

[Kyla Ward · Rating 4 out of 5]

Calvaria Fell is something special.

I was more or less expecting this, because the volume is comprised of thirteen tales from two of Australia's spec fic heavyweights. Kaaron Warren has authored seven novels, including The Grief Hole, which took out the trifecta of Aurealis, Ditmar and Australian Shadows awards. Her solo collections, including Dead Sea Fruit, The Grinding House and Cemetery Dance Select: Kaaron Warren have received their share of honours. Cat Sparks has received twenty-two Aurealis and Ditmar awards for writing, editing and art. She has two solo collections, The Bride Price and Dark Harvest, and the novel Lotus Blue.

So something special, indeed, but prepare yourself. Neither of these writers pulls punches, especially when it comes to a catastrophic global future.

"Calvaria" potentially refers to a number of elements within the stories: most obviously, the estate in Spark's "Gardens of Earthly Delight". This was a highlight of the book for me, with its traumatized protagonist still clinging to her ideals, determined to protect her brother in an artificial realm where folk and fairy tales are brought to life for the diversion of the wealthy owners. Descent into faerie always has its price, and this is… more complete than most. But it could also refer to the steady devolution (maturation?) of the earth through her linked pieces "Mandala", "Some Kind of Indescribable" and "Doll Face". One day in the near future, slabs of a white, bony substance start heaving up through the ground, changing all those who dare touch them. Over a (post) human lifetime, the slabs grow and begin to fuse, like the calvaria plates in a infant's skull.

Themes of growth, change and survival infuse Warren's work, especially the novella "The Emporium". At the edges of a megalopolis devasted by the Great Burning, young children are periodically delivered to the remains of a vast shopping mall, where they sort through the debris, creating both pasts and futures for themselves. A nurse arrives who knows the truth about these "ghosts", but cannot reconcile it with what she finds in this tiny, supportive community, where the eldest is only ever sixteen.

Those are the stories original to the anthology, with the remainder all having appeared elsewhere. But these others are all perfect fits in theme, style and mood, contributing to an overwhelming sense of loss and melancholy, tinged with awe and terror at things beyond any individual's control. Of love, remembered and enduring. I entreat you to read them in contents order, as the assemblage is just so beautifully done, imparting the feel of gradually approaching some unthinkable completion.

Of the reprints, I must mention Warren's "Sixty-Eight Days" and "Air, Water and the Grove". Both are personal apocalypses, so slow and strange that the protagonist slips easily into the "new normal". Their voice is one often heard in Warren's writing: private, plaintive and wondering, as crystalline trees sprout and an expedition of the doomed prepares for Mars. It is easy to see these tales happening in the earlier stages of the End, perhaps simultaneously to "Mandala". "In the Drawback" takes place later, perhaps around the time of "Some Kind…" I have previously read "In the Drawback", and it was every bit as surreal and horrible as I recalled.

Of Sparks', I adored "Hacking Santorini". A perfect fountain of words which no longer mean quite the same thing as they did before the 88-minute War, but which perfectly convey the Admiral's odyssey across the wine-dark soup with his cargo of Brides. It tops things off, providing a welcome suggestion that the End is not the end of everything.

Inspired from start to finish, with a delightful and only-too appropriate cover by artist Tricia Reeks, Calvaria Fell is the kind of book that goes on my shelf and stays there, as the years count down.

[Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

POPSUGAR prompt 21 (book that came out in a year that ends with "24”)

I was given the opportunity by Meerkat Press to read an advance copy of their upcoming short story collection, Calvaria Fell: Stories (release date April 30, 2024). Short stories usually fall into 2 categories. They are either slivers of a larger world, a slice of life taste of a world, or they try to accomplish a whole narrative with beginning, middle, and end. This book is a collaborative effort between the authors Catriona Sparks and Kaaron Warren, so it features both categories, all focused on speculative fiction of the future. Side note: Why is most of the speculative fiction I read borderline dystopian? The future is always a sad, dreadful place where the protagonists barely scrape by. I'd love to read some joyful speculative fiction where humanity hasn't engaged in destructive war that has destroyed the environment. I'm not saying I didn't enjoy these stories, but the backdrop is dreary to think about on another snowed in day.

While I enjoyed both authors, I enjoyed the Kaaron Warren stories a little bit more than the Catriona Sparks stories. Surprisingly, though, Cat Sparks had my favorite overall story. “Gardens of Earthly Delights” is a twisted fairy tale brought to life. Other favorites were “Air, Water, and the Grove” and “The Emporium” both by Kaaron Warren.

[Lily · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this with the state of the world today felt a bit surreal, I won't lie. It's dark, and in some ways you want to believe it's satirical, but it's all too easy to see some of it happening in the not-too-far future with how quickly technology is progressing and how quickly we seem to be slipping into a dystopian timeline. The stories vary in overall theme and length, but running through them all is a dark thread. It was interesting to see how people and adapted to their dystopian worlds, the characters being as unique and diverse as the worlds they populated. I will say, I'm glad they were mostly fairly short, so I could read when I had a little time, then take time to digest what I'd read while working on other tasks. If you like dark and dystopian, this collection is definitely for you!

[Meerkat Press · Rating 5 out of 5]

We are so excited to be publishing this stunning collection of weird speculative fiction!

[Kelly · Rating 2 out of 5]

Had to DNF this one at 48%.

I know they are short stories, but I couldn't get into each one in any meaningful way and found myself counting pages for the longer ones.

[Kevin Cannon (Monty's Book Reviews) · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting collection of speculative fiction tales from the world of weird. As with most collections of shorter stories this has it's gems nestled among the better than average line up.

Fun to read entries from both authors