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Phantom Constellations
Phantom constellations are all around us. Our lives. Our loves. All our relationships... all are phantoms. All only as real as we make them.
Are you seeing what you think you are seeing?
Are the connections that we make, objectively true? Or are they products of our minds, assigning meaning and sense, where there is none?
The stars in the sky exist, unaffected by how we how we choose to categorize them. The constellations are phantoms; the shapes we give them only as real as we make them.
This is a book of stories of haunted people, ghosts, and the Phantom Constellations all around them, bravely--and sometimes blindly--traversing the phantasmagoric happenings and psychological challenges in situations full of danger, uncertainty, grief, and tragedy, alongside a sense of hope, longing, mystery, and wonder.
Appearing for the first time here are four never before published stories written exclusively for the collection along with ten more of Braum’s tales including from the Shivers anthology series and a wealth of hard-to-find publications from around the world.
Like no other author of short fiction today, Daniel Braum communicates a sub-text in his writing that is as deeply emotionally affecting as it is disturbing. There is an ache hiding behind the words, revealing itself just enough to resonate with the reader before disappearing into the velocity of the story. PHANTOM CONSTELLATIONS is Daniel Braum’s fifth full short story collection of dark, strange tales, exploring the metamorphic tension between the supernatural and the psychological. Each of these stories, set in locations around the corner and around the world, evokes the Twilight Zone sense of the unreal and that mysterious, unsettling ambiguity found in classic weird and literary fiction.
Praise for Daniel Braum’s
"Phantom Constellations is a masterclass of quiet strangeness... every reader of the weird should be reading Braum.”
--Jo Kaplan, Shirley-Jackson Award nominated author
"One of the brightest young stars in the firmament of dark speculative fiction, Daniel Braum is among the best short story writers we've encountered."
--This is Horror
“Braum has a knack for describing the indescribable in extraordinarily accessible language.”
--Tor.com
"From the jungles of South America to the mean streets of New York's suburbs, Braum’s stories wind through territories that feel at once familiar and strange, exotic and dangerous... or maybe just dangerously personal."
--David Wellington, Author of Monster Island
“Not since Lucius Shepard has a North American fantasist written so deftly about Central America.”
--Brian Evenson, Author of Good Night Sleep Tight
Are you seeing what you think you are seeing?
Are the connections that we make, objectively true? Or are they products of our minds, assigning meaning and sense, where there is none?
The stars in the sky exist, unaffected by how we how we choose to categorize them. The constellations are phantoms; the shapes we give them only as real as we make them.
This is a book of stories of haunted people, ghosts, and the Phantom Constellations all around them, bravely--and sometimes blindly--traversing the phantasmagoric happenings and psychological challenges in situations full of danger, uncertainty, grief, and tragedy, alongside a sense of hope, longing, mystery, and wonder.
Appearing for the first time here are four never before published stories written exclusively for the collection along with ten more of Braum’s tales including from the Shivers anthology series and a wealth of hard-to-find publications from around the world.
Like no other author of short fiction today, Daniel Braum communicates a sub-text in his writing that is as deeply emotionally affecting as it is disturbing. There is an ache hiding behind the words, revealing itself just enough to resonate with the reader before disappearing into the velocity of the story. PHANTOM CONSTELLATIONS is Daniel Braum’s fifth full short story collection of dark, strange tales, exploring the metamorphic tension between the supernatural and the psychological. Each of these stories, set in locations around the corner and around the world, evokes the Twilight Zone sense of the unreal and that mysterious, unsettling ambiguity found in classic weird and literary fiction.
Praise for Daniel Braum’s
"Phantom Constellations is a masterclass of quiet strangeness... every reader of the weird should be reading Braum.”
--Jo Kaplan, Shirley-Jackson Award nominated author
"One of the brightest young stars in the firmament of dark speculative fiction, Daniel Braum is among the best short story writers we've encountered."
--This is Horror
“Braum has a knack for describing the indescribable in extraordinarily accessible language.”
--Tor.com
"From the jungles of South America to the mean streets of New York's suburbs, Braum’s stories wind through territories that feel at once familiar and strange, exotic and dangerous... or maybe just dangerously personal."
--David Wellington, Author of Monster Island
“Not since Lucius Shepard has a North American fantasist written so deftly about Central America.”
--Brian Evenson, Author of Good Night Sleep Tight
- GenresShort Stories
312 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 15, 2025
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13 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 18, 2025
Dark, literary, haunting; uncomfortable, original, definitely Aickmanesque; liminal, serpentine, surreal; Braum elevates ambiguity to an art form, drawing on exotic settings and an archive of human flaws, to arrive at stories infused with memory, echoes, and sheer fantasy. Capturing this sophisticated kind of prose and arresting imagery linearly and in appropriate detail, is a difficult task for any reviewer, and I for one am not even going to try.
"Phantom Constellations," similar to Braum's "Nightmarchers" collection, treats almost obsessively of what eludes one even in the most explicit form of horror: namely, the conviction that whether the situation is real or fantasy, supernatural or pedestrian, the world has no ultimate shape - so every story just ends in the mid-point of an exclamation, the illusion of the real ending always postponed. Hence these stories define closure as lying closer to an emotion than an explanation; a calm mystery punctuated by the demands of a spectral presence nowhere actually defined, only implied. They incarnate atmosphere, give solidity to the irresolute and deliver mere hints of a larger exploration, a piecemeal approach to existential alienation dressed with the canonic garments of weird horror fiction.
Of the fourteen tales within (of which four are new), take "A Loch Ness Monster Under the Light of the Southern Cross," my favorite story of the collection: blending three (or is it four?) different timelines together to end up with a trip to Belize, narrated from the sidelines, it might be a creature feature (about a cryptid in Belize); or the iteration of a daughter's trauma when her father abandoned the family; or simply a supernatural story of uncanny metaphysics and existential loneliness. This story is so rich with implication, perhaps only the title conveys something definite. Or the opening story, "Scarecrow and the Imposter," original to the collection - is it a demonic possession story? Dark urban fantasy? What's for sure is that the reader has arrived too late for the full story, the narrator is already far ahead, and a sense of escape and catching up soon fills the story, affecting both the protagonist who's chasing a demon who prefers scarecrows, and the reader, who feels permanently left behind.
The collection won't be for everyone, but the best things never are. It's not folk horror, or magical realism or dark fantasy. The writing feels occasionally chatty, some wordings heavily twisted, certains scenes crying out for clarification - yet most often (and paradoxically) silence prevails. If you enjoy Aickman's writing, or the SF writer Lucius Shepard's prose and his thematic focus on geography and culture (read his "The Jaguar Hunter" along with Braum's collection), then you'll love "Phantom Constellations"!
"Phantom Constellations," similar to Braum's "Nightmarchers" collection, treats almost obsessively of what eludes one even in the most explicit form of horror: namely, the conviction that whether the situation is real or fantasy, supernatural or pedestrian, the world has no ultimate shape - so every story just ends in the mid-point of an exclamation, the illusion of the real ending always postponed. Hence these stories define closure as lying closer to an emotion than an explanation; a calm mystery punctuated by the demands of a spectral presence nowhere actually defined, only implied. They incarnate atmosphere, give solidity to the irresolute and deliver mere hints of a larger exploration, a piecemeal approach to existential alienation dressed with the canonic garments of weird horror fiction.
Of the fourteen tales within (of which four are new), take "A Loch Ness Monster Under the Light of the Southern Cross," my favorite story of the collection: blending three (or is it four?) different timelines together to end up with a trip to Belize, narrated from the sidelines, it might be a creature feature (about a cryptid in Belize); or the iteration of a daughter's trauma when her father abandoned the family; or simply a supernatural story of uncanny metaphysics and existential loneliness. This story is so rich with implication, perhaps only the title conveys something definite. Or the opening story, "Scarecrow and the Imposter," original to the collection - is it a demonic possession story? Dark urban fantasy? What's for sure is that the reader has arrived too late for the full story, the narrator is already far ahead, and a sense of escape and catching up soon fills the story, affecting both the protagonist who's chasing a demon who prefers scarecrows, and the reader, who feels permanently left behind.
The collection won't be for everyone, but the best things never are. It's not folk horror, or magical realism or dark fantasy. The writing feels occasionally chatty, some wordings heavily twisted, certains scenes crying out for clarification - yet most often (and paradoxically) silence prevails. If you enjoy Aickman's writing, or the SF writer Lucius Shepard's prose and his thematic focus on geography and culture (read his "The Jaguar Hunter" along with Braum's collection), then you'll love "Phantom Constellations"!
January 3, 2026
Daniel Braum had a big year in 2025, releasing two books, both collections of short stories. The second of these is Phantom Constellations, released by Cemetery Dance. If you’re familiar with Daniel Braum’s work, you’ll know that he writes slow-burning stories of the strange and liminal. One of my favourite aspects of his stories is when you’re not sure whether the narrative has slipped into alternate dimensions for a brief moment, but the characters have experienced something profound. Quiet and silent, yet profound.
While the stories in Phantom Constellations are similar, there are some, like Scarecrow and the Imposter, the collection’s opener, that throw you into the strange without the ambiguity. Scarecrow throws you right into dimension-hopping, no apologies. It’s refreshing, surprising, and definitely weird.
Braum’s stories are also known for genre-hopping, evident in Hand of Fire, a science fiction romp about the impending apocalypse filtered through a Jewish lens that feels angry, full of fire and prophecy. It also has a strong correlation with the Terminator films, which was a lot of fun to read.
The title story appeared in the first collection Daniel released in 2025, Creatures of Liminal Space, which explores drug abuse, recovery, filmmaking, drug-fueled trips through the desert, broken relationships, and self-reflection. It was a joy to return to Phantom for a revisit.
Personally, though, and as a horror fan, the collection really shines with the addition of The Exorcist’s Red-Haired Daughter. This story has Daniel Braum’s most gory scene he’s ever written and will likely ever write again, but that’s not the only reason I love it. The characters breathe off the page, and The Cure’s music haunts the background of this self-reflective trip to a concert in New Orleans, filled with curses, witchcraft, and a few strange, reality-bending situations.
Overall, this collection, while different from other collections of Braum’s, fits right in with his canon of writing. It feels like a progression in his writing, even though some of these stories are older. I love Braum’s stories for their slow-moving, self-reflective moments, which draw me into the characters. Braum’s characters speak to me on a deep, personal level. I relate to them. They remind me of Stephen King’s characters; they’re just regular people like you and me experiencing something extraordinary. And you, as the reader, are invited to be changed and right along with them.
While the stories in Phantom Constellations are similar, there are some, like Scarecrow and the Imposter, the collection’s opener, that throw you into the strange without the ambiguity. Scarecrow throws you right into dimension-hopping, no apologies. It’s refreshing, surprising, and definitely weird.
Braum’s stories are also known for genre-hopping, evident in Hand of Fire, a science fiction romp about the impending apocalypse filtered through a Jewish lens that feels angry, full of fire and prophecy. It also has a strong correlation with the Terminator films, which was a lot of fun to read.
The title story appeared in the first collection Daniel released in 2025, Creatures of Liminal Space, which explores drug abuse, recovery, filmmaking, drug-fueled trips through the desert, broken relationships, and self-reflection. It was a joy to return to Phantom for a revisit.
Personally, though, and as a horror fan, the collection really shines with the addition of The Exorcist’s Red-Haired Daughter. This story has Daniel Braum’s most gory scene he’s ever written and will likely ever write again, but that’s not the only reason I love it. The characters breathe off the page, and The Cure’s music haunts the background of this self-reflective trip to a concert in New Orleans, filled with curses, witchcraft, and a few strange, reality-bending situations.
Overall, this collection, while different from other collections of Braum’s, fits right in with his canon of writing. It feels like a progression in his writing, even though some of these stories are older. I love Braum’s stories for their slow-moving, self-reflective moments, which draw me into the characters. Braum’s characters speak to me on a deep, personal level. I relate to them. They remind me of Stephen King’s characters; they’re just regular people like you and me experiencing something extraordinary. And you, as the reader, are invited to be changed and right along with them.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews