Dead Letters: An Anthology of the Undelivered, the Missing & the Returned

by Conrad Williams (Editor), Joanne Harris (Contributor)

The Dead Letters the final repository of the undelivered. Love missives unread, gifts unreceived, lost in postal limbo.  Dead An Anthology  features new stories from the masters of horror, fantasy and speculative fiction, each inspired by object from the Dead Letters Office. Featuring original stories

Joanne Harris * Maria Dahvana Headley & China Miéville * Michael Marshall Smith * Lisa Tuttle * Ramsey Campbell * Pat Cadigan * Steven Hall * Alison Moore * Adam LG Nevill * Nina Allan * Christopher Fowler * Muriel Gray * Andrew Lane * Angela Slatter * Claire Dean * Nicholas Royle * Kirsten Kaschock

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Anthologies, Fantasy, Fiction, Adult, Weird Fiction

408 pages, Paperback

First published April 5, 2016

About the author

In 2007 Conrad Williams won the International Horror Guild Award for Best Novel for The Unblemished. In 2008 he won the British Fantasy Award for Best Novella, for The Scalding Rooms. In 2010 he won the British Fantasy Award for Best Novel for One.

Reviews

[Emma Sea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent collection of stories, with some incredible writing on display. If you like freaky-ass goings on and ambiguous endings then this is the anthology for you. I enjoyed so,so much.

[Nicolai Alexander · Rating 4 out of 5]

A diverse collection of original short stories using the concept of dead letter mail or other items from a dead letter office as a starting point. The editor of the collection sent the authors a prompt by mail, and they did their assignments quite differently. That’s a very cool idea I wish I’d seen more of. They all seem to be quite experienced writers of novels and collections of their own too, which you can read more about in an afterword after each story. And a surprising number of them are even award-winning. It’s impressive. You get a good sense of their writing style here, so this is the perfect opportunity to discover new authors, which I definitely did.

“You might detect, in the breath of air that rises from the unsealed flap, notes from the room in which is was penned, or the person who held the pen. It’s a tangible memorial. A palpable moment that can be held and read and referred to in the way that the ephemeral email or tweet cannot. In time all of that will be lost.” (1-2)

The stories are not quite what I expected, though - in a good way, because the setting is not just in a so called "dead letters office" or some returns center etc.. The only thing that the stories seem to have in common, is letters or packages. Some of them have unknown origin, some of them end up in unintended places, some have an unknown sender or recipient or both. A wide range of genres are covered too, from weird fiction, science fiction and fantasy to meta fiction, crime stories and thrillers and absurdist stuff that’s not always about the letter/package, but about incomprehensibly powerful entities, addiction, obsession, time machines, aliens, cults, even letter eating wizards! A very enjoyable collection with a more than average number of great stories.


Here is a review of each story:

Steven Hall - The Green Letter - ★★★

Written like a research report into "the green letter phenomenon", which for some reason is of "unparalleled scientific interest". There are strange appearances of green letters (674 that they know of), and all of them have different effects on anyone who comes in contact with them. Some are forced to behave in a certain way, others ... well, it can only be hypothesized what's happened to them.

A bit too technical, formal and cumbersome in style (lots of minutiae), which is the opposite of what I enjoy in fiction, but there are some really neat ideas in here. And hey, it's weird fiction! My jam!


Michael Marshal Smith - Over to You - ★★★

A story about Matt, who receives an envelope containing a chess piece and the message "over to you". It's not an ordinary piece, of course, and I won't say more about it. In addition to this mystery, Matt hides his smoking addiction from his ten-year-old son. This was a nice story, but nothing special. Classic fiction. It has heart, but lacks oomph.

Notably, the author has won multiple awards and, at the time, written eighty short stories and four novels, winning both the Philip K. Dick, International Horror Guild and August Derleth Awards. Not bad indeed!


Joanne Harris – In Memoriam - ★★★

Here, we finally have someone who works at a typical dead letters office, more specifically the Nation Returns Centre for the UK. The narrator is a Customer Experience Worker handling all the mail that end up there. Things like "begging letters, death threats, photographs of lost loves, keepsakes, unopened Christmas cards, undelivered manuscripts" etc., but one day he finds something addressed to him. Something that brings back painful memories and memories he didn't even know he had. Harris makes use of certain kind of motif here that I feel makes the story a bit too metaphorical and on the nose, while other aspects of the story is a bit too unclear to me.

“These letters have already been through so much. They deserve the touch of a human hand. They deserve to be read, and understood, and acknowledged, before we burn them […] It feels as if, by reading them, I can put them at rest, somehow; these strangers, whose words have travelled so far, and never been delivered. What I do is so much more than simply cataloguing mail. I am the one wo lays them out; the one who delivers the last rites. I am the embalmer of memories; the custodian of the last word.” (42)

“Years of indulgence had made her fat; if I struck her, the blows would make ripples in the pallid flesh. I remembered smacking a jellyfish with the side of my spade – her skin was just the same shade of white – dead and helpless on the sand.” (54)

“Their acrid dust is on everything: my skin, my clothes, my possessions. Their plump and furry bodies hang from the ceiling in luxy swags; the sound of them is the grazing of sheep in a field of white noise.” (55)

Alison Moore – Ausland - ★★★★★

A story about Karla who one day meets a friend from childhood, Lukas. She's in her seventies now. They catch up, and she tells him that she once found an envelope with some curious old photographs among her mother's effects after she past away.

Five stars! Short, mysterious, speculative and based on a well-known science fiction trope. I liked the premise, I liked Karla, and I liked the ending. It leaves just enough to the imagination.
Alison Moore has written a lot of short fiction over the years, and it shows.


Cristopher Fowler – Wonders to Come - ★★★★★

One of the longest stories in the collection, and despite a lot of technical jargon at the beginning, I breezed through it. The narrator is an engineer working at a hotel that's finally about to open. There will be a grand opening, with lots of celebrities and rich people and press, but there's something amiss, something wrong with the sewage control system. And then there's this strange, organic, flexible, sentient rock like things underground. So, it begins with a mundane office meeting and ends in apocalyptic doom!

The only reason this story fits in this anthology, is because they send a sample of those things to an expert at the Marine Biology and Ecology Research Centre. That's it. The rest of the story is seething with suspense and action. A cool and classic type of page-turner. There's a little bit of critique of capitalism and technology reliance in there as well. The character's weren't all that interesting, though (basically all male, tech savvy engineers on the clock), but that didn't detract from the entertainment value. I actually think this story/the premise would work as a full-length novel too and definitely as a movie.

“His grey, cadaverous appearance made him the living embodiment of deadline-stress.” (71)

Sadly, Fowler passed away in March 2023 due to cancer and leaves behind more than forty novels and short-story collections. I personally would like to read his book The Book of Forgotten Authors one day and his own memoir Word Monkey about what it meant for him to be a writer and him coming to terms with his own mortality.


Pat Cadigan – Cancer Dancer - ★★★★

And then, coincidentally, we get a story about a person who receives news that they have terminal cancer.

"Cancer Dancer" is the closest thing we get to a detective story so far. One with a bit of gallows humor and refreshing attitude from a 62-year-old woman who's suddenly faced with the reality that she only has to two more years to live. At best. When she receives a mysterious letter – meant for a retired detective - with some cryptic information and the words “Please help”, she’s determined to go out of her comfort zone and investigate.

Allow me to share something personal: I am a cancer survivor, and I can empathize with this woman in that meeting with the oncologist. I recognize all too well what she describes as a "personal paradigm shift" in the wake of the news, which is "like nothing you've ever been through before" (97). Another paradigm shift happened within me after the treatment as well, and I can imagine that’s what happened to the multi-award-winning science fiction author, Pat Cadigan. It says on page 121 that she was also diagnosed with terminal cancer and used that experience to shape this story.

“You think a lot of crazy shit when you get cancer.” (106)

You suddenly realize that you do have plenty of opportunities - every day - to be funny, crazy, bold and beautiful. That you should make life worth living in all the ways you can think of. For yourself and others. This story isn’t about the cancer, per se, and it certainly is no sob story, but the cancer informs the character’s decisions, heightens the suspense and ultimately that pleasantly surprising ending. The gravity of the situation made things funnier, made her funnier. So, it wasn’t really horror, fantasy or science fiction, and nothing very exciting happens, honestly. And some might argue that too much were left unresolved and unexplained, making it an unsatisfying read. I still liked it a lot.

So, four stars. But hey, I’m biased!

More funny quotes:

“Fuck it, I had a rough day, I had a rough day, I’m in the mood for the cheap thrill of reading someone else’s mail.” (100)

“The Eternity Club? I’d never heard of that either but given what I had heard today, it definitely sounded like my kind of place” (102)

“There was a click as she hung up, which seemed anticlimactic. There are whole generations who will never know the pleasure of slamming the phone down.” (105)

Ramsey Campbell – The Wrong Game - ★★

This was a huge disappointment. I was really looking forward to this one. I mean, Campbell is supposed to be "Britan's most respected living horror writer" according to The Oxford Companion to English Literature and that "future generations will regard him as the leading horror writer of our generation, every bit the equal of Lovecraft or Blackwood", according to S.T. Joshi in Campbell’s Goodreads bio.

“An impression had lodged in my head – the image of a figure watching me across a table spread with cards. The figure wasn’t just indistinct but unstable, as if it was composed of the kind of restless darkness you may see where there’s not source of illumination.” (132-133)

What on earth happened here, then? I don't think Campbell bothered to take the assignment from Conrad seriously. This is, as he himself puts it, just an "account disguised as fiction" (147). The account of him receiving the letter from Conrad. He then makes a call and travels to an abandoned hotel where he once met the guy whose name was on the envelope. I'm not sure if that was part of the prompt. I'm not sure he knew that. But the title is certainly fitting. This approach does not fit in here. It's too dull and unassuming. At least he’s honest about it:

“Or perhaps my career has been the cheat, in which case this account disguised as fiction is the latest proof. Writing it has left me feeling grimy, desperate to clean myself up, and I only hope it hasn’t invited anything out of my past, let alone given it more substance.” (147)

I don’t believe for one second that his whole career has been “the cheat”. I believe he is a great writer, but this story is … No, it's hardly a story. Merely a desperate attempt at some form of contribution to this anthology.

Yikes.


Claire Dean – Is-And - ★★★★

We follow a couple to an island. The unnamed narrator accompanies Gareth to visit his mother and childhood home. She is initially looking forward to this trip, but gets the feeling that something's off, with Gareth, with his mother, with the island itself. And her feeling of uneasiness begins with a mysterious package Garet receives.

I liked how Dean describes the island; the elements sort of interact with the landscape and makes the scenery lovely, vibrant and hopeful, but all the while there's an undertone of tenacity in the island; something there has become dark and hardened by solace. That's not actually the supernatural element, but I really liked the feel of her prose.

“There was a deep quiet between the sounds of sea and the wind. She no longer tried to fill it with words, but collected images; bluebells unexpected on the high cliffs, blackened thorns with feathers caught in them, a sleek hare that crossed their path in an instant.” (157)

Dean also manages to make me empathize with the main character in a graceful, discreet manner, so that I simply intuited before I realized that the story centers around feeling disconnected, distanced, lonely and helpless. It perfectly encapsulates the feeling estrangement.

Claire Dean's short stories are published in a variety of anthologies, and I just added one of them to by tbr-list: Murmurations: An Anthology of Uncanny Stories about Birdspublished in 2011. I love both birds and weird fiction, so that's right up my alley.


Andrew Lane – Buyer’s Remorse – ★★★★

An ominous Lovecraftian story about a guy who is "fascinated by lost spaces and ambiguous or forgotten locations". When he receives an envelope addressed to someone in one of these places, he goes there to deliver it to them. Once there, he discovers some kind of secret community of people who sells old, strange items and cryptic tomes.

“I know that these places exist, but I also know that they aren’t barren. Things are living there, breeding there. Spreading their influence.” (197)

The only reason I give it four stars and not five is because it takes too much time to get going, but once it does...

“Beyond them I thought I could see the shadowy outline of a string of rocks, almost invisible in the gloom. They looked like the half-submerged back of a prehistoric skeleton.” (178)

Andrew Lane has written more than thirty books in several genres and this story in particular is described as "a story written against the fictional and nihilistic mythological background invented by [...] H.P. Lovecraft (generally known as the Cthulhu Mythos), but transplanted to the backwaters of England rather than its native New England." (199)

So that's cool!


Muriel Gray – Gone Away - ★★★

This was an odd story. It begins in very much the same way as most of the others here, by describing a letter/envelope in excruciating detail, down to font or writing utensil used and colors etc., but here we have a rich woman from a wealthy aristocratic family who's lonely and bored. She lives with her grandfather for reasons you should discover for yourself. The woman accidentally receives a letter addressed to someone else and finds in its contents a mystery worthy of her time, or at least she needs it to be, bored of her life as she is. Luckily, she has plenty of self-irony and self-awareness, which makes things quite amusing at times.

"I realized that I had wished for some rare detective treat to unfold and found myself childishly disappointed that it had not led to something grisly and sinister" (209)

"The horrible truth was that I had been excited at the prospect of a more intriguing mystery. It was my loneliness I suppose. There. I will admit it. I am lonely." (210)

And I enjoyed watching her live out her detective fantasy right up until the end. Unfortunately, the ending ruined a perfectly good 4 or 5 star story, as it did not any make sense. At all. I have not been able to figure it out, and I wish the author had elaborated or explained certain things, anything that could help me understand what happened. Disappointing. Also, Gray writes horror novels, but I did not see any indication of that here, which would have elevated the story even more. There is potential for it based on what's revealed in the second half, so that was a wasted opportunity.


Nina Allan - Astray - ★★★★

Allan has written plenty of short stories and novels, some included in anthologies with the words "best horror", "best science fiction and fantasy" and stuff like that,. She's even award-winning too, which sounds very promising.

Her story in this anthology is not what you would expect, though. And the beginning does not sound very promising. She devotes a lot of paragraphs in the beginning to various, seemingly unrelated things, like a memory of a horror movie, the legal offence of opening someone else's letter, about dead letter offices, about her flat, about stamp collecting, about boarding schools etc, which, tbh, she could easily have left out.

The narrator is a woman in a wheelchair who becomes somewhat obsessed in a missing person's case from years before. She receives a letter addressed to the missing person's sister. There is very little science fiction, horror or fantasy going on here, but there is one speculative element, a crucial one, which I found quite fascinating.

It's a long short story, and even though it's not suspenseful, not written in a particularly interesting manner or anything like that, I still became invested in the narrator's obsession, and the author withheld the right amount of information and revealed it at the perfect time several instances in the novel, which kept me engaged all the way. I learned just how it’s possible to read so much about other people’s lives that you feel like you’re part of their story. Well-written and cleverly plotted.

“You think email is the same, but it really isn’t […] I use it enough to know that no email was ever invested with the same longing or the same anticipation or the same despair that is invested when you see or set actual handwriting on actual paper. You can hear a person’s voice in their handwriting, don’t you find that? You feel a distance and closeness simultaneously – the distance that the letter has travelled, the closeness of fingers brushing against fingers, through pen marks on paper.” (226-227)

“I think about the dead letter, which is really a long-line communication between Amanda and me. Amanda hugs her father in 1994. Raymond Rouance picks up a pen in 1997, leaning the hand that touched his daughter’s hair upon the paper as he writes his note. I touch the ink, the paper, the hand, Amanda. A bridge that spans a distance of twenty years.” (243)

“We know as much about the universe we live in as a woodlouse under a pacing stone in my back garden knows about Sierra Leone.” (258)

(I'm almost out of characters. Review continues in the comment section)

[Seregil of Rhiminee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Originally published at Risingshadow.

Conrad Williams has come up with an original idea for Dead Letters, because he has gathered a good and versatile selection of stories about undelivered, missing and returned letters. This is something that has never been done before (I don't recall hearing anything about similar kind of anthologies).

I think that all of us - or most of us - have experiences about letters and packages that have disappeared into the postal limbo and have never found their way to the recipients. There's nothing we can do about this, but accept that unexpected things may happen to our letters when they're posted. If you're curious about what happens to these letters, you'll get some insight into this matter when you read Dead Letters, because each of the stories reveals something new about undelivered letters.

I was pleasantly surprised by this anthology, because it's one of the most original anthologies I've ever read. I've read a few stories about lost and undelivered postal deliveries, but I've never read so many good and imaginative stories about such deliveries. The authors have clearly done their best to write memorable stories that showcase their distinct literary voices, writing skills and imagination.

Dead Letters contains the following stories:

- “The Green Letter” by Steven Hall
- “Over to You” by Michael Marshall Smith
- “In Memoriam” by Joanne Harris
- “Ausland” by Alison Moore
- “Wonders to Come” by Christopher Fowler
- “Cancer Dancer” by Pat Cadigan
- “The Wrong Game” by Ramsey Campbell
- “Is-and” by Claire Dean
- “Buyer’s Remorse” by Andrew Lane
- “Gone Away” by Muriel Gray
- “Astray” by Nina Allan
- “The Days of Our Lives” by Adam LG Nevill
- “The Hungry Hotel” by Lisa Tuttle
- “L0ND0N” by Nicholas Royle
- “Change Management” by Angela Slatter
- “Ledge Bants” by Maria Dahvana Headley & China Miéville
- “And We, Spectators Always, Everywhere” by Kirsten Kaschock

All of these stories are original to this anthology, and each of them has been inspired by an object from the Dead Letters Office. Their contents range from undelivered letters and love affairs to family secrets and strange lifeforms. They're effective and thought-provoking stories filled with difficult themes and issues concerning life, work, family, secrets, love and relationships.

Because many of the authors are masters of contemporary dark fiction and have experience about writing different kinds of speculative ficton stories, their stories are fascinatingly dark and strange. There's a dark, macabre and wistful edge to their stories that will please readers of dark fiction.

It's great that Conrad Williams has given speculative fiction authors an opportunity to write stories about dead letters, because they have plenty of imagination and they're capable of writing emotionally touching and harrowing stories. I don't mean to belittle literary fiction authors, but I've noticed that speculative fiction authors are more capable of delivering literary stories that have a direct impact on readers and what's best, speculative fiction authors dare to write unflinchingly and honestly about difficult themes and issues (their stories have brutal honesty).

Here's a bit more information about these stories and my thoughts about them:

“The Green Letter” by Steven Hall:

- A story about the green letter that mysteriously arrives in mailboxes at a certain time. Every green envelope contains only one item - a list that has ten points on it. When one of the points is circled, something happens to the recipient.
- This is a fascinatingly weird story with an unsettling undertone.

“Over to You” by Michael Marshall Smith:

- In this story, a man receives an envelope that has been addressed to another person. He opens and finds a chess piece and a short sentence. Soon he notices weird things.
- An excellent story about a man who's trying to reduce smoking, because his son wants him to quit smoking.

“In Memoriam” by Joanne Harris:

- A story about CEW (Customer Experience Worker at the National Returns Centre for the UK) who opens a letter addressed to him and finds a picture of himself with other persons.
- A well written and wistful story about memories and family ties.

“Ausland” by Alison Moore:

- In this story, Karla meets his childhood acquaintance, Lukas, again after many years. She wants to show him a few photographs.
- I enjoyed this story very much, because the author writes well about what happens when Karla and Lukas meet each other again.

“Wonders to Come” by Christopher Fowler:

- A story about Roy who wonders what caused a hotel construction to miss its deadline. What Roy finds out is something unexpected.
- A well written science fiction story featuring a new lifeform.
- This is one of the best stories in this anthology.

“Cancer Dancer” by Pat Cadigan:

- A woman who hears that she has only two years left to live because of uterine cancer. She gets an envelope that is addressed to a detective sergeant and becomes interested in its contents.
- The author writes well about the cancer patient's feelings and life.

“The Wrong Game” by Ramsey Campbell:

- This is an interesting piece of fiction, because the author addresses the editor of this anthology in an intriguing way with a dash of wittiness.
- This story has a good atmosphere that becomes increasingly interesting as the story unfolds.
- One of the best stories in this anthology.

“Is-and” by Claire Dean:

- In this story, the protagonist and her partner, Gareth, travel to an island and meet Gareth's mother. Soon Gareth receives a mysterious parcel.
- An excellent and atmospheric story with references to old beliefs and Celtic folklore.
- This is one of my favourite stories in this anthology.

“Buyer’s Remorse” by Andrew Lane:

- The protagonist receives a letter by mistake and wonders how he could deliver it to its intended recipient. He begins to search for the place where the recipient is supposed to live and finds himself in trouble.
- This story is satisfyingly Lovecraftian and unsettling. The author writes excellently about a lost, isolated and ignored place where cosmic evil has gained a foothold.
- An excellent story.

“Gone Away” by Muriel Gray:

- This story's protagonist receives a returned letter that has no address on it. She becomes interested in the letter and its contents.
- The author writes fascinatingly about the protagonist's relationship with her grandfather.
- A well written story with intriguing mystery elements.

“Astray” by Nina Allan:

- Aileen is mesmerised by letters that arrive at their house, but are addressed to a person who doesn't live there. These letters have an effect on her life.
- This story gradually grows into a disqueiting tale of obsession concerning other people's lives and fates.
- The author's descriptions about the protagonist's life are vivid and realistic, and the conversations between her and Selena are excellent.
- An excellent - and perhaps the best - story in this anthology.

“The Days of Our Lives” by Adam LG Nevill:

- A fascinatingly unsettling portrayal of a macabre marriage.
- The author writes strikingly about the protagonist's difficult and twisted relationship with Lois.
- Along with Nina Allan's story, this is one of the best and most memorable stories in this anthology. Once you've read it, it's quite difficult to forget it.

“The Hungry Hotel” by Lisa Tuttle:

- A beautifully written story about a woman who has an affair while her boyfriend is out of town.
- I was impressed by this story and its atmosphere, because the protagonist had to deal with her feelings towards the man she met.
- This is one of the most intriguing stories I've ever read about love and infatuation.

“L0ND0N” by Nicholas Royle:

- A story about an editor, Nick, who is stalked by a man called Ian. Because Nick reads Ian's novel and finds it interesting, he thinks about publishing it.
- A fascinating story that offers readers a glimpse into the life and choices of an editor. It was interesting to read about how Nick felt about Ian and his novel and how he weighed different things.

“Change Management” by Angela Slatter:

- Eva, who works at the Dead Letter Office, is a "solitary little mouse". Her life changes when she steals a letter that has been sent by a woman called Lucy to her brother, Jonathan.
- An excellent story with a memorable ending.

“Ledge Bants” by Maria Dahvana Headley & China Miéville:

- This story is wonderfully different, because it tells of Merlin who works at the Dead Letters Office and hunts for his scattered magic.
- I was positively surprised by this story and its originality, because I didn't expect to find this kind of a story in this anthology.
- A truly original and intriguingly whimsical take on Arthurian fiction.

“And We, Spectators Always, Everywhere” by Kirsten Kaschock:

- A frighteningly effective and unsettling glimpse into the life of a boy called Gibb and his caretakers.
- I was impressed by the author's way of writing about Gibb's childhood and what happened to him when he grew up.
- An excellent story that will haunt your mind for a long time after you finish reading it.

Michael Marshall Smith's “Over to You” is a powerful story about a chess piece that causes puzzlement. In my opinion, “Over to You” is a good example of a story that feels ordinary, but is in fact quite extraordinary - it's intriguing storytelling at its best.

Claire Dean's “Is-and” is one of the best stories I've had the pleasure of reading this year. It's a compelling story about a couple who visit an island. I was intrigued by the author's way of adding folklore elements to the story, because they worked well and enhanced the atmosphere.

Andrew Lane's “Buyer's Remorse” is an excellent Lovecraftian weird fiction story with a distinct feel of something strange and threatening, because the protagonist is fascinated by lost and ignored places. This story has a feel of classic weird fiction to it, because the author evokes haunting images of hidden places where unspeakable things happen.

Muriel Gray's “Gone Away” deserves a special mention as a story with interesting mystery elements. I was impressed by the author's way of writing about the protagonist's relationship with her grandfather.

Nina Allan's “Astray” is a haunting and beautifully written story. What I like most about this story is that it gradually grows into a compelling and disquieting story with a harrowing ending. All of the different elements in this story form a narrative that gives readers a glimpse into the protagonist's life and highlight her obsession with what she has learned from a letter that was accidentally delivered to her. The beautiful prose emphasises the story's atmosphere and emotional depth.

Adam LG Nevill's “The Days of Our Lives” is the most disturbing story in this anthology. It features a captivatingly twisted glimpse into a relationship that is anything but normal and healthy. The author writes unflinchingly about what Lois does and how she reacts to various things. I consider this story to be a masterpiece of modern dark fiction.

Angela Slatter's “Change Management” is a dark and fascinating story about change. The protagonist, Eva, is described as a person who enjoys being alone and avoids socialising at work. When change comes into her life, it's almost like a force of nature that transforms her from a quite mouse to a much stronger and more determined woman. The author's approach to change feels powerful, because she pays attention to Eva's life, feelings and fears.

I enjoyed reading Dead Letters and found all of the stories intriguing and well written. It's a fine anthology of versatile stories that inhabit the space between literary fiction and speculative fiction. It will delight readers who enjoy well written fiction and strange stories, because each of the stories is something different and special.

What makes this anthology especially intriguing is that it will be of special interest to readers who have personal experiences about lost letters and packages. If you've ever lost anything that you've sent or haven't received something that you've expected to arrive in your mailbox, you'll most likely find these stories very interesting and will enjoy them.

My final words are:

Dead Letters is an excellent anthology of dark, wistful and thought-provoking stories for adults - highly recommended!

[Sean · Rating 2 out of 5]

I knew I was in for a bumpy ride from the very first story, "The Green Letter." I just didn't get it ... "Over to You," the second, was far better and "In Memoriam," by Joanne Harris, seemed to bring things back on track - very haunting, a good read! And so it went ... ups and downs ... very uneven. I'm wondering if somehow, in the "translation" (a very English starting point, stories with a British-twinge, then read by an American reader) if something got lost? Perhaps 'Dead Letters' may need another read .....

[Catherine Grant · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anthologies are often a mixed bag of styles and themes. In the case of Dead Letters, editor Conrad Williams gave his authors prompts in the way of items they needed to incorporate into their tale. It gives the collection the feel of a connected set of stories in a way that many anthologies can’t pull off with just a theme, namely in how distinctively random each item seems, and the texture they add to the tales in this delightful collection. - See more at: http://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-...

[Brian Mcclain · Rating 4 out of 5]

Received through goodreads giveaway. Very solid anthology with no real let downs. Recommended.

[Kali Napier · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gosh there's a bunch of clever writers in this anthology. Loved the premise of the theme's collection and prompts for each story. Nice.

[Rachel Bridgeman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Titan published the  'Dead Letters' anthology in 2016, and the central theme for each cautionary tale is letters sent, undelivered, or in some cases, returned to sender.

This is an intriguing concept as every year in the UK, 500,000 letters go 'missing', as in undeliverable, and are stored in a Belfast based warehouse. In the US, Atlanta, Georgia is where the dead letter office can be found, handling upwards of 90 million items a year, a seemingly unfathomable amount.

Amongst these missives are opportunities to spin the misplaced into ghosts, chain letters foretelling doom for those who do not send them on, tokens of love, tokens of regret and so forth. A fertile breeding ground for a fevered imagination, if you will, and each of these tales takes the dead letter and delivers it to the reader's conscience with style, unease and a lingering sense of being disturbed.

I love this idea, and the way that each tale is so individually interpreted. From the subtleness of Nina Allan, to the eldritch horror of Muriel Gray,the body horror of Adam LG Nevill to the mystery of folkloric legends of Kirsten Kaschock, this is like a tasting plate of emotions, a degustation of fear folded up and placed inside an envelope, delivered straight to your frontal lobe.

It's eclectic and weird in the best ways-I admit to not 'getting' every single tale which will, eventually necessitate a re-reading, however, this is like the random pile of letters found clutched together behind the door of a multiple occupancy household. It's a brave notion,to take the humble letter and imbue it with a sense of fear which, to this reader, feels entirely natural as senders chase down missing communications, and the wrongly received is desperately attempted to return to sender.

The oddest church jumble sale you ever read of will give you terrors in 'Buyer's Remorse' by Andrew Lane,, as will the ticking of an old lady's watch which arrives and sets off a chain of events when the wrong man opens it up,in Adam LG Nevill's 'The Days Of Our Lives'. He enters into the most unholy of communions...

Merlin and Nimue chase each and shreds of magic through the centuries in , the deathly effects of mysterious experiment is found within 'Ledge Bants' by Maria Dahvana Headley and China Mieville .

This collection comes highly recommended, and if, like me, you enjoy waiting at the door to watch the arrival of the postman for news of other worlds, I think that you will find a lot to dive into amongst the 'Dead Letters'...

[MacBudgie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dead Letters was an enjoyable anthology. With the strict theme, I was a little worried that some of these stories would be a little too similar to each other, but for the most part that was a non-issue. Some had barely any connection to the theme beyond a letter appearing for a few brief moments. Even those that did have more obvious connections used them in very different ways (such as the setting of a dead letters office). Was still glad to go on to more varied subjects after finishing the anthology, however.
Some of these pieces I enjoyed more than others, as is natural in an anthology. There was only one I found truly boring though – and none that were completely awful. A few were particularly fun or interesting, and most were pretty good.
Would recommend for those who enjoy more thoughtful/abstract/weird horror.

[Blair]

Read Nina Allan's story 'Astray'. It's a wonderfully multifaceted story that makes great use of the anthology's theme of 'the undelivered, the missing, the returned'.

Aileen is the daughter of two army officers and has thus led something of a peripatetic life. She is rather more accustomed to receiving other people's mail than most, and knows the rules: it's an offence to open something that isn't explicitly addressed to you. Yet an incident from her youth, when she opened letters for a 'Lucy Davis' and found the contents sinister and fascinating, has given her a bit of an obsession with misdirected post. So, years later, when she receives a letter for someone called Selena Rouane, she can't resist opening it. This leads her to the story of Selena's missing sister Amanda (who may have come back) and the letter-writer, the sisters' father, who believed Amanda had been abducted by aliens. There's also a revelation from Aileen's own past.

There are so many links between Aileen and 'dead letters' that the story could seem contrived in a lesser writer's hands. But she's such a well-realised character that I barely noticed. I particularly liked the way Aileen became quickly obsessed with the mystery of Amanda in a way that felt completely believable: researching old news articles, looking up the Rouanes' house on Street View, befriending Selena.

'Astray' is important because the initial idea led Allan to write her novel The Rift. Even before knowing this, I'd guessed it: the themes are so similar. I'm glad to have taken the time to work through Allan's short stories before starting The Rift. Not only has this given me invaluable context, but 'Astray' is a brilliant piece of fiction in its own right.

[S.J. Townend · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book took me forever to finish. Partly because it's quite long and partly because a handful of the stories within, sadly, didn't excite me. There were many slow starts.

DEAD LETTERS, for me, was such a polar split of absolute diamonds and quite-the-opposites but the stories that I did enjoy were exceptional and kept me intrigued enough to battle through the entire book.

All the authors within it are great writers and know how to put out well crafted tales I'm sure, but so many stories started with lengthy descriptions of the who's, where's, and when's of pieces of lost mail that it became a little repetitive and dull in places. (I couldn't care less about the seventeen addresses the protagonist spots on an old dirty envelope.)

China Mieville and Maria Dahvana Headly's story, 'Ledge Bants', was my favourite. (Does Mieville ever disappoint? Mieville's sink of creativity does overfloweth!) Their story is a beautiful, humorous, creative mesh of ancient, magical fantasy with the modern day grind of working in a lost letters department. I'll read this particular story again, I'm sure.

Two other stories that I felt shone were: The Green Letter by Steven Hall for its originality, and Nicholas Royle's L0nd0n, an astounding piece of writing that felt like it was reading my mind as I read it.

I also enjoyed Adam LG Nevill's 'The Days of our Lives' (vivid, although I'm not sure I really understood it), Ramsey Campbell's 'The Wrong Game', Pat Cadigan's 'Cancer Dancer', and Andrew Lane's 'Buyer's Remorse'.

In hindsight, I wish I'd gone with my gut and spent less time persevering with the stories I didn't enjoy within the first few paragraphs. I should've just skipped them and flipped ahead to the next. Ah well, the good ones were worth the time this collection took, and I've learnt something about how to tackle lengthy anthologies, nonetheless.

[Pam Winkler · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one varied between loves and hates. I think overall, it was more of a good collection than ok.
The Green Letter by Steven Hall was one I loved. It was very much like SCP. I loved it enough, I went and got The Raw Shark Texts, but I wasn't as big of a fan of that, although it was good.
Over to You by Michael Marshall Smith was good.
In Memoriam by Joanne Harris was ok?
Ausland by Alison Moore was good.
Wonders to Come by Christopher Fowler was good.
Cancer Dancer by Pat Cardigan - I'm not sure if I get it? It was very good, but I was kind of confused by the ending.
The Wrong Game by Ramsey Campbell was a bit confusing for me.
Is-And by Claire Dean was good.
Buyer's Remorse by Andrew Lane was fantastic, and very Lovecraftian.
Gone Away by Muriel Gray was good.
Astray by Nina Allan was ok? It was a bit complicated.
The Days of Our Lives by Adam LG Nevill was ok?
The Hungry Hotel by Lisa Tuttle was good.
London by Nicholas Royle was good and weird.
Change Management by Angela Slatter was good and creepy.
Ledge Bants by Maria Dahvana Headley & China Mieville - I hated this story. It started interesting and then got very annoying after the first few paragraphs.
And We, Spectators Always, Everywhere by Kirsten Saschock was ok.

[Samantha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anthologies are always challenging; I typically find myself enjoying only a few of the collected stories, often even disliking or skipping others entirely. I went into this collection with that in mind, expecting to find myself underwhelmed by at least several of the stories, but looking forward to the few I would quite like. Happily, I discovered that all of the stories in this collection were enjoyable; no, I didn't love all of them, but I also can't quite say I disliked any either.

While some stories seemed very loosely connected to the theme of "dead letters," they were each very unique and distinct visions of that theme. I don't think I have a favorite story, but there are a few that I think will stick with me for a while. Overall, this was a good read that I am glad I picked up.

[Horror DNA · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am not a fan of short stories; I'm a size queen who thinks a book under three hundred pages is a waste of time. I would normally list and review each story, but there are a lot of them and a few would have the same review, which could be whittled down to meh!

It's not that the authors are bad; it's just that a few of them end vaguely and I have barely enough time to grasp what's going on before it's over. There are some good entries though, and for the most part I enjoyed my time spent with Dead Letters.

You can read Jennifer's full review at Horror DNA by clicking here.

[Matt Hlinak · Rating 3 out of 5]

As with any anthology, the quality of the stories in 'Dead Letters' is uneven, and there are some flubbed endings. But on the whole, the all-star writers who contributed to this volume do indeed deliver.

Read my full review at Pop Mythology.

I received a free review copy of this book from the publisher.

Matt Hlinak
Author of DoG

[Sue · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting anthology with a great premise. Each author did something different with the premise, some to great effect, some which left me a bit cold. That being said, all of the stories were well-written, well-told, but some grabbed me a lot more than did others. All in all, an entertaining read and one I'd recommend for dipping into, especially if you have favorite authors represented in this collection.

[Alexis · Rating 2 out of 5]

So I guess this just turned out to be a lot different than I expected. It's still accurate to its description, but not what I wanted from it. There were a few good stories, but most I could have done without. There's a lot of stories leaning to or straight up horror, and also just a lot of really weird stuff that is probably horror but I don't know how weird it would be within that genre... Anyway, yeah, turned out not to be really my thing.

[Hilary Mol · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were a couple stories worth the buck I paid for this book at a dollar store. When I picked up the book I thought this would be actual dead letters, or at least fiction that incorporated those lost letters that never get delivered. It turned out to be a collection of horror/sci-fi stories. I don't enjoy horror, and the sci-fi I enjoy is more Douglas Adams/Terry Pratchett, which none of these were even close to. I gave it two stars for the two stories I did enjoy.

[Des Lewis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Indeed this book has an engaging variety of styles, full of intrigue and mis-direction, teasing and compelling, as well as cohering an optimal literary theme for a fiction anthology. It makes me wonder why this theme has never been used before. Or has it?
I hope I have done it all justice.

The detailed review of this book posted elsewhere under my name is too long or impractical to post here.
Above is one of its observations at the time of the review.

[Jay Cat · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am so disappointed!!! I know I shouldn't judge a book by its cover but that's what I did, I expected stories with letters in the old-fashioned way and NOT science fiction!! So, I'm left hungry for more!! Few short stories are interesting but only a few because the other ones , that's what I call, are based on intellectual masturbation!! Expected better!

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dead letters, shorts about lost or misdirected letters as well as things lost. Some stories are excellent, some never seem to come together. This does, however, make for an overall interesting read. It is not a quick read, nor is it a light whimsical foray into the written word.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

After a certain point a lot of the stories started to get similar due to the topic of the collection. Towards the last quarter of this collection the stories just got strange. The last few were really weird.
Overall I enjoy most of this collection.

[Cade · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's an anthology, so not every story was my favorite. But there were some awesome ones in there, and the concept was exceptionally cool. I will say that I'm reminded why I don't read Ramsey Campbell too often; the way he approached the prompt was a bit too twee for my taste.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 2 out of 5]

I always love reading anthologies, the important thing is whether they remain with me, haunt my imagination or lead me to seek out other works by the authors - on that score this anthology is a big no. Perfectly enjoyable, utterly forgetable.

[Ashley (gotbookcitement) · Rating 4 out of 5]

BOOKCITEMENT LEVEL 3.7/5
Good Anthology. I liked it.

[NayDoubleU · Rating 1 out of 5]

this was torture. so glad to be done

[Candy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed most of these stories

[Nat · Rating 4 out of 5]

This anthology had a very fun theme and I feel like it worked well. Lots of different types of stories here but they all feel relevant to the collection as a whole.

The Green Letter by Steven Hall - people get an identical letter that makes something mysterious happen to you. Written like an SCP. Fun concept, I enjoyed it. 4/5

Over to You by Michael Marshall Smith - guy gets a chess piece in the mail that can't be thrown away. Unsettling ending, 4/5

In Memoriam by Joanna Harris - guy who sorts letters remembers his sister who died. Kind of cliche, 3/5

Ausland by Alison Moore - people who knew each other as children and one is time travelling? I finished this story and immediately had to google what it was about. Compelling, if under-explained. 4/5

Wonders to Come by Christopher Fowler - alien parasite invaders in a fancy new hotel. Decent idea that goes completely off the rails. 2/5

Cancer Dancer by Pat Cadigan - woman with cancer goes to a different universe, 4/5

The Wrong Game by Ramsey Campbell - the author gets playing cards. Very creepy, 4/5

Is-And by Claire Dean - woman visits a weird island with her boyfriend and is kidnapped by fairies? Good build-up but the ending is underwhelming. 3/5

Buyer's Remorse by Andrew Lane - Cthulhu rummage sale, 4/5

Gone Away by Muriel Gray - dead relatives are invited to rich people's ball. 3/5

Astray by Nina Allan - woman becomes obsessed with the sister of a girl who disappeared. This was a weird story with no real plot but it was very well written. 4/5

The Days of Our Lives by Adam LG Nevill - people in a romance-based murder cult? Strange. 3/5

The Hungry Hotel by Lisa Tuttle - woman has an affair with a drummer. The ending is completely out of nowhere. 3/5

London by Nicholas Royle - editor with a girlfriend who maybe isn't real, who's haunted by a weird author he represents. ??? 3/5

Change Management by Angela Slatter - woman working at post office kills her boss. Overdone. 2/5

Ledge Bants by Maria Dahvana Headley and China Mieville - Merlin looking for his lost powers. This was dumb but it was redeemed by the very fun writing style and voice/sense of humor. 4/5

And We, Spectators Always, Everywhere by Kirsten Kaschock - boy is enticed by watcher to cut off his younger sister's foot. 4/5

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of these stories impressed me, but the majority left me feeling underwhelmed. Still might reread this someday just because the thought of lost letters and mail is something that fills me with dread like it does for many people. Also maybe another time I'll appreciate the stories I didn't like that much.

[Stacy Kern · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the stories were interesting but many I didn't really get. Also not sure I like short stories because for most of them I just wanted there to be more to explain and resolve things because I didn't really get them.