Looming Low Volume I

Looming Low #1

by Justin Steele (editor), Sam Cowan (Editor)

Looming Low Volume I is the first anthology from Dim Shores. 26 brand-new stories in different shades of weird, all with a dark soul.

Table of

Kurt Fawver -- "The Convexity of Our Youth"
A.C. Wise -- "The Stories We Tell About Ghosts"
Michael Wehunt -- "In Canada"
Brian Evenson -- "The Second Door"
Daniel Mills -- "The Christiansen Deaths"
Betty Rocksteady -- "Dusk Urchin"
Livia Llewellyn -- "The Gin House, 1935"
Damien Angelica Walters -- "This Unquiet Space"
Sunny Moraine -- "We Grope Together, and Avoid Speech"
Brooke Warra -- "Heirloom"
Lucy A. Snyder -- "That Which Does Not Kill You"
Simon Strantzas -- "Doused by Night"
Kaaron Warren -- "We Are All Bone Inside"
Lisa L. Hannett -- "Outside, a Drifter"
Kristi DeMeester -- "The Small Deaths of Skin and Plastic"
Scott Nicolay -- "When the Blue Sky Breaks"
Craig Laurance Gidney -- "Mirror Bias"
Anya Martin -- "Boisea trivittata"
Michael Cisco -- "Rock n' Roll Death Squad"
S.P. Miskowski -- "Alligator Point"
Jeffrey Thomas -- "Stranger in the House"
Christopher Slatsky -- "SPARAGMOS"
Richard Gavin -- "Banishments"
Michael Griffin -- "The Sound of Black Dissects the Sun"
Nadia Bulkin -- "Live Through This"
Gemma Files -- "Distant Dark Places"

Edited by Justin Steele and Sam Cowan. Trade paperback art by Yves Tourigny.

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Weird Fiction, Anthologies, Fiction, Ebooks

340 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 18, 2017

Reviews

[Forrest · Rating 3 out of 5]

Back in the early 2000s, there was a proliferation of speculative short fiction anthologies, a couple of which I edited. It was a kind of golden age where the internet was available as a tool, but it had not yet been saturated by so much dreck; a time when an author (or editor) still strove to have their work published in hardcopy, but when electronic communication (mostly in the form of message boards) allowed one to get one's name "out there" without having to spend a mint doing it.

When I saw the premise and cover of Looming Low, Volume 1, my heart skipped a beat. Or, rather, my heart hearkened back to those days of yore when Leviathan, Redsine, Polyphony, Flesh & Blood, Earwig Flesh Factory, Indigenous Fiction, and many, many others were within easy reach, if you knew where to look. I knew that Sam Cowan's Dim Shores press had been attracting a bevy of "name" horror authors, as well, so I thought I'd take a chance, albeit a fairly "safe" chance, since I knew that a few of these authors were going to have quality work included.

Story by story, here are my notes:

This is the first story I've ever read by Kurt Fawver. "The Convexity of Our Youth" uses a Millhauserian voice to tell a tale of transformation of children into orange balls. The syntax is satisfying and on the paragraph-level the writing is spectacular. But the story itself just wasn't to my liking. Too bland for such mechanically great writing. Three stars.

A.C. Wise "The Stories We Tell About Ghosts" was overly predictable, some of the kids in the story didn't speak like kids, and the plot was lackluster. The writing was technically sound, but had no real distinctive voice, nothing to set it apart. Two very disappointed stars.

Michael Wehunt's "In Canada" is a disturbing peek into the innocent mind of insanity, especially regarding questions of identity. It's a little predictable, but provides an excellent glimpse into the inner world of one gone mad vis-a-vis an outer world gone mad. Four stars.

As I've come to expect from Brian Evenson, his story "The Second Door" is exceptional. My favorite so far. Mix a vaguely post-apocalyptic setting with a narrator who may be slipping from reality, or, possibly reality is slipping away from him (or, perhaps, this strange reality is very real), then throw in the quandary of a language breakdown, and you've got a recipe for a beautiful disaster. Five stars.

Mill's "The Christiansen Deaths" was pretty standard fare, with an ending paragraph that showed a reaction that just seemed to accept the outre as very matter-of-fact. This lessened the impact of the story greatly. Still, it was well told. Three stars.

Betty Rocksteady's "Dusk Urchin" is a surreal (in the classic sense of the word) horror that relies on the unsteady mind of the main protagonist. The atmosphere is excellent and the fragility of the main character makes for an excellent unreliable narrator. At times the voice felt a little forced, but maybe that was the intent of the author. Four stars.

"The Gin House, 1935," by Livia Llewellyn, is the tale of Lillian, whose life, badly lived, becomes a transformation back into . . . Ah, ah, ah! No spoilers. Five stars for this tricky tale.

"This Unquiet Space" did absolutely nothing for me. Just nothing. Two stars.

Sunny Moraine's "We Grope Together, and Avoid Speech" is a plotless sketch, though sketch isn't the right word - perhaps "tableaux" about walls of mouths. It's as weird as it sounds, and creepy, both because of the delight the narrator takes in the description of these strange . . .entities, and because of the devious invitation at the end, where readers become implied characters in the not-story as the fourth wall itself melts away. Five stars!

"Heirloom," by Brooke Warra, is a morbidly poignant story about twins literally separated at birth. While separated, though, they are never fully apart. And that is the horror of it all. Weird folk horror. Four stars.

There's more than a little absurdism in Lucy A. Snyder's "That Which Doesn't Kill You". But it's not so ridiculous that it strays into pure silliness. Four stars.

Codependence, conspiracy, and slippage between realities dominate Simon Strantzas' outstanding tale "Doused by Night". There is a lot of density to this packed short story, with a whole unseen plot-between-the-lines undergirding the surface plot(s). Five stars.

Kaaron Warren's "We Are All Bone Inside," while well-fleshed out (readers will note the irony of that phrase), didn't do a lot for me. Three stars.

Lisa L. Hannett's "Outside, a Drifter," is not my usual fare. I've never been a huge fan of "body horror," but this story can't be pigeon-holed that easily. It is a strange sort of dark fantasy story about love and sacrifice and business. The folksy cadence of the story is an acquired taste, but I found it satisfying in the end. Four stars.

Lristi DeMeester's "The Small Deaths of Skin and Plastic" was strange and creepy, but lacked substance. Three stars is all I can muster for this story.

Scott Nicolay's "When the Blue Sky Breaks," outside of some clever syntactical moves, was decidedly "meh" for me. A rather weak story with linguistic potential. Two stars.

I admit it: I'm a bit of a prude when it comes to my literature. So I'm not big on erotica or sex scenes. But Craig Laurance Gidney's "Mirror Bias" is so incredibly well-written, I'll give it a pass. A big pass. A five star pass. The writing is exquisitely beautiful. I will be seeking more of Gidney's work, for sure. He is a masterful wordsmith.

"Boisea Trivittata" by Anya Martin was good. But I've seen this trick before. Ann VanderMeer and Jonathan Carroll both did similar things many years ago, and they did it better. It wasn't a bad story, just a tiny, tiny bit hackneyed (although I suppose that using the word "hackneyed" means it's been done many, many times before). If you haven't read VanderMeer's or Carroll's stories, then you might like this better than I did. Three stars.

Michael Cisco's scintillating "Rock N' Roll Death Squad" is a study in ultraviolence that belies the supposed exhiliration of mass murder. It's a bit like seeing A Clockwork Orange from the inside out, but lacking pathos - a horrifying thought indeed! Unfortunately this also means it doesn't really connect enough with the reader on an emotional level, though it explodes in the brain, more jazz than blues. Four stars.

"Alligator Point," by S.P. Miskowski has a cinematic sensibility. I could easily see this turned into a short movie. It's the sort of psychological tension-builder that Hitchcock would have loved. Four stars.

Jeffrey Thomas's "Stranger in the House" delves into the abyss of self-identity and its loss. It's a good story, well-written, but not as impressive as most of Thomas's work. For that, turn to The Endless Fall and other Weird Fictions. I hate to do this, because I really do love most of Thomas's work, but in this case, I can only honestly give three stars.

Christopher Slatsky's "SPARAGMOS" explores the shadows of dementia, family, and corporate evil. It's a disturbing, yet mildly comforting view of a dystopia and the mercy of forgetfulness. Four stars.

Richard Gavin's "Banishments" is an excellent foray into social media deception and its supernatural consequences. A very creepy story, I found myself thumbing back every couple of pages seeking more clarity on what had happened earlier. It might have been the piece-meal way in which I had to read the story (because: life), but it felt a little muddled at the beginning. Still fully worthy of four stars, though!

One of my favorites in this anthology, "The Sound of Black Dissects the Sun," by Michael Griffin is focused on dark ambient music (which I listen to a lot) and the occult. It's a reality-bender with a narrator that I felt some sympathy for, which might say some disagreeable things about me. Flattery aside, the pacing, atmosphere, and voice were just about perfect. The story "fits itself" well. Five stars.

I admit that when I started Nadia Bulkin's "Live Through This," I was underwhelmed, at first. By the end, however, I found myself swept up by this story of communal guilt in the face of the void. This was a long, slow burn sort of story that lasts, with a very satisfying character arc and a sort of folk-horror creepiness throughout, but folk horror from the inside. Well worth the read and well worth five stars.

Gemma Files' "Distant, Dark Places" is everything I expect a Gemma Files story to be: well-researched, with characters exhibiting a range of human emotions, and conspiracy-horror on a cosmic scale. You'll never look at the moon and stars the same way after reading this. Four stars.

On average, that's about three stars. And, though the book came with a beautiful bookmark and cardstock poster of the cover, I'm not inclined to bump it up. Bulkin, Griffin, Gidney, Strantzas, Moraine, Llewellyn, and Evenson have produced some outstanding work here. And many of the other stories might be five-star tales, in another reader's eyes. But the lows were, well, pretty low. And while I'm certain that other readers will look at my own edited anthologies and think that some of my selections were suspect, at best, I have to stick to my guns. Perhaps my taste has changed a little. Or maybe it hasn't changed at all, and it's just been that long since I've seen an outpouring of the sort of thing I love. In any case, I can't let nostalgia blind me.

That said, this anthology has encouraged me to take up editing again. Things are still in the nascent stages, but plans are afoot. Dark, nefarious plans . . .

[Karl]

This hardcover edition is copy 138 of 150 numbered copies.

[Barry · Rating 5 out of 5]

AUTHOR’S NOTE: I was very kindly offered to review this book by Justin Steele, and I am deeply honored and grateful for the opportunity.

In his thoughtful and affectionate introduction, Justin Steele reflects on how this anthology came about as the result of conversations he’d had with Sam Cowan, the man behind Dim Shores Press, who has been publishing one sensational limited chapbook after another by the leading (and up-and-coming) contemporary authors in weird fiction. Calling upon many of these and other authors, Looming Low features a powerhouse of an author lineup, with a whopping twenty-six (26!) stories by as many authors, this is, without a doubt, one of this year’s strongest and most memorable anthologies.

This is most definitely a showcase of the genre recognized as weird fiction. Although many of them may fall under the horror genre, these stories are hard to pigeonhole into any single distinguishing category. With themes, settings, plots, and characters that run the gamut of everything from science fiction to fantasy, period to contemporary, and twisted humor to powerful sorrow, the one interconnecting theme is a deep and profound sense of the weird at work.

To list and individually review every single story would be to make a review longer than the stories themselves; instead, here are but a few of the many highlights found within its pages.

The opening tale by Kurt Fawver, “The Convexity of Our Youth,” is about a town in which a mysterious orange ball comes rolling and bouncing into the neighborhoods and lives of the people there, and the disturbing effects it has upon the children whom innocently decide to kick it around. The plot slowly shifts into something of a soft apocalypse, and is ultimately not so much eerie as it is morose, which makes it all the more vividly haunting.

Similarly, Michael Wehunt’s “In Canada” is a delicately heartbreaking tale of a young man who thrives in the fantasies he experiences when he dons one of his many collected animal masks. Curiosity and danger dawn upon him, however, when he begins to see a man in his apartment building who has no face, and a pretty girl who lives across the way. Wehunt, as always, delivers a story that is simultaneously fanciful and moody to gut the reader with his masterful prose.

Brian Evenson’s “The Second Door,” while definitely an emotional story, is powerfully atmospheric and very unsettling. Two young siblings spend their days and nights living inside some kind of expansive hatch, the world beyond its two locked doors one of constant darkness. There’s no explanation, no real hint, of what led to their isolation, nor of the state (or overall nature) of the world outside; its setting simply is. And because of that, it isolates the reader, as well, into the claustrophobic and quietly terrifying world that Evenson so expertly, if fleetingly, renders.

Betty Rocksteady’s “Dusk Urchin” oozes with the mood and imagery of a classic supernatural horror movie. A young woman is startled to find her neighbor at her door, asking for help—and even more startled to find him with a little girl who claims to be his daughter…even though he’s never had one. The story only gets stranger from there, swiftly building to a dissonant crescendo of disorienting madness.

Damien Angelica Walters drops the reader into an all-too-real world in “This Unquiet Space,” as an uncommunicative married couple move into a new house that is tainted by a mysterious spot on a wall. The spot isn’t the only thing that slowly encroaches upon the relative safety—and sanity—of the characters, however, as this devastating tale is as much about the horrors of a toxic marriage as it is about the uncanny.

Brooke Warra’s showstopper, “Heirloom,” is as hypnotically touching as it is profoundly disturbing. The narrator recollects how her twin had gone down a very different path in life than she did, and how a tragedy brings them back together—in more twisted (and ever-twisting) ways than one.

Kristi DeMeester’s “The Small Deaths of Skin and Plastic” is about a woman who spends her days and nights in a hospital, seemingly for exactly one purpose: indefinitely birthing strange, plastic infants. The emphasis is on the woman’s despair as she yearns to hold even one of her children, but the staff always take them away. Almost mythical in feel, this is every bit as surreal, disturbing, and emotionally draining as an episode of The Twilight Zone, as directed by David Lynch.

Anya Martin “Boisea Trivittata” is a horror show for anybody who has ever lived in a countryside house in the winter and been plagued by insects. The weirdness factor is cranked high on this story, in part due to the increasing numbers of boxelder bugs that creep into the protagonist’s home, and also partly for the rising tensions of hinted-at events unfolding in the world outside—but largely for the tale’s casual, almost matter-of-fact narrative that quietly slips its fingers around sanity’s neck.

Jeffrey Thomas delivers a tale of deep unease in “Strangers In the House,” in which a man believes he is slowly being erased from existence, one other person’s memory at a time. Interestingly enough, this story is followed by Christopher Slatsky’s “SPARAGMOS,” which is about an elderly hoarder, in the grasp of Alzheimer’s, who may or may not have discovered a strange and dark secret mission at work in his neighborhood. These two stories are as upsetting as they are eerie, and make for a powerful pair of stories about the horrors of loss of memory.

These are but a scant few of the many memorable and fascinating stories to be found in this definitive anthology. For every reader, their favorites will no doubt be different than another’s; suffice to say, other highlights include Daniel Mills’ “The Christiansen Deaths,” told in his signature, early America-set style as the dark secrets of a strange couple are related in a series of epistolary confessions. Another period-set piece is Livia Llewellyn’s hypnotic, erotic, and disturbing “The Gin House, 1935.” Simon Strantzas expertly cranks up the tension of a possible curse in “Doused By Night.” Scott Nicolay’s “When the Blue Sky Breaks” is a meditation upon the strange world of Xebico, from the enigmatic author H.F. Arnold’s classic story “The Night Wire.” Michael Cisco drops the reader into a lyrical flurry of violence and music in “Rock n’ Roll Death Squad,” whereas S.P. Miskowski presents what seems to be a casual and straightforward tale of a mother and her twin girls going on a road trip to the titular location of “Alligator Point,” all the while secretly drawing the narrative rug out from under the reader.

Looming Low concludes with not one, but two longer works, one by Michael Griffin and the other by Gemma Files. Despite their radically different plots and themes, are equally haunting, and make for a stunning double-whammy that speaks for the lasting power of this anthology.

Griffin’s mind-bending “The Sound of Black Dissolves the Sun” is narrated by a man who heads an indie music label comes into possession of a mysterious CD of strange, dark ambient sounds. With each track that he listens to, he is inexorably drawn down a long, twisted path of deepening mystery and terror, challenging and transforming his life forever. Griffin deliberately and thoughtfully tells his story so that it unfolds with all the graceful lucidity and encroaching darkness of the music that haunts its protagonist, and is fittingly split up into five parts, each named after the five tracks of the CD. Fans of dark ambient music (which Griffin, a musician of the genre, most certainly knows a thing or two about) will especially get a kick out of this tale, which is clearly told from someone who understands his music (and will no doubt leave many readers craving a copy of that CD).

And Gemma Files’ “Distant Dark Places” (dedicated to Caitlín R. Kiernan) is an appropriate closing tale, one which takes a long, hard look at the ultimate darkness: that which lurks between and beyond the stars. Expertly-researched, this novella involves cults and the cosmos, conspiracies and lunar/terrestrial histories, friendships and relationships, and the terrifying, perpetually-open maw of the universe’s deepest secrets. To say more would be to spoil the intricately- (and intimately-) woven mystery that Files so beautifully renders here—but readers who are uncomfortable with staring up at the night sky are warned that they may well have trouble digesting the themes present in this unforgettable tale.

This anthology is officially titled as Looming Low, Vol. 1, and as hinted at in Steele’s introduction, there may yet even be a second volume, someday. With so much quality packed into every one of the many stories of this fantastic anthology, one can only hope that a second volume is on the horizon, and then even a third, and so on. The weird is a growing force in literature nowadays, and with such authorities as Justin Steele and Sam Cowan purveying the best of it in volumes such as this, readers will never be left in short supply.

[David Bridges · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have previously read several of the chapbook releases by Dim Shores, all of which were great. They have been putting out some of the best original content from the indie weird lit scene. Of course, when I saw this anthology of original fiction by a stacked roster of weird fiction writers I knew I would be reading it sooner than later. It is a large book both in size and a page count of almost 330 pages. There are 26 stories many of which read by authors I have read before and some new ones that will be checking out more in the future. If you are an aficionado of contemporary weird fiction, as I consider myself, I am sure you will recognize many of the names Brian Evenson, Jeffrey Thomas, Gemma Files, and Michael Cisco etc…They all have great creepy stories in this collection. There isn’t really a common theme amongst the stories, other than a macabre atmosphere and dark poetic literature.

As I said the TOC is stacked with a never-ending list of great authors I enjoy reading such as Scott Nicolay, SP Miskowski, Nadia Bulkin, Livia Llewellyn, Daniel Mills, Lucy A. Snyder, Simon Stranzas, Christopher Slatsky, Richard Gavin and on and on and on. I wanted to note that Betty Rocksteady and Brooke Warra both had two of my favorite stories in the collection and I had never read their work before. Rocksteady’ s Dusk Urchin follows a woman’s dreadful descent into madness and Warra’s Heirloom is the tale of a broken family with two unnerving twin sisters.

If you are a fan of the newer weird or the older weird you should like Looming Low.

[Kev Harrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm still relatively new to the world of weird fiction and so, when I was given the chance to review this collection for This is Horror, I jumped at it. Well, kind of slowly jumped at it - it's a huge collection with 26 full stories, many of which are pretty long.
Over the last four or five weeks I've been spellbound by the collection which contains some terrific stories by renowned and emerging authors in the weird genre. Particular highlights for me were 'Dusk Urchin' by Betty Rocksteady which had beauty and disturbance in equal measure, 'Distant Dark Places' by Gemma Files, which is a huge cosmic opera, somehow crammed into a few thousand words and utterly absorbing. There is also 'SPARAGMOS' by Christopher Slatsky, about an old man and his descent into senility, handled respectfully, but with no punches pulled as to the jarring effect it has on one's humanity.
I loved the collection, primarily because in the main, the fact I was not a 'weird' aficionado was never a problem. The narratives are, of themselves, wonderful stories for any darker genre.
For a fuller review, you can head over to This is Horror.

[Sam Edwards · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is worth the price of admission for the star power alone. That it contains new stories from Lucy A. Snyder, Simon Strantzas, Richard Gavin, S. P. Miskowski and Gemma Files should be more than enough to get any prospective reader to consider the book. However, the stories themselves are just outstanding.

There are too many good stories to review in depth, though I know all writers crave such attention (at least, I do when I write). A. C. Wise, Michael Wehunt, Betty Rocksteady, Christopher Slatsky, Nadia Bulkin and Gemma Files contribute incredibly powerful stories.

Despite being an unthemed anthology, Justin Steele and Sam Cowan did a masterful job of arranging the stories thematically. There are similar themes of heartbreak, loneliness, and getting older woven throughout the anthology. The stories at their core are about relationships, and strong writing comes about through a careful attention to feeling and character.

I really hope there is a volume two, because this is an incredible show of force.

[Waffles · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a fantastic anthology! There's something here for all fans of weird/horror fiction.
Some of my favorite stories were:

“The Stories We Tell About Ghosts” - A.C. Wise
“The Christiansen Deaths” - Daniel Mills
“Doused by Night” - Simon Strantzas
“The Small Deaths of Skin and Plastic” - Kristi DeMeester
“SPARAGMOS” - Christopher Slatsky
“Banishments” - Richard Gavin
​​​​​​​“The Sound of Black Dissects the Sun” - Michael Griffin
“Live Through This” - Nadia Bulkin
“Distant Dark Places” - Gemma Files

If one of you're New Year's resolutions is to read more high quality strange fiction, then you couldn't go wrong by buying this volume (and the ones that will hopefully follow)

[aleph3 · Rating 5 out of 5]

After a run of fine chapbooks, Dim Shores has assembled an anthology showcasing some of the best authors of the weird currently working, all at the top of their game here. Kurt Fawver begins the proceedings with "The Convexity of our Youth", a bizarre yet strangely believable story of a plague which turns children into giant orange balls. From there, the tales look at a vast range of human experience through the weird lens: childhood, marriage, heartbreak, parenthood, old age; domestic and political violence, sexual assault, poverty, riches; science, faith, art, music.

Particularly memorable to me were: Kaaron Warren's "We Are All Bone Inside", which vividly sketches an bizarre underground community; Michael Cisco's "Rock'n'Roll Death Squad", a surreal portrait of a retired member of a paramilitary squad; Michael Griffin's "The Sound of Black Dissects the Sun", an unsettling tale drawing on the author's work in ambient music; Nadia Bulkin's "Live Through This", which turns its gaze on the injustices and lies of a small town; and Gemma Files' "Dark Distant Places", which, as the title promises, takes you out to the dark between the stars and the wilds of Northern Ontario, bringing things to an end in a haunting and cosmic manner.

[Paul Ramage · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sam was kind enough to send me out an ARC of this. I'm no reviewer so I'm not going to go into individual stories and merit them, I'll leave that to more capable hands. But what I will say is that this is a first for me. Never have I read an anthology or collection where there wasn't at least a few stories that *didn't work for me* or that just didn't fit the overall tone of the volume.
Not here. Every. Single. Story shows each of the authors at the very top of their game. From the longest to the shortest, every one of them engages and draws the reader in. Quite wonderful.
Sam and Justin having gotten the tone perfect with these dark, strange stories, then topped it off by setting them out in such a way that each story compliments the next, so the book as a whole has a flow to it that is quite mesmerising and you'll find yourself re-reading it just to have that one more go.
This is most definitely going to be the must have, and has future award winner written all over it.

[Christa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excerpt from a guest post I wrote for Kendall Reviews, "Ten Short Stories by Women in Horror You Need To Read," which included a story from Justin Steele's Looming Low Volume I:

I met Ms. Warra at Readercon 29 this past July, and discovered that she’d contributed to Justin Steele and Sam Cowan’s Shirley Jackson award-nominated anthology, Looming Low, when I had the privilege of sitting with her at that very awards ceremony. While Looming Low did not take home the Edited Anthology prize, I was intrigued enough by the buzz surrounding the book, and by Brooke’s explanation of the genesis of her piece, to scoop up the Kindle edition of Looming Low upon returning home from Quincy. After reading “Heirloom” (as well as Damien Angelica Walters’ contribution, “This Unquiet Space,” which is unsurprisingly fabulous), Looming Low officially usurped the top spot of my TBR pile.

“Heirloom” succeeds in forcing the reader to feel the love and connection between the twin sisters at its center, to experience aspects of their relationship that are as lush and wild as a rose garden, but also to wallow in those parts that are more difficult to examine, the ones that have taken root in a pit of heady soil rife with squirming, sightless worms. Warra’s story works so well on the basis of the beautiful grotesque precisely because the author refuses to shy away from the blunt and biting reality of who both sisters really are, and recognizes that, while the reader may recoil from the words upon the page, the beauty is in those details that are sometimes uglier than we’d care to contemplate.

Those details include things like the “warped, craggy body,” of Louise at birth, the “red welts bubbling up and bursting” from the protagonist’s palms, the drug dens where scores of addicts—where Louise—are nodding off with track marks oozing up their arms. Even Louise’s self-portraits are a study in horror: “gaping mouths full of jagged teeth,” “drooping eyes watching,” an image of “Louise with two heads, thorny branches crawling from her open mouths, rose-buds blooming from her eyes.”

Grotesquery is on full display in “Heirloom,” but so too is beauty, truth, and love. The prose is so visceral, the storyline so heartbreaking, that you should not be surprised to find yourself tearing up at the plight of these ill-fated twins. Do what is necessary to keep those tears from spilling over, however, as any water, no matter the salt content, puts you at risk of nurturing the petals that Warra’s work will cause to bloom and burst from your mouth.

Originally published at: https://kendallreviews.com/christa-ca...

[Christian · Rating 4 out of 5]

The collection didn't initially feel as large as it proved to be. 300 pages of weird fiction short stories is big. It proved to be a good mix of familiar and new authors.

A few of my favorite stories:

The Convexity of Our Youth by Kurt Fawver: A great story to open with. Fawver sets the weirdness dial to 11 with an exploration of the pathology of a... bouncy plague.

The Christiansen Deaths by Daniel Mills: Presented as interviews (or court transcripts) of a frontier tragedy. I'd just watched the Homesman and the Christiansen deaths felt like they fit right into that bleak despair in the homestead.

The Sound of Black Dissects the Sun by Michael Griffin: This one felt the most like it was deserving of its own Dim Shores novella treatment. I'm an ambient music addict and Black Dissects clicked nicely for me. As a frequent listener of Hypnos and Cryochamber, I felt like I had an insider angle to this tale of secret meanings in music.

[Curtis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my kind of anthology. No artsy attempt at a theme, just a couple dozen of the best in the biz bringing their A-game.
A ton of writers I was already a fan of (Evenson, Cisco, Strantzas, Griffin, Wehunt, Slatsky, Gavin), and a bunch of others who were new to me but left a strong impression (Anya Martin, A.C. Wise, Daniel Mills, Damien Angelica Walters, Scott Nicolay, Betty Rocksteady, Craig Lawrence Gidney, Jeffrey Thomas, Gemma Files).
I'll definitely check out volume 2 of this series.

[Ryan Pidhayny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Looming Low Volume I collects some of the biggest names in modern weird fiction into one very enjoyable anthology. Almost all the stories within are good and quite a few are great. "Dusk Urchin" by Betty Rocksteady, "Live Through This" by Nadia Bulkin, "Distant Dark Places" by Gemma Files, and "We Grope Together and Avoid Speech" by Sunny Moraine stood out in particular. With the high-quality of this first volume, I'm looking forward to the anthology's future.

[Theresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I frequently review anthologies because horror and Weird fiction are genres that are often best-sustained in shorter works. (Though I’m craving more novel-length works of late.) Looming Low is the first in a proposed original series of curated Weird tales from Dim Shores, not unlike Undertow’s stellar Shadows & Tall Trees anthologies. There are many familiar names contained within, but editors Steele and Cowan have cast a wide net for what Weird means to them. While I appreciated how they kept the introduction and foreword short and let the stories speak for themselves, I also would have enjoyed a closer look at the editorial process, as the editors of Undertow’s other anthology series, The Year’s Best Weird, do.

There were great contributions, from Michael Wehunt’s poignant and disturbing “In Canada,” Craig Lawrence Gidney’s dating app thriller “Mirror App” and a dark, long meditation on infectious ambient music in “The Sound of Black Dissects the Sun,” but my favorite stories were all written by women. Livia Llewllyn always makes me happy, even when she scares the shit out of me by combining the darkest nihilism with the unapologetically erotic. Nadia Bulkin’s biting, infuriating revenge story, “Live Through This” is sure to make it into someone’s “Year’s Best” anthology, as should Gemma Files’ SF closer “Distant Dark Places.” There are also original shorts from Anya Martin, Kristi DeMeester (Beneath,) and A.C. Wise. With 26 stories, Looming Low looms large in variety and I’ll definitely keep an eye out for Volume 2.

[Donald Armfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dim Shores: Looming Low is all things weird. A great collection with an all-star mix of writers.
From children who suddenly turn into orange bouncy balls, ghost hunting apps, masks that hide true identities, doors that lead to alternate places, and deadly gardens. This is something you want to read.
My top favorite stories:

The Christiansen Deaths - Daniel Mills

Doused by Night- Simon Strantzas

The Small Deaths of Skin and Plastic - Kristi DeMeester

Stranger in the House - Jeffrey Thomas

[Lewis Housley · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful collection of stories by great authors.

Two of the stories in this collection just melted my brain in the most blissful way imaginable.

"The Sound of Black Dissects the Sun", by Michael Griffin
"Distant Dark Places", by Gemma Files

Dim Shores always puts out the good stuff and this collection is certainly a gem.

[Christi Nogle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent anthology. My favorite stories were by Nadia Bulkin, Michael Griffin, Christopher Slatsky, Brian Evenson, and Betty Rocksteady, but I liked just about every story here. Looking forward to volume 2!

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review coming soon. Overall loved it, a ton of great stories in here.

[D. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not without its high points, but I felt like several stories deserved more polish and the collection as a whole could have benefited from another round of copy editing. Collections are a bit difficult to judge, since the the variety means you'll find some stories, authors, themes, and styles that you'll like, and probably just as many that you won't care for. Even authors I usually like have compiled and edited collections of stories I haven't taken to, so it's definitely a matter of taste. Personally, was glad to see Gemma Files among these authors, as I loved her novel Experimental Film.

I especially like tightly written, well-crafted short horror fiction, but I didn't find enough of it here. There are a few stories in Looming Low in which the emotional lines are drawn well enough that the weirdness makes them vibrate even stronger, so a good four or even five stars for those. Others seem to be getting there, but lose the way a bit, and there are a couple of one-star stories for me. Probably one or two too many disappointing stories for me to give the collection three stars, but if I had the choice of half stars, it would be between a two and a three.

It's worth noting that this volume and the anthology Nightscript Vol. 1 (edited by C.M. Muller) have an overlap of a few authors on their lists. Overall I think I found the stories in Nightscript Vol. 1 to be thematically richer, where the weird or supernatural elements strengthen the story or contribute to the emotions in play, rather than sometimes seeming like happenstance.

[Des Lewis · Rating 5 out of 5]

... this book’s inspiring symphony of dangers to face in our times (a paradoxical end game of rapture and darkness.) An anthology with many gems, especially the Hannett and the Gavin.

The detailed review of this book posted elsewhere under my name is too long to post here.
Above is its conclusion.

[Eugene Novikov · Rating 3 out of 5]

Long, uneven weird fiction anthology, with real highlights courtesy of Gemma Files, Brian Evenson, Nadia Bulkin, and Christopher Slatsky.

[Christian · Rating 1 out of 5]

The stupidest book I've read this year. I'm done with short story collections. A ridiculous waste of time.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spectacular collection. Highly recommended!