This Dreaming Isle

by Dan Coxon (Editor), Andrew Michael Hurley, Ramsey Campbell

Something strange is happening on British shores.

Britain has a long history of folk tales, ghost stories and other uncanny fictions, and these literary ley lines are still shimmering beneath the surface of this green and pleasant land. Every few generations this strangeness crawls out from the dark places of the British imagination, seeping into our art and culture. We are living through such a time.

This Dreaming Isle is an anthology of new horror stories and weird fiction with a distinctly British flavour. It collects together fifteen brand new horrifying or unsettling stories that draw upon the landscape and history of the British Isles for their inspiration. Some explore the realms of myth and legend, others are firmly rooted in the present, engaging with the country’s forgotten spaces.

Featuring new and exclusive stories from:
Ramsey Campbell, multi-award winning author of over 40 novels.
Andrew Michael Hurley, author of The Loney and Devil’s Day.
Catriona Ward, author of Rawblood and Little Eve.
Robert Shearman, World Fantasy Award, British Fantasy Award and Shirley Jackson Award winning author of four collections.
Jenn Ashworth, author of Fell, Cold Light and more.
Gareth E. Rees, author of Marshland and The Stone Tide.
Tim Lebbon, screenwriter and author of over 35 books including Dusk, The Silence and Relics.
Alison Littlewood, author of The Crow Garden, The Hidden People and more.
Aliya Whiteley, author of The Beauty, The Arrival of Missives and The Loosening Skin (forthcoming from Unsung Stories).
Stephen Volk, screenwriter and author of Whitstable, Monsters in the Heart and more.
Kirsty Logan, author of The Gloaming, The Gracekeepers, A Portable Shelter and The Rental Heart.
James Miller, author of UnAmerican Activities, Lost Boys and Sunshine State.
Jeannette Ng, author of Under the Pendulum Sun.
Richard V. Hirst, co-author of The Night Visitors.
Alison Moore, author of The Lighthouse, Missing and more.
Gary Budden, author of Hollow Shores.
Angela Readman, author of Don’t Try This at Home and The Book of Tides.

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

317 pages, Paperback

First published November 19, 2018

About the author

Dan Coxon is an award-winning editor and writer based in London. His non-fiction anthology Writing The Uncanny (co-edited with Richard V. Hirst) won the British Fantasy Award for Best Non-Fiction 2022, while his short story collection Only The Broken Remain (Black Shuck Books) was shortlisted for two British Fantasy Awards in 2021 (Best Collection, Best Newcomer). In 2018 his anthology of British folk-horror, This Dreaming Isle (Unsung Stories), was shortlisted for a British Fantasy Award and a Shirley Jackson Award. His short stories have appeared in various anthologies, including Nox Pareidolia, Beyond the Veil, Mother: Tales of Love and Terror and Fiends in the Furrows III. His latest anthology - Isolation - was published by Titan Books in September 2022.

Reviews

[Blair · Rating 4 out of 5]

This Dreaming Isle is 'an anthology of new horror stories and weird fiction with a distinctly British flavour'. The 17 stories, divided into sections titled 'Country', 'City' and 'Coast', often – as editor Dan Coxon highlights in his introduction – stray into the realm of folk horror. The collection opens with a trio of stories that represent the best work in the book: 'The Pier at Ardentinny' by Catriona Ward, 'Old Trash' by Jenn Ashworth and 'In My Father's House' by Andrew Michael Hurley. Other standouts are 'Cold Ashton' by Stephen Volk, 'Not All Right' by James Miller, 'Hovering' by Gary Budden, and 'Swimming With Horses' by Angela Readman.

As ever, some stories are better than others, but this really is a strong anthology; it would be a great jumping-off point for anyone wanting to read more contemporary British horror and slipstream. There were only a couple of stories I didn't care for, and my only complaint about many of my favourites was that I wanted them to be longer. Mention should also be made of Coxon's contribution as editor: I often found myself thinking about how perfectly ordered the stories are.

COUNTRY
'The Pier at Ardentinny' by Catriona Ward: A fantastic start to the book; a story that immediately made me want to read on. Ward's narrator is Irene, visiting her older fiancé's family in Scotland for the first time. Her voice, fussy and slightly annoying, is perfectly realised, and there is a very effective moment of unnerving horror. The conclusion is deliciously satisfying too.

'Old Trash' by Jenn Ashworth: Rachael has recently discovered her teenage daughter, Mae, has been having a secret relationship with a man twice her age. Now, Rachael has taken her camping near Pendle (site of the famous witch trials), partly in the hope that the two of them will bond, but also because she knows Mae won't be able to use her phone. Naturally, the holiday doesn't go as planned. The relationship between mother and daughter is the best thing about 'Old Trash' – Rachael's paranoia, her misguided attempts to make Mae happy – and I also enjoyed the unexpected nature of the supernatural threat.

'In My Father's House' by Andrew Michael Hurley: It was a smart decision to place this next to Ashworth's story – it is similarly strong on domestic detail/family relationships, and that provides a great foundation for the strangeness that follows. Mike's father has recently been hospitalised; this has caused father and son to reunite after years of estrangement. On the way to Mike's son's nativity play, his father insists on taking a rural shortcut. An uncanny tale that (unsurprisingly for Hurley) uses landscape wonderfully.

'Land of Many Seasons' by Tim Lebbon: A solitary artist keeps encountering a strange figure while making landscape paintings. Actually, he doesn't so much encounter the figure – or absence of a figure – as much as find it in his artworks. This is a simple, quiet story which I liked, but I felt it could have had more substance, and I found the last line rather pat.

'Dark Shells' by Aliya Whiteley: One of the shortest stories in This Dreaming Isle, 'Dark Shells' sees an elderly woman taking a walk through her memories. The jumps in time and place add intrigue to a tale of ghostly legacies.

'Cold Ashton' by Stephen Volk: While a little harder to get into than most of the others, 'Cold Ashton' quickly proved to be one of my favourites. It's told in the form of a factual report from someone who seems to work as a paranormal investigator, and it deals with the unusual name of the titular village. The local legend that unfurls from there is a pretty fascinating one, told with flair, and a perfect final twist.

'Domestic Magic (Or, things my wife and I found hidden in our house)' by Kirsty Logan: Well, the subtitle says it all with this one! Alice and Rain can't seem to stop finding strange objects in the bungalow they've inherited from Alice's grandmother. And they all seem to have some connection to kelpies. Like much of Logan's work, this story has plenty of magical realism and the feel of a modern fairytale.

CITY
'Not All Right' by James Miller: I started off disliking this; I knew the protagonist was horrible by design, but his voice felt jarring after the stories in the 'Country' section (which, of course, makes this the perfect choice to kick off the 'City' section). However, 'Not All Right' is ultimately one of the most complete and fully realised stories in the collection. It's about a racist/sexist/generally awful internet troll who's staying in his wealthy uncle's London flat. He's meant to be looking for a job, but just spends his time baiting strangers on Twitter. Then he gets a threatening message from an anonymous account. It all culminates in a mixture of horror, paranoia and strangeness that reminded me of High-Rise.

'The Cocktail Party in Kensington Gets Out of Hand' by Robert Shearman: An escort arrives for an assignation in Kensington, only to be given a bizarre set of instructions. He must lie on the floor, naked, and play dead while a cocktail party goes on around him. If there was any doubt, it soon becomes clear this is far from an ordinary gathering, and the tiger and bear 'rugs' he's lying between aren't exactly your average rugs. A true macabre mindfuck of a story, undoubtedly one of the most memorable, this made me think of Angela Carter's short fiction.

'We Regret to Inform You' by Jeannette Ng: I tried my best with it, but this made absolutely zero sense to me – I felt like I'd need to get another degree before I'd stand a chance of comprehending it. Told via a series of emails between two academics, it seems to be set in a strange future or alternate present in which England is divided and magic is real. There's also a focus on the writings of Anglo-Saxon scholar and monk the Venerable Bede. That's as much as I've got.

'Lodestones' by Richard V. Hirst: Probably a lazy comparison, but this struck me as rather Kafkaesque. It concerns an office worker, F, who gets a lift from a colleague who claims he knows a shortcut. As their car moves – slowly – through the city, Manchester is transformed, becoming almost post-apocalyptic. Enigmatic and engrossing.

COAST
'The Knucker' by Gareth E. Rees: Here, three narratives intertwine. A man is found dead, apparently drowned – miles from water, in the middle of a drought. Some time earlier, a couple steal a car to order; the owner wants the insurance payout. And in an unspecified, much earlier time period, a community bands together to battle a mythical creature. The story draws these plotlines together and shows how the pervasive power of myth has been held in the land's memory, though it does so rather more briefly than I would have preferred.

'The Stone Dead' by Alison Moore: As soon as I started reading this, I knew I'd read it before. After a bit of checking, I found it was Moore's contribution to Tales from the Shadow Booth Vol. 1. I liked the story then, but didn't feel like I needed to read it again, so I just skimmed it. (Once I knew this, I also couldn't help thinking it didn't feel like it fitted into the anthology as well as the others.)

'Hovering (Or, a recollection of 25 February 2015)' by Gary Budden: Another fantastic story from Budden, who is fast becoming one of my favourite current writers of weird fiction and whose approach – being as it is so closely tied to ideas about Britishness and the mythical nature of landscape – is absolutely perfect for this anthology. It is framed as a story told to the author by a friend, and as with many of Budden's stories, it's hard to figure out whether it's entirely fictional. It feels very densely layered, a patchwork of memories and history, emphasising how a place can be shaped by what has happened there.

'The Headland of Black Rock' by Alison Littlewood: A struggling actor takes a seaside holiday and becomes obsessed with a silent woman he meets on the beach. This was enjoyable enough, but feels somewhat formulaic next to the other stories collected here.

'The Devil in the Details' by Ramsey Campbell: Sacrilegious I know, but I've never read anything by Campbell I've particularly rated and this is no exception. On a family trip to view the famous murals of St Brendan on Sea, 12-year-old Brian keeps glimpsing something peculiar. The idea is a decent one, but the story is bogged down in unnecessary, confusing detail and isn't particularly easy to follow.

'Swimming With Horses' by Angela Readman: The atmospheric setting for this one is a shabby, down-at-heel coastal resort, the sort of place that always seems rich with narrative possibility. Despite having little in common, two young women bond over a secret; this proves to be more complicated and odd than it first appears. The story ends on a beautifully poignant note. I have had Readman on my radar for a while, but haven't yet got round to reading her collection Don't Try This at Home; I must do so soon.

I received a complimentary copy of This Dreaming Isle as a Kickstarter reward for helping fund the project.

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[Ends of the Word · Rating 4 out of 5]

What is “folk horror”? Perhaps, like proverbial True Love, you’ll only recognize it when you meet it. Both as a term and as a literary and artistic genre, it defies a facile definition and is possibly easier to explain with reference to its typical – yet by no means exclusive – elements. The term itself is often attributed to British film director Piers Haggard, who coined it in a 2003 interview to describe his own film The Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971). It was subsequently taken up by Mark Gatiss in his 2010 BBC4 series “A History of Horror” and applied not just to Haggard’s movie, but also to other films of the era with which it shares certain traits, such as Witchfinder General (1968) and the iconic The Wickerman (1973). One of the chief texts to explore the genre, Adam Scovell’s Folk Horror: Hours Dreadful and Things Strange, cites a lovely quote from Andy Paciorek:

“One may as well attempt to build a box the exact shape of mist; for like the mist, folk horror is atmospheric and sinuous. It can creep from and into different territories yet leave no universal defining mark of its exact form.”

And yet, some basic elements can be identified in both literary and filmic manifestations of the genre. Landscapes, especially their ancient contours, are generally an important aspect of the story, often going beyond mere scene-setting. Plots often include references to folklore, myths and legends. More often than not, pagan or occult cults or beliefs make an appearance, in contrast with either a Christian or, quite ironically, material/secular worldviews. Another regular trope is an urban dweller moving to a rural context, and being overcome by ancient, pagan or natural forces – possibly a symbol of the inherent struggle between man and beast.

The term “folk horror” might be fairly recent. Its concerns are not. Indeed, stories by the likes of Arthur Machen and Algernon Blackwood are often cited as forerunners of the genre. I would go back even more and venture that its roots are to be found in the dark Romanticism of the late 18th and 19th centuries, with its fixation with the Sublime – the terror and magnificence of the untamed forces of nature – its revival of interest in ancient folklore and legends, its themes of the alienated individual, and its fascination with the supernatural. To give just one example, beneath its farcical exterior, Goethe’s Die Erste Walpurgisnacht (famously set to music by Felix Mendelssohn), explores themes not far removed from those of folk horror.

“This Dreaming Isle”, issued by speculative fiction publishers Unsung Stories, was funded through a Kickstarter campaign by like-minded fans of weird fiction (including yours truly). When “This Dreaming Isle” project was launched on Kickstarter, the target of the campaign was to fund a “horror and dark fantasy anthology inspired by the British landscape, featuring leading horror and fantasy authors”. Editor Dan Coxon explains in his introduction to the collection:

It was always our intention to allow the contributing authors a free rein...we asked only that they should tie them to a specific place in the British Isles, and should in some way explore the myths and traditions, the folklore and history that make this land unique.

The result, which Coxon describes as “startling”, is that most of the stories could be considered to fall in the “folk horror” category, exploiting as they do certain tropes which have come to be associated with the genre. At the same time, the sheer variety present within the general, unifying theme of the anthology shows how rich this seam of dark inspiration can be.

As if to emphasize the central role landscape plays in this anthology, its seventeen stories are divided into three “geographical” sections, respectively titled “Country”, “City” and “Coast”. The structure forms a satisfying arch, with the shortest section placed in the middle.

“Country” starts with a particularly strong entry, The Pier at Ardentinny by Catriona Ward. The story, featuring a young woman’s visit to her older fiance’s family in Scotland, initally comes across as a rather twee excuse for a lesson in Scottish folkore, until the final page turns it into an Angela-Carteresque tale. Jenn Ashworth’s Old Trash, set in a camping site near Pendle, references both the notorious witch trials and legends about spectral dogs.

The unexpected success of Andrew Michael Hurley’s novel “The Loney” did much to push folk-horror into the mainstream – to this anthology, Hurley contributes In My Father’s House, a strange piece about a man, his elderly father and weird goings-on around Christmas. Land of Many Seasons is an understated piece by Tim Lebbon about a solitary landscape artist hounded by a ghostly figure. One of the best things about Aliya Whiteley’s Dark Shells is its captivating narrative voice, that of an old woman haunted by memories – and, perhaps, something more. The section ends with 'Domestic Magic (Or, things my wife and I found hidden in our house)' by Kirsty Logan. An interesting structure and an original take on Scottish water folklore makes for a different and striking read.

Folk horror often relies on a rural setting. But urban life also has its angst, one which can be effectively expressed through the medium of horror. The City section gives us some good examples – think urban Gothic, brought up to date. And one can hardly be more up to date than James Miller and his Not All Right, about an alt-right internet troll who comes to a chilling end. The Cocktail Party in Kensington Gets Out of Hand promises a rather extravagant tale, and Robert Shearman delivers. It’s one of the more surreal pieces, more Buzzati than Machen perhaps, about a male escort hired to be a rug at an exclusive do. It gets stranger with We Regret to Inform You by Jeanette Ng. An epistolary tale through emails, set in what seems to be a contemporary but different England, it veers uneasily between alternative history and post-apocalyptic fiction. Lodestones by Richard V. Hirst reminded me somewhat of a particular Mieville story about a street which kept disappearing – here, a shortcut to work leads us on a drive to a weird variant of Manchester.

It’s back to nature in the last section of the anthology, which takes us on a fictional journey around the British coast. Time is fluid in Gareth E. Rees’s The Knucker, in which a time-warp serves to combine three storylines. This idea that landscape itself can harbour ‘memories’ is also central to Hovering (Or, a recollection of 25 February 2015) by Gary Budden. Budden’s stories could be described as the fictional equivalent of “psychogeography” a-la Iain Sinclair. In this worldview, history, whether natural or human, shapes the rural and urban landscape and leaves residues which can be picked up by the more sensitive sort. Whereas authors like Sinclair use their imagination to read the past into contemporary landscapes, Budden exploits this concept in his works, which present us with individuals burdened by the weight of Deep Time. Is this story entirely fictional? It seems purposely written to feel autobiographical. Perhaps it is. It makes matters uncannier still.

Although well-known as a writer of neo-Victorian supernatural fiction, Alison Littlewood uses a contemporary setting for The Headland of Black Rock in which an actor on holiday is seduced by a mysterious woman he meets on the wild Cornish coast. Alison Moore’s The Stone Dead taps into the ghost story tradition, although it also explores more prosaic horrors such as stifling family members. It’s a good yarn, albeit not really related to the “coastal theme”. The same could be said about The Devil in the Details, a rather Jamesean story about a haunted mural at St Brendan on Sea.

The anthology comes to an end with Swimming With Horses by Angela Readman. And here, as in Littlewood’s piece, the sea and its myths and legends once again take centre stage. A run-down coastal resort seems hardly the setting for an uplifting story but, unexpectedly, this tale turns out to be the perfect contrast to Catriona Ward’s opening gambit. The final, luminous paragraphs take us from the realm of folk horror to somewhere else – brighter, more hopeful, but just as tinged with the mystery of the landscape.

This review can also be found at http://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/201...

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Halfway through this anthology I felt it was firmly in the 2-star range, however after finishing I'm giving a tentative 3/5.

I wasn't blown away by any of the stories, and felt none were truly frightening, but what this collection of shorts has going for it is a vague feeling of malaise which accompanies most of the tales within.

Many of these are rather predictable and follow a similar, almost cookie-cutter formula for telling a creepy story—a normal person finds themself in a new situation, something uncanny occurs, and in the final few paragraphs the reader is bludgeoned with a dramatic supernatural event or revelation. Despite this the stories are all well-written, with several I rather enjoyed, which in the end is what bumped it from a 2 to a 3 for me.

[Adrienne L · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 rounded down because I found the stories in the first section, "Country," much more enjoyable than the "City" and "Coast" sections.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fascinating snapshot of the current state of weird fiction in the UK, and a handy tick list of its preoccupations. Urban alienation and the strangeness of the city. The layering of history and the permeable boundary between 'past' and 'present'. The ways in which myth and legend shape the present and/or are re-enacted in it. A growing recognition of the weird potential of digital technology, with personal devices and the internet itself equally haunted. A growing determination to make the weird more reflective of contemporary society (and hence, less white). A sense of the coming apocalypse. All of these are, in themselves, positive developments - there's a strong sense of time and place in most of the stories here. Gary Budden's story is an excellent primer for anyone just getting started in the weird/folk horror field, as it tells you what to look for, what to feel, even what to listen to and read (sly nods to the fictional authors created by M. John Harrison and Timothy Jarvis). Angela Readman's is moving and rather beautiful. Jeannette Ng's email palimpsest persistently alludes to a backstory/context more interesting than the story itself. Alison Littlewood gets trapped by the conventions of mermaid stories and can't do much with them beyond repetition. James Miller serves up a nasty alt.right Twitterer who makes an excellent bogeyman for the more liberal amongst us - it was rather touching that the old rules of Providence persist in our secularised world, ensuring that rotters get their just deserts. Robert Shearman is wonderfully odd, and Aliya Whiteley is as thoughtful and unsettling as ever. Other reviewers on here have itemised the collection more thoroughly than I intend to - it is certainly a provocative and impressive gleaning of talent, with old hands such as Stephen Volk and Ramsey Campbell doing their best to keep up with the young 'uns. I liked it, though it was a shame the 'City' section is (as ever) London-centred at the expense of some other pretty weird UK cities. Did you know that the people of Basingstoke have no word for hell?

[Kirsty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Genuinely terrifying and inspiring - so many different ways to approach the short story form. Jenn Ashworth’s story made me have to put down the book for a minute to catch my breath. And I’m genuinely still upset about Robert Spearman’s story.

Disclaimer: I have a story in this book.

[SK · Rating 4 out of 5]

This Dreaming Isle is a collection of literary horror stories set in the British Isles. Divided into three sections, “Country,” “City,” and “Coast,” all of the stories, according to the editor, “in some way explore the myths and traditions, the folklore and history that make this land unique” (3). History itself often haunts the settings in these stories, and time is shown to be something more circular than linear.

The “Country” and “Coastal” stories are decidedly stronger than the “City,” stories, none of which I liked. To me, elements of horror are most compelling when set against the backdrop of nature, and featuring as a theme man’s complicated relationship to the land. Cities are scary in their own way, but the noise, the commotion, and the politics of cities all detract from the quiet, brooding atmosphere that I so crave in a scary story.

For my own amusement, I have categorized the stories according to star-worthiness, listing, first, my favorite story on down to my least favorite, and adding commentary here and there. I take care in my list not to include any obvious spoilers, but if you are planning to pick up this collection, I recommend that you stop reading here.

Five Stars

1. “The Land of Many Seasons” by Tim Lebbon. This is a slow-burning, deeply atmospheric story about a lonely artist who ventures regularly into the countryside for walks and finds that a mysterious figure keeps appearing in the landscapes he paints. This menace in this story is frightening in an existential way—almost like it’s tapping into some subterranean, primordial fear that we all experience but can’t really articulate. It definitely deserves, and I think would reward, multiple readings. I found it both beautiful and moving, not to mention suspenseful.

2. “The Devil in the Details” by Ramsey Campbell. I knew I was in the presence of a master right away with this one. The story is spooky and builds toward a tense climax, but most enjoyable for me are the wry observations on how young kids relate to their older relatives. That aspect of the story is executed with an almost Flannery O-Connor-esque skill and precision. The moment where the aunt is seen “enacting comical haste rather than achieving actual speed”—brilliant.

3. Old Trash” by Jenn Ashworth. A mother and her troubled teenage daughter go camping as a way to restore their crumbling relationship. This one leaves you wondering, what’s more frightening: the painful vulnerability a parent feels when navigating a teenager’s rebellion, or that sinister presence lurking in the campground? The two fears collide very effectively in the story’s gripping conclusion.

Four Stars

4. “In My Father’s House” by Andrew Michael Hurley. This is a story about a man’s troubled relationship with his father and the question of the father’s true identity. As always with Hurley, biblical themes and imagery are at play, and he incorporates them with his usual skill and once-insider sensitivity.

5. “The Pier at Ardentinny” by Catriona Ward. I was on edge from the opening paragraphs and felt satisfied by the twist ending.

6. “Cold Ashton” by Stephen Volk

7. “The Stone Dead” by Alison Moore. The mother-daughter theme again! This one pairs nicely with “Old Trash.”

Three Stars

8. “The Headland of Black Rock” by Alison Littlewood. This is an engaging, though somewhat predictable, twist on the classic mermaid archetype. I think it would work well in the classroom, as the symbolism and foreshadowing are on a level accessible to budding readers.

9. “The Knucker” by Gareth E. Rees

10. “Dark Shells” by Aliya Whiteley

11. “Domestic Magic” by Kirsty Logan

12. “Loadstones” by Richard V. Hirst

Two Stars

13. “We Regret to Inform You” by Jeanette Ng. I can tell that some serious skill went into the execution of this original story, told through a series of emails between two academics. Unfortunately, it relies too heavily on insider knowledge, which makes it a frustratingly opaque read. It will make even a careful, attentive reader feel a bit dense. Dense is no good when reading a scary story.

14. “Hovering” by Gary Budden

15. “Swimming with Horses” by Angela Readman. Felt more “fantasy” than horror—sort of in the vein of Leigh Bardugo. I just didn’t connect with it.

One Star

16. “Not All Right” by James Miller. Too political for my tastes, and annoyingly stingy regarding the identity of the antagonist. Though I love a bit of skillfully-executed ambiguity, I felt this one needed to supply a few more details for a curious and thoughtful reader trying in good faith to make sense of things.

17. “The Cocktail Party in Kensington Gets Out of Hand” by Robert Shearman. This is the only story in the anthology that I chose not to finish. The protagonist is a young, male, sex-worker of some sort hired by a society lady who requires him to prostrate himself on her floor in the fashion of an animal-skin rug, while she hosts a never-ending cocktail party all around him. I didn’t care for it from the beginning, and when I felt it going to a really weird and dark place, I abandoned ship without much regret.

A few brilliant stories, several that are good, and only a couple of clunkers. Overall, a great autumnal read, worthy of your best scented candles and throw blankets on a dark, dark night.

[Alex Sarll]

An excellent anthology of eerie British tales, of which appropriately enough I'd never heard until I happened across it in a curious bookshop while making an unexpected visit to the toytown Britannia that is Bath. A foreword explains that it was kicked off before Brexit was a thing, but that having come out now, there's a horrible sense of foreboding in all these tales of seeping not-right-ness and things thought dead and gone now rearing their ghastly heads in the modern world. I'm sure it will be filed as folk horror by many, because now it sometimes feels like every horror story is folk horror to some people – but as the maps scattered through the book make clear, there are stories of the city here as well as the country and the coast, and you're as likely to run into something unspeakable in the towers of Vauxhall or a gentrifying seaside town as in a fenland thin spot or a remote woodland. Big names such as Andrew Michael Hurley and Ramsey Campbell rub shoulders with more cultish figures (the writer of Ghostwatch among them, whose name totally failed to register until I was reading the bios), and many names entirely new to me, though there's not a single dud in here. At worst you have stories which are a little broad-brush in their characterisation, a little familiar in their tracks, but given the nature of the project and the brevity of the pieces, I forgive that more readily than I might elsewhere. There is one outlier in Jeanette Ng's contribution, which is very good indeed, but feels like it belongs in another book; as with her novel Under the Pendulum Sun, its strangeness operates at the unignorable, nationwide scale, whereas with everything else here I felt like the dread phenomena described could very easily be lurking out there, half-expected, quietly waiting.

[Bruna · Rating 2 out of 5]

COUNTRY
'The Pier at Ardentinny' by Catriona Ward [3/5]
'Old Trash' by Jenn Ashworth [1/5]
'In My Father's House' by Andrew Michael Hurley [2/5]
'Land of Many Seasons' by Tim Lebbon [2/5]
'Dark Shells' by Aliya Whiteley [1/5]
'Cold Ashton' by Stephen Volk [2/5]
'Domestic Magic (Or, things my wife and I found hidden in our house)' by Kirsty Logan [2/5]

CITY
'Not All Right' by James Miller [1/5]
'The Cocktail Party in Kensington Gets Out of Hand' by Robert Shearman [1/5] (After reading his short story 'The Best Story I Can Manage Under the Circumstances'in Five Stories High and this one, I am really starting to dislike this writer. Trying to hard to be quirky and 'weird'.)
'We Regret to Inform You' by Jeannette Ng [1/5]
'Lodestones' by Richard V. Hirst: [2/5]

COAST
'The Knucker' by Gareth E. Rees [2/5]
'The Stone Dead' by Alison Moore [3/5]
'Hovering (Or, a recollection of 25 February 2015)' by Gary Budden [2/5]
'The Headland of Black Rock' by Alison Littlewood [2/5]
'The Devil in the Details' by Ramsey Campbell [2/5]
'Swimming With Horses' by Angela Readman [2/5]

[Elle Maruska · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall this was an incredibly, consistently strong anthology of weird/dark/slipstream/fantasy/horror fiction based on the lands, cities, and waterways of Britain. I really enjoyed how the stories all matched the theme but were still very diverse in style and substance. I really loved Jeannette Ng's story and could honestly read like, a whole series of novels set in her universe. Ramsey Campbell's story was incredibly creepy, Angela Readman's was beautiful and sad, Catriona Ward's called up so much atmosphere and unease in such a short space, and Alison Moore's was a masterwork in slowly building dread. There were really only two or three stories here I didn't much care for but otherwise? I am incredibly happy with this collection and definitely recommend it!

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like all story collections, particularly those built around themes, there are going to be good and less good stories. In the latter category I have to single out Stephen Book's incredibly bad M R James pastiche. But the exceptionally fine stories by Allison Moore and Gary Budden more then made up for it. I particularly enjoyed James Miller's story because it is the first Twitter/social media story that worked, for someone like me who pre-dates all those things, but also while satirising made clear why they are compulsive. My one final comment (and also warning of spoiling) is on Jean Asworth's story - I do not believe that in 2018 the police in the UK would have reacted with disinterest to the report of a 28 year old and a 14 year old in a ongoing sexual relationship.

So a collection of largely good and some excellent stories. I think the whole dreaming isle theme is largely bogus but then marketing departments need hooks to sell books.

A broadly enjoyable experience but if it wasn't for the few excellent stories I mentioned this anthology would only get three stars.

[Alex (The Bookubus) · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful anthology of folk-horror stories set in the British Isles. We have a mix of occult, supernatural, ancient evils, local myths and legends, and more. Overall this was a strong collection and there were only a couple of stories that didn't really work for me.

My favourites were:
The Pier at Ardentinny by Catriona Ward
In My Father's House by Andrew Michael Hurley
Land of Many Seasons by Tim Lebbon
Dark Shells by Aliya Whiteley
The Headland of Black Rock by Alison Littlewood
The Devil in the Details by Ramsey Campbell
Swimming With Horses by Angela Readman

As an ex-pat this made me quite homesick for the UK, despite all of the creepy and horrible things taking place in these stories!

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

[Runalong · Rating 4 out of 5]

17 British horror authors are given the task of creating new folk horror stories set in the cities, coasts and countryside of the U.K.. modern, scary, thoughtful and sometimes charming. A really good collection

Full review ‪ https://www.runalongtheshelves.net/bl...‬

[Ross Jeffery · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is so much with This Dreaming Isle to marvel at, from the inception of the remarkable concept from editor Dan Coxon, to the beautifully haunting image that wraps itself around the book. The list of authors that grace the cover and offer remarkable and memorable stories, each showcasing a mastery of the short story form is something to salivate over. There is also the simple fact that all these stories are based in the UK – dealing with folklore and the uncanny that this fair Isle has to offer, delving into the strange and peculiar, unearthing folklore and myths that appeal to a new generation who may not know the history and the lore that scurry in the dank meadows and fields, that lurk in the alleyways of towns and neighbourhoods or that hide in wait in the rivers, locks and oceans that pen us in and carve up our Dreaming Isle like veins under our skin.

This Dreaming Isle is divided into three distinct portions by maps of the UK which aid the reader in knowing where the stories are set geographically – as each story is placed on the map with an identifying mark (adding additional depth to the anthology in my opinion). These maps and the splitting up of the stories into sections is a lovely creative tool that Coxon has wielded superbly well and adds to the impact and final product of the collection. It enables readers to thumb through the book and choose if they would like to read a story set in the country, city or coast (or check out stories that may be set near where they live or have affiliations).

There is so much to talk about and so many great stories I could talk for an age, but instead I wanted to highlight three stories in particular that I really enjoyed and also I wanted to provide you with a whistle stop tour of the anthology too, so first up, your whistle stop tour…strap yourselves in, its about to get messy!

This Dreaming Isle is a fabulous collection of stories written by some of the best short story writers in the land, and here are just some of the themes that are on offer if you dare to pick a copy up (I urge you to do so, you wont regret it).

Loch water that shows peoples true nature, a witches dog called Old Trash that roams the woods hunting for its next victim, a father hiding a dark secret, an ominous figure who appears in a landscape artists paintings, the scattered ramblings of nursing home patient, secrets uncovered of a dark and sinister past, a man stalked by a mysterious twitter profile, a new deranged form of life modelling, an email chain that delves a little too deep, an enlightening car-pool session, a water dragon, trapped ghosts within statues, an unusual guidebook called ‘Esoteric Kent‘, a tale of mermaids, a haunting mural and Kelpies living amongst us.
So the stories that I have decided to focus on a little are James Miller’s ‘Not All Right‘ from the city section of the Anthology. Firstly it’s a great insight into the desire and pull of social media, as our main protagonist is obsessed with garnering more followers and notoriety from being a complete dick (troll) online, causing offence just to swell his following and readership of his accounts. It’s a great exposé on the current state of affairs around social media and the all encompassing thirst for attention and acceptance by an online community the labyrinth one can find themselves disappearing down until they are living their life online, in chatroom’s or avatars – something that Miller expertly puts across and ensures it leaves its scar on the reader. Miller also masterfully details how devoid of real life these online lives become, the protagonists life is falling apart, no job, no drive, just an unquenchable thirst to be liked, loved and retweeted – so as his real life falls apart his online life appears to be taking off big time. That is until he receives a message from a strange anonymous account @IncarceratedEarth ‘Are you scared yet?‘, as our protagonist begins to investigate this odd account, he soon discovers that this strange account has many more followers than he does, so he does what you’d expect. He begins to troll the account, baiting the user, trying to dig up information on it, it becomes his focus, his main ambition, his obsession. I’ll stop there as Miller’s writing is masterful and delightful in equal measure and you should really discover this engaging and eerie story for yourselves. Miller treats the reader to a highly pumped, haunting and taut thriller that is stuffed full with eerie wonderment and technical prowess making Not All Right one of the stand out stories in the collection.

Angela Redman’s story ‘Swimming with Horses‘ is another fabulous tale, this one is set in the coast section of the anthology. What I liked about this story was that it was quite insular, Redman focuses on her main protagonist and you get a real sense of the place in where the story is set, it felt cold and empty and a forgotten part of the coast. There is something to be said about telling a story and telling it well. You could feel the bleakness of the setting, from the flashing coin machines to the empty cafe to the deserted beaches – it’s a story that really jumped out of the book and wrapped it’s bleakness around me like a blanket. In a way I felt that I was right there, watching it all unfold as an observer. That my friends is how you tell a story. Redman details a chance encounter, our main protagonist is working at a café, she’s bored and dreaming of being anywhere else. One day she meets someone who shares her outlook on life and they soon become friends, hanging out, walking the deserted beach, but things are not what they seem and soon she discovers that her friend is hiding a very dark secret. Redman absolutely slays this story and it lives long in the memory – a deliciously eerie tale told with a masters touch by a true raconteur.

The final story I wanted to highlight is in fact the first story in the anthology ‘The Pier At Ardentinny‘ by Catriona Ward – this story sets us up for what a mind fuck of an anthology This Dreaming Isle will be. Ward pretty much tears up the rule book with this one and it’s such a striking story to kick off the anthology, which left me saying ‘it’s only a story, it’s only a story…‘ truly soul-stirring. This tale centres around a folklore about Loch water at Ardentinny being able to show someones true nature within its reflection ‘make sure they were not wedding a demon or an evildoer‘. It reveals the true nature of people that is kept hidden from others – that is a scary concept indeed, how many of us hide our true self from our friends, families, the ones we love. It’s a gripping tense read which Ward executes so well, it delves deep into the characters she’s deftly created and the impact of the story lasted long after I’d moved on to the next offering in the book. Haunting to the very last drop!

In this uncertain time when we don’t know if we are coming or going, staying or leaving, or who we can trust. Believe me. You can trust me. You can trust Dan Coxon and you can trust the writers on show in This Dreaming Isle. They do not disappoint.

I wholeheartedly recommend getting a copy of This Dreaming Isle – because firstly it’s a celebration of fabulous writing, it’s an ingenious collection and concept, all of the writers turn in stunning works of eerie, creepy goodness and lastly it’s a celebration of the rich history we have here on our little island of storytellers, raconteurs, myths and folklore.

Tales that creep and crawl into you mind and never want to leave!

[Doreen · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars.

I love the idea of this, and I love the way it's been edited, dividing the book into three distinct parts that reflect very much the most vital areas of England: Country, City and Coast. The seventeen stories in this collection cover a host of supernatural occurrences, embracing the diversity of the English experience. Most were very well thought out, even if the execution on some felt iffier than others. I'll discuss a few standouts, beginning with The Headland Of Black Rock by Alison Littlewood, which was far and away my favorite of the bunch. It packs a lot of story into its few pages, of an aging celebrity who falls in love with a mute girl by the seaside, and satisfyingly covers a wide and complete-feeling gamut of emotions.

I also very much enjoyed Jeannette Ng's We Regret To Inform You. It was a bit daunting at first, especially if you're not terribly familiar with the Venerable Bede, but once you slip into the cadences of academia and grow comfortable with the alternate universe on display, the twist is quite impressive. Domestic Magic by Kirsty Logan was far more straightforward but felt beautifully constructed, and I loved the message of women's love. Angela Readman's Swimming With Horses was also a delight to read, if definitely one of the milder stories in this collection.

Of the stories that had great ideas but didn't quite land with me, for one reason or another, a standout is James Miller's Not All Right. The protagonist is a horrible person and Mr Miller eviscerates him and his ilk very adeptly -- I just didn't understand the what and why of the mishmash of supernatural goings-on around him. I feel like it's a great idea for exploration in a longer novel, say. I also found Robert Shearman's The Cocktail Party In Kensington Gets Out Of Hand to be memorable even if I didn't like it so much as find it deeply discomfiting.

Overall, an entertaining collection of supernatural fiction that considers the many aspects of modern England whilst also incorporating its past. It wholly satisfied that part of me that loves to indulge in the occasional horror anthology.

A big Thank You to Unsung Stories for sending these wonderful books to me. Their commitment to fantastic British fiction is terrific, and I'm much the richer for having encountered them.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pleasantly surprised by this, given the mixed reviews and range of experience of the authors. There was no story that I particularly disliked - though if there was it would have been an experience swiftly over as the book carries you onward, and I thought there was a good mix of narrative voices to keep the collection engaging. Stand-outs for me include Tim Lebbon's solitary artist; Aliyah Whiteley's memories, made foggy and dislocating through age; James Miller's vile protagonist, in one of the creepiest stories in the collection; and Robert Shearman's absurd and bizarre tale. It may also be worth clarifying that, in being folk horror as opposed to horror, these tales aim to be unsettling and reveal something eerie within simple beliefs and mundane lives rather than terrify - I enjoyed this, but someone skimming the blurb who just saw "horror" might be slightly disappointed.

[Robert · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was such a disappointment. On paper, this is a collection I should adore but even a typically strong Ramsay Campbell story couldn't save it. The stories in The City portion of the book were especially bad.

[Lukasz · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5

[Steven Poore · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review to come on the #SmallPressBigStories hashtag!

[Trudi Hauxwell · Rating 3 out of 5]

As with many anthologies the quality of the stories contained in This Dreaming Isle varies. The collection is described as seventeen new horror stories and weird fictions drawing upon the landscape and folklore of the British Isles, but several of the stories don't really fit the brief, being more mundane snapshots of domestic life than tales to conjur dread.

Luckily those that got it right are really good, their effects ranging from creepy to downright surreal. Fans of short story horror will recognise the influence of M.R James' classic tale 'The Mezotint' in 'The Land Of Many Seasons' by Tim Lebbon, and 'The Devil In The Details', Ramsey Campbell's contribution to the collection.

'Cold Ashton' by Stephen Volk is an eerie time slip tale, and probably my favourite of the lot. 'The Knucker' by Gareth E Rees is also a take on the time slip story, but a darkly comic one.

'Domestic Magic' by Kirsty Logan will appeal to anyone who's ever inherited or bought an old house and found themselves wondering at all the old trinkets and mementos of previous lives found stuffed in dusty cupboards and under floorboards. It also has a nasty sting in the tail.

'The Cocktail Part In Kensington Gets Out Of Hand' by Robert Shearman is the most outrageous and surreal contribution. In fact it was so odd I didn't like it at first, but the more I thought about it, the more it rang a faint bell in my memory, stirring up old tales of once opulent mansions where the dinner parties and the debauchery have never really ended, and where the guests never leave. You may find yourself humming the tune to Hotel California by the time you get to the end.

'Not All Right' by James Miller is a thoroughly modern tale of urban horror, with a main character so detestable that you'll be willing his end to be as sticky as possible. It took me a while to recall what the tale reminded me of, but readers of Scream! magazine, the horror comic from the 1980's, may recognise a 21st century take on The Thirteenth Floor.

The collection ends with 'Swimming With Horses' by Angela Readman, a poignant and wistful tale of friendship between the natural and the supernatural.

All in all a pretty decent collection. My final word of advice would be not to read the introduction by the editor, who managed to ruin my anticipation of a spooky night in with a good book, with an unnecessary bit of political posturing.

[Terry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This Dreaming Isle – review by Terry Melia
Back in the 1970’s, low income limited my book purchasing to second hand novels in charity shops. Skimming through the shelves of paperback best sellers – Sven Hassel, Alistair Maclean, Dick Francis etc - I’d hit gold pay-dirt with a copy of The Pan Book of Horror Stories - introducing me to some of the best short story writing by established and new writers. Stories of the uncanny jostled with tales of the macabre and quite a few of them gave me nightmares.
Fast forward to the present day when I was offered a chance to review This Dreaming Isle – a collection of seventeen new horror and weird short stories, published by Unsung Stories, edited by Dan Coxon.
As it says on the tin –
‘…Something strange is happening on British shores…’
Funded through a Kickstarter campaign, these stories deal with with folklore, myths, the strange and peculiar, all sharing a distinctive British flavour. For brevity, I’ll focus on the stories which I found the most compelling from each of the three sections; Country, City, Coast.
COUNTRY
'The Pier at Ardentinny' by Catriona Ward.
Irene is visiting her elder fiancé’s family in Scotland for the first time. The ominous tone of the opening lines sets the mood of growing horror –
‘… It may send me mad. The lights in the cupboard will not turn off. Light bleeds through the cracks, creating a glowing doorway in the dark.’
The climax to this creepy, mythical tale tightens like a noose and is breathtakingly satisfying.

'Old Trash' by Jenn Ashworth
My favourite, as I can relate to the parent/troubled teenager attempt at bonding. Rachael takes her reluctant daughter Mae on a camping trip to a secluded, unofficial site near Pendle. The journey includes a bus ride on the ‘Witch-Hopper’ service which drops them a mile from an old reservoir where they’d planned to camp.
Mum has good intentions in that the seclusion will prevent her daughter using her mobile phone to contact an unsuitable boyfriend. During an awkward meal at a village pub, a local warns them to beware of ‘Old Trash’;
‘…You’ll want to be careful going back… No street lamps on the lane. You’ve not seen proper dark till you’ve been out here at night…’
Back at the campsite, a growing sense of seclusion and isolation from the outside world builds to a shocking climax. As a film-noir narrator might say Not only the night was dark…
CITY
'Not All Right' by James Miller
The narrator is almost cartoon-like in his unsociable thoughts and behaviours. Lazy, ignorant, racist, sexist and an internet Troll to boot. Staying in his rich uncle’s London flat, he’s meant to be job hunting. Instead, he spends his time baiting Twitter uses that he has never met. We know where his values lie.
‘…My account, @IncarceratedEarth has a verified blue tick and 57,000 followers. And my mum thinks I’m doing nothing with my life.’
On receiving an anonymous tweet, this life soon flips to a satisfying climax of paranoiac horror.
Despite a lack of empathy with the narrator I shared this sense of dread – skilfully drawn in to the paranoia;
‘…I ride the lift up. Feeling weak, dizzy. The noise is back again, more than ever, like a steady sort of drumming. It’s in the walls, it’s in the floors, it’s in the lift itself…’
'The Cocktail Party in Kensington Gets Out of Hand' by Robert Shearman
This surreal Kafkaesque tale made me laugh as much as it unnerved me. A cocky male escort arrives for a new assignment in opulent Kensington. Instead of the usual, he’s instructed by an old woman to lie naked – wearing only alcohol rub on his bare arse – al-rug on the floor in between a live bear on one side and a tiger on the other, whilst a long series of cocktail parties occur;
‘…I’m not going to pretend there won’t be a little pain…but accidents will happen…people get clumsy when they are drunk. It is imperative when they step on you that you do not cry out. It would destroy the illusion…’
This is a tale taller than an old fashioned policeman. With his hat on. Sitting on a horse.
'Lodestones' by Richard V. Hirst
An office worker – running late – gets a lift from a colleague into their Manchester office. En-route, the driver says he knows a shortcut. Instead of getting to work, the City is transformed and the landscape becomes an omen-laden wasteland. This prompted me to think of the fine introduction to the anthology by Dan Coxon where he mentions a Brexit Britain on the brink of change –
‘… I’m reminded of a ride at Alton Towers called the Black Hole… plummeting down into the darkness at such speeds that my stomach felt as if it was rising in my throat. That sensation of blind, rudderless freefall scared the shit out of me then – much as it does now.’

COAST

'The Knucker' by Gareth E. Rees
This tale reads like a Lateral Thinking quiz with three intertwining points of view, each concerning a police investigation into the death of a cyclist and a car theft. The plotlines are linked via parallel universes The switching viewpoints between realism and myth are as deftly handled as a master magician performing a card trick and I could easily have carried on reading this tale in one sitting had it been 800 rather than 8 pages long.
My only criticism for each of the tales is that they were too short. They were that good that I wanted more…


Whether you read these tales in the city, countryside, or by the coast, you will be left a little less comfortable. Like the Pan Book of Horror Stories, I’m certain this finely edited paperback will become a cult classic.
This Dreaming Isle – solid gold pay-dirt

[Christopher Stanley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'd give this six stars if I could. A compelling blend of quiet, folk horror stories, travelling the length and breadth of this dreaming isle. The stories are all beautifully written and carefully assembled, and the whole book was a joy from start to finish. My favourite tales were The Pier at Ardentinny (Catriona Ward), Domestic Magic (Kirsty Logan), The Cocktail Party at Kensington Gets Out of Hand (Robert Shearman) and The Headland of Black Rock (Alison Littlewood). Shearman's story, in particular, was superbly weird. I enjoyed all the stories in the collection and I can't recommend it enough.

[Phil · Rating 2 out of 5]

My never ending quest to find quality examples of one of my favorite genres, short stories of the Weird, continues. These stories all take place throughout England, which really tickles my ivories, but they lack... almost everything. "The Cocktail Party in Kensington Gets Out of Hand" by Robert Shearman was quite original and truly odd, but the rest left me underwhelmed.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars.

Favourite stories: Old Trash, In My Father's House, Not All Right, The Cocktail Party in Kensington Gets Out of Hand, The Knucker

Least favourite: Land of Many Seasons, Cold Ashton, The Devil in the Details, The Stone Dead

[Hal · Rating 4 out of 5]

As with most anthologies, a mixed bag. The highlights for me were Alison Moore's story The Stone Dead, and Andrew Michael Hurley's In My Father's House. Alison Moore is excellent at drawing negative space, things which are absent, missing or not being said, and that style made for a great ghost story, operating on a less openly fantastical scale than the others. Hurley's story slips from mundane to symbolic as the characters move more into the landscape, which capture the overall feel of the anthology as well as being an excellent standalone weird story. I thought the strained mother/daughter relationship of Old Trash by Jenn Ashworth was well captured.

There were a handful of stories centred around lake or sea creatures (selkies etc), which didn't really do much for me; I don't know if it's just that I don't have a particular existing interest in them, but it felt a little too much like the stories would present features of the folklore associated with these creatures and that that should be sufficient to be interesting. Not bad stories, but just didn't hit for me.

The only story I disliked was Jeanette Ng's We Regret To Inform You. The format is an email exchange between academics which uses a lot of space on academic-sounding back and forth for little effect, which is wrapped in a further layer of these emails being curated and footnoted by a later researcher whose footnotes give tangential mentions of some fantasy or folkloric bits and pieces that seemed included only to provide the simple pleasure of recognition. The main character, a historian and writer, eventually seems involved in some ritual of writing which has material changes on the past and present; the idea of the magical power of writing and fiction to work some effect on the world is an idea I find very frustrating and self-regarding.

[Jackie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This short story collection is divided into three parts: country, city and coast. After reading the first section I was in love with the selection and was hoping it could be a 5 stars read. This feeling didn't stay though. The city section, unfortunately, wasn't for at all and I didn't love a single story of this section. They were all okay but I had higher hopes for them. The last section definitely was better but couldn't reach the brilliancy of the first. (Which surprised me a bit because I love myths related to the sea a lot.)
My absolute favourites were The Pier at Ardentinny by Catriona Ward and Domestic Magic by Kirsty Logan. For them alone I would recommend the collection. I also really enjoyed Old Trash by Jenn Ashworth, Dark Shells by Aliya Whiteley and Swimming with Horses by Angela Readman.

All stories considered the rating is probably closer to 3 stars but the ones I liked stayed with me and make me rate the collection 4 stars instead.

[Sandra Lindsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

A bit of an impulse purchase for me this one, back when the kickstarter was running. It’s then taken me a while to first transfer the file to my kindle and then get started reading.
I’m certainly not disappointed by the quality of what I found once I did start! As the introduction says, these tales can all be described as “folk horror” - they’re the darker kind of fairy tale and some are the kind that make you want to go back & start again when you get to the end. A masterclass in storytelling & somewhat disturbing reminder of the darker enclaves of the human psyche.

[Rym Kechacha · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was such a varied and interesting collection. I loved the way it was structured around coast, town, country, etc and this made the stories flow in a way I didn't expect. I've had a different favourite story every time I've thought about this collection, depending on my mood, but I think overall the stories by Catriona Ward, Gareth E Rees and Robert Shearman edge it out overall. A collection to be read outdoors, I think.

[The Master · Rating 4 out of 5]

A better than average anthology of weird and eerie tales set in Britain, and who knows how much longer it may last.

Three best:

- Land of Many Seasons by Tim Lebbon
- The Headland of Black Rock by Alison Littlewood
- The Knucker by Gareth E. Rees

Bonus shouts for Not All Right by James Miller (J.G. Ballardesque) and The Cocktail Party in Kensington Gets Out of Hand by Robert Shearman (what a warped imagination this man has).

Let's have a second volume.

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure I'd call this short story collection "horror". Odd, maybe, or weird might be better. Divided into 3 sections: country, city and coast. The city part was the low point. But there were two stories involving kelpies that were quite good. Stories set in the moors; a boy looking at murals for an artist's self-portrait that seems to change position; glancing in the river from a certain pier to see your true reflection. Creepy!