Underworld Dreams

by Daniel Braum

Underworld Dreams is Daniel Braum’s third short story collection of genre transcending, strange stories full of tension between the supernatural and psychological. Within the pages Braum’s multi-dimensional characters face dark underworlds and strange experiences that illuminate the human condition and world (we think) we know.

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Fiction

285 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 13, 2020

Reviews

[Mike Thorn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Daniel Braum’s new short story collection Underworld Dreams comes equipped with a Story Notes section; within these Notes, the author provides thoughtful reflections on his creative process, narrative intentions, and philosophical interests, among other things. Most prominently, Braum stresses his persisting interest in the ambiguous space between the psychological and the supernatural. Braum’s fiction inhabits this space and engages with the Weird tradition to depict our reality as innately interstitial, slippery, and impervious to “mastery.” By extension, Underworld Dreams repeatedly encourages us to scrutinize the artificial gap between human and nonhuman animals, between subject and world.

This coy, quiet, and unassuming challenge to human exceptionalism resonates throughout. The first story, “How to Stay Afloat When Drowning,” features a disturbing centerpiece in which a group of people brutally torture a shark; later, the story uses its psychological-supernatural ambiguity to blur the distinction between shark and human. “The Monkey Coat” lends attention to the suffering bound up in its titular object (the origin of whose horrors remain unknown).

Braum does not employ this symbolism to bluntly didactic ends; rather, he assesses the artificial divide between human and nonhuman animal to underline broader investigations about the human subject’s relation to the world. For example, the title story sees characters discussing acts of infidelity and dishonesty as reflections of their “monkey in the jungle” selves.

Braum cites Algernon Blackwood’s classic Weird novella The Willows in his Story Notes, and the imprint is visible: Underworld Dreams repeatedly sees its characters encountering eerily numinous spaces and reality-fissures in environments that have evaded global industrialism. Braum finds lots of potential for the ineffable in “natural” spaces, demonstrating a knack for imagery and atmosphere.

There are horrifying moments here (perhaps most notably in the aforementioned “Monkey Coat,” reportedly inspired by advice Braum got from the legendary Jack Ketchum), but this book mostly occupies Weird Fiction’s less macabre terrain. China Melville writes that the “obsession with numinosity under the everyday is at the heart of Weird Fiction,” and this is the obsession that most clearly characterizes Underworld Dreams. For readers seeking fiction with a strong narrative engine and a bold commitment to the unknown, this collection is one to seek out.

[John Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Daniel Braum writes curious tales threaded with a profound sense of what it means to be human. There’s an ease in which the tales unfold as we discover the underlying motivations that drive them into strange, surreal territories. Casual asides buried in the text bring smiles, even laughter. But the tales are not light in spirit as much as immersed in the idiosyncrasies of what it means to make it through the day, this life. Potent work that glimmers with a quality that reminds me of Lucius Shepard. Recommended! –JCS

[DarkBetweenPages · Rating 4 out of 5]

Underworld dreams has a story for any horror lover.

This was my first experience with Daniel's work and I really enjoyed it. I look forward to reading more.

The characters were vibrant and each story was so different to the next. Some touched on some difficult topics to address and Daniel did it with absolute respect, leaving you with this lingering powerful story to think about. His writing style is amazing and his words will absolutely captivate you.

I had the privilege of getting to chat with Daniel on my live show after completing this collection and really enjoyed getting to know more about him and his work, but specifically about this collection.

Thank you Daniel so much for sending me a copy to read.

And thank you all for reading!
-Dark

[Ben Long · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ll admit, halfway through the first story I was confused and frustrated. But something kept pulling me back into the pages, the eerie dread kicked in halfway, and by the end of that first story I was left hungry for more. Still discombobulated, but with an understanding that I needed to shift expectations. This collection is not straightforward in any traditional sense. It ambiguous and multidimensional, full of nuance and beautiful, dreamy imagery.

Ambiguity is certainly a double edged sword. It allows for a multilayered experience that rewards repeat reads, but it also runs the risk of coming off as hollow and meaningless. It’s either enlightening or incredibly frustrating. I’m happy to say that Daniel’s stories are firmly in that first camp. He writes with such precision, empathy, and imagination. The stories are captivating, and the characters immediately real and relatable. I loved the variety of locales and themes presented, as well as the dips into various genres within horror and fantasy.

The author is certainly interested in the tension between the supernatural and psychology, as most of the stories could be justified through either lens (I love the multiple layers of meaning). I fully allowed myself to sink into the stories and let the current carry me through these strange, dark underworlds. It was an experience that I definitely recommend! Not all of the stories worked for me, but most did. My favorite ones were:

“How to Stay Afloat When Drowning”
“Tommy’s Shadow”
“Cloudland Earthbound”

Huge thanks to @daniel_braum for sending me this collection in exchange for an honest review!

[Laurel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid collection of dreamy tales with gorgeous imagery and thought provoking themes.

[Thomas Joyce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Author Daniel Braum maybe based in New York City, but his magical and mysterious fiction takes place in many exotic locations all over the world. He has explored them through his short fiction collections The Night Marchers and Other Strange Tales (Cemetery Dance, 2016), The Wish Mechanics: Stories of the Strange and Fantastic (Independent Legions, 2017), the chapbook collection Yeti Tiger Dragon (Dim Shores, 2016), and his debut novel The Serpent’s Shadow (Cemetery Dance, 2019). He also edited the anthology Spirits Unwrapped (Lethe Press, 2019), exploring stories featuring the oft overlooked Egyptian “mummy” legend as their main focus. Now he has returned with his latest short story collection.

“How to Stay Afloat When Drowning” follows an unnamed young man dealing with a deep sense of grief while trying to help his sister land a client for the surf apparel business she inherited from their parents. The protagonist intersperses the action of the present, preparing to accompany his sister and the client on a fishing trip, with emotional flashbacks to his traumatic past. A meeting with a mysterious and attractive young woman offers a link with events in his past and this fishing trip, leading to an unnerving and melancholy conclusion. Braum’s portrayal of the forlorn narrator is as moving as the final confrontation is unsettling.

In “Goodnight Kookaburra”, an American working construction in Australia ruminates on a past romantic encounter while he accompanies a colleague on a visit to her family home. He admits that, of all the wildlife in Australia, what he really wants to hear is the call of the Kookaburra. So, she takes him on a hike and afterwards they visit with her parents. After receiving a frosty reception from her father, and encountering a strange yet familiar woman in the orchard, the night descends into a carefree party atmosphere with which he cannot align himself, opting instead for the outdoors and the company of the Kookaburras.

In “The Monkey Coat”, a recently divorced woman finds a coat made from monkey fur in her storage locker, the only thing her ex left behind after he emptied the accounts and took almost everything they have. An undercurrent of seething rage comes to the surface, seemingly connected to her subconscious attachment to the new coat, much to the dismay of her grown-up daughter. It is more than just a tale of a scorned woman seeking revenge, as we see June fighting to maintain a hold on her sanity while she feels pushed to the brink by the behaviour of the men in her life.

Teenage angst takes centre stage in “Tommy’s Shadow” where narrator Marco finds his band finishing runner-up to popular Tommy’s band in the battle of the bands yet again. He also seems to be second fiddle when it comes to the affections of Alana, someone he felt shared his feelings, before she ended up with Tommy. Rather than accept his lot in life, Marco places all of the blame and responsibility for his underdog role at Tommy’s feet, and a chance encounter with a mysterious stranger in an abandoned asylum gives him the opportunity to get exactly what he wants. But at what cost? Braum’s examination of the troubled loner persona, even if a lot of it is sought and self-inflicted by Marco, makes for a really interesting story.

A young man fresh from a stint in a juvenile detention centre and making a meagre living while staying in his Uncle’s basement meets a strange yet alluring woman on the train in “Rebbe Yetse’s Shadow”. Taken with her beauty, and undeterred by her strange insistence on meeting with the presumed-dead titular character for guidance, he can’t help but seek her out. This leads him to a night-time journey to a cemetery and a horrific discovery. But, even then, the rabbi isn’t done with the young man, offering a special and delightfully creepy type of guidance, for a price. For a young man who has lost his way, the opportunity to visit with a long-dead loved one for advice is too good to turn down, even if it means committing the worst crime of all. At equal turns creepy and emotional, Braum has crafted a uniquely weird story.

“Cloudland Earthbound” explores a more definitively supernatural tale, taking place in Brisbane, Australia in 1982. The local Premier is greedily buying up a lot of the property for an undisclosed and mysterious reason. And he has his eyes firmly set on the Cloudland Dance Hall. But Ben Meyerson, who inherited the business and the fight from his father, is vehemently opposed to the idea of selling, even when the Premier sends his goons to twist his arm. There is something magical about the dance hall, and Ben’s family’s connection to it, something the Premier wants all for himself. On a surface level, it makes for an entertaining tale. But the real story concerns Ben’s strained relationship with his wife, and his repeated attempts to connect with his son, always seemingly in the shadow of his father and the legacy he left along with the dance hall.

Another tale of the extremely fantastic, “Between Our Earth and The Moon” concerns a sorcerer-for-hire called Nate who is approached by a construction foreman with a unique problem: his work on the underground crosstown line is being held up by what he describes as invisible creatures, demons. But, naturally for a Daniel Braum story, there is more to these demons than meets the eye, and Nate is tasked with getting rid of them so the foreman can get on with his plan. Nate is consumed with guilt and grief for someone in his past and is given the opportunity to start over, in a manner of speaking. There are numerous characters in this story who all seem to have their own, secret agendas, giving it more than a hint of mystery, adding to the already multi-layered narrative Braum has weaved.

In “Palankar”, Jake accompanies his wayward brother, Steven, on a dive off of the Palankar Reef, just like the first time their father brought them there decades before. He isn’t there just to have fun with his brother; Steven has two young daughters back home from a failed marriage, and his ex is no longer in the picture, leaving Jake and his wife to take on the guardianship of the girls. Jake wants to remind Steven of his responsibilities. But Steven seems to be consumed by the dive, consumed by a desire for something he can only find in the deep. Not for the first time in this collection, the supernatural element is used to explore the underlying themes of family and regret, relationships and difficult choices, to great effect.

We are transported to Panama in “Sogni Del Mundo Sotteraneo (Underworld Dreams)”, in the company of Professor Armstrong and his group of law students, including our unnamed narrator. From the beginning, it is clear that the narrator considers himself on the fringe of the group, with the others embracing the freedom of being in a warm and exotic foreign country. When not studying, they indulge in alcohol and parties and each other’s company. But the narrator has a girlfriend back home who he is vehemently loyal to, even spurning the advances of another student. But, through intense self-reflection, and a visit to the native Kuna people, he soon experiences some strange visions and realisations about himself. Although it is ultimately a story about choices and the narrator’s self-discovery, Braum takes the opportunity to flex his considerable descriptive powers to convey the character’s magical journey in a fantastic way.

The final story, “Rum Punch is Going Down”, takes place on a mysterious and unknown island off of the coast of Belize in 1986, where it seems anyone can go to lose themselves. Which seems to be what the narrator is doing. He finds himself travelling to the island in a boat with a strange cast of characters, all with their own mysterious stories to which we are only given the briefest of glances. Our narrator, who gains the nickname “Rum Punch” thanks to an act of generosity, gets into a confrontation with one of the homeless vagrants and commits a terrible act. Or does he? Along with the ambiguity of the characters and the location, we can never truly be sure about what is happening. It makes for a disorientating reading experience but, what is clear, is the melancholy figure Rum Punch makes. As with all of his characters, Braum gives him life and compels us to care for him.

Braum is known to begin with a setting and mould his characters and story to this framework. But this doesn’t mean that he doesn’t pay due care and attention to the players; in fact, the way he explores the relationships between them in each of the aforementioned stories is exceptional and makes for captivating reading. Whether it takes place on an unnamed tropical island, post-Just Cause Panama, the eastern coast of Australia or even somewhere closer to home like Queens, NYC, the complex characters are the focus. In those brighter settings there is a juxtaposition between the darkness of the characters and the light of the setting – horror stories don’t have to always be set at night or in gloomy situations. And they don’t always have to answer every question they pose; reality is rarely so neat and orderly. The destination matters less than the journey and, in the case of Daniel Braum’s new collection, the journey is an adventure in weird and wonderful storytelling with a murky, emotional depth that will delight fans and new readers alike.

[Nicholas Kaufmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is Daniel Braum's best collection yet, filled with stories that exhibit a masterful sense of ambiguity and explore the tension between the personal and the profound. Though Braum enjoys playing with genre tropes, you won't find any cliches here, only stories that take you in unexpected directions. My favorites of the collection include "How to Stay Afloat When Drowning," a Montauk-set tale that hints at the dangerous unknowns of the sea; "Rum Punch is Going Down," in which an exotic island's mysteries help a man who is running from his past find himself again; and the title novella, "Underworld Dreams," a meditation on the different realities that stem from the choices we make during important moments, which may be Braum's finest piece of writing to date. UNDERWORLD DREAMS is a collection of mind-bending stories that doesn't disappoint.

[Ben Francisco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Daniel Braum's stories offer a brilliant combination of strong characters, disturbingly creepy details, and imaginative and evocative spec elements. In the tradition of writers like Lucius Shepherd, his stories always have a strong sense of place - whether the urban bustle of Queens or the rainforests of Belize. In this collection, one of my favorites is "Rebbe Yetsi's Shadow," a genre-bending mash-up of ghosts, Jewish mysticism, and a reformed gangster in search of redemption. I also especially enjoyed "Tommy's Shadow" and the titular story, which is an epic all on its own. I appreciate that many of Braum's also stories have a strong social justice bent, exploring issues ranging from ecological destruction to colonial exploitation. Highly recommended for fans of Lucius Shepherd, Kelly Link, Graham Joyce, and anyone who enjoys weird short fiction that subverts your expectations.

[David]

Waves, Darkness, and the Spaces Between:

A review of Underworld Dreams by Daniel Braum


Horror fiction often seems to be divided into two types of writers––ones who are primarily interested in scaring the reader, and writers who are concerned with giving the reader a more profound experience––the entertainers and the visionaries. While there are plenty of good, solid scares to be found in Underworld Dreams, Daniel Braum’s new collection from Lethe Press, it’s clear that Braum belongs in the company of the visionaries.

Braum’s protagonists are often intelligent, sensitive, talented, and haunted by the sense of not being at home in this world. Deeply dissatisfied with their lives or with the world in general, they are looking for something else. In Braum’s stories, that something else is also looking for them. And when Braum’s characters finally find this unseen thing––or when it finds them––it’s often not what they expected.

Braum is adept at what the great painter Willem DeKooning referred to as "the slipping glimpse”. "Each new glimpse is determined by many, many glimpses before,” DeKooning wrote. “It’s this glimpse which inspires you — like an occurrence. As a matter of fact, I’m really slipping, most of the time, into that glimpse." Braum's work is rich with small occurrences and “slipping glimpses”, little moments of things casually seen or overheard, small and subtle in themselves, but powerful in their total effect, like drops of water that eventually wear away the hardest stone.

Braum’s stories seem to linger in the mundane world longer than some of his fellow writers, so that you're almost unaware that he's skillfully bombarding you with thousands of subliminal signals that something terrible and awe-inspiring is seething just beneath the surface. By the time the otherworldly shows its face, like in the final pages of 'How To Stay Afloat When Drowning', you experience the dual effect of shock as well as the sense that the writer is showing you something that's been there all along.

While other writers of weird fiction tend to look outward toward the cosmos for the “uncaring universe” of cosmic horror, Braum finds that same sense of terror and vulnerability right here in the animal kingdom. Sharks, snakes, insects, bats, kookaburras, all show up unexpectedly like messengers from another world––which, of course, they are. The ceaseless drama of predator-versus-prey forms a near constant backdrop to the human struggles and strivings in these stories, whether it occupies center stage, or takes the form of one of those “slipping glimpses” that Braum does so well.

In ‘Goodnight Kookaburra’, the action is suddenly interrupted by this bit of violence:

"At the last bend before the road, a tumble of feathers and scales bursts from the brush. A big goanna and a brush turkey roll across the path, a tornado of squawks and hisses and open red-mouthed biting."

In Braum’s stories, as well as in nature, violence happens swiftly, and then is over just as swiftly, leaving us shaken in ways we don’t fully sense or understand. In other stories such as ‘Palankar’ and 'How To Stay Afloat When Drowning’, human beings morph into animals––or is it vice versa?

Another of the great pleasures in Braum's stories are the dialogues between his characters. There's often a great deal of talking in Braum's stories, and every word of it is interesting and, best of all, surprising. Braum's characters seem constitutionally incapable of small talk. They're relentlessly intent on digging beneath the surface and exposing things in each other––their histories, their fears, their loves, their dreams. They appear to take great pleasure––and we share in their pleasure––in surprising each other, and themselves.

But it’s when Braum gives free rein to the subconscious that his stories take flight and catch fire. While he’s adept at planting subliminal messages and subtle glimpses, he's equally adept at turning up all the jets and giving the reader a face-full of the otherworldly. In the long titular story, ‘Sogni Del Mundo Sotteraneo: Underworld Dreams’, Braum goes full-shaman and gifts us with vision after vision:

"The plane is flying through a vast empty blackness. It divides into two planes. Then the field of black folds in upon itself forming a mandala…countless duplicates and divisions collapsing into one panoramic visage, a vista of mountains and water. I’m seeing the Kuna’s island, water, and mountains. I’m no longer merely feeling these things. I am floating over the mountains looking down at the actual island. I’m rushing earthbound."

The subconscious also reveals itself not just in startling visions and images, but in the thoughts and feelings that these images trigger in the characters.

"My shoes are soaked with blood . All of our shoes are stained dark red . If Nina could see me now I would tell her I would do anything for Alison just like I tried to do anything for her."

This is one of the most stunning leaps in the story. The rapid-fire association between the killing of the shark, the blood on the narrator's shoes, and the narrator's sudden vision of vowing to do anything for these two women in his life is beyond "poetic' or "literary"––it's raw emotion erupting unexpectedly up from the subconscious, and cannot be explained in any language other than itself.

While the stories in Underworld Dreams all show a marvelous attention to craft, it’s Braum’s faith in the subconscious that gives his writing its real power and importance. In these stories, you can feel him reeling out his line like a deep sea fisherman, waiting to feel that pull, willing to hold on and follow it anywhere. Or, as one of his characters explains:

"People are out there. In the dark. On their boards. Half-blind trying to time the break.
“They thought they were steering,” the man says. “Thought they were holding on. But the waves had them all along.”
“Isn’t there something that can be done?”
“No. To surf is to understand this,” the man says. “The best surfers know.”

To bring all you skill to the task before you, but to also know how to let go––this is something that Daniel Braum knows.




––David Surface

[Nicole Amburgey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Right, then. You received gift cards this holiday season and are looking for books to spend them on. Let me direct you toward Underworld Dreams. If you enjoy weird, ambiguous fiction then this is a must-read!

Released this past September, Dreams takes us on a journey from shapeshifting sharks in New York to to hunting for seahorses in 1980s Belize. While all of the stories in this collection were enjoyable, the following were absolute standouts for me: The Monkey Coat, How to Stay Afloat When Drowning, Palankar, and Rum Punch is Going Down .

Something else about this book that I really enjoyed were the author’s story notes added at the end. It’s a rare thing, at least in the books that I have read, to find notes on the inspirations and explanations for stories in weird fiction collections. More often than not, endings tend to be ambiguous and left to the reader’s conclusion. Don’t get me wrong, these stories still are – but it is interesting to understand where the author was coming from when he wrote them.

Full Review: https://tatteredandbroken.com/2020/12...

[Ross · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most people have things they regret, things done and not done, failures, losses. Regret is the unifying theme of Daniel Braum’s third story collection, Underworld Dreams. The characters in these stories yearn for second chances, but no one gets them.

Two stories in this collection are set in Australia, three in the Americas south of the U.S. border, and the rest in New York. At least three are set in prior decades, two explicitly in the eighties. Most of these stories are first-person, and I remember most being in present tense. Stories that particularly stood out for me are “The Monkey Coat,” “Rebbe Yetse’s Shadow,” “Between Our Earth and Their Moon,” “Underworld Dreams,” and “Rum Punch is Going Down.”

In “The Monkey Coat” plays with a favorite trope of mine: the cursed object. When a woman, whose husband has abandoned her and their young adult daughter, checks what may be left in their storage unit, she finds a monkey-hair coat that belonged to her grandmother. She puts it on and soon she finds herself losing time as those around tell her she’s acting unlike herself, and it seems she never takes off the coat. Like several other stories in this collection whether or not anything supernatural is happening is left ambiguous.

“Between Our Earth and Their Moon” is a fantasy detective story and functions both as a stand-alone and as a sequel to “Across the Darién Gap,” a story in Braum’s first collection The Night Marchers. The narrator, Nate, regrets the death of a character in that prior story, but otherwise the plot of “Between Our Earth and Their Moon” is unrelated. In the story the narrator is hired “under the table” to banish some gremlins plaguing the construction new subway tunnels, one of which, he is told, leads to the moon. I really enjoyed this story. The concept alone is a winning one, and of course Braum executes it well. I’m a sucker for occult detectives, but I think Nate could easily join the ranks of Harry d’Amour or Dr. John Silence if he has any further adventures.

Another theme running through these stories to which I am partial is that of doubles or shadow-selves. Doubling is perhaps at its most dramatic in the title story, “Underworld Dreams,” where time itself—or perhaps just the protagonist’s experience of it—seems to split at a particular “crossroads moment” during a trip to Panama. As time loops backwards and forwards so does the prose, and though I am usually put off by repetition Braum keeps it engaging. As the title piece this story is the collection’s anchor, a job it does well as it brings the themes of regret and doubles seen throughout the collection to the fore while remaining an engaging read.

These are well-written stories of strangeness and magic. If you like strange tales (in Aickman’s sense of the term), magical realism, the fantastic, and the ambiguously supernatural, then you should read this collection.

[Steve Stred · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’d seen this collection shared frequently and people raved about Braum’s stories when it was released back in September. I’ve been struggling lately to really dive into short story collections, as I’m a bit burned out on them to be honest. I’ve read a lot of them over the last few years.

The combination of the cover, the reviews and people asking if I’d read it, finally swayed me to take a crack at this and I’m glad I did.

What I liked: Braum has a simple, eerie style of writing. A style that tells you, the reader, that something is off, something is coming or will happen, but you never fully known when or to what extent.

The stories within are all sublime. Difficult subject matter written in a way that is easy to read, easy to digest.

The standouts for me were;

Tommy’s Shadow – a story of a high school musician who stumbles upon an odd man in a place nobody is supposed to go into. This was dark, bleak and the finale was karma done right.

How to Stay Afloat When Drowning – a story of aquatic inhabitants making themselves known to those who live on land. This was truly unsettling and you know something’s off right from the start.

Cloudland Earthbound – a story about a man hired to deal with an unseen force preventing a tunnel construction site. I loved this portal horror story. This was completely unexpected and I loved that it went where it went.

My favorite of them all though, was Goodnight Kookaburra. This was a story of a man on vacation/work trip in Australia who meets some people, only to have a truly odd encounter. This was a truly trippy story that left me unnerved.

What I didn’t like: As with every collection, each story will be individual to each reader. I found the second half of the book just as strong as the first half, which says something to Braum’s writing prowess. At times collections can feel like the second half is filled with word count padding, but not in this case.

Why you should buy this: Braum has delivered a really well paced and balanced collection with ‘Underworld Dreams.’ This reminded me of the recent collection from Adam Light that I read, where it shows the author is willing to tackle a number of subjects and tackles them really well. If you’re looking for a solid collection of dark fiction, you can’t go wrong here.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I was a child, my parents drove us to the shore for summer vacations, and when we traveled over the bridge connecting New Hampshire with Maine, my sister and I took great joy in announcing the exact, ephemeral moment when we were straddling the space inhabited by both states. Daniel Braum’s writing reminds me of that moment: his fiction is a precisely measured balance between psychological and supernatural, dark horror and weird tale, reality and fantasy. If you are a fan of dark fiction and have a hankering for something out of the ordinary, Underworld Dreamsis your ticket to ride.

In “Goodnight Kookaburra,” the flora and fauna of the Australian outback is described gradually, like the unveiling of a brightly colored mural. An American traveler on work assignment’s gradual maneuvers through the continent’s richly colorful scenery contrasts with his memories of a mysterious woman whose imagination empties whenever she closes her eyes. In “Palankar,” a man and his brother, who recently abandoned his wife and family, embark on deep-sea dive with the latter’s new companion. As his brother slips deeper into the darkness of the water, the narrator sets forth on a journey where he will discover if his brother is simply suffering a mid-life crisis or if his escape shrouds a much deeper meaning. My favorite piece in the collection, “The Monkey Coat,” begins with a divorced woman’s discovery of a vintage fur jacket in the remaining articles left to her by her deceased grandmother against the backdrop of a series of suspicious deaths in the area. As her inconsistent memory gradually deteriorates, the unsettling nature of the storyline intensifies.

The ten-story collection contains motifs of water, mysterious women, and shifting identities. I did not initially empathize with the characters in each story, but Braum’s writing is so hypnotic that I soon found myself genuinely attached to his pensive, tragic protagonists. With Underworld Dreams, you’ll come for the curious plot lines, but you’ll stay for the well-crafted and precisely sculpted writing.

[Pan | Book Reviews and Recommendations · Rating 5 out of 5]

Daniel Braum was awesome enough to send me a copy of his latest book 'Underworld Dreams', for review.

This short story collection of ten genre transcending, strange stories is definitely one you have to experience.

This is not a book to binge read in a day. This is one to savor like a delicious piece of cake, a perfectly aged wine or a finely distilled single malt whiskey. You get that just by taking a look at the magnificent cover.

Daniel Braum writes in the form of dreams. Dreams that he does not hesitate to turn into fantastic nightmares from one page to another. The reader is drawn into fantastical worlds that interwoven with reality exploring the human psyche and existence.

The author masterfully constructs characters and builds dreamy worlds with such craftsmanship that highlights his unique storytelling abilities in every tale.

Dark, beautiful and eerily atmospheric, this haunting bouquet of horrors packs all the right elements for a phenomenal and powerful, horror anthology.

All stories are full of emotions, scary, well written and deliciously eerie, making it really hard to choose a favorite but 'The Monkey Coat', 'Between Our Earth and Their Moon' and 'Sogni Del Mundo Sotteraneo' really left a mark on my soul.

Hauntingly good and laced with the right amount of dark atmosphere, 'Underworld Dreams' will creep in, story by story, and stay there for quite some time as it keeps on evoking feelings even after reading.

A great read. One that easily secures a spot in my top 5 for the 2nd half of 2021. Highly recommended for the upcoming beautiful autumn nights.
So good that I have just started re reading it.


Get it at:
https://www.amazon.com/Underworld-Dre...

[Jennifer *Last Book on the Left* · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great collection. These stories are ambiguous and leave a lot open at end for you to interpret. Was it a supernatural event or a psychological break? They don't just hand you a clean, clear ending. You have to think for yourself with these and they stick with you long after you've read them. They feel dreamlike. Some of those dreams are nightmares, but they also feel like a dream you wake up from and just know there was more to it, you really want to go back to sleep and jump back into the dream, but it never comes again. If that makes any sense. ⁣
⁣
The stories range in theme from shape-shifting sharks, to a woman scorned, to a law student on a trip with his class that finds himself with some difficult choices, to a man on a trip to Belize looking for seahorses. From Australia, to Panama, to a tropical island Braum takes us on a fantastic dreamlike journey. ⁣
⁣
Some stories were horrific, but most were just solidly in the weird dark fiction category. I think this is one of those books that need to be read at least twice to really understand each story. Or maybe we are not really meant to understand them, maybe that is what makes them so thought provoking

[Christian · Rating 3 out of 5]

In light of the glowing reviews below and elsewhere I was really excited for this and equally disappointed. Where others praise dreaminess and ambiguity I most of all read haziness and obfuscation. I like "quiet" horror, I appreciate the focus on relationships. In fact, I came from a quite similar collection of short stories, namely Griffins "Lure of Devouring Light", a brilliant achievement so that might have coloured my expectations. "Underworld Dreams" left me lost in a lot of cases, especially while reading the longest and title-giving story. However and especially in light of the whilfully esoteric nature of the texts I appreciate the inclusion of liner notes on the text by the author. It certainly clarifies things partially. Ironically it is his earliest story, as far as I understood from reading the liner notes, "The Shadow of Rabbi Yetse", which is also the most conventional in this collection, which I liked the most. Second would be probably the "Monkey Coat".

[Johnny Di Donna · Rating 5 out of 5]

'Underworld Dreams' fully embraces the concepts that readers will always take from a story what they want, and no two readers see the same things, no matter how succinctly hammered down on the page. Many other horror authors will take no short amount of time building constructs, inviting you in, getting you all comfy and cozy, and them try to rip the rug out from you. Braum subverts this with an economy of prose that keeps you as off balance as the characters are themselves, as they tread into the hidden places, so when the time comes, the question is what happened to the rug, or if there ever were any rugs in the first place. An elegant collecting that slyly subverts tropes while lovingly adding to the statuary adorning the halls of strange fiction.

[Christi Nogle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had read a few of Daniel Braum's stories in anthologies, but this was the first collection I picked up. I enjoyed the subtlety of the collection overall. The stories range from weird bordering on horror to others that are more dark urban fantasy, but they all have a thoughtful feel to them. Psychological and philosophical complexity abounds. "How to Stay Afloat While Drowning" was one of the most memorable and disturbing pieces here. "The Monkey Coat," "Rebbe Yetse's Shadow," and the title story also stood out. The collection includes some thoughtful story notes, which are always nice to see.

[Alex Gray (gray__pages) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thanks so much to author Daniel Braum for providing me with an ARC for review!
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This was a dreamy, unique collection of short stories that explore a mix between psychological and supernatural elements. It’s mind-bending, weird fiction that was quite different than anything I’ve read. The detail and dreamlike imagery were my favorite parts of Braun’s writing
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Personal favorites include “How To Stay Afloat When Drowning” and “Rum Punch is Going Down”

If you’re a fan of surreal imagery and haunting, weird fiction, I recommend this collection!

[Josh Schlossberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Daniel Braum’s short story collection, UNDERWORLD DREAMS, is aptly named, as his dark, dreamlike prose casts a spell over his readers that they won’t want to break.

Natural landscapes aren’t just pretty backgrounds for Braum but play heavily into almost every story, particularly the ocean shore—the boundary between land and sea—and the Australian bush—the frontier between civilization and the wild.

If you’re a fan of horror, weird, or simply high quality fiction, you’ll do well to surrender yourself to UNDERWORLD DREAMS.

[Blake Blanco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review coming later this week

[Korin: A Crone Running Amok · Rating 2 out of 5]

Couldn't finish it. The stories rambled about with no clear direction of conclusion.

[Candace Nola · Rating 5 out of 5]

Underworld Dreams is a haunting collection of short stories, each one beautifully written and more emotional than the last. Daniel penned this collection based around his understanding of the concept “as above, so below, as below, so above” which is an aspect of Judaism based on the concept that there is no heaven or hell, that the highest spiritual purpose and achievements are not in an afterlife but here and now.

In “how to stay afloat when drowning” a young man finds himself reliving a personal loss while helping his sister land a large client for their surfboard business. He meets a mysterious woman the night before they plan to take their client on a chartered fishing trip who seems to have a message for him. His memories take him back ten years to the loss of a loved one, to an incident where a shark was hauled in from a fishing line and beaten, and finally to the strange disappearances of his parents, in the midst of running a successful business. He’s a surfer boy that doesn’t surf. This is a sad story about a lonely young man still struggling to find where he fits in the world.

Another story is titled “goodnight kookaburra” that follows a weary traveler as he contemplates life and its meaning while in Australia for work. It’s a very visual story full of beautiful images, and deep emotions but there is more to this story than what the words actually tell you. Braum has purposefully penned these stories for the reader to get more out of them than just the story in black and white. It's the thought behind the pen, or the emotion behind the character that plays out in this one. The sadness and sense of confusion follow this man as he looks for answers, perhaps hidden in the simple laugh of the kookaburra which he never does hear, in spite of his desperation to do so. This story has a haunting quality to it with no actual resolution, as the reader is left with nothing but questions, just like the man listening for the kookaburra’s laugh.

Another one that stuck with me for a while was “the monkey coat”. The tale follows a depressed woman, June, struggling to deal with her recent divorce after her husband took everything of value that they had, except her grandmother's old trunk that still contained an old but beautiful monkey fur coat. June is clearly still in shock from the divorce, trying to regain some of her dignity or lost youth and the coat begins to have some type of hold over her, causing her to act in ways that she normally never would…..or would she.

These are just a few from this astounding collection of beautifully penned stories, that make you question just what was going on, and what happens to the character next, or maybe, to you. What do you feel deep down? What did you see in the story? What did you take with you to hold onto or to ponder over? These were poignant tales with tangible emotions in them, emotions that lingered long after the tale had been told. This is worthy of 5 stars and multiple reads.