Weird Dream Society - An anthology for the playful, dark and thoughtful

The Weird Dream Society anthology holds a host of wonderfully weird and weirdly wonderful stories. The contributing authors themselves originate from across the English speaking world, with varying notoriety and existing bodies of work. The profits from this collection are to go to RAICES, a Texas-based non-profit which provides legal and educational services to migrants which is certainly a great cause to support.

I absolutely loved the diversity of setting, from clear references to our current pandemic predicament to entirely new fantasy words somehow brought to life in just a few pages. So many of these stories left me wanting to read more in their worlds, from the scarred faces of 'Skin Like Carapace' to the floating ice whales of 'Glasswort, Ice'. I know that weird may at times be a rather intimidating moniker, but that each of the contributing authors was able to fully embrace it meant that the extraordinary became ordinary and the worlds and happenings far more unique and captivating. The short story format enabled even small ideas to be explored for their practicalities and implications. One example of this is 'The Hoof Situation', which explores how being faced with the realities of aging can affect our perception of youth through a society where old women grow hooves in place of feet.

Moreso than the worlds, many of these stories left me sitting, quiet and pensive, contemplating what on Earth had just happened (in a good way.) This is certainly not an anthology to be read in one sitting, as you will almost certainly need time to consider and imagine. The characters were overwhelmingly well developed and despite the format also often grew with the progression of the story. One thing that did annoy me was that a couple of the stories used 'they' as a singular pronoun, which for me at times made it harder to understand and didn't always feel necessary. Although this might just be a me thing. I ended up vehemently googling several of the authors following these reflection comas and will almost certainly be exploring more from A.C. Wise, Steve Toase, Emily Cantaneo, and Chip Houser; the authors of 'Crossing', 'Skin Like Carapace', 'Glasswort, Ice' and 'Meat for Skritches' respectively.

I have to give this a 5/5 stars, and though I read this as an eBook I am certainly looking to buy it in paperback when I can. You can pick it up on Amazon, Kobo, Weightless Books and for the Americans out there: B&N Nook, Barnes and Noble (Paperback), and Indiebound.org.

I would like to thank the authors of Weird Dream Society, Julie C. Day who was also the editor of the anthology, Reckoning Press and netGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.