This genre-breaking anthology is a new and ferocious look at the frailty of the human condition. Gender and sexual mores are rewritten; dreams and reality merge. Primal fears take physical form. This beautifully-written thrill ride will captivate you long after the last page.
Nightmares bleed into the waking world. Featuring a full-length novel, "The Underlighters", and eleven stand-alone short stories, this collection blends fairy tales, horror, and science fiction. A city of shadows lurks underground. Restless ghosts, eerie dolls, and spiteful stepmothers wait among other dreams. These are haunting stories of love, madness and small disasters.
"The Underlighters" is a dystopian horror coming-of-age adventure that follows the life of Janelle Cohen from insignificance to bitter-sweet triumph. "Footsteps in the Snow" is a Lovecraftian nightmare set in a Canadian winter. "A Shot of Vodka", a darkly realistic exploration of life after trauma, rounds out the collection. More and stranger stories fill in the gaps.
This genre-breaking anthology is a new and ferocious look at the frailty of the human condition. Gender and sexual mores are rewritten; dreams and reality merge. Primal fears take physical form. This beautifully-written thrill ride will captivate you long after the last page.
Excerpt
"Our heavy footsteps echoed martially in the concrete palace. The grim, sharp lines of the old-fashioned concrete pillars and the angular silvery beams on the roof were a reminder of a different time. Back then, being underground had been the exception in life, not the rule. The distant white box-room of elevators awaited us.
The ride up is always nerve-wracking. I never get used to leaving my stomach behind when the elevator surges towards the surface. The hum of electronics I’m not allowed to look at, the twitchy feeling in my limbs, the terrifying feeling that I’m leaving my home behind...these are the things that scare me about going Up. And yet, they’re the feelings I secretly crave, at times, because they always promise new and strange wonders. Or at least, they did promise those feelings." --The Underlighters
Professional Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars The thin veil separating dreams and reality is ripped away!
I admit I had the opportunity to review the headliner novel of this compilation as a beta reader. It was good then, but much better now. I really enjoyed The Underlighters. It's a dark and horrific dystopian fantasy where nightmares take physical shape in the daylight. Within this cyberpunk-horror is an intricate tale of a young girl coming of age, learning she is strong and beautiful and worthy of love.
What surprised me to no end was the short stories following The Underlighters. Each tale is very different, some sad, some creepy, and some are imaginative retellings of old fables. The thin veil separating dream and reality is torn and scattered. These short tales are often bittersweet poetry, existential, with literary explorations of the human condition.
There's something for everyone in this package, it crosses most genres of fiction. There's a dangerously sensual tale of the party to end all parties, a woeful but inspirational tale of rape and forgiveness, and other strange musings of a very talented and diverse wordsmith. Like a box of assorted gourmet chocolates, at least one flavor of Michelle Browne's fiction sampler is guaranteed to suit your tastes.
5.0 out of 5 stars POLLYANA DOESN'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE
How an author can write such diverse works and brilliantly, is an anomaly to me. From the wonderful novel in the beginning of the book, and there is a bit of happy ever after, to the short stories which embrace everything from Cinderella to a Queen to incest (but is it?) to hands which have a life of their own.
Every emotion possible is generated by these stories. Each one is a little jewel in and of itself. Horror, terror and wonderfully twisting plots are believably achieved in the short stories. The novel, The Underlighters,deserves a sequel. I want to find out what happens to Janelle!
Adding to the crisp writing and beautiful characterization is an underlying love of the written word which makes reading these works doubly enjoyable and I cite a couple of my favorites: "a retardedly long day," "not the fancy plastic kind," (while at first this appears disparate to our thinking, within the confines of the novel it is perfect), and my very favorite, a reference to T.S. Eliot, but in the typical Browne twist we've come to expect, "Doesn't it suck that the world always ends with a whimper?"
Thank you for writing such a tour de force. It was compelling from the first word of the novel to the last word of A Shot of Vodka!
Holy freakin cow what a read!
Ok, like Holy freakin Cow! Let's just say that when I started this AWESOME book Monday night, and I didn't realize the length and how awesome this anthology was going to be! With that being said, I really didn't get to digest everything in this book!
This book was amazing! One thing I will add is that since I did read almost 1500 pages in 48 hours, it took me about the first 3 chapters to grasp what was going on in The Underlighters... but once I did IT WAS AMAZING!
The remainder of the book is didn't stories that all are all intertwined or have some of the same aspects. I will have to say that I enjoyed all of them, but my favorite was The Roadhouse.
If you are looking for a sci-fi, out of this world, read. This is it! I honestly wish that I had started to read this earlier so I could soak up EVERY detail and information within each story.
The only thing that I had a hard time grasping was how the society worked because YES, it is SCi-fi and it is different. In fact, I see some of the aspects being how my great grand children might view society and people ... and I' m31! The ideas of everyone being equal was fabulous. Once I grasped the society and levels, this was FABULOUS!
The Lost, the Loved, and the Dreaming is a wonderful read that is full of life, nightmares, fear, and dreams.
WEIRD RHODY is a short story collection featuring five strange tales all set in Rhode Island and written by five Rhode Island authors. The anthology is a tribute to H.P. Lovecraft, the Ocean State's famed author of pulp horror.
