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The Book of Dreams
Perchance to dream...
To dream is to enter inner worlds of terror and revelation, to look the collective unconscious in the face. In this ground-breaking anthology, five modern masters of the fantastic conjure especially potent encounters with the stuff of the sleeping mind, unveiling dark hints about who (or what) we truly are, about our uncertain relationships with the waking world. The stories in The Book of Dreams are bold ventures into the kingdom of Morpheus, upon which individual destinies crucially depend--or perhaps the destiny of the entire human species.
In The Prisoner, Grand Master Robert Silverberg, long an explorer of visionary realms, indicates just how dangerous it can be to respond to a cry for help--especially when you are unconscious at the time.
In Dream Burgers At The Mouth of Hell, the commanding prose of Lucius Shepard explores the secret dream factories of Hollywood, tracing where the inspiration of scriptwriters really originates.
In Testaments, Jay Lake brilliantly employs the language of prophecy to consider the totality of human history, and where its contradictory trends may lead us as new kings dream of glory.
In Rex Nemorensis, Kage Baker incisively considers the violent dream landscape of Vietnam veterans, and fuses it with the territory of ancient myth and ritual.
And in 86 Deathdick Road, Jeffrey Ford, dreamer of dreamers, plunges into an oneiric domain in which fateful symbols are everywhere, but truth is forever elusive.
The Book of Dreams is a cornucopia of strange enlightenment, a quintet of voyages to wonderful yet disturbing worlds within.
To dream is to enter inner worlds of terror and revelation, to look the collective unconscious in the face. In this ground-breaking anthology, five modern masters of the fantastic conjure especially potent encounters with the stuff of the sleeping mind, unveiling dark hints about who (or what) we truly are, about our uncertain relationships with the waking world. The stories in The Book of Dreams are bold ventures into the kingdom of Morpheus, upon which individual destinies crucially depend--or perhaps the destiny of the entire human species.
In The Prisoner, Grand Master Robert Silverberg, long an explorer of visionary realms, indicates just how dangerous it can be to respond to a cry for help--especially when you are unconscious at the time.
In Dream Burgers At The Mouth of Hell, the commanding prose of Lucius Shepard explores the secret dream factories of Hollywood, tracing where the inspiration of scriptwriters really originates.
In Testaments, Jay Lake brilliantly employs the language of prophecy to consider the totality of human history, and where its contradictory trends may lead us as new kings dream of glory.
In Rex Nemorensis, Kage Baker incisively considers the violent dream landscape of Vietnam veterans, and fuses it with the territory of ancient myth and ritual.
And in 86 Deathdick Road, Jeffrey Ford, dreamer of dreamers, plunges into an oneiric domain in which fateful symbols are everywhere, but truth is forever elusive.
The Book of Dreams is a cornucopia of strange enlightenment, a quintet of voyages to wonderful yet disturbing worlds within.
120 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2010
24 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 15, 2010
The Book of Dreams is a small but satisfying collection of short stories that are thematically, albeit loosely, connected by the theme of "dreams." The book features original stories by Robert Silverberg, Lucius Shepard, Jay Lake, Kage Baker and Jeffrey Ford, and was edited by Nick Gevers for Subterranean Press.
Somewhat surprisingly, my least favorite story in the collection comes courtesy of Grand Master Robert Silverberg. "The Prisoner" is a somewhat repetitive and heavily symbolic story about a man facing an onslaught of nightmares that gradually threaten his sanity. It's not a bad story, but I found it a bit predictable. (2 stars)
"Dream Burgers at the Mouth of Hell" by Lucius Shepard, on the other hand, is wildly inventive and completely unpredictable. This story about a Hollywood screenwriter's surreal business lunch is funny, trippy and at times almost uncomfortable to read. I think Philip K. Dick would have been proud of this one. As a bonus, Lucius Shepard's prose is simply a pleasure to read. I hadn't read anything by this author before, but based on this story, I plan to seek out more of his works very soon. (4 stars)
The quality continues to be very high with "Testaments" by Jay Lake. The sequence of six (plus one) miniatures paints a powerful story, filled with prophetic language and gorgeous imagery. This is definitely one of those stories you can read and re-read. The final sentence of the story is a perfect summation of the entire collection: "For now, dreaming is enough. There is no higher truth." Jay Lake is another author who's going on my must-read-more list. (4 stars)
Next up is "Rex Nemorensis" by the consistently excellent Kage Baker. A Vietnam veteran tells his story, and as always, Baker manages to capture the voice of her narrator perfectly. If you're not familiar with the phrase "rex nemorensis," look it up after reading the story to see how cleverly Kage Baker connects the scars of post-traumatic stress disorder to a millennia-old myth. (4.5 stars)
The final story is the somewhat unpleasantly titled "86 Deathdick Road" by Jeffrey Ford. This one really captures the hallucinatory character that some dreams have, and the way they gather the scattered images we collect during the day into a surreal stream of symbols. I admired how Jeffrey Ford captured the feeling of powerlessness during unpleasant dreams and infused the story with touches of dark sexuality. (3 stars)
At just under 120 pages, The Book of Dreams may be a bit short, but it contains some great stories that justify the price of admittance, especially the contributions by Lucius Shepard, Jay Lake and Kage Baker.
(This review was also published on Fantasy Literature - . Come check us out!)
Somewhat surprisingly, my least favorite story in the collection comes courtesy of Grand Master Robert Silverberg. "The Prisoner" is a somewhat repetitive and heavily symbolic story about a man facing an onslaught of nightmares that gradually threaten his sanity. It's not a bad story, but I found it a bit predictable. (2 stars)
"Dream Burgers at the Mouth of Hell" by Lucius Shepard, on the other hand, is wildly inventive and completely unpredictable. This story about a Hollywood screenwriter's surreal business lunch is funny, trippy and at times almost uncomfortable to read. I think Philip K. Dick would have been proud of this one. As a bonus, Lucius Shepard's prose is simply a pleasure to read. I hadn't read anything by this author before, but based on this story, I plan to seek out more of his works very soon. (4 stars)
The quality continues to be very high with "Testaments" by Jay Lake. The sequence of six (plus one) miniatures paints a powerful story, filled with prophetic language and gorgeous imagery. This is definitely one of those stories you can read and re-read. The final sentence of the story is a perfect summation of the entire collection: "For now, dreaming is enough. There is no higher truth." Jay Lake is another author who's going on my must-read-more list. (4 stars)
Next up is "Rex Nemorensis" by the consistently excellent Kage Baker. A Vietnam veteran tells his story, and as always, Baker manages to capture the voice of her narrator perfectly. If you're not familiar with the phrase "rex nemorensis," look it up after reading the story to see how cleverly Kage Baker connects the scars of post-traumatic stress disorder to a millennia-old myth. (4.5 stars)
The final story is the somewhat unpleasantly titled "86 Deathdick Road" by Jeffrey Ford. This one really captures the hallucinatory character that some dreams have, and the way they gather the scattered images we collect during the day into a surreal stream of symbols. I admired how Jeffrey Ford captured the feeling of powerlessness during unpleasant dreams and infused the story with touches of dark sexuality. (3 stars)
At just under 120 pages, The Book of Dreams may be a bit short, but it contains some great stories that justify the price of admittance, especially the contributions by Lucius Shepard, Jay Lake and Kage Baker.
(This review was also published on Fantasy Literature - . Come check us out!)
January 28, 2021
Most anthologies have some kind of introduction or forward, the editor getting in his two cents worth, but this has none, perhaps because I had an Advance Uncorrected Proof. The five stories are presented bare with no comment.
First up was the headline act, Robert Silverberg with 'The Prisoner'. Protagonist Dave is a divorced man who works in a dull, trivial job but has terrifying dreams at night of being chased, burnt at the stake, drowning and so on. As usual, Silverberg is endlessly inventive. The narration was stream of consciousness, almost like someone gabbling at you feverishly and the prose was stylish and flawless as usual with this old master. Unfortunately, the plot was pretty ordinary and the climax, while interesting enough, didn't really justify the wordage. Old masters can weave their arts around a thin core and produce a story - Somerset Maugham was famous for it - but learned craftsmanship doesn't make it a great story. This was okay.
Lucius Shepard has a dig at the film industry in 'Dream Burgers at the Mouth of Hell'. Arthur Embry, a lowly screenwriter gets taken to a burger bar out in the sticks by Marshall Ziegler, the eleventh most powerful man in Hollywood. Arthur is working on a new Dragon picture that may be the next big hit. Zeigler takes him to a retro-style diner called The Mouth of Hell. To say more would spoil a story that has to be read to be properly appreciated. Shepard's style is witty and imaginative. I suspect a novel might be too much of this stuff but it suits a short story to a tee.
Jay Lake's 'Testament' seems to be a story about The Testament of the Six Sleeping Kings, a book written by an Angel, perhaps. It tells six stories over a long period of time. I recognized Moses and George Washington in the tales but the whole thing was, aptly perhaps, like a dream. Frankly, it was beyond me.
'Rex Nemorensis' by Kage Baker was about a VietNam vet who can't settle back into normal society. He has left his wife out of kindness and gone to find some land for which he has the deeds. His grandfather bought it long ago off a dodgy property speculator. The land turns out to be a worthless swamp that is part of a government park anyway but he goes there to see it and is nearly killed by a crazy old man. The 'dream' theme here seems to be that he prefers the 'real' world of nature red in tooth and claw to the 'dream' world of civilization. The story was brutal but well written and gripping.
In '86 Deathdick Road' by Geoffrey Ford a man takes his wife to a 'McMansion' in the country where The Smartest Man in the World is putting on a show. The fee to get in is fifty dollars but lots of people from town are there, many of them annoying neighbours. In the very dreamlike cascade of events that follow our hero is insulted, locked out and assaulted by killer owls.
I have the same problem with the last story that I have with all of them. Since fantasy is not real anyway why bother making fantasy stories about dreams. All that happens is you're not sure if it's an unreal dream or an unreal fantasy. 'Dream Burgers at the Mouth of Hell' was a perfectly good fantasy story and 'Rex Nemorensis' seems to be a grisly, realist story of the type you might find in a Stephen King anthology. Silverberg's story is definitely about dreaming and maybe it gave the book its title. Who knows? Not a bad collection for a pastime but no classic. Don't break a leg trying to get it.
First up was the headline act, Robert Silverberg with 'The Prisoner'. Protagonist Dave is a divorced man who works in a dull, trivial job but has terrifying dreams at night of being chased, burnt at the stake, drowning and so on. As usual, Silverberg is endlessly inventive. The narration was stream of consciousness, almost like someone gabbling at you feverishly and the prose was stylish and flawless as usual with this old master. Unfortunately, the plot was pretty ordinary and the climax, while interesting enough, didn't really justify the wordage. Old masters can weave their arts around a thin core and produce a story - Somerset Maugham was famous for it - but learned craftsmanship doesn't make it a great story. This was okay.
Lucius Shepard has a dig at the film industry in 'Dream Burgers at the Mouth of Hell'. Arthur Embry, a lowly screenwriter gets taken to a burger bar out in the sticks by Marshall Ziegler, the eleventh most powerful man in Hollywood. Arthur is working on a new Dragon picture that may be the next big hit. Zeigler takes him to a retro-style diner called The Mouth of Hell. To say more would spoil a story that has to be read to be properly appreciated. Shepard's style is witty and imaginative. I suspect a novel might be too much of this stuff but it suits a short story to a tee.
Jay Lake's 'Testament' seems to be a story about The Testament of the Six Sleeping Kings, a book written by an Angel, perhaps. It tells six stories over a long period of time. I recognized Moses and George Washington in the tales but the whole thing was, aptly perhaps, like a dream. Frankly, it was beyond me.
'Rex Nemorensis' by Kage Baker was about a VietNam vet who can't settle back into normal society. He has left his wife out of kindness and gone to find some land for which he has the deeds. His grandfather bought it long ago off a dodgy property speculator. The land turns out to be a worthless swamp that is part of a government park anyway but he goes there to see it and is nearly killed by a crazy old man. The 'dream' theme here seems to be that he prefers the 'real' world of nature red in tooth and claw to the 'dream' world of civilization. The story was brutal but well written and gripping.
In '86 Deathdick Road' by Geoffrey Ford a man takes his wife to a 'McMansion' in the country where The Smartest Man in the World is putting on a show. The fee to get in is fifty dollars but lots of people from town are there, many of them annoying neighbours. In the very dreamlike cascade of events that follow our hero is insulted, locked out and assaulted by killer owls.
I have the same problem with the last story that I have with all of them. Since fantasy is not real anyway why bother making fantasy stories about dreams. All that happens is you're not sure if it's an unreal dream or an unreal fantasy. 'Dream Burgers at the Mouth of Hell' was a perfectly good fantasy story and 'Rex Nemorensis' seems to be a grisly, realist story of the type you might find in a Stephen King anthology. Silverberg's story is definitely about dreaming and maybe it gave the book its title. Who knows? Not a bad collection for a pastime but no classic. Don't break a leg trying to get it.
December 9, 2022
The quality of the stories surprised me, I expected more of Subterranean Press. Maybe I've just been reading very high quality in recent year but the stories here were just odd and not compelling in the slightest.
I'm giving in 2 stars because the latter two were okay but in general I know to steer clear of these authors.
I'm giving in 2 stars because the latter two were okay but in general I know to steer clear of these authors.
September 18, 2023
This 2010 anthology invited five SFF writers to create a story based on dreams. I picked it up because three of the five are dead now, and I was unfamiliar with these stories. They are clever but not essential to their work.
August 12, 2010
In writing class, all aspiring writers are told to avoid 3 big clichés. Never describe your main character by having them look at themselves in a mirror. Never make your character a perfect Mary Sue. And never base your stories around dreams.
The Book of Dreams is an eloquent "up yours!" by Nick Gevers to that last piece of advice; a short chapbook composed of 5 stories, all of them based in (if not entirely composed of) the realm of Oneiros. It's an excellent short collection and I highly recommend it.
*** - "The Prisoner" by Robert Silverburg - The first, and probably weakest, of the bunch. Silverburg's short story about a man plagued by nightmares of another man trapped in his dreams is well written and fun to read, but the payoff is predictable and a bit of a letdown. For all the buildup, the revelation should have been something more.
**** - "Dream Burgers at the Mouth of Hell" by Lucius Shepard - A cynical story about an up and coming screenwriter who discovers the true source of Hollywood's success and inspiration, and the price he'll have to pay to get it. Extremely well written, funny, and totally unpredictable.
**** - "Testaments" by Jay Lake - A bleak tale of the dreams of prophecy of conquerors throughout history, and of their victims, including the conquerors themselves. A good story with excellent, but deliberately oblique prose. Not exactly sure of the author's theme by the end. Felt like a story I'd need to read a few times to fully understand. Not that that's a bad thing.
- "Rex Nemorensis" by Kage Baker - The best of the bunch. A story that is both horrifying and heartbreaking at once, about an old veteran of the Vietnam war who searches and finally finds a new purpose, and a new god, in his dreams of the jungle. This is my first exposure to Baker's work, and short as it is, it still makes me lament the fact that she died suddenly of cancer earlier this year. A real loss to the field.
- "86 Deathdick Road" by Jeffery Ford - Runner up for best of the bunch. A story that begins with a visit to the smartest man in the world and then somehow devolves into a battle with killer owls, before ending with a lament to lost love. An excellent choice for wrapping up the anthology. By turns hilarious, horrific, bizarre, and forlorn, it's almost like a--well, do I really need to say it?
The Book of Dreams is an eloquent "up yours!" by Nick Gevers to that last piece of advice; a short chapbook composed of 5 stories, all of them based in (if not entirely composed of) the realm of Oneiros. It's an excellent short collection and I highly recommend it.
*** - "The Prisoner" by Robert Silverburg - The first, and probably weakest, of the bunch. Silverburg's short story about a man plagued by nightmares of another man trapped in his dreams is well written and fun to read, but the payoff is predictable and a bit of a letdown. For all the buildup, the revelation should have been something more.
**** - "Dream Burgers at the Mouth of Hell" by Lucius Shepard - A cynical story about an up and coming screenwriter who discovers the true source of Hollywood's success and inspiration, and the price he'll have to pay to get it. Extremely well written, funny, and totally unpredictable.
**** - "Testaments" by Jay Lake - A bleak tale of the dreams of prophecy of conquerors throughout history, and of their victims, including the conquerors themselves. A good story with excellent, but deliberately oblique prose. Not exactly sure of the author's theme by the end. Felt like a story I'd need to read a few times to fully understand. Not that that's a bad thing.
- "Rex Nemorensis" by Kage Baker - The best of the bunch. A story that is both horrifying and heartbreaking at once, about an old veteran of the Vietnam war who searches and finally finds a new purpose, and a new god, in his dreams of the jungle. This is my first exposure to Baker's work, and short as it is, it still makes me lament the fact that she died suddenly of cancer earlier this year. A real loss to the field.
- "86 Deathdick Road" by Jeffery Ford - Runner up for best of the bunch. A story that begins with a visit to the smartest man in the world and then somehow devolves into a battle with killer owls, before ending with a lament to lost love. An excellent choice for wrapping up the anthology. By turns hilarious, horrific, bizarre, and forlorn, it's almost like a--well, do I really need to say it?
September 16, 2011
Consistently excellent short stories from beginning to end.
The Prisoner by Silverberg is a tightly written story about a man and his nightmares.
Dream Burgers at the Mouth of Hell by Lucius Shephard is an hallucinagetic (sp) tale of Hollywood.
Testaments by Jay Lake looks into the minds of warriors and their connection with their god.
Kage Baker tells the story of a Vietnam Veteran who can't return to normal everyday life in Rex Nemorensis.
86 Deathdick Road by Jeffrey Ford is a dreamlike tale of the smartest man in the world and killer owls.
The Prisoner by Silverberg is a tightly written story about a man and his nightmares.
Dream Burgers at the Mouth of Hell by Lucius Shephard is an hallucinagetic (sp) tale of Hollywood.
Testaments by Jay Lake looks into the minds of warriors and their connection with their god.
Kage Baker tells the story of a Vietnam Veteran who can't return to normal everyday life in Rex Nemorensis.
86 Deathdick Road by Jeffrey Ford is a dreamlike tale of the smartest man in the world and killer owls.
June 2, 2013
The Book of Dreams is a small but satisfying collection of short stories that are thematically, albeit loosely, connected by the theme of "dreams." The book features original stories by Robert Silverberg, Lucius Shepard, Jay Lake, Kage Baker and Jeffrey Ford, and was edited by Nick Gevers for Subterranea... Read More:
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