Lucy Snyder’s stories are the sort that carry you away to unusual places, usually dark ones, and this collection is a perfect example. As the follow-up to the Bram Stoker Award winning collection Soft Apocalypses, it contains plenty of darkly imaginative tales. Many of these stories, including the title piece, are heavily influenced by the work of H.P. Lovecraft and The King in Yellow mythos. They whisper madly among each other creating weird echoes. Like the black stars of theoretical astronomy they are dense entities born from polarization so strong that instead of collapsing into nothingness, a black hole, they instead form dark constellations burning dimly with spectral light.

Lucy Snyder’s stories are the sort that carry you away to unusual places, usually dark ones, and this collection is a perfect example. As the follow-up to the Bram Stoker Award winning collection Soft Apocalypses, it contains plenty of darkly imaginative tales. Many of these stories, including the title piece, are heavily influenced by the work of H.P. Lovecraft and The King in Yellow mythos. They whisper madly among each other creating weird echoes. Like the black stars of theoretical astronomy they are dense entities born from polarization so strong that instead of collapsing into nothingness, a black hole, they instead form dark constellations burning dimly with spectral light.

Master short story author Lucy A. Snyder is back with a dozen chilling, thought-provoking tales of Lovecraftian horror, dark science fiction, and weird fantasy. Her previous two collections received Bram Stoker Awards and this one offers the same high-caliber, trope-twisting prose. Snyder effortlessly creates memorable monsters, richly imagined worlds and diverse, unforgettable characters.

Open this book and you'll find a garden of stories as dark and heady as black roses that will delight fans of complex, intelligent speculative fiction.