Mark Howard Jones' Dreamglass Days was published by ISMs Press in July 2016.
Information about Mark Howard Jones:
Mark Howard Jones comes from a town in south Wales where it once rained fish. A former BBC journalist, he is editor of the anthology Cthulhu Cymraeg: Lovecraftian Tales From Wales and author of the collections Songs From Spider Street and Brightest Black. He lives in Cardiff.
Click here to visit his official website.
Information about Dreamglass Days:
These 17 stories were all first published in the Manchester-based literary magazine, "Sein und Werden". Also included is "The Circus of Dreams", commissioned especially for this book.
A REVIEW OF MARK HOWARD JONES' DREAMGLASS DAYS
Mark Howard Jones' Dreamglass Days is a treasure trove of dark literary speculative fiction for those who love dark fiction. It's an astonishing collection, because each of the stories is something special and gives readers something to think about.
I discovered Mark Howard Jones in the excellent Creeping Crawlers anthology (edited by Allen Ashley), because it contained one of his stories, 'For the Love of Insects'. Because I was deeply impressed by it, I became interested in the author's fiction and wanted to read more of his stories. I'm glad that I had an opportunity to read and review this collection, because it's one of the best collections I've ever had the pleasure of reading.
Dreamglass Days is everything that I expect from literary speculative fiction. It contains beautifully written and imaginative stories that have originality, style and substance. It has all the necessary elements that are needed to impress a quality-oriented reader. I'm personally a devoted reader of this kind fiction, because there's nothing better and more rewarding that reading stories that delight you with their originality, atmosphere and depth.
This short story collection contains the following stories:
- Fallen Star
- Love Box
- Dark in the Shot
- Pig on the Beach
- The Condition
- From the East
- The First Hours of the Full Moon
- Bitterbloom
- A Million Miles of Rain
- Karas d'carcasse
- Wunderkind
- Sustenance
- All the Fun of the Unfair
- Corpus Deliciosum
- In an Ancient Embrace
- Put on the Mask
- Against the Grain
- The Circus of Automatic Dreams
The first seventeen stories were originally published in the Manchester-based literary magazine 'Sein und Wurden', which was created by Rachel Kendall. The final story, 'The Circus of Automatic Dreams', is original to this collection, because it has been commissioned especially for it. These stories have been arranged in chronological order by the author.
These exquisitely beautiful and atmospheric stories can best be classified as literary dark fiction. They've been infused and spliced with elements of surrealism, absurdism, science fiction, weird fiction and dark humour.
Fallen Star:
- An effective flash fiction story about a fallen star and her return to stage.
- I liked the author's vision of how the star was mended.
Love Box:
- A story about a couple who use a tiny hotel room for lovemaking to give boost to their marriage.
- It was fascinating to read how the couple's love life changed as they aged and how they had to face the limitations brought on by old age.
Dark in the Shot:
- An interesting short story about reactions to Paul Kirby's films.
- The various responses to Kirby's films intrigued me a lot.
Pig on the Beach:
- In this story, a man moves into a house on the beach after breaking up with a woman.
- I enjoyed reading about what the man saw on the beach and how he reacted to it.
The Condition:
- A man is swathed in bandages and has been affected by what has happened to him.
- This story has an feel of mystery to it.
From the East:
- An excellent story that takes place after the World War II.
- The author writes fluently about life and harsh conditions in Germany after the war. I was impressed by how well the author wrote about Traudl's feelings towards his missing husband, Franz.
- The ending is memorable and satisfyingly twisted.
The First Hours of the Full Moon:
- A story about Chihiro and Toshio who meet each other once a year for a session of sadomasochistic sex.
- In this story, the author blends forbidden passion with melancholy and delivers a striking story that fascinates the reader.
Bitterbloom:
- In this story, a woman finds herself at the mercy of a collector who is looking for her.
- This is a mesmerising and beautifully written dark fantasy story.
- In my opinion, this story is dark fantasy at its best and most imaginative.
A Million Miles of Rain:
- A story about a man who has lost a leg and suffers from erectile problems.
- The author's vision of sexual excitement and fervour is unlike anything I have read during the recent couple of years.
- I think that many readers will find this story intriguing.
Karas d'carcasse:
- A story about Major Calloway and infected penicillin that is being distributed by a man called Karas.
- This story has a fascinatingly unsettling atmosphere and a good ending.
- I'm not sure if other readers will agree with on this, but in my opinion, this story has something slightly Lovecraftian in it.
Wunderkind:
- A memorable story that is told by a freak preserved in a glass jar in formaldehyde.
- This is one of the best and most memorable dark fantasy stories I've ever read.
Sustenance:
- A striking story about a man's existence and endurance.
- This short story has an intriguing atmosphere.
All the Fun of the Unfair:
- A beautifully written story about Blatch and his attempts to reach into his past.
- I liked this story's melancholy and wistful atmosphere.
Corpus Deliciosum:
- A fascinatingly different kind of a story about an old man called Arnold who undergoes a strange metamorphosis.
- This story demonstrates how much imagination the author has and how well he writes about strange things.
In an Ancient Embrace:
- A brilliant story featuring an apparatus that has been used to predict the outcome of battles with the help of the spirits, but is now used differently, because a Countess wants to finds something that has been lost to her.
- The ending is memorable in its beautiful bleakness.
Put on the Mask:
- In this story, a man is aware of being a victim of something, but doesn't remember what has happened to him. Suddenly he wakes up fully healed.
- I love this story's atmosphere, because it is rich with strangeness. As the story unfolds, it becomes increasingly intriguing.
- This story is a fine example of well written and imaginative speculative fiction.
Against the Grain:
- A story about men who try to seek help in a perpetual sandstrom.
- This story has a captivating feel of loneliness and hopelessness to it.- This is one of the best stories that I've read this year.
The Circus of Automatic Dreams:
- Sam is a man who rarely gets up from bed, except on those occasions when the circus comes to town. He sees deep and dark dreams.
- In this wonderful story, the author offers unsettling and vividly strange vistas to his readers.
- When you read this story, you immediately get a feeling that it is has been written out of love for modern weird fiction and with an understanding for the genre.
These stories lure readers into a world where reality blends with weirdness and an alluringly dream-like atmosphere. It's great that many of these stories feature absurdism and surrealism, because it adds a nice touch of strangeness to them. When you read them, you get a feeling that things are not quite right and something unsettling is about to happen or it has already happened.
There was something in this collection that reminded me of Rhys Hughes, Clive Barker, Douglas Thompson, Allen Ashley and Brendan Connell. The author has a slightly similar kind of way of examining and exploring various themes and issues as they have, but he has his own unique writing style, the development of which can be seen in the chronologically ordered stories.
Many of these stories have a deeply melancholy and wistful feel to them that I found irresistible. The author writes perfectly about feelings related to loss, loneliness and yearning, because he doesn't dwell on them, but creates a realistic sense of something lost.
I like the way Mark Howard Jones writes about sex, passion and everything that is related to human sexuality. He dares to explore and examine sexuality openly, which makes some of his stories captivatingly erotic.
The author has a surprisingly wide range of imagination, because his stories range from weird fiction to science fiction. He's equally at home at post-war conditions as he is at complex relationships.
The author's literary prose is beautiful and evocative. I consider him to be one of the best authors of literary speculative fiction, because he has an ability to immerse his readers into his stories. No matter how long or short his stories are, you'll find yourself immersed in them.
I'm sure that there are many readers out there who agree with me when I say that we need more this kind of speculative fiction, because it stimulates our imagination and satisfies our need for the weird. I sincerely hope that Mark Howard Jones will continue to write this kind of fiction, because he has a talent for writing atmospheric and thought-provoking stories with a good amount of weirdness.
If you're in need of excellent and beautifully literary dark fiction, I advise you to take a look at Mark Howard Jones' Dreamglass Days. It has a lot to offer for those who love literary speculative fiction and appreciate the finer points of nuanced storytelling. It's a must-read collection for readers who love quality stories and want to be intrigued and surprised by what they read.
Highly recommended!