2024-10-29
Stories to remind us that sometimes the things that haunt us most aren’t people, but places, frozen in time.
Prolific horror author Wood teams up with writer and artist Koon for a haphazardly curated but infinitely curious collection of postmodern myths set in darkest winter. The stories feature everything from casual incursions of the fantastic into everyday life to surrealist fever dreams that defy description, all named after their settings. The opener, “Dhaka,” by Anjum Noor Choudhury, finds a fleet political operative outmaneuvering a restless spirit, while Sarah Read’s “Paris” depicts a young street artist facing an O. Henry–esque quandary regarding his cursed pencils. Here, we start to get more hints of menace, too: “You can get into the catacombs from almost any part of the city. Out can be harder.” As one might expect, there are lots of ghosts lurking about, from the shadows of the city’s old sins in “Dublin,” by Christian Fiachra Stevens, to the blindfolded wisp that haunts a soldier in Matt Hollingsworth’s “Zagreb.” The most effective stories are practically haunted houses, but there’s plenty of cinema-scale spectacle, too, from the Victorian underworld of Lily Childs’ “London” to the gladiatorial combat in Mars Abian’s dystopian “Manila.” Of course, a book wouldn’t properly be considered urban fantasy without a healthy dose of old-fashioned magic, and this frosty collection delivers it in abundance. A trio of siblings employs Jewish mysticism to raise the dead in Jonathan Papernick’s “Jerusalem,” while ancient Finnish spirits, the Martaat, haunt the wintry streets of Xan van Rooyen’s “Helsinki.” The results aren’t always pretty—Richard Kadrey takes a break from Sandman Slim to render a writer, grappling with madness, who carves his words into bones in “Brooklyn,” while the mutilated ghosts of war return in Mike Allen’s “Lewisburg”—an unwelcome reminder that cities are formed as much by stories and memory as steel and concrete.
An eclectic travelogue with words of warning: “People love to visit here, but none of it’s real, y’know?
