A pregnant woman experiences her fetus’s bad dreams in NIGHTMARES and NIGHTMARES REVISITED. Cartilage creatures grow from bony craniums that hail from the sky when a farmer and his son plant them like seeds in their cursed south field in SKULLS. A patient hears and feels every terrifying moment of his open heart surgery in AWAKE IN A BAD DREAM. A therapist is haunted by the faces of pareidolia in THEY WATCH ME WHEN I SLEEP. Bodybuilders discover an unusual array of cuisine at MEATY’S DIETARY SUPPLEMENT STORE FOR HEALTH-CONSCIOUS CANNIBALS. True love lasts beyond ‘till death do us part’ in KISS ME. Night after night he dreams of the dead man who is coming to kill him, and with each nightmare the corpse is getting closer and closer in A REOCCURRING NOCTURNAL MENACE. Genetically altered creatures are luring humans to their desert lair in SMALL BITES, and a man wages war against his dead wife’s mangy cat in CAT & MOUSE. These ten terrifying tales are from J.D. Allen, author of THEY’RE COMING TO GET YOU, BARBARA! and PENTAGRAMS.
I love a good, themed single-author anthology. As you might expect from the title, the theme of this one is "NIGHTMARES," which manifest in all sorts of bad dreams and nocturnal deliriums experienced by many of the characters featured in its 10 dark tales.
What you might not expect, especially when perusing the varied descriptions of each story in the book's synopsis, are the recurring themes and interweaving plot elements that eventually tie them all together in a finale that relentlessly ramps things up in a manner reminiscent of the best in apocalyptic horror. I don't want to say more so as not to ruin the experience but if, like me, you start noticing a few stories in that things seem to be connected and taking place in the same world, let your mind take that ball and run with it, and enjoy spotting all the little details you'll catch as a result.
As an added bonus, I found most of the individual stories to be quite solid, with no trouble effectively standing on their own. There were a few that admittedly didn't wow me but they were all at least interesting enough to keep me plowing through pages and there were several straight-up bangers, like "Skulls," "Awake in a Bad Dream," "Small Bites," and "Cat & Mouse."
There were a few distractions, including some minor technical issues, some occasional stylistic choices I wasn't particularly fond of, and a few instances of what I'd call excessive foreshadowing that made it a bit too obvious where some of the tales were going sooner than I would have preferred but for me, all of that was easily outweighed by the fun and often-clever story concepts and their generally-strong implementations, coupled with the overall effectiveness of the collection as a whole.
In the end, "NIGHTMARES" was a 4.25 for me, rounded up so as not to underrate it, and an easy recommendation for fans of speculative horror. Nicely done!