The Book of Dreams - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1596062843 ISBN 13: 9781596062849

Publisher: Subterranean, 2010

Synopsis

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.

About this title

From Booklist:

Editor Gevers is fairly new to the theme anthology, but this slim, high-quality compilation reinforces the impression given by his and Jay Lake’s Other Earths (2009) that any more coming from his direction will be don’t-miss items. Besides Lake, he gets Robert Silverberg, Lucius Shepard, Kage Baker, and Jeffrey Ford to contribute to this book, and a better quintet of fantasists is barely conceivable. Silverberg’s “Prisoner,” about how a man determines to rescue the imperiled protagonist of his nightmares, neatly exploits the alternate-reality trope. In immediate succession, Shepard’s characteristically colorful “Dream Burgers at the Mouth of Hell” reveals the parallel reality of Hollywood (it ain’t pretty—did you think it would be?). Lake merges the themes of this and his collaboration with Gevers in “Testaments,” which affirms that epochal historical changes are the results of great leaders’ dreams. Baker’s “Rex Nemorensis” absorbingly, chillingly posits combat stress syndrome as a perpetual dream, and in conclusion, Ford’s “66 Deathdick Road” is so slyly managed that it’s impossible to know just when it becomes a nightmare. --Ray Olson

About this edition

• Publisher: Subterranean
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1596062843
• ISBN 13: 9781596062849
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 120
• Editor: Nick Gevers
• Illustrator: J. K. Potter