Surreal Fantasy

Learn the truth behind the mask of Hollywood in these 10 bizarre tales of dreams and dream weavers, movies and movie-makers, by some of the most respected fantasy writers of our time.

Ten-year-old Emily Ellis doesn’t feel seen. Her family is busy, school is noisy, and the world seems to move too fast for a quiet, curious girl who would rather sketch than speak. But everything changes the day she ducks into the sleepy, echoing halls of the Grayson Gallery, where silence hums with secrets, and every frame hides a story. There, she meets Mr. Beauregard, a peculiar curator with a cane, a knowing smile, and a key to a world beyond the canvas. Because after closing time, the paintings come alive, quite literally. From dancing with Degas’ ballerinas to flying through Van ...

New York Times bestselling author Anne Bishop’s Black Jewels novels have enthralled readers and critics alike. Now, in Twilight’s Dawn, she returns to the Blood realm with four captivating novellas... WINSOL GIFTS Daemon is settling into his first year of married life with his Witch...

A Weird Girl Story Lena has always loved the magic of old films. But when the projector flickers to life in her dimly lit room, the movies start watching back. She and her brother Theo used to watch their grandfather’s strange, silent reels together in his dusty old theater — films full of faces no one could name, stories that never seemed to end. Grandpa always warned them: “Never watch them alone.” Now Theo’s gone to college, and Lena breaks the rule. The films begin to change. Shadows move on their own. People in the frames turn their heads. And shadowy figures start to step ...

Part of The Seers Trilogy. Recovered from the journals of an unnamed boy. Where redemption and ruin are one and the same. In this visionary YA trilogy finale, the boundaries between Dreaming and reality collapse. As Jake, Brooke, Emma, and Juan confront the source of their unraveling world, power becomes a burden—and the cost of truth becomes unthinkable. For fans of The Raven Cycle, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, and Annihilation, The Corrupted One delivers a mythic, emotionally charged ending where nothing is as it seems… and no one leaves untouched. Power always leaves a mark. ...

The Dragon Street Press Grab Bag Anthology series delivers bold, genre-spanning short fiction designed to grab you by the imagination. Grab Bag #3 features nineteen original stories across science fiction, epic fantasy, dystopian fiction, magical realism, dark fantasy, speculative horror, and surreal fiction. From the bottom of the ocean to the edge of the universe, these tales explore transformation, identity, loss, rebellion, and the uncanny—with plenty of strange stops along the way. Whether you're drawn to monsters and magicians, haunted futures, sentient insects, mythic quests, or ...

Part of The Seers Trilogy. Recovered from the journals of an unnamed boy. Every act meant to save begins to destroy. Dreams have rules. Jake is about to break them. After surviving a night that changed everything, Jake, Brooke, and Emma are desperate to return to normal. But the world has already shifted— and something else is pulling at the edges of their reality. As strange visions bleed into waking life and buried truths claw to the surface, the three friends begin to unravel— caught between what they see, what they fear, and what they can no longer deny. Early Praise: ★★★★...

A Noble Hearts Regency Romance When danger entangles Maggie Winters and Maxwell Wilde into a treacherous game can they survive the darkness to embrace love’s light? A widow with a tragic past… Maggie Winters had everything she always wished for — betrothed to the man of her dreams, a loving home, and a new puppy. But it all changes when her parents die, and her new guardian sweeps Maggie from town and forces her to marry a stranger to pay his debts. When she suddenly finds herself a widow and free of an unhappy marriage, can she finally find the love she's dreamed of? A hero with a ...

In a world saturated with mermaid stories, this is another one. Stjerne is not a princess. She has no songs to sing. She's a sea creature, doing her best to survive. In this collection of vignettes, we see the sea through her eyes, beautiful, wild, and strange. Alongside her incomprehensible companion, the Other, she navigates storms, mating rituals, hunting parties, and other turns of tide. Untamed, exotic, and sometimes disturbing, her world is not ours and is all the more fascinating for it. Warning: Here be Monsters

From the Bestselling Author... Tommy failed to step off the top of the bridge... Distracted when a flying man told him that magic actually existed in the world. Instead he decided to see if it was true. That started him on a journey that he could barely understand, in a place that both existed and at the same time, didn't. It couldn't... A place called, One City. Now he’s called to it. Pressed into an increasingly surreal reality that he isn't certain might be a sign that something very strange is taking place. It's that, or he isn't truly among the living any longer. One of the two ...

At World’s Edge: Seven Liminal Stories from the Edge of Reality Beyond the borders of maps and memory lie worlds that obey no known rules. In this haunting anthology of speculative fiction and dark fantasy, seven stories explore what happens when reality thins—where time unravels, identity dissolves, and the familiar becomes unrecognizable. From a girl who returns from a doorless frame altered by the realm she crossed, to a lighthouse powered by memory guarding against something older than night, these tales are eerie, poetic, and charged with slow-blooming dread. Each story is a ...

The Hollow Feast: An Anthology of Cosmic Transformation Three interconnected tales of consciousness, decay, and the terrible beauty of becoming. In a universe where time itself can be wounded, where libraries exist at the edge of dreams, and where decay is both curse and sacrament, three stories explore what it means to transform - and what transformation costs. “Clockwork Covenant” - When the Great Clock fractures and time begins to unravel, a disgraced horologist and a prophetic princess must descend into the mechanical heart of their city to prevent reality itself from coming undone....

When Alice suffers a grotesque kitchen accident she is sucked into a nightmarish land, full of strange and confusing people. She searches deeper and deeper into this horrible underbelly, looking for the leftover pieces of herself, wondering - all the while - about what is real and what is not and whether she, herself, is real after all these adventures.

A gnome wanders among strange worlds of immeasurable beauty and terror on a quest for magic to restore the health of a goddess. If he fails, all creation will dissolve. And so he must dare anything to succeed, even trespass a realm of terrible darkness, pain, and dread sorcery - Earth. The Lady of the Garden, one of the godlike Nameless Ones, has used her magic to dream into existence the worlds of the Bright Shore. But now her unborn child lies motionless in her womb.

God and His Fishing Rod Ever wondered what it would be like to sit in the clouds and have a chat with God? That’s exactly what happens in God and His Fishing Rod. Between fishing, football scores, and cryptic metaphors involving jumpers, vegetables, and monkeys, a human gets answers to the big questions — in a way only God could deliver. A whimsical, witty exploration of life, existence, and absurd humour that’s part philosophical, part ridiculous, and entirely entertaining. Arthur’s Funeral Arthur never imagined the best day of his life would be his own funeral — but here it is. ...

In the Realm of Sa Neo, dreams are doorways between worlds. For three years, Lily has tried to forget the magical world she once visited—and the chaos she may have left in her wake. But when haunting visions of a dark-eyed merman plague her nights, she knows she must return. The enchanted realm she discovers is not the one she left behind: merpeople are being hunted, dark forces hold children captive, and an ancient evil spreads like poison through the lands. To save Sa Neo, Lily must first face the truth of what she's done. As she travels through lands of eternal wisdom and forgotten ...

Sometimes that very thin line between illusion and reality is not as clearly defined as we would like it to be. It certainly wasn't the day that Alan Mitz stumbled into the garden of Abdul Gasazi. For in this bizarre and eerie place - where strange topiary trees loomed - the evil visage of Gasazi casts its shadow. And even after Alan escaped, the spell of Gasazi still seemed to penetrate into his everyday world. In this extraordinary, unusual, and unique book, Chris Van Allsburg explores both real and surreal worlds with incredible deftness.

Joseph Chance stands on a station platform, suitcase in hand, trying to decide what he wants to do. Should he take the job as junior salesman in the thriving industrial city of Sleighton – or should he become an artist in the Bohemian coastal resort of Amblesea? He doesn’t have long to decide. Trains to both places are leaving in the next hour. A woman offers him a coin. Heads Sleighton, tails Amblesea. But this, it turns out, is no ordinary coin. As it rises, spinning, from his thumbnail, Joseph’s life splits in two. He becomes Joe, the penniless Amblesea artist, in love with Ruby, ...

These disturbing and rather eerie tales were put together as a result of a discovery of strange stories in a woodshed in Rutland, England. The author then put them together with other stories that had been handed down in the villages of the Pennine Hills of Lancashire plus some stories that had been collected from friends in the USA and Europe.

Have you ever thought or felt that there was something beyond what we can see? If so, take up these four tales and see for yourself. These stories will bring you entertainment, or even perhaps inspire you to reach out . . . to the other side. 1) The Very Cold Corner 2) The Mirror and Mrs. Crandall 3) The Dream-Escape 4) Spot # 57