Conrad Williams - Dead Letters

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Conrad Williams (ed.) - Dead Letters: An Anthology of the Undelivered, the Missing, the Returned (Titan, 2016)

Design by Julia Lloyd

Conrad Williams - Introduction

Steven Hall - The Green Letter
Michael Marshall Smith - Over to You
Joanne Harris - In Memoriam
Alison Moore - Ausland
Christopher Fowler - Wonders to Come
Pat Cadigan - Cancer Dancer
Ramsey Campbell - The Wrong Game
Claire Dean - Is—and
Andrew Lane - Buyer’s Remorse
Muriel Gray - Gone Away
Nina Allan - Astray
Adam LG Nevill - The Days of Our Lives
Lisa Tuttle - The Hungry Hotel
Nicholas Royle - London
Angela Slatter - Change Management
Maria Dahvana Headley & China Miéville - Ledge Bants
Kirsten Kaschock - And We, Spectators Always, Everywhere

Blurb:
The Dead Letters Office: the final repository of the undelivered. Love missives unread, gifts never received, lost in postal limbo. Dead Letters: An Anthology features new stories from the masters of horror, fantasy and science fiction, each inspired by an object from the Dead Letters Office

Made a false start on this one a few years back so let's try again. As ever, chose three stories at random. Evidently my spidey sense is functioning at full capacity again as these are wonderful! Still not keen on that drab cover, mind.

Ramsey Campbell - The Wrong Game: If you wil insist on attending Eastercon, don't get drawn into a card game with former Hammer films star Miles 'Malleficus' Malleson (or the shapeless, oily mass that passes for him these days). You'll also avoid abandoned Bournemouth hotels if you know what's good for you. A pair of mismatched playing cards received in the mail causes Ramsey to question whether he owes his successful career to a brief encounter with an occultist at a 'seventies SF get-together.

Lisa Tuttle - The Hungry Hotel: Twenty years on from their illicit three day fling, the former rock star mails her an envelope containing a plastic key card, with just a scrawled number by way of explanation. How did he find her again? Why is he so sure she'll work out where to find him if she again gives into temptation? As she arrives at the hotel, a song he wrote for her all those years back takes on a new, sinister meaning. If only she could remember the words.

Muriel Gray - Gone Away: "If I'm right you're informing me that for 123 years the family have been inviting dead people to Bosmaine?" Grandfather has always assured Sarah 'Podge' Bosmaine that they are the last of their aristocratic line, only for her to discover via intercepted mail that this is far from the case. Back in the late eighteenth century, their ancestor took advantage of the family's lucrative involvement in the slave trade to install several women on the estate and had children by all of them. To lift the curse of one of his victims - a witch-doctor's daughter, Carver the postman has been hired to deliver tickets for the annual summer ball to the graves of those exploited. Will Podge break the tradition?

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Christopher Fowler - Wonders To Come: Opening night for the Atlantica Hotel is memorable for all the most disastrous reasons. The company who built the a multi-story, luxury complex have relied entirely on technology for every aspect of its maintenance, but even the most advanced security system can be hacked - by extra terrestrials. Infiltration of the Atlantica is effortlessly accomplished via the sewer system. Spherical beings, with the consistency of cold lava, infiltrate the water supply and set about their Invasion of The Body Snatchers duties. As the complex goes up in flames, one of the pod people explains to the-only-man-who-can-save-us, "We're doing something that everyone secretly wants to happen" - bringing down the Apocalypse. If only the Royal Mail hadn't been savaged by cuts and job losses this past two decades, the rock sample young Raj forwarded to the laboratory might have reached its destination in time.

Claire Dean - Is-and: Isle of Man. Unidentified female protagonist is lured away by the fairies to live out her days a prisoner beneath the hills. Her partner, a surly local returned from the mainland, is complicit in the abduction. A doctored book on island lore, mailed to the treacherous Gareth, sets the chain of events in motion

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Steven Hall - The Green Letter: Ideal choice of opening story, with similar leaked official document vibe to Ramsey Campbell's A Street Was Chosen. 674 of the green envelopes have now been recovered and analysed, and we can confirm that each are identical in every respect, right down to the worn edges. In each instance, CCTV recordings can provide no footage of any delivery having taken place at time item was received. Enclosed sheet invariably repeats the same cryptic list, and you circle any one of ten options at your peril.