The Off-Season

An Anthology of Coastal New Weird (Dark Matter Presents)

De: Marissa van Uden, Sloane Leong, J. A. W. McCarthy, Richard Thomas

Narrado por: Cheryl May

The Off-Season: An Anthology of Coastal New Weird features twenty-five brand-new stories of disquieting and disturbing "New Weird" horror set in landscapes and communities on the edge of the sea. These unsettling stories de-familiarize the ordinary, evoke dread in the daylight, and haunt like half-remembered nightmares. They are tales of mysticism, psychedelia, outsiders, obsessions, collapsed boundaries, weird sea life, and the total abandonment reason. Welcome to the your stay behind the curtain. Please check your sanity at the door.

Stories included:

"A Date on Berberoka Island" by Mars Abian

"The Teeth Game" by Alex Keikiakapueo Brewster

"Hell's Shells" by Raymonde Chira

"Keel" by Santiago Eximeno

"Somewhere Between Tomis and Callatis" by Adriana Grigore

"The Beach House with its Back to the Sea" by Íde Hennessy

"Where Everything Stays" by K. A. Honeywell

"Nā Heʻe" by Wailana Kalama

"Last Resort" by Sloane Leong

"Thumbs Up" by Anna Lewis

"We Are Not Yet Healed" by Avra Margariti

"The Ocean Vomits What We Discard" by J. A. W. McCarthy

"Bluebells" by Amanda Minkkinen

"Twilight Tide" by Samir Sirk Morató

"So Full of the Shining Flesh" by Tiffany Morris

"Some Have No Shield At All" by Karter Mycroft

"All the Truth the Ocean Holds" by J. P. Oakes

"What Washes Up in Arizona" by Zachary Olson

"Dualhaven" by C. H. Pearce

"Neidhardt" by James Pollard

"EACH-UISGE" by Dave V. Riser

"Sunk" by Richard Thomas

"Esther of Prettyboy" by Kay Vaindal

"The Love of All Seeing Flesh" by Hazel Zorn

©2024 Dark Matter INK (P)2026 Dark Matter INK

Dense varied topics of water-based oddities

This full length anthology offered great enjoyment in curiously determining who are the characters and creatures that make up each story. I normally listen at 2x but had to dial it back due to the welcome influx of varying paces and linguistic subtleties found within the writing. Cheryl May provides a steady, ethereal, and hauntingly unassuming narration absolutely appropriate for these works. My brain is spinning with explorations influenced by the sea-focused tales. [Disclosure: I received this title for free and listened at 1.7x.]

Words as Sulfur Etched Seaweed

Brilliantly weird visuals laced with coastal ambience weaving together natural mystical elements and darkness. Thematically rich with nostalgia for bygone family or simpler times against the transformative horrors of the waves; sometimes this has an empowered comeuppance and other times a bitter subversion of the lead. A lot of the tales were surprisngly sentimental using the eerie ocean vibes as abstraction for relatable topics (but presented here with more scales and tension); stuff like the gothic sense of lingering regretful uncertainty made flesh by the shore. The stories while all aquatic feel varied and little differences between authors kept the book feeling fresh. The short stories were a good format for oddities the descriptive horror elements kept me hooked. I enjoyed this collection and the relatable narration; bring on our new aquatic not people.