These Dreaming Spires by Marie O’Regan and Paul Kane

Book Review

Melody Bowles

This anthology follows the earlier dark academia collection In These Hallowed Halls. Apart from Olivie Blake of The Atlas Six fame, this collection contains an entirely new set of authors ready to take on the dark academia genre.

Each story offers wonderfully unique horrors, from deadly magic to haunted surroundings to being courted by undead princes. There are toxic rivalries (in chess and advanced dissection of all things), untrustworthy professors and dangerous places. Anything a reader could want from a dark academia tale can be found somewhere in this anthology.

The collection eases you in with Tallow’s Cove by Erica Waters, a somewhat straight forward ghost story with a more interesting than average narration. From there the stories only get weirder and wilder.

A Short List of Impossible Things by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé stands out sharply as the only story to offer any comic relief. It is therefore my favourite. The silly premise and breezy tone is undercut sharply by the gut punch of the ending. Very beautifully done.

The other story that stood out to me was Destroying Angel by Jamison Shea. It contains probably the most grotesque method of destroying academic rivals/annoyances I’ve ever read and keeps getting more horrific from there. When the content warnings include self-cest, you know you’re in for a wild time.

A couple of the stories run on a touch too long, but otherwise the book appears to be meticulously edited, with enough variety to stop a reader getting bored. Read These Dreaming Spires if you want to read about academia so horrific it will make your dissertation deadline seem much less terrifying.