To Scream Within a Dream — Eli Constant

In dreams, we are free to believe in MONSTERS and MIRACLES. This short story collection, however, is fraught with monstrosities and painfully lean on the miraculous. For Eli Constant, all forms of life contain the capacity to become good or evil. “Castle in the Dark” is a keen portrayal of this -- where an innocent child dies and merges into the afterlife, becoming a spirit focused on inflicting pain. Then there are also those things that were never alive, or… should not be alive. Like a ringing phone that is not as innocent as it seems and pressing ‘answer' might be the end of everything. Or a town of resurrected people that are not content to wait and be exterminated, especially when their exterminators are also their creators. The line between the present and the past, between the living and the not-so-living, is often unclear. That's how it is in life. That's how it is in art. In the longest story of this collection -- “A History of Youth” -- parent and child seek to understand one another. One wants the freedom to choose. The other wants to prevent mistakes from repeating. But it's too late. It always seems to be too late. With a Foreword by USA Today Bestseller, Claire C. Riley (Author of the Odium Series), To Scream Within a Dream -- call it nightmares or call it memories resurfaced -- is a human psyche trying to understand the world. It is a response to the unimaginable. A desperate cry against the world's horrors. A plea to satisfy the strange questions rattling about in the subconscious. And when eyes flash open, after vivid photos of blood and oblivion, screams will not only ring out into the shadows of the mind, but also out into the darkness of reality.