Creatures of Liminal Space by Daniel Braum
Jackanapes Press (June, 2025)
Reviewed by Joshua Gage
Like a vinyl record from days gone by, author Daniel Braum spins a unique blend of speculative fiction that effortlessly blends fantasy, science fiction and horror and mysticism in every verse. Weaving a tapestry of quantum intelligence, Braum’s multi-dimensional characters are drawn into dark worlds of spiritualism where concepts of advanced science collide with magic realism to investigate the unexplainable at the edges of civilization. Defying conventional categorization, his work thrives in the grey area between many genres. Braum’s newest collection is Creatures of Liminal Space.
Creatures of Liminal Space is a collection of short stories, mainly flash fiction, focused on interstitial creatures. Most of these tales are short, no more than a page or two, but that doesn’t stop them from being ethereal and effective. Braum is able to craft tight stories that are both haunting and deliberately abstract, almost gothic in their mystery. Many of these tales revolve around travelers and explorers in distant, remote locations; Braum is able to tap into the cultural shifts faced by these narrators and expound them into otherworldly strangeness. Whether it’s the Costa Rican jungles of “Boon of the Monkey God” or the markets of India in “In Search of Elephant Corners,” Braum’s protagonists are thrust into the unfamiliar, which Braum twists into something more strange and haunting with his writing.
Braum’s writing will be familiar with readers of Cemetery Dance, so this book will come as no surprise to anyone. His tight lyricism combined with deliberately tenuous plots that waft between this reality and another is as strong as ever, and this collection is a really striking example of his shadowy, cryptid fiction. This book is strongly recommended for any fans of gothic or monster horror, but any readers and fans of horror fiction will want to sample these stories.
