This was one very enjoyable, yet strange journey. I have received this book in exchange of an honest review, thank you to NetGalley and Titan Books for the opportunity. I have my own blog now, so please do give it a visit if you're interested in my other reviews :)──────────────────I haven't read that many anthologies in my lifetime just yet, however, from the ones I did read and given the amount of stories in it, I would like to think that this anthology is one of the best. There are 16 differe...

I got my first taste of the weirdness that is Aliya Whiteley when I read Skyward Inn, and I fell in love with her storytelling then. Her latest short story collection, From the Neck Up and Other Stories, doesn’t disappoint in the weird department either. This collection is a trip into the uncanny and the bizarre through speculative fiction. The stories range from anything from a talking severed head to a city that continuously grows—all of them filled with an underlying strangeness that is utter...

A brilliant and surprising collection of strange tales that cover grief, love, regrets and both scare and cheer you. So much of a delight to read Full review - https://www.runalongtheshelves.net/bl...

What an absolutely wonderful selection of tales is to be found in "From the Neck Up and Other Stories". I loved each and every story (but I do have my favourite - and I'm not telling!). Spread throughout this collection is a delightful array of characters, eye-widening plots, superb settings, and it's all carried by beautiful writing. I'm definitely a fan!My thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley. This review was written voluntarily and is entirely my own, unbiased, opinion.

A great collection of short stories with elements of horror, fantasy, dystopian, magical realism. Like most collections, I liked some stories more than others, but the writing quality was high and consistent throughout.And obviously, the cover design is great!

I refuse to waste another second of my life reading this collection of nothing. It reads like it was written by a rookie AI. Nothing makes sense, it reeks of hipster randomness. This has cured me of any desire to read short fiction for the remaining year. Zero out of five.

4/5 stars Aliya Whiteley explores our the horrors (large and small) of our modern day lives through 16 mesmerizing tales that warp the ordinary into the uncanny. Combining elements of science fiction, speculative surrealism and horror, the author covers a variety of themes about the world we live in; ranging from environmental apocalypse to the nature of the bodies we inhabit. Varying in length and topic, all stories share the unifying atmosphere of unnerving strangeness, combined with hypnotic

I quite enjoyed the author’s Skyward Inn, so I figured I’d check out her short fiction. Granted, quite enjoyed isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement, but it’s…accurate, for there’s something about her writing that just doesn’t’ grab me as much as, say, pancakes, but it is, objectively very good. This author seems to get slotted into the sci fi genre, but one can argue she’s more of a New Weird, some kind of weird anyway. These aren’t conventional science fiction stories, they consistently veer int...

Every story has the grace and complexity of a bird in mid-flight. The prose opens up to meet you slowly and on it's own terms leaving. The story's work is ambitious in it's vulnerability and tight weft

7.5/10 starsMy full review on my blog.A collection of 16 short stories from the murky border of fantasy, horror and science fiction. Whiteley has a penchant for infusing the mundane with the strange and the uncanny, successfully punching holes in the surface of our perception of everyday life with her creepy little tales. She is a skillful writer, seemingly seamlessly combining lightness of style and a wide range of topics with socio-philosophical observation. As usual with collections of short

Review appears in the June 2021 issue of Library Journal here:https://www.libraryjournal.com/?revie...Three Words That Describe This Book: beguiling, the ordinary made strange, unnervingDraft Review:Winner of numerous awards for her short fiction, Whiteley is back with another excellent collection of 16, lyrical, thought provoking, and original stories that on the surface, incorporate the tropes of science fiction and fantasy but, at their heart are all more about making the reader feel the unea...

Summary: From the Neck Up by Aliya Whiteley is a wild and wonderfully weird short story collection. Over sixteen stories it takes us into worlds not unlike our own, but with sometimes shocking differences.-Recommended for fans of weird short stories-Not recommended if you like settings with overt magical abilities-Recommended if you enjoy stories that explore earth in a future that sees human life transformed-Not recommended if you like all ideas to be explored in a lot of depthAs always, review...

People who read very few anthologies or short story collections, as well as people who read them frequently, deserve a great experience each time. From the Neck Up and Other Stories is just such a collection. This book contains 16 stories ranging in length from flash fiction to almost-novelette length and traverses a great many topics. One thing these tales have in common is the human experience, and Aliya Whiteley’s imagination in regards to this is impressive.You can read Tracy's full review a...

From the Neck Up collects 16 of Whiteley's stories, originally published between 2014 and 2020. The longest ("Brushwork") is an 80 page near-novella, most though are shorter, between 10 and 20 pages. The themes are riotously diverse, but often concern - or are set among - environmental and societal collapse whose consequences are being explored. In many of the stories we're located in a sanctuary - literal or emotional - which has escaped the worst consequences of the catastrophe. That reminded

See more of my book reviews on my blog, Literary FlitsI've enjoyed reading Aliya Whiteley's novels before, particularly Skyward Inn which I loved, so I was disappointed to find From The Neck Up and Other Stories to be more hit and miss for me. The collection consists of 16 tales all of which, I think, have previously been published in various magazines and anthologies so I appreciated having them grouped together in this one publication. There are a number of award winners amongst the collection...

9/16/2021 Full review tk at TheFrumiousConsortium.net.9/17/2021 Bluntly, I don't know anyone working in speculative fiction today who consistently writes such disturbingly weird shit. But not like in a gratuitous way. Aliya Whiteley doesn't want to shock you, necessarily, but she is unafraid to plumb into the deeper, uglier parts of the human psyche to examine the monstrous and strange, to ponder how humanity might react to the far futures that seem like science fiction now but might very well t...

I've read two Aliyah Whiteley books before From The Neck Up, and have found that her writing is a very unique, almost lyrical style, one that lends itself well to her unusual way of writing. This new book presents readers with a collection of sixteen short stories that I think give a good taste of what Aliya's writing is like, and shows how even when trying out different genres and themes there's something to her work that's so distinctly, and uniquely, hers.The best way to describe this book is...

Aliya Whiteley has been on my radar for quite some time. Between The Beauty and The Loosening Skin, I have heard a slew of wonderful things all pointing towards the notion that her work is weird AF. Does it take more than that to intrigue me? No, it does not.Thank you to @titanbooks for an advanced digital copy for review. I don't typically gravitate towards short story collections. However, I've been wanting to mix things up with my reading habits and I'm really glad that I did. Whiteley has be...

Award-winning author Aliya Whiteley is certainly no stranger to horror. Her latest collection of short fiction, From the Neck Up, is another foray into this familiar land that marries horror with the uncanny. Sixteen wonderful tales comprise this collection, with something for every reader.Many of these sixteen short stories follow themes that may be familiar for many of Whiteley’s fans. The horror found in Whiteley’s tales is a slow, creeping thing. Common themes that run through these stories

Individual Ratings:Brushwork: 4 - dystopian cli-fi centered around a agricultural compound for the eliteMany-Eyed Monsters: 2.5 - cute body horrorThree Love Letters...: 4.5 - magical flower examining preservation and ignoranceCorwick Grows: 3 - body horror about a growing (quite literally) townLoves of the Long Dead: 3 - trauma and vengeance that permeates generationsReflection...: 4 - phenomenons around the world cause people to search for answers in unanswerable circumstances, and see what we