Dark Matter Presents continues to kill it with this second installment of their Monster anthologies. The best writers are brought together with their best horror/sci-fi works to an amalgamation of speculative terror that is so visionary, but never farther than the tips of our fingers.Good sci-fi horror faces us with future possibilities that places a glaring mirror to our past, the deepest, darkest, immutable flaws of humanity, and our capability and capacity for innovation and advancement without care for cost or consequence. Mostly in the name of capitalism, and occasionally in the grandmother’s clothes of progress, comfort, and convenience. Great sci-fi horror does all this, but in such believable scopes that the dreadful premises of both the technological and societal advancements seem to be not only attainable, but are just around the corner. Things you’ve heard about in the news or on your twitter feed, that we are inching closer and closer towards. Stories that feel more like predictions than speculations. Even the outlandish and surreal anchored and rooted from a world we know as our own to a future that makes us believe that the course is already set and doomed.This collection is great sci-fi horror.Editor Alex Woodroe compiles a wide variety of stories and voices that explore every possible timeline of our horrific futures. The breadth of imagination, identity, diversity, and creativity are truly what lay the foundations of this mind-blowing anthology. There are explorations of household machines gone mad in ways that will chill you and break your heart—should your vacuum really be intelligent?—, body augmentations and implantations with unsettling repercussions (How much do you want to assimilate into acceptable cultural behavior? How closely do you want to watch your kids?), horrific and inhumane (and inhuman) forms of punishment and rehabilitation, deadly effects of entertainment gone wrong or way too right, and the entirely disturbing ways that humans are beginning to approach medicine, healthcare, and death.Even when the speculative elements and stories are the more far-fetched ideas—the time travel autopsies, astral projection nightmares, and cheeky surrealist capitalist apocalypses—every single one of the 29 stories herein strike home in such a meaningful, familiar way. You’ll find reflections of yourself and the world you know, and it will scare you, break your heart, and blow your mind. You won’t leave this collection unscathed.I face the same issue I had with the preceding Human Monsters anthology: that the entire anthology is so good from start to finish that it’s quite impossible to choose favorites. Some of the stories that continue to live rent-free in my head include but are not limited to: “Fully Comprehensive Code Switch” by M.H. Ayinde, “About a Broken Machine” by Catherine Kuo, “Who Sees All” by Avra Margariti, “Nanny Clouds” by Kay Hanifen, “A Front Row Seat for Miss Evelyn” by D.A. Jobe, and “You Don’t Have to Watch This Part” by Rodrigo Culagovski. Again, as I said in my HM review, you see how many I just listed? You see how impossible it is to select standout stories from such an across the board slam dunk anthology?If you’re a fan of sci-fi, if you’re a fan of horror, if you’re a fan of looking to the future with any mixture of hope, curiosity, dread, outrage, and dismay, you’ll love this collection. If you’re a fan of great story telling, emotional impact, and rich, diverse voices, you’ll love this collection. I cannot commend Woodroe’s hard work enough, and I cannot recommend this anthology enough. Read it now, before the futures within come to pass.

Monstrous Futures is a fun and sometimes scary collection of stories that take place in the near-future, or possibly somewhere on a parallel Earth. Each tale explores some unique and unexpected direction that new technologies and our society might take us. Some of those visions are pretty frightening. I loved it!