Prisms of the Oneiroi

by Martin Locker

A compendium of short stories focussing on surreal and dreamlike encounters with folklore, archaeology, artworks, texts and perfume.

Genres: Short Stories

190 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2023

Reviews

[Forrest · Rating 5 out of 5]

While I've read bits and bobs of Martin Locker's work before, this is my first full-length foray into his work and I feel like I've struck gold in the Pyrenees. I paid for it (including shipping from Andorra), but this is worth ten times what I spent! There's a wonderful variety to the stories in this collection, all girded by Locker's own voice, or, more properly, voices, as his characters are distinctly-identifiable from one another. Each tale is a different facet of the same gem.

Ligotti has nothing on Locker when it comes to existential dread on a cosmic scale. This was the sort of suffocating fear of the universe that Lovecraft strove for, but Locker has found. "The Dreaming Plateau" is horror of a different order of magnitude, made all the more impactful by the elision of the most purple prose. The poetic heart is intact, but without un-necessary frills, with terrifying clarity. And for some reason, my mind kept flashing images from the Tibetan scenes in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus throughout, which is not a bad thing. I was waiting for Tom Waits to burst through a door at any moment.

"Corfdrager" examines one of my favorite enigmatic pieces of art, Bruegel's "The Beekeepers and the Birdnester" (and the art used on one of my favorite albums from one of my favorite bands, Sunn's White 2) as a catalyst for the narrator's encounter with his family's past and his own inheritance via a seemingly academic investigation. One wonders, by the end, if the academics aren't the most horrific aspect of the story. If you went to graduate school, you know what I'm talking about here. The dive into apiary lore is more sinister and more irresistible than one might imagine.

While reading Prisms of the Oneiroi, I am using a Winterthur Poison Book Project bookmark (you can get one, like I did, for free here). The irony of reading "The Temple Consumes the Rose," which features a green book by Sar Peladan, is not lost on me. I might also be tempted to consume such a book, if I was to be rewarded the visions of Latoure, even if it cost me my life. Such is the price of true art. A moving occult tale.

"The Secrets of Saxon Stone" was a delight to read, and I am not being facetious. Daimons abound, the psychogeography of the region portrayed is reflective of the spirits that not only dwell there, but are interwoven into its very fabric. This is like Dunsany, but without the pedantics that sometimes overween his work. This is mythical and approachable, lending familiarity to the representation of the divine.

Locker displays his acumen for ethnography and mythic studies in "Sea Salt and Asphodel," a story of dreams, prophecy, and the cycle of life and death. The depth of immersion here just has to be experienced - I can't describe it. Suffice it to say that this tale is told in such a way that one feels at one with the others presented in the story. You don't read this story, you live in it. The reader feels a part of the tale, such is the attention to detail.

"In Search of the Wild Staircase" is an epistolary story in the vein of Harper's magazine travelogues from the late-19th- and early-20th-centuries, albeit with a folk horror twist. That twist is set on its head, though, as it is implied, at least, that The Church itself is the source of the frisson. The story ended a bit too hurried for me, but it's still a very solid work. I'll never look at the little country of Liechtenstein the same again.

Locker, you clever, clever man. "The Jasmine Tear" is a story worthy of a Twilight Zone episode, which is one of the highest compliments I can give to a short story. The koummya, the djinn, the deal with a demon, and the treasures of the Maghreb - this is worthy of Musiqa al-Ala; a masterstroke of storytelling that will stick in my mind until the Last Day (or fifty years, whichever comes first)!

I found "A Dialogue of Innocence with the Hidden Parish" deeply moving. First, it created a deep psychogeography of a particular house seeping with sadness, longing for company. I thought of my parent's home and the sorrow I associate with it, but more of that at a later time. I also thought of my own childhood and the deep impressions of place I felt as a young world traveller. Moving every two or three years (Dad was in the military) forces one to latch on to the feeling of a place rather quickly, so I might be a little hypersensitive that way. Combine that with the death of my parents a few years back, and maybe I was destined to fall in love with this story.

Ever contemplated choosing homelessness? I have (when it's warm out). In fact, I was very strongly tempted at my last job to just give a try at homelessness, but fate, thankfully, intervened. In "What the Vagabond Sees or The Parish Coda," an entire society and cosmology is outlined for English Vagabonds, whose motto is "No Parish But Albion". If you know, you know. I immediately connected with this tale, due in part to a trip I took in 2019 that allowed a fair bit of rambling around the Cotswolds. I recalled the many carefree hikes that friends and I took in the English countryside, from Brighton and Eastbourne to the Midlands to the Cotswolds, when I lived in the UK as a teenager. As I understand it, after The Great War, many veterans, disillusioned from the horrors they saw during the war, became homeless wanderers in the 1920s. I think that the song "The Tin Man" by Grasscut is inspired by that phenomenon or, if it's not, I'm going to interpret it that way anyway. I've often dreamt of what it would be, in my dotage, to hike around England until I just drop dead. I know I'm going to sound borderline insane, but it's a very tempting prospect, in all seriousness. This story just unlocks that morbid longing in my heart all over again. Maybe. Someday. Maybe. But only if I'm alone. And it's warm. But I can't imagine a better way to go.

[Χρυσόστομος Τσαπραΐλης · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Boughs and Byways of Ytenne being my favourite book for last year I really looked forward to the paperback editions of Locker's earlier writings and immediately ordered "Prisms of the Oneiroi" and "Stones Beneath a White Star." I started with Prisms, it being his first fiction book.

Though it doesn't reach the heights of Boughs, Prisms is a more than decent collection containing some great stories along with the seeds of what was yet to come. The prose is clear yet lyrical, reminiscent a more modern version of the supernatural masters of the early 20th century (Machen, Blackwood, James) and is definitely above the median of contemporary weird fiction production. The book spans a variety of subjects, with an obvious focus on folklore, while thematically it leans on subtle horror and the sublime. Not all stories are on the same level (some feel a bit rigid, like exercises struggling to capture the spirit of some other story; there are also times when the author tends to be a bit too wordy) but the good are the majority. The book includes a nice preface by the author, discussing each story; my only issue is that I tend to prefer these kinds of discussion being located in the end of the book, as an afterword, so as not to spoil anything for the first time reader. There follow some words for each:

The Dreaming Plateau: Of an ancient town on a Tibetan plateau which shrouded with ominous local legends. Great Lovecraftian start and a good example of how to craft a story out of an existing myth. 4/5
Corfrdager: A first person narrative (as was the first one) in rural Netherlands, concerning a beekeeper cult of sorts. This had a really strong rural atmosphere and the sense of numinous permeating it, really good. 4/5
The Temple consumes the Rose: A man's quest for occult knowledge through the pages of a book. This one was a bit too decadent and symbolic for my tastes, although less hazy than most of its ilk (which I fervently dislike). 2/5
The Secrets of Saxon stone: A man visits a secluded glade in the German woods and watches a genius loci court in action. This should have clicked with me, it is pretty relaxed and hopeful, but something was amiss, maybe it felt a bit too fluffy, would like a bit more, plot-wise. 3/5
Sea salt and asphodel: A perfume maker looking for an elusive fragrance moves to a village in the southwest coast of France and comes into contact with a strange local legend. A simple yet effective take on Gizburg's Night Battles legend, even though I felt that the story's 2 themes (the perfume and the Mazerru) weren't at all times seamlessly intertwined. 3.5/5
In search of the wild staircase: A great occult story in epistolary form, dealing with the remnants of a folk cult in Lichtenstein. Really liked this one and would love to see it expanded. 4.5/5
The Jasmine Tear: Dealing with the desert mountains of Morocco and a rusalka-like creature. It was rather too short, though the ending was a nice touch. 3/5
A Dialogue of Innocence with the Hidden Parish: A boy is lost in the woods surrounding his house and meets some interesting entities. This one is of a different tone to the previous stories, bringing to mind the Boughs and Byways, and also middle-period Machen. The ambiguous nature of the events is a plus. 4/5
The Parish Coda: Not a proper story but rather a compendium describing folklore of the Vagabond Society (the society of wanderers which is the main focus of the Boughs and Byways novel). It includes a rather too lengthy (if personal, from what the author says in the book's preface) introduction about the youth and adolescence of the one who discovered the coda. The compendium itself is excellent.3/5

I'll close with an excerpt from "A dialogue of innocence with the hidden parish," in which Jack, a fey creature, speaks to the young protagonist:
"'You lot [humans] walked between the trees and felt fear, or looked for meaning in the waters, or placed milk outside your doors for the night folk, you gave us our life, which is a damned hard thing to get rid of. We were always there, even before you, but you clothed us and gave us shape. It's not easy to disrobe yourself once someone has laid the skin on you. Look'

He took the knife and with horror I saw him plunge the blade into his mouth and cut. A damp leathery oval flopped on to the table.

'You can have that, have Jack's tongue! Yet still I speak and sing, because I am Jack and I give tongue to the forest. I am its mouth, as your belief gave me reason to become. I, we, cannot be extinguished, but we can be driven away by disbelief. We have to go somewhere, so we come here, to the hidden parish. We are all just passing our time. Your rules will fall, then you will feel again, and you'll call for us. I hate to admit it, but we will come back with a spring in our step.'"

You can buy the book here.

[Nancy Oakes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Once again I'm behind, but that's okay. Eventually I'll catch up. Full post is here:
https://www.oddlyweirdfiction.com/202...

with no spoilers.

Taking its place on my favorite books of 2025 shelf, this collection of stories sits next to Snuggly's The Onyx Book of Occult Fiction, which is where I first read anything by its author, Martin Locker. His contribution to that most excellent volume is a tale called "The Dreaming Plateau," which is so powerful that it kept me awake just thinking about the ramifications of the ending. Anyway, in the back of The Onyx Book of Occult Fiction is a list of sources for the included stories, and that's where I discovered that "The Dreaming Plateau" had come from Locker's collection of stories Prisms of the Oneiroi. I knew immediately that I had to have that book.

Throughout this collection of beyond-excellent stories, the reader is constantly reminded that certain types of knowledge can exact a steep price, especially that which has been forgotten or, in some cases, forbidden. This idea floats throughout these stories, reflecting the tension between the fascination for and the hazards of uncovering what has remained hidden, imbuing each tale with added depth.

In the Author's Preface section, Locker notes that this collection of stories is his "first formal foray into fiction," after years of focusing on "research-based publications," which is actually difficult to believe since this book is so damn good. We are very lucky readers here -- he has used "geographical, folkloric and historical details" in these tales that "hold more than a little truth to them," making for not only great storytelling, but also for an eerie, intense and intelligent reading experience.

Not only is this book highly recommended, but it is pretty much essential reading for those who enjoy their fiction on the darker, weirder side where answers aren't handed to you on a plate. I can't stress enough just how very good it is, except to say that once I was in it, I never wanted it to end.

[T.J. Price · Rating 5 out of 5]

As might be appropriate for a book of such esoteric subject matter and existential concern, I can't remember exactly how I first heard of this book. It could've been a passing mention on a forum somewhere, or mentioned briefly by a stranger, but I think it was the title that drew my curiosity. Perhaps obviously, "Oneiroi" brings to mind "oneiric," speaking of the liminal dream-state, but the bizarre spelling here also brings to mind "roi," the French word for "king." Further, "prisms" obviously calls up images of the light-splitting optical device, but an interesting quasi-homophone can also be found in "prisons." Regardless of the title, I found myself intrigued by the description of the book, billed as a collection of "weird, folk, and occult" stories. Unlike many collections of short fiction released in recent years, this is a relatively slim volume, comprised of nine stories—but don't let this deceive you. Each one of these pieces are dense, sprawling and arcane, jammed with references to the historical and imaginary alike.

I am no scholar of history, though I like to think I know a little bit about some of what is referenced in these pieces—even that being said, I found it difficult to traverse some of the more detailed segments of this book. Esoteric does not begin to describe the experience—from a lesser-known painting by Bruegel ("Corfdrager," one of the more memorable stories here) to invocations of Lichtenstein ("In Search of the Wild Staircase," an epistolary account with insane detail regarding the historical tapestry of the country), I found myself routinely turning to research for further context. This being one of my favorite pastimes, I found this book incredibly enjoyable, though I do selfishly wish it had come with some kind of glossary or had some kind of annotation to assist in the experience.

This book has been compared by some to the work of Thomas Ligotti, which I kind of acknowledge, but unlike Ligotti, it has very little presence in the here-and-now. Almost all of it has both feet planted firmly in history—even the pieces ("Corfdrager," again) wherein the narrative takes place in the "present day" are concerned more with what has come before. As a result, these stories can feel a bit dusty, even didactic in tone—yet there is also a poet's mind at work here, and I found myself surprised more than a few times with some deeply evocative imagery. This is also true of Ligotti's work, though there is a flat bleakness about Ligotti, combined with a wry pessimism that Locker does not share—despite his protagonists often encountering cosmic retribution for seeking knowledge (another theme Ligotti returns to time and time again), Locker's work is clearly indebted to a passionate love for history, and the investigations thereof. This sets up an interesting paradox, and it is one which threads throughout the stories in this book.

The opening story, "The Dreaming Plateau," owes more to forbears like Clark Ashton Smith and Algernon Blackwood, even to some extent Lost Horizon by William Hilton. It is a classic story of trespass and exploration, despite all warnings from those who know better, and out of all of the pieces in this book, it is the most like Ligotti's work. A foolhardy explorer, motivated largely by avarice (and a soupçon of curiosity), discovers the cosmic ramifications that come part & parcel with prying too deeply into what should go unacknowledged. Much like the baroque authors that precede Locker, this is a twice-told tale: first, the secondhand accounting of one gone before, whose life was irrevocably altered (for the worse) after the experience, and second, the firsthand account of the protagonist that follows in their doomed footsteps. I found this story less impressive that those after it, mostly due to the fact that I am left largely cold by concepts of gods and dreaming, though the cosmic horror here was shot through with interesting descriptions of fabled places as well as vivid renderings of the fantastical and occult.

As mentioned, the second story here, "Corfdrager," takes a sudden turn into the modern-day (or at least, more modern-feeling than many of the other entries here—the story quotes it as occurring in the 1950s), concerning the investigations of a young man into one of the Dutch masters: specifically, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, and, even more specifically, one of his lesser known paintings—"The Beekepers and the Birdnester." Such intense focus, of course, leads to a kind of scholarly madness, and when the mystery of the protagonist's own family relations comes into question, the droning of the bees in the background becomes ever-louder—even, eventually, all-consuming. Styled as a classic mystery, with information doled out slowly over the course of the narrative, this was a highly entertaining and distinctly unique piece of short fiction, one that I do not think I will forget any time in the near future.

I will pause here to make note that, again, this is a book that is brimming over with references that might need additional context to be fully understood—but even without that context, most of these stories can be enjoyed on their narrative merit and unique subject matter alone. I will however say that Locker is an academic first, and there are pieces here that spend an extraordinary amount of time on small details that seem superfluous, and could make the casual reader feel impatient. This was not the case for me, as I love esoterica and occult knowledge, and there was so much to unearth in every one of these pages that I had not been aware of previously.

The third entry, "The Temple Consumes the Rose," invokes a similar kind of scholarly madness to "Corfdrager," but focuses more on the trope of the cursed tome. Again, there are unique elements in this piece—perhaps owing to the author's intense breadth of knowledge when it comes to the arcane—but this story wasn't as effective for me due to its reliance on the well-established trope. By the end of the piece, I was less interested in the travails of the despairingly hedonic protagonist than I was in the provenance of the mysterious book itself, and its relation to Occitan mythology. Again, as with Ligotti, the theme of desperately slaking one's thirst for more knowledge comes only with punishment and eventual doom.

Following this, "The Secrets of Saxon Stone" is a strange heel-turn into the purely fantastical, and is one of the shorter stories in the book. It felt rather thin to me, even in its repeated invocations of far-off and exotically-named locales, eventually personifying them in a kind of hallucinatory ritual, observed by a wondering and awe-stricken protagonist. This story is indebted to the work of Casper David Friedrich, whose paintings are invoked in the opening, and whose hazy landscapes provide a kind of mental backdrop to the events of this piece. Despite being lushly described and meticulously named, the piece felt a bit slight compared to its predecessors, both in narrative and in impact.

"Sea Salt & Asphodel" was another favorite from this collection, though it leans more heavily on folkloric trope than on the weird or the uncanny. Again, Locker's focus on the arcane is what really makes this story shine, investigating the realms of the olfactory and the myths of a small fishing community on the island of Corsica, specifically. Interestingly enough, this piece draws much of its dread by juxtaposing a vibrant, fantastical folk tradition against the stolid rigidity of Catholicism. Again, the desire for knowledge (in this case, olfactory—the protagonist specializes in perfume) is what spurs the eventual crux of the story, but Locker digs deeper into folklore here, providing a fascinating (and disturbing) conclusion that felt mildly telegraphed, but no less enjoyable for its inevitability. Again, I found the story fascinating despite it being relatively beholden to a trope of dream-walking seen in the lore of many cultures, world-wide—however, the emphasis lays less on trope here than the unique elements of this particular region's folklore (which Locker takes pains to mention) that really enliven this story.

"In Search of the Wild Staircase" takes a new format (though one which is hardly out of place here) — the epistolary structure, to tell its dreadful tale. Though throughout the book, letters—as well as scraps of diaries and journals—are used as evidence to foreground the events of each narrative, this is the first time a story is presented entirely via the exchange of letters. I could see many readers becoming impatient with this piece, but by story's end, I was absolutely enthralled by the incredible level of detail involved in the telling. Ostensibly, it is the story of a man who has journeyed from Freiburg, Germany, to the landlocked country known as Lichtenstein, and more specifically, its capital, Vaduz. These places are as foreign to the American mind as is the land of Tolkien—both family names and place names appear plucked from the tapestries of pure fantasy—and this lends the story here quite a mystical aura. As the narrative progresses, however, we discover that the dread and terror originates less from the ruins being investigated than it does by the shadowy forces of organized religion attempting to keep arcane secrets exactly that—secret. In this way, I felt deeply satisfied by this story, especially as it follows on a theme introduced in the prior piece, and as it links to the final entries, as well.

However, before arriving at those final stories, "The Jasmine Tear." This felt a bit out of place to me, despite being a beautifully-told tale of caveat emptor. I felt as though it could have been relocated in the sequence of the book, perhaps somewhere toward the beginning, nearer to "Saxon Stone," perhaps. It is a slight story, another secondhand tale related, but this time for a more sinister purpose, left unrevealed until the story's final paragraphs. Despite its relative slightness in heft, the story spends an inordinate amount of time on what feels like superfluous detail regarding Morocco and its history—much as "Staircase" does in detailing (with excruciating detail) the protagonist's journey into the heart of Lichtenstein. None of this detail is boring, mind you—the locations are drawn vividly, even if the place-names are obscure in the extreme—but again, I could imagine there being some impatience on the part of the casual reader as they wade into the deceptive waters of these pieces.

The final two stories seem to be linked, and are of a dramatically different nature than all that precede them. These are concerned primarily with establishing a mythology, one that is apparently also used in Locker's later novel The Boughs and Byways of Ytene, and as such is primarily an exercise in world-building. "A Dialogue of Innocence with the Hidden Parish" immediately brought to mind the novel The Wise Friend by Ramsey Campbell—another excursion into the machinery of a world "behind" the world, a domain ruled over by a triad of entities beholden to an amalgam of established folkloric tradition but also unique to Locker's own interpretation of same. I found the descriptive adventure of the protagonist in "A Dialogue of Innocence" to be charming and terrifying in the best ways, like an adventure (a la Wizard of Oz) that slowly turns into nightmare by story's end. Regardless of whether or not it was a kind of hallucination, Locker is clever enough to imply and suggest rather than dictate to the reader what is meant to be taken away from the piece, then goes even further to develop the world he's introduced in the final piece.

In this, "What the Vagabond Sees, or, the Parish Coda," Locker diverges completely into didacticism, prefacing the story with a letter explaining how the material was found. Neither of the "Parish" stories invoke a forbidden knowledge (or the eventual punishment for discovering same) as explicitly as the others in this collection, though the motif still makes an appearance by way of cautioning those who learn the "knowledge" of the Vagabonds therein to keep it secret, else they be remanded to the law of those who keep it such. This story is presented as a kind of "guidebook" to the lore of a "hidden Albion," an England that exists adjacent to and superimposed upon the England of the real world. It implies that there are those who live the life of a vagabond, imbued with a certain supernal power that gives them access to realms of knowledge and skill simply unavailable to the dross quotidian masses. It requires that sacrifice be made: one must give up their everyday in exchange for the uncommon and fantastical. In so doing, they surrender themselves to mystery and magic.

While the title of the book remains frustratingly unexplained in any of the stories here, I find myself grudgingly appreciative of its elliptical nature. There is a certain kind of prismatic quality to this book—history and its various array of mysteries, as well as the knowledge scrupulously buried (for whatever reason) by those who have come before—that glints when it is dusted off and taken into the light. It gives new meaning to the word "occult," whose etymology hints at things hidden, things secret, whose meaning lies adjacent to things which lie in shadow.

It is worthwhile to mention, too, that in order to procure this book, I had to send an email to the author directly, via his website, and request a copy be mailed to me. The shipping was remarkably fast, though, and Locker's communications endearingly prompt—I plan to write back to him soon to request copies of his other works, as well. Something about this process—applying to a distant author personally for a copy of a book otherwise hard-to-find—feels delightfully apt; as if I, too, am one of the protagonists in this book, seeking out a volume containing occult secrets and knowledge of the arcane.

I only hope the same doom that descended upon them does not befall me. If I go abruptly missing, look to the roads, and remember to thank Pale Mary.

(My thanks to the author for sending me a copy of this from far Andorra!)