Told by the Dead
Spectral terrors abound, and monsters who might live next door or in our own heads. We learn why we should never play cards with strangers, and the perils of attending press shows of films. We glimpse a book that may render all others redundant, and encounter another that is too full of ghosts. A roadside mirror contains more than a reflection, and a bedroom mirror shows what may be in store for us all. Telephone advertising gives rise to a nightmare, and so does a Mediterranean holiday. A nostalgic train journey ends in dread, but leaving a train leads there too. Two street musicians may make the reader anxious to placate such entertainers with at least a coin. The author's wife exerts a calming influence in a collaboration, but his delirium is irrepressible, and readers with recherché preferences will be rewarded by a troupe of rampant midgets.
All this, of course, is in the best possible taste.
The contents range from immediately after the completion of DEMONS BY DAYLIGHT thirty-five years ago to the beginning of this century. Here is a book not just for aficionados of horror but for anyone who relishes wit, language and the imagination Stephen King describes as "so uniquely Campbell that it might as well be trademarked."
Contents:
- Return Journey
- Twice by Fire
- Agatha's Ghost
- Little Ones
- The Last Hand
- Facing It
- Never to be Heard
- The Previous Tenant
- Becoming Visible
- No End of Fun
- After the Queen
- Tatters
- Accident Zone
- The Entertainment
- Dead Letters
- All for Sale
- No Strings
- The Worst Fog of the Year
- The Retrospective
- Slow
- Worse than Bones
- No Story In It
- The Word
- Afterword
Ramsey Campbell
John Ramsey Campbell (born 1946) is a British horror writer.
Since Ramsey Campbell first came to prominence in the mid-1960s, critics have cited Campbell as one of the leading writers in his field: T. E. D. Klein has written that "Campbell reigns supreme in the field today", while S. T. Joshi stated, "future generations will regard him as the leading horror writer of our generation, every bit the equal of Lovecraft or Blackwood."