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Post by lemming13 on Jun 17, 2011 10:50:58 GMT
Nosferatu has kindly supplied me the Fontana version with the wardrobe, and I'm enjoying it considerably. The Man in the Underpass is my favourite so far, possibly because it recalls nightmares I used to have about a particularly nasty underpass that used to run from our semi-derelict bus station to a small shopping precinct (sealed off years ago because of the excessive risks involved in using it). Juicy stuff.
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Post by dem bones on Jun 17, 2011 19:03:09 GMT
Jill Bauman Blurb COME CLOSE. MEET YOUR DARK COMPANIONS... Poor Elaine is working late at the office again, with no company but the smell of dust and old paper. But something sinister moves in the elevator shaft.., something ghastly, down there. In a way, the worst thing is the absence of a cry. Miles is alone in his new house ... the murderer's house. His sleep is free of nightmares. They only come when he jerks suddenly awake. DRAW IN CLOSER Thorpe is investigating some file cabinets. What is that unnatural sound he hears? A trapped bird scrabbling in the chimney? I struggled with a few of the stories in Demons By Daylight, same again with The Height Of The Scream, but this lot clicked. don't know if Dark Companions was intended as an early 'greatest hits' package of sorts, but i found it way more accessible than the earlier collections. There's a fair bit of overlap between Dark Companions and Dark Feasts - nine stories, i think - to the point where i can't decide between them. a warped predilection for Scared Stiff: Tales of Sex and Death notwithstanding, both collections are absolute must haves in my book. hope you'll share your thoughts with us when you've finished lemmy.
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Post by lemming13 on Jun 18, 2011 11:46:05 GMT
Well, concluded this one and enjoyed it immensely, though I did think it could have done with a bit more variety in the stories and I still prefer Cold Print. There are a lot of running themes - childhood nightmares, decay and corruption, urban degeneration - which work well within the stories but when all read at once (or in a couple of sittings) can become repetitive. Still, I am delighted to have it and can heartily recommend a read. Have to say, though, the blurb by Stephen King concerning The Companion - 'horror beyond my ability to describe' - says more about King's writing ability than Ramsey's story. It's good, but I thought it was far surpassed by The Man in the Underpass, Mackintosh Willy, In the Bag, Baby, Calling Card... There are so many really disturbing stories in this collection, but if I had to pick one outstanding one I think it would be Mackintosh Willy. That one stirs up so many childhood terrors, and the landscape is so disturbingly familiar (at least to a Briton from any city), it gets to me more than any other. That's one thing I can always rely on Ramsey for; his stories actually do give me the shudders.
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Post by ramseycampbell on Jun 21, 2011 11:45:31 GMT
Thanks, guys! An edition with a new afterword is due in the autumn from Samhain, also as an ebook.
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Post by monker on Jun 21, 2011 12:09:48 GMT
I have to agree with King in terms of preference but I'd say he was simply being over dramatic to make his point. There might be more instantly visceral horrors in the collection but my particular preoccupations in regards to what's weird agree more closely with The Companion.
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Post by lemming13 on Jun 22, 2011 8:33:29 GMT
Ramsey, that's the best news I've heard in ages; I will definitely be in line for the ebook version. Any others lined up?
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Post by ramseycampbell on Jun 22, 2011 11:31:33 GMT
Ramsey, that's the best news I've heard in ages; I will definitely be in line for the ebook version. Any others lined up? Yes indeed - Obsession, The Hungry Moon and Ancient Images. I believe they'll come out simultaneously in the autumn.
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Post by lemming13 on Jun 23, 2011 8:24:43 GMT
Terrific! I can't wait.
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Post by markus1986 on Jun 24, 2011 18:08:29 GMT
I actually live around the corner from the park in which Ramsey set Mackintosh Willy. It was bizarre reading that story for the first time - I made sure I didn't go through it in the dark after reading that story!! 'The Man in the Underpass' was also set quite close to where I live as well. That underpass has now been filled in.
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Post by lemming13 on Jun 25, 2011 11:59:51 GMT
I don't know if that makes me happy, or sad...
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Post by dem bones on Jun 25, 2011 18:49:38 GMT
Ramsey contributed an article, Meet My Shadows, essentially a guided tour of his haunted backyard, to the Ghost Story Society Newsletter #7 (March, 1991). The tour takes in the locations of over thirty of his stories including those mentioned by Markus plus such charmers as The Cellars, Baby, Again, The Companion, Root Cause, The Sneering, The Height of the Scream, The Ferries, Beyond Words and Calling Card. i hope he won't mind that i lob in a quick taster?
At this point we could turn left along Everton Brow, apparently a good place to give up smoking ("He remembered the fumes from the mouth in his dream"), or carry on to Tuebrook. The graffiti in the underpass beneath West Derby Road prompted a child to perform a scaled-down sacrificial rite there, while in a terrace not far from one end of the underpass a chemistry student used to indulge in a psychedelic so vigorous it opened a mind in the adjoining house. On the other side of West Derby Road, Newsham Park was haunted by a tramp given to muttering what, unfortunately for those to whom he took especial dislike, only sounded like "Aye aye".
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Post by markus1986 on Jun 26, 2011 8:56:30 GMT
Excellent demonik. Thanks for that.
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Post by Knygathin on Mar 27, 2017 22:22:41 GMT
I think Ramsey Campbell was very fortunate to get one of the best cover illustrations in all of horror fiction (perhaps the best?) for this book. It is quintessential. It doesn't show all or too much of the horror, ... but it shows some of it. Enough to stir up demons inside the watcher's brain. I see the illustration in this way: The cupboard has a few well-meant decorations on it, but is mainly flat and plain, ... the dull way we experience reality that we have become used to. Suddenly a crack opens up in this mundane setting, and a very horrible, disgusting thick leg, pale as a pig or bone, steps out through the opening. A big bush of hair is also visible, supposedly attached somewhere near the crotch area, that makes me think, "What the hell is this?! What is going on?! What freakish nightmare thing can be the rest of it, hidden behind the door?!" And something has dropped from it, onto the floor, and rolled away. It is either (Oh, the horror of this!) a detachable organic part of its body, that has been plucked off (filling some strange function, perhaps exploring on its own, or luring attention), and can be picked up and re-attached again later. Or perhaps it is a pet? Or some strange spooky tool, completely incomprehensible to human mechanics. A very horrifying and mysterious illustration, by some brilliant artist I don't know of.
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Post by dem bones on Mar 29, 2017 15:14:30 GMT
SOS Ramsey (or anyone who can help). The Fontana Dark Companions cover artist is ..... Bob Haberfield?
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Post by Knygathin on Mar 30, 2017 6:26:15 GMT
I wonder if it may be the same artist who did the Star paperback cover for Demons By Daylight? That is another wonderful illustration - I have never before seen such an intensely expressive cranium! Both illustrations have a similar concern for minute details.
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