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Post by jonathan122 on Mar 7, 2009 23:54:30 GMT
Cold Hand in Mine - Robert Aickman (1975)
The Swords
The Real Road to the Church
Niemandswasser
Pages from a Young Girl's Journal
The Hospice
The Same Dog
Meeting Mr. Millar
The Clock Watcher
"In the end it is the mystery that lasts and not the explanation." - Sacheverell Sitwell
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Post by dem on Mar 8, 2009 8:03:19 GMT
 Ian MillerRobinson published an edition of this in 1988 as part of their DARK FANTASY series ("A series of paperbacks every fan of fear and fantasy will want." - Stephen King). I'm not sure how long the series ran for, but it included reprints of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting Of Hill House and We Have Always Lived In The Castle and, i think, Ramsey Campbell's Dark Feasts? Any more? Struggle as i do with Aickman, i always considered Cold Hand In Mine a lot easier on the brain than others of his collections that have come my way. This isn't to say i understood the stories any better, just that weird tales like Pages From A Young Girl's Journal, The Hospice, The Swords and The Clock Watcher strike me as crowd pleasers in comparison to much contained within Powers Of Darkness. Here's the blurb: Diabolism, vampirism, reincarnation and encounters with the living dead — these are some of the strange events which haunt the pages of this book.
Winner of the World Fantasy Award for short fiction, Robert Aickman's stories are the work of a master in the art of terror.
`Robert Aickman is incomparable — a genuinely authentic original and an absolute master of psychological fiction.' - Dennis Etchison
'Of all the authors of uncanny tales, Aickman is the best ever ... His tales literally haunt me; his plots and his turns of phrase run through my head at the most unlikely moments.' - Russell Kirk
`One of the supreme masters of the supernatural' - Ramsey Campbell |
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Post by doug on Apr 9, 2009 16:02:03 GMT
Hi!
I won a copy of this 3 weeks ago from ebay.de.
I've been reading it going to from work on the train and subway.
So far I've found it to be a fairly accessible read. The only Aickman that I can remember having read before was "Pages from a Young Girl's Journal".
While reading "The Hospice" all I could think of is OMG! He's wandered into THE HOTEL CALIFORNIA!!
I'm in the middle of Mr. Miller and what I've enjoyed so much is trying to 2nd guess what is going on. And much to my happiness I've failed miserably.
Enjoy the Easter Weekend!
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Post by PeterC on Apr 9, 2009 18:40:43 GMT
I've always understood Aickman's 'Meeting Mr Miller' as a parable on the nonsensical world of 'big business'.
One character in the story mentions a vision of the future in which 'everyone is furiously busy doing nothing at all'.
This is not necessarily an attack on 'capitalism' - the 'busy doing nothing' syndrome reached its apogee in the Communist world.
As a prophet, Aickman is greatly under-rated.
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Post by Johnlprobert on Nov 17, 2011 11:16:58 GMT
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als
Crab On The Rampage
Posts: 13
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Post by als on Nov 17, 2011 18:46:53 GMT
That's a great review John, I never knew Domenique Othenin-Girard directed Halloween 5! I just wish all theselovely things were commercially available!
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Post by colin1975 on Jul 13, 2012 20:10:06 GMT
Nice to read your review John of a slice of television quite unfairly forgotten over the past couple of decades. Its dark, strange, frequently weird and indecipherable and is in short perhaps the very best adaptation of 'The Hospice' that one could hope for (just so long as one can forgive the turning statue and cat attack towards the start of the piece). Both Alan Shepherd and Alan Dobie shine throughout as do most of the other cast members too and I'd give anything to see the other HTV Aickman adaptations, particularly 'The Inner Room' which stars the excellent Carol Kane (of 'When A Stranger Calls' fame) as the grown-up Lene. In fact, I do know where I can get a copy of both this and 'Hand in Glove' but neither one of them is exactly cheap and it might perhaps be better to wait for a legitimate dvd release instead. I won't hold my breath though......
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Dec 28, 2017 11:39:48 GMT
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Post by mcannon on Dec 29, 2017 1:02:12 GMT
HOOORAH!! Many thanks for the heads-up - I've been hoping for years that this would eventually surface, and I'm sure that I'm not the only one. It's funny how copies of shows thought destroyed decades ago can miraculously survive and eventually resurface in the oddest of locations, yet something comparatively recent like this can somehow just sort of slip through the cracks. Hopefully the other "Night Voices" Aickman adaptations might eventually reappear. MArk |
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Post by Shrink Proof on Dec 29, 2017 19:59:54 GMT
A fine adaptation of one of my favourite Aickman tales. Well worth watching. |
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Post by Knygathin on Dec 30, 2017 7:22:51 GMT
The problem I see with film adaptions, is that they often miss the thoughts underneath the surface and the subtle nuances of atmosphere. It takes a great poet of a director to make a meaningful adaption.
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Post by jamesdoig on Apr 18, 2018 8:00:54 GMT
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Post by ramseycampbell on Apr 18, 2018 13:45:19 GMT
An interesting selection - does the introduction make a case for it?
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Post by ramseycampbell on Apr 18, 2018 13:53:05 GMT
In fact most of the introduction can be read online, including "Black humor. Like sex, this element, and its prerequisite of a sophisticated sensibility, is usually absent in the horror genre." Oh dear. In fact the lady and I were on the Aickman panel at the British Library, and I wouldn't have expected her to make such an observation.
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Post by ramseycampbell on Apr 18, 2018 13:55:46 GMT
Ah - now I see she specifically chose tales not in the Faber set.
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