Ghosts and Grisly Things
by Ramsey Campbell
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Ramsey Campbell's novels have justly won him acclaim as one of the best writers of the age. A three-time winner of the World Fantasy Award and an eight-time winner of the British Fantasy Award, his writing has struck a chord with readers worldwide. But throughout his career he has also written insightful, terrifying, and disturbing short fiction. Ghosts & Grisly Things is a collection of the best of Campbell's short works from the past two decades. This book also features the story "Ra*e" show more which appears here for the first time anywhere. show lessTags
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BookshelfMonstrosity Ordinary people and atmospheres thick with menace characterize 'Ghosts and grisly things' and 'Full dark, no stars.' These stories range from the supernatural to the psychological thriller, exploring themes of revenge and murder, leavened with occasional dark humor.
Member Reviews
Rather than detailing carnage and grue, Ramsey Campbell writes the sort of horror stories that slowly suffocate you to death all the while convincing you that this is perfectly normal and reasonable and why on earth are you frightened?
The tales which make up Ghosts and Grisly Things span Campbell's career from the early 1970s to the mid 1990s. A constant recurring theme is just how close the mundane, everyday world can exist to unimaginable terror when one considers how easily one may slip into nightmare. Campbell's characters often experience a surmounting fear which manifests itself through the play of shadows and light, creeping doubt and an abject belief in the existence of something outside the normal plane of existence.
The show more strongest tales, those narrated in the first person, reveal Campbell's ability to transform existential horror into visceral bloody terror. Fans of Thomas Ligotti should take notice, though Campbell's world is slightly more mundane than the lunatic geographies of Ligotti. show less
The tales which make up Ghosts and Grisly Things span Campbell's career from the early 1970s to the mid 1990s. A constant recurring theme is just how close the mundane, everyday world can exist to unimaginable terror when one considers how easily one may slip into nightmare. Campbell's characters often experience a surmounting fear which manifests itself through the play of shadows and light, creeping doubt and an abject belief in the existence of something outside the normal plane of existence.
The show more strongest tales, those narrated in the first person, reveal Campbell's ability to transform existential horror into visceral bloody terror. Fans of Thomas Ligotti should take notice, though Campbell's world is slightly more mundane than the lunatic geographies of Ligotti. show less
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Author Information
315+ Works 9,842 Members
John Ramsey Campbell was born January 4, 1946 in Liverpool, England. He is a horror fiction author and editor. At the age of 11 he wrote a collection called Ghostly Tales which was published as a special issue of Crypt of Cthulhu magazine titled- Ghostly Tales- Crypt of Cthulhu 6. He continued to write and later published his collection called The show more Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants. At the suggestion of August Derleth, he rewrote many of his earliest stories, which he had originally set in the Massachusetts locales of Arkham, Dunwich and Innsmouth, and relocated them to English settings in and around the fictional Gloucestershire city of Brichester. The invented locale of Brichester was deeply influenced by Campbell's native Liverpool, and much of his later work is set in the real locales of Liverpool. In particular, his 2005 novel Secret Stories both exemplifies and satirizes Liverpoolian speech, characters and humor. John Campbell's titles include The Doll Who Ate His Mother, The One Safe Place , The Seven Days of Cain and The Last Revelation of Gla'aki. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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- Canonical title
- Ghosts and Grisly Things
- People/Characters
- Huntley Dunkley; Don Drake; Ted Mull; Stanley Brady; Trevor Horrocks; Bernadette Hain (show all 15); Peter Pears; Jack Latimer; Lucinda Dodd; Rex Smythe; Paul Vincent; George Saint; Mary Vincent; Henry Hancock; Desmond Fishwick
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- Paper, Ebook
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