GARY FRY

THE LAST REVELATION OF GLA’AKI by Ramsey Campbell Review by Gary Fry There’s no delight the equal of dread, Clive Barker once suggested, and he’s not far wrong. But I’d like to offer a rival for this distinction: the prose of Ramsey Campbell’s more recent work. I read this novella in three sittings but sorely wish it could have been just one (the usual necessities of life got in the way: work, sleep, errands, etc). It strikes me that the novella is the perfect form for horror fiction, allowing authors space in which to develop their ideas while not losing readers’ attention between too many reading periods. I think this point is especially relevant to Campbell’s work, which relies on a steady, oblique accumulation of hints and suggestions that build up in the mind, so that you almost feel as if it’s you putting the pieces together and not the author at all. That makes his fiction quite unique; it’s a hugely collaborative effort and presumably different for each reader. It’s surprising...

LAST DAYS by Adam Nevill A review by Gary Fry I came to this book excited. Folk whose opinions I respect said it was the real deal. I’d not long since finished the author’s Ritual and loved that. So what could Adam do here , I wondered. I got stuck in to find out. I won’t bore you with a recap of the plot; I’ll just get talking about things that struck me most about the book. First, the atmosphere: it’s pretty full-on right from the off. Dusky old buildings in the middle of nowhere, weird things appearing in the walls, rumours of heinous acts committed in the past… My favourite early set-piece (and I do mean set-piece and not simply scene) was the “hobo” in a London house. Adam controls all this with masterly sleight-of-hand, building to it by allusion rather than simply enacting it “live”; we witness it via after-the-event footage and thus experience its true impact. The same goes for a lot of back-story in the book – for instance, the stories about events during the Last Days, espec...

Delighted to announce the publication of my third novel CONJURE HOUSE (DarkFuse). Here is the creepy prologue to whet appetites. If you like what you read, take it further and buy a copy in paperback or ebook (links below).     CONJURE HOUSE   PROLOGUE     “Mum, I’m bored,” said Anthony, fiddling with the lace of his left shoe. He’d hooked both thumbs inside the loops and was tugging uselessly at the knot. “Already?” Mum replied as she put away crockery from their meal this evening. “But you’ve only just started your half-term holiday. Can’t you go and play with something like Simon is doing?” Anthony’s younger brother sat across from him at the kitchen table. Earlier he’d brought in a bucket of clay from the nearby lakeside to work on his model of an elephant. His hands dexterously shaped the trunk, which looked in danger of falling off. It wasn’t even a school project—what was the point? “That seems like an age ago!” said Anthony, thinking of his cl...