Re: Robert Aickman
 

"The Hospice" is one of my favorites.

Re: Robert Aickman
 

I would suggest starting with Cold Hand in Mine. Its in my opinon his best collection.

Re: Robert Aickman
 

I'd second Cold Hand in Mine. But have to idiosyncratically disagree as Sub Rosa is my vote for his best collection. Think Cold Hand in Mine was the first Aickman collection I read. Brilliant.

Re: Robert Aickman
 

Already ordered. REALLY looking forward to this one.

Re: Robert Aickman
 

Does anyone know if this book was ever published? I read about it in mid 2014.

Next anthology from Noose and Gibbet is going to be: AICKMAN: A CENTENARY ANTHOLOGY - published on what would have been his 100th birthday. Artwork is by Terry Oakes, who I've dragged out of retirement for one last painting. Inners will be done by Richy Sampson.

There will be essays from

TED Klein (on meeting Robert)
Lisa Tuttle (on nearly meeting Robert)
John L Probert (essay on the adaptations)
Hugh Lamb (essay on the obituaries and Aickman's work on the waterways)
Jeremy Dyson (either an essay or a story)
Roger Clarke (essay on The Cicerones)
Reece Shearsmith (essay or Introduction)
Richard Dalby (essay on Aickman's life and their friendship)
Philip Challinor (new essay on Aickman's stories)
LTC Rolt's wife, Sonia (on the falling-out between LTC and Aickman)
David A. Riley (essay on getting Aickman to the British Fantasy Convention)

Original stories from

Adam Nevill
Pete Crowther
Johnny Mains
Lynda E. Rucker
Simon Strantzas

and a few others still to be confirmed and a whole lot more. There will only be 100 numbered copies + additional contributor copies.


http://i194.photobucket.com/albums/z...ps4a446ef4.jpg

Re: Robert Aickman
 

bendk, I have had it on pre-order since outset and I understand from the publisher's Facebook comments that it is still in the pipeline.

Re: Robert Aickman
 

I have just completed a review of the novel 'Picnic at Hanging Rock' by Joan Lindsay, and its previously missing last chapter that I consider to be seriously Aickman-like:
Picnic at Hanging Rock Joan Lindsay | THE DES LEWIS DREAMCATCHERS

Re: Robert Aickman
 

My concurrent reviews of two new books:

THE STRANGERS – Robert Aickman

Aickman’s Heirs

Re: Robert Aickman
 

- Once again, I am left feeling the odd man out concerning Aickman; I have read all his prose save Late Breakfasters (and would very much like to do so), and have uniformly enjoyed and appreciated what I've read, but that is where the extent of my enthusiasm ceases. I've long felt I should love his fiction; after all, Kafka and Lynch, two individuals often compared to him, are defined by an element of the uncanny, their works featuring dislocations between everyday reality and otherworldly dread that I absolutely live for; and yet in the case of Aickman's stories, such similar effects often leave me cold or confused in the end more often than not - I'm not going to say how many readings of 'The Hospice' over the course of adolescence into young adulthood it took before I finally begin to understand what the story was going for. Now, I treasure the use of subtlety in weird fiction - I rank Sarban's Ringstones as one of the absolute masterpieces of the genre - but with Aickman I'm often left feeling there's something too subtle for my gross perceptions going on that I'm missing; heaven knows I'm not a fetishist of the 'unity of effect' a la Joshi, but Aickman's stories give (to me at least) the appearance of randomness: something happens, then something else happens, then there's an ambiguous conclusion. Perhaps this the result of my viewing these "strange stories" as weird/supernatural fiction; the conventional modes of interpretation break down and are unsuccessful at divulging meaning because this is an entirely different sort of story. Personally, I find MR James' work far more unnerving and effective as weird fiction in a way that I have never viewed Aickman's, but this is almost certainly no fault of his; in the end, I think his fiction works better when viewed as experimental/modernist fiction of the type that portrays and documents internal reality (as did Kafka, or Ballard in the realm of 'sf'), rather than as horror fiction in the conventional sense.

Re: Robert Aickman
 

I know how ChildofOld feels. Every decade or so I end up reading quite a bit of Aickman in a very compressed time period. The stories are well-written, some quite effective, and then I move on, seldom thinking of the guy for another ten years or so. I like his stories but they just don't haunt me.