Reviews

• Some hidden gems

  Doesn't quite deliver on its promise, and feels strangely like its pulling its punches a lot of the time. Some great moments and evocations of eeriness in some of the stories, but others just don't quite bring enough to the table to achieve the goal of the anthology. Worth a read though for the best ones will stay with you.

• "The New Uncanny: Tales of Unease" Is Spellbinding!

  This spellbinding anthology, "The New Uncanny: Tales of Unease", compiled by Sarah Eyre and Ra Page, uses Sigmund Freud theory of 'The Uncanny' (the notion of that which may seem familiar or ordinary somehow disturbs us or makes us uncomfortable due to repressed belief-systems from childhood) as its focus. The stories collected all use various tropes from Freud's theory (doppelgangers; inanimate objects such as dolls or even severed limbs suddenly becoming animate; confusion between reality and imagination such as waking dreams; etc.) to spin their yarns. Included are tales from Ramsay Campbell, A.S. Byatt, Hanif Kureishi, and others, who all do exemplary work. This book fulfills its goals, and then some. A marvelous read that will definitely keep you unnerved.

• Great Unnerving Stories

  A great selection of uncanny stories (which I got based on there being a Christopher Priest story in there, and was better value for money to get the whole book than the single story). And it doesn't let us down! Really weird, unnerving stories! And not blatant horror. Under the skin unnervy, not every scary at all, just that weird creepy sensation when you kind of think something is wrong, but aren't sure. Sometime when reading Amazon late at night. And you hear a noise. Or get a feeling. That creepy feeling along your back. You think you notice something amiss, or your perception picks up something incorrect in the universe. Like when you decide to follow to find out what's wrong, just a check, see if there's

• An excellent collection of short stories

  I thoroughly enjoyed this book, although one of the stories (a very long one, unfortunately) is a reprint that I had read elsewhere. This is something that has happened a few times lately with compilations of steampunk/new Cthulhu/new weird style stories, and not just something that applies to this book. But I was a little surprised to find this happening in this anthology - I had assumed from the Amazon blurb that the stories were commissioned for the anthology. Since this does not seem to be the case, I recommend checking story titles before buying the anthology. Other than that, there is a good cross-section of tones and styles. I am not one to expect, or want, to love every short story in an anthology. Rather, I expect to find a couple I love, some I am indifferent to or that do not fit MY ideas about the theme, and some new writers that I can look out for; "The New Uncanny" provided all of that. I will not outline each storyline - there is always somebody that will do that and I, personally, don't find it helpful. Some stories barely fell within the guidelines of the theme - not surprising if they were not specifically commissioned - but from what I can tell the stories were chosen for being good stories, not for being written by an author with a recognised name. My main complaint is that it was over too soon - I wanted more. Not because the book is too short, but because I was enjoying it so much. The kind of complaint that is actually praise!

• Almost as good as Tristram Shandy

  The Un(heim)lich(e)Man(oeuvre) Ian Duhig “I like the way Joyce writes ‘lookingglass’ as one word; it seems to goggle back at you, reflecting itself and on itself.” I share chronic iritis with Joyce. I have had it sporadically since I was 23, and I am now 73. Isn’t 23 in ILLUMINATUS! And 73 is the 21st prime number. Its mirror, 37, is the 12th and its mirror, 21, is the product of multiplying 7 and 3, and in binary 73 is a palindrome, 1001001, which backwards is 1001001. Well, enough of MY connections. This ‘story’ is a massive compulsive virus at variance with word disassociation. It is the first extended stream of consciousness that I have ever understood and fully appreciated. Spreading through the narrator’s lifetime, detached from his mother, pushed by his pyramid oculist if occultist or Masonic Dad, and the narrator became a spy controlled by someone called Tyr, dry-stone walling, too, and reading Melmoth with a fisheye, and he studied with the Bradford Five. Told you, I am master of my reviewing brief. This was indeed a highly infectious read of clause-connecting claws. A genius stream. Almost as good as Tristram Shandy that I have real-time reviewed on this site, as I have also Finnegans Wake. Even Oliver Onions, one of my favourite more obscure writers, was picked from the work’s net of spread allusions. A forerunner of the Liar’s Dictionary. So many allusions that have eluded this review, just the tip of the iceberg of them being adumbrated here, but I think I actually got all of them into the sump of my mind, AND I got the gestalt of the plot, too, despite not being a good plot-getter normally. “Why does Plague get such a bad press? Aren’t they just a life form like any other?” The detailed review of this book posted elsewhere under my name is too long or impractical to post here. Above is one of its observations at the time of the review.

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