RAMSEY CAMPBELL Pt. 1 Novels by Matt Cowan

Who is your favorite writer alive or dead?  Some would have trouble answering this question, but for me it’s easy.  Ramsey Campbell would be my response.  Born in 1946 in Liverpool, England, he now resides in Merseyside.  He is one of the most accomplished and recognized writers of weird horror fiction alive.  Campbell published his first story in 1962 at age 17.  He has since published hundreds more stories, over twenty novels and has won more than a dozen awards.  He has edited numerous anthologies and writes movie reviews for the BBC.  Now I realize this is a vintage horror site and Campbell is a current writer, but I’m making an exception here.  In this article I am going to focus on the novels of his that I have read to date.  I intend to write a future article about his short stories.  Incidentally, his anthology Alone with the Horrors is the only collection I have ever read cover to cover.  If you come across a copy of this book, do yourself a favor and pick it up.  I guarantee you won’t regret it.

1. Incarnate (1983): This is my favorite Campbell novel.  It’s about a group of people who were part of an experiment in prophetic dreaming.  Eleven years after they were disbanded, disturbing visions start to crop up again.  Strange things begin to occur and reality itself seems to be warping around the participants.  I love the premise of this book with the whole prophetic dreams experiment aspect and in the hands of a master such as Campbell, what results is a wonderfully fulfilling journey into a bizarre realm where you can never be sure who or what are real and what consequences the experiments brought forth.  I remember thinking this one over long after I finished it, and my appreciation for it grew more as time went on.

2. Ancient Images (1989): Another great one.  This novel is about a girl’s search to uncover a suppressed Boris Karloff/Bela Lugosi movie stolen from a collector.  When the girl researches the film, she finds dark secrets attached to its production.  Her search takes her to a remote community that is mysteriously tied to the film, and she soon finds herself shadowed by odd creatures that seem to be a mix between dogs and scarecrows.  As the novel goes on, more and more secrets are revealed and learning why the movie has been suppressed for so long puts the researcher’s life in danger from an ancient evil.

3. Midnight Sun (1991): A children’s book writer returns to his childhood home with his wife and two kids after inheriting it.  He begins to believe that his hometown holds an old, evil entity that wishes to exert its influence on the world through him.  He starts to witness its power at work in the tress of the nearby forest and even the snow itself as he begins to change as well.

4. Nazareth Hill (1997): Mr. Campbell takes on the haunted house theme here.  A girl and her father move into an apartment house that has been rebuilt after a fire.  As a child the daughter sees a hideous creature reaching for her when her father holds her up to look in one of the burned out windows.  Years later when they move in, she finds dark things from the building grim, sorted past drawing her attention.  My favorite scene in the book takes place during a Christmas party of the tenants which involves passing around a paper where each person draws a section to create a funny, amalgamated person.  The actual results they get turn out to be disturbing.  Leaving the reader to suspect the influence of the house has played a part in the game.

5. The Darkest Part of the Woods (2002):  A family that lives near an ancient forest in England find themselves drawn into the mysterious dark influences tied to it and the ruined tower that used to belong to a sorcerer.  The forest contains many ancient, inhuman things brought about by the evil legacy of the forest. 

6. The Grin of the Dark (2007): This novel has some of the spookiest, most surreal scenes I have ever read.  It is about a man who is researching the movies of a silent comedy star named Tubby Thackeray, who has become forgotten over the years.  As he searches for copies of his films and information about him, he encounters all sorts of bizarre and unsettling people and events.  On a message board he comes into conflict with a strange character whose screen name is Smilemime.  Smilemime’s taunting posts regarding Thackeray become more insidious and troubling as the story goes on, making the main character start to wonder if this mysterious person is someone close to him.  As I said, there are a number of scenes in this book that reminded me of why I am in awe of Campbell’s writing and imagination.  There is a bizarre, dreamlike visit to a clown show that is very unsettling in a completely bloodless way, a scene involving a face sliding across the floor, but most of all I found the scene when the lead character goes into an abandoned movie theater with his elderly parents one winter evening and the things he finds inside to be one of the spookiest things I have ever read.  I have a signed copy of this book, something I haven’t sought out before by other authors, but having one by Campbell is something I will always cherish.

 You can find out more about Ramsey Campbell at his website at http://www.ramseycampbell.com/ .