A couple years ago I gave Oliver's collection "The Complete Symphonies of Adolph Hitler and Other Strange Stories" three stars. I wondered afterward why I didn't rate it higher since I recalled the stories being mostly enjoyable. So I figured I'd read another collection and see.Well, I can't do better than three stars this time around as well. I like the lead up to the horror, in particular the historical/antiquarian research and detail often feels very realistic and genuine. But when the horror...

Reggie Oliver might be the greatest living writer of the weird and eerie story, at least the more subtle flavor of the subgenre. There is an auctorial control that I don't see in many other writers (much less myself). This infernal mixing of weird, eerie, and subtle results in a rarefied creepiness and sometimes outright frisson in the reader's mind. But most of Oliver's tales (that I've read so far) also have heart - a sense of quirkiness and even humor that make one feel the promise warmth in

Mrs. Midnight: And Other StoriesAuthor: Reggie OliverType of Book: collection of ghost/horror storiesMy Rating: 4 out of 5 starsSimilar writers: M.R. JamesAvailability: Print and ebookReggie Oliver, who is an actor and playwright, is a gifted writer of supernatural fiction. This book comprises mostly of evil spirit stories (I distinguish between ghost stories and evil spirit stories in that ghost stories might not have a malevolent spirit. Evil spirit stories have greater resonance with me.)The

An absolutely perfect collection. Reggie Oliver knows how to tell a good yarn, with the intimate manner of the natural storyteller, glass in hand by a crackling fire. These stories have the charm and quality of MR James, HR Wakefield or LP Hartley, but with an element of profoundly unsettling contemporary 'Weird' that prevents them feeling antiquated. Every story is first rate, but stands out include the disturbing title tale, The Mortlake Manuscript (which first appeared as the Black Metaphysic...

If there exists a more deft and elegant stylist currently writing tales of the strange and supernatural, I don't know of them. Over the last fortnight I've read two of the recent short story collections by Reggie Oliver, MRS MIDNIGHT AND OTHER STORIES, and FLOWERS OF THE SEA (Thirteen Stories and Two Novellas). The latter becoming my favourite of the five Oliver collections I have read to date, and I'd say it is also one of my favourite collections, thus far read, in the horror/weird tale field

Some notes:https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

I'm not going to say much, other than Reggie Oliver surely deserves his reputation of being the man of the moment in horror literature. I don't think I've read a stronger single-author collection. Really there's not a bad story in the book. The title tale, Mrs Midnight, is told to us via a reality TV presenter and intertwines Ripper lore with pseudo-science cannibalism... It's very grizzly and beautifully written.Countess Otho is the first tale in the collection to have a theatrical setting. It'...

‘All men and women carry an uncharted universe about in their heads…Only this wall of flesh stands between us and the infinite…’I saw this author’s name recommended somewhere on the internet and bought the Kindle edition of this out of curiosity, not knowing much at all about him. And it turns out to be quite a remarkable thing, the kind of collection that makes me wish I could go out and lay down a good sum of cash on a handsome volume of his collected works. It’s a pleasant thing to discover a...

Another excellent collection from Reggie Oliver. I felt the quintet of stories at the core of the book were the most effective - Mr Pigsny, The Brighton Redemption, You Have Nothing to Fear, The Philosophy of the Damned, The Mortlake Manuscript. Together with Minos or Rhadamanthus, I thought these were all outstanding. Because it's Reggie Oliver, even the slightly less effective stories were always entertaining and worth reading, with the customary dry humour and observation. 4.5 stars; marked u...

What could I possibly say about Mr. Oliver that hasnt been said already? He is quite possibly the new master of the antiquarian ghost story. Or ghost story as a whole, if I would be so bold.

I have yet to read a bad Reggie Oliver story. And again, after reading this very hefty collection by Tartarus Press, I still have yet to read a bad Oliver story... not a single clunker in the collection.Having really only read Oliver's Ash Tree collection (Masques of Satan), which I enjoyed, I felt that MRS. MIDNIGHT was a stronger collection, story for story. I have heard from other readers favorably comparing Oliver to MR James and Le Fanu, and given the amount of outstanding stories that inco...

This is the 4th? Collection of Reggie Oliver stories I’ve gorged on recently. As always these are eminently readable whilst retaining the modern ghost story element that makes Oliver a successor to M.R. James. There wasn’t really a weak link but my favourites included ‘The Brighton Redemption’, ‘The Mortlake Manuscript’ and ‘Minos or Rhadamanthus’. As usual my personal ratings for my own reference are below...- A Piece of Elsewhere (7)- Countess Otho (7)- Meeting With Mike (6)- Minos or Rhadaman...

Great collection. Easy to lose yourself in the writing itself, but the stories are also fine examples of timeless spookiness.

A substantial and charming (up to a point) story of theatrical doings, the ‘darling’ and temperamental and ‘oft-living-in-the-past’ cast of a lacklustre production that tours, inter alia, to a Brighton theatre. A spooky ghost story (“seance on a hot afternoon”?) mixed with sexual ‘farce’ and an old-devilment of grotesque proportions, but that’s not the play, that’s the story surrounding the play! With ‘The Emperor Waltz’ as ‘leitmotif’ – and the hard-copy, non-pixel appearance of Mrs Thatcher a

I didn't think that I would enjoy Mrs Midnight initially because, stylistically, this collection is very heavy-handed narration-wise: it's a constant telling of a story (as opposed to the showing of a story). But this began to grow on me, as a stylistic quirk of the author, a distinct writing style, for the stories are filled with some degree of intrigue, suspense and oddness (owing to the supernatural bent). And the writing and narration is good. I particularly enjoyed, "Mr Pigsny", "The Mortla...

I've been hearing good things about Reggie Oliver for a while. He's apparently quite a productive writer with numerous collections to his name. A modern writer of strange and spooky stories but in the classic vein which sounds very much like my cup of tea.Thematically, most of the stories here revolve around the activities of thespians and antiquarians as they encounter strange goings in their day to day lives. The plots were varied enough not to feel samey but similar enough to give the collect...

I enjoyed this collection immensely, although I regret having gone through it quite slowly. Reggie Oliver at his best in ghost stories