Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!
Rate this book!
Write a review?
Fantastic collection of eerie, literary, somewhat 'Aickmanesque' (is that word?) short fiction. Superb.
An incredible collection of very weird, surreal horror shorts. Not a dud in the bunch but my favorites were No More A-Roving, Beneath the Drops, The Moon Will Look Strange, and The Chance Walker.
More like 2.5 stars. I liked about a third of the stories, but I found the majority of them to be stale.
An artful collection of restrained and subtle short stories in a mode similar to Robert Aickman and Simon Strantzas. Lynda Rucker exhibits a superior craft and intelligence in every one of these pieces. Highly recommended, except for those readers who prefer their horror fiction more outwardly dynamic.
Incredible debut - each story is short in length but so much is packed into them they have more depth than a lot of novels. Essential reading.
I loved this collection of stories. While each is very different, they all share a spooky, paranormal edge. Reading these stories gave me the hazy, surreal feeling of being lost in a dream. Lynda Rucker's writing manages to engage all the senses. I could smell the musty odor and feel the mist in the air. Locations are a big part of the stories here and Rucker captures each incredibly well. I felt like I was transported with the characters. Despite never having been to these places, I was able to...
In the end it was difficult for me to have any strong opinion or memorable moments except for a few stories (the one about the "possessed woman." Can't recall the title offhand.) and I suppose this says something. All the stories were worthwhile reading but I was mostly left with a feeling of Aickman-lite, if that makes any sense. I'll try to give a more thorough review when I can get the TOC in front of me again since I no longer have the book (I borrowed it).
I first read Rucker's work in the "Aickman's Heirs" anthology edited by (the excellent) Simon Strantzas. Her story "The Dying Season" was included, although it's not included here. Later I read somewhere that this collection is "Aickman-esque," something also mentioned in Steve Rasnic Tem's introduction to this book. That's more than enough to pique my interest.I would have to agree, these are carefully crafted, subtle stories, often with a potent sense of place. There's a dream-like quality to
I read both of Lynda E. Rucker's collections, and I would recommend "You'll Know When You Get There" ahead of "The Moom Will Look Strange," but this is still a very good collection. My favorite stories were the title story, "These Things We Have Always Known," "In Death’s Other Kingdom" and “The Last Reel.” Reading this collection sent me looking for uncollected stories by Rucker, of which there are many in magazines and "best of" anthologies.
Strange, supernatural, subtle short stories. Some are about time, some are about place, some deal with the occult Unnerving and uncanny.
A wonderful collection of unsettling, beautifully written stories.
If you’re looking for the modern day equivalent of M.R. James, Rucker is your writer.
Table of Contents:Introduction Author’s Note The Burned House No More A-Roving The Chance Walker The Moon Will Look Strange In Death’s Other Kingdom Ash-Mouth These Foolish Things Beneath the Drops These Things We Have Always KnownDifferent Angels The Last Reel AcknowledgmentsThis is a collection of weird fiction. The second half of the book was, for me, stronger than the first half. The stories as a whole are, for me, closer to four stars than to three. I look forward to future stories from Lyn...
Love, life, loneliness, loss: all these words begin with l, but what do they have in common apart from this fact? These feelings & sensations define us, determine how we look at others, and, eventually, decide what we make of ourselves. The stories in this collection are all about them. They would disorient you, depress you, suffocate you, and, if you are looking for escapist entertainment, probably switch you off for a really long time. But they are also lyrical, haunting, rich, evocative and t...
The final story in this collection made it for me.
I was kind of hoping for more from this book. I read one of the stories in here years ago, in one of Stephen Jones' Mammoth books, "The Last Reel," and I loved it so much it's stuck with me all this time. When I went back and found the writer and got this book off Amazon I was really excited. Some of the stories are really good, but some are just, no, too moody, too many people just acting like idiots in the face of, like, what is obviously an evil fucking supernatural entity. I thought the firs...
The ghosts of this collection are subtle things, lurking just out of sight. In sudden departures, in quiet and looming histories. It's a collection of traveling and relationships, hauntings brief or long but scarring all the same. "Death's Other Domain," is one story that has particularly stuck with me, and I don't think I'll be forgetting it any time soon.
Like most single-author collections this is a bit uneven, but it boasts a couple stories that are just killer, most notably "No More A-Roving," which I swear is an extended metaphor for my own life. Strongly recommended for fans of genre fiction that feels almost naturalistic but for a vague, niggling suggestion that something is wrong or out of place.
Lovely, sinister stories of dislocation. As someone who often feels out of place, I had an almost-instant kinship with the thematic bent of Rucker's stories. It doesn't hurt that I once spent several soggy days stalled out in a decrepit hostel on the west coast of Ireland, as does the narrator in "No More A-Roving," or that I also found the Czech Republic to be a chilly, disorienting place, like the expat English teacher in "The Chance Walker." ("This whole country is haunted. Can't you feel it?...
#78/100 + 15 PC; 199 pages; ISBN 9781988964089; introduction Steve Rasnic TemA fine edition, sewn, leather-bound with ribbon marker; elegant dust-jacket design, echoed on the printed endpapers. Chapter head and text breaks decorated (the latter with crescent moons). Spine blocked with volume number of this contemporary classics series (1) publishing the original stories in the 2013 paperback for the first time in hardback. All in all pleasing attention to detail - and a publisher's embossing on