I'm kind of sad I didn't like this more. There were pieces in Lane's first collection that knocked my socks off. Most of the stories here are reasonably well-executed, but neither the prose nor the uncanny moments seem up to my favorites in the earlier collection.The first few stories are relatively straightforward: bleak realist vignettes familiar from Lane's first collection, IMO well-executed but not particularly memorable. Then comes "Scratch", and the language seems to kick up a notch. It o...

In these stories Joel Lane gives us some wonderfully pitch-perfect dark urban fantasy/horror. While his prose isn't as poetic as M. John Harrison's and his characterization lacks the psychological plumb-bob of J. G. Ballard, Lane excels in settings, all of which are dark and dangerous and unreal, and the subtle, often grotesque plot twists.

This is an excellent collection of stories that skate the boundaries between horror and mainstream fiction amid disused buildings, decrepit housing estates, and characters weighed down by the emotional baggage of the past, present and future. Individually, the stories are grim - there are few upbeat endings here - and reading the collection as a whole in one go isn't advised (indeed, the repetition of some of the themes might dull the senses, even whilst each story is excellent in its own right)...

What impresses me most about this collection is how varied it is in terms of viewpoint and subject while at the same time remaining laser focused on evoking a specific urban geography. Lane provides the reader with intimate, convincing portrayals of masculine inner life ranging socio-economically from homeless squatters to upper class BBC show runners, ranging in age-wise from boys at the cusp of adulthood to those approaching mandatory retirement, and terms of sexual orientation from the queer

A fine edition, though the gold stamping and sun-motif text dividers are at odds with the subject matter of most of these stories - the barbed-wire header decorations are more apt. Set mostly in and around Birmingham these short stories reflect urban blight and a seemingly equivalent moral decay (for want of a better term). Nearly all are set in a recognisably contemporary time - one or two in a dystopian future; one, with a superficially different - almost upbeat - tone is set in Devon. The ove...

If you are a fan of urban horror stories, this book is definitely for you. Although you shouldn't take "horror" too literally. The writing of Joel Lane is not as straight-forward gory as, say, Clive Barker's, and the supernatural element is mostly absent or subtly hinted. What takes central stage in these stories is love, loss, despair and social interactions between people better left unexplained -all played out under a gloomy, industrial Birmingham setting. Of course, it's still fiction, so be...

Don't like short stories but for this I will make an exception - some left shivers down my spine and so well written

Beautifully bleak. That is an excellent way of describing Lane's collection of short stories. They are beautiful to read, extremely poetic in the way that images are quickly and lovingly portrayed. I was continually amazed at how well portrayed the stories were. But at the same time the subject matter is brutal, harsh, emotionally honest and blunt. These are not stories to lightly parse over and continue reading back to back to back. About halfway through the collection, I had to stop and read a...

It's very difficult to pigeonhole this book into one genre, I guess the best description is dark fiction. There are whiffs of horror, fantasy, a small bit of gore and some sex, both gay and straight. If you think about it, that's pretty much what life is, a little of this and that mixed together into one experience. I will say that these stories are bleak, dark and at times, depressing. Many, though not all, take place in a setting of urban decay. This is one of the few collections I have read t...

Joel is a friend of mine and a great writer - I meant to give him 5 stars, but saw just that it was only 4. What am I thinking of, should be 6! His stories are atmospheric, sometimes weird, but always with a realism: the factories, streets, bars, trains and buses of the West Midlands as a backdrop. His stories can be political, poetic, gay, straight, dryly humourous, shocking and unnerving, often all at the same time.

Not for cat lovers, FYI. Joel Lane was apparently friends with all the big names in the weird/dark fiction space but his name doesn't come up that much if you're not rummaging around. Which is a shame because this is excellent. I guess it comes out of the Ramsey Campbell-Dennis Etchison thing a little bit, cities and bizarre sex and so on, but I like him more than those two. In general the writing is definitely a cut above, as far as this stuff goes, pulpy enough that you don't forget what you'r...

grim grimness in the style of M.John Harrison and Ramsey Campbell.

Abandon all hope ye who enter here. This is dark stuff even by the standard I usually read. These are stories of urban blight, decaying factories, ash and gasoline, rusted metal and mold. Kids selling pills, suicides and decaying societies.The sense of loss and pain is deep. These characters inhabit a nightmare world of dark enchantment that makes the supernatural and horrific elements almost an afterthought when they do appear; as unsurprising as anything in a dream. It is the world itself that...

More of a 4.5 stars. I don't know where I originally read a recommendation for this book, but I picked it up and started reading it at random and I'm glad I did. The short stories here flirt with horror and the dread of post-industrial existence. The landscapes and characters and urban backdrops are all horribly broken, but the stories rarely play out the way you think they will. Out of probably 20 short stories, there were maybe only three that I was lukewarm on, but none that I didn't enjoy to...

The Lost District and Other Stories by Joel Lane (2006): containing the following stories: The Lost District (2001); The Pain Barrier (1994); The Bootleg Heart (2000); Scratch (1996); Coming of Age (2003); Mine (2006); Prison Ships (1998); Like Shattered Stone (1994); Among the Dead (2005); The Window (2001); The Quiet Hours (2006); Exposure (2001); The Outside World (1995); The Country of Glass (1998); The Night That Wins (2005); Against My Ruins (2004); The Only Game (2006); Contract Bridge (1...

I wouldn't have thought I'd enjoy this as much as I did, based on the description. The book reminds me of Ramsey Campbell's urban horror and certain Clive Barker - but so much more empathetic. The whole collection feels like deep, heartfelt grieving over dying cities & erosion of social contracts.

Earlier February 2011 I started reading this collection: "The Lost District" and "Mine". I liked both, they are unsettling in a nice quiet, weird way, with a delicate touch of eroticism that doesn't get in the way of the actual story. A kind of male version of Caitlín R. Kiernan, one might be tempted to say. FEB. 26, 2011: "Against My Ruins" and "The Only Game": Marvelous, subdued tales. The latter about seeing death all the time. APRIL 17, 2011: "The Country of Glass": A story about an alcholic...

At first glance there seems to be very little actual horror in The Lost District. Most of the stories are snapshots of crumbling or troubled relationships mirrored by their bleak postindustrial surroundings. But then you realize the world itself is horrible. Joel Lane is the cosmic pessimism of Thomas Ligotti without the latter's sardonic edge. His characters are simply doomed and steeped in decay, remnants of better days gone by. A very haunting book.

Stories of encroaching rot and decay; of damaged, lonely souls making some sort of effort at connection and finding it futile, the world around them too grim and indifferent to allow it. Some of the stories here have a horror element that runs all the way through them (if subtly) and feels like it was part of their conception; in others it's a mere wisp, and those felt like glum little character sketches which, in their abundance, started to run together in my mind. Incredibly bleak and only occ...

I read the first story and didn't like it. It hasn't stood the test of time and the story didn't seem to have much point to it. I couldn't gather enough motivation to read any more of the stories with the first one being so awful and so the book was cast in to the heap of the unread accompanied by the words 'away to the charity shop with you!'