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At the time of its first publication, this book had dazzled lovers of supernatural fiction as well as hardened critics, with the elegant and yet utterly terrifying narratives. Passage of years since then had increased the price of the book in the second-hand market, as well as the lure of the stories. Tartarus Press has done the fiction-lovers by releasing the book (excluding one story that had grated many-a-reader with its rather controversial undertones in the earlier version, but thankfully h...
Reggie Oliver is an author who has cropped up a few times in variousanthologies I’ve come across over the years and I’ve log wanted to read through hisstory collections. At the beginning of this year I acquired the Tartarus Press paperback re releases. These stories are very much in the same vein as M.R. James but with a much more modern flavour and focus on the theatre (I believe Mr Oliver is a playwright also). All the stories here and indeed the writing style was very readable and I was able
Reggie Oliver is a delightful author for any obsessive of the classical supernatural horror tale practised by Robert Aickman, Sheridan Le Fanu, Walter de la Mare, Arthur Machen, M. R. James, Sarban, William Hope Hodgson, etc. While some of his stories in this debut collection can at times seemingly only aspire to be warmly entertaining pastiche, they are nevertheless a consistent pleasure to read and tinged with that sense of ineffable strangeness of life, and when Oliver is on top form, display...
A Modern M. R. JamesThis is a fantastic collection of short ghost stories in the tradition of Montague Rhodes James. Oliver trades a preoccupation with the theater for his predecessor's familiarity with frumpy Edwardian medievalists, but does so without any loss of charm or horror. I would highly recommended it to anyone looking for a vein of horror that had seemed as defunct as the heresy of the title tale.
An heir to M.R. James and Robert Aickman. Can there be higher praise in the small world of English ghost stories?
An evil cupboard that refuses to let itself get feng shui'd, an alluring painting that literally sucks you in, a peeping Tom who gets more than he bargained for, an artist whose hit art show turns bloodthirsty. These are a few of the strange and wonderful stories in Oliver's first short story collection. For each story he creates an entire universe, believable but slightly off-kilter. So far this one and Flowers of the Sea are my favorites. They are hard to come by in hardback, but are available...
Rather entertaining oooooooo spoooooooky stories. Really liked.
Oliver has his fans, even ardent ones, judging by some of the other reviews here, and the stories in this collection are ok enough. But they're best described as pastiches of M. R. James rather than strong works in their own right. Diverting enough for an undemanding afternoon, but not as polished as they should have been and never quite good enough to make you forget that you're not actually reading the real thing. If you've read a modest number of stories of this kind, Oliver's choices tend to...
Since I was impressed with two books published by Tartarus Press (both written by Mark Samuels), I searched for other things published by them. I got this book for my ereader. My high opinion of the publisher and their writers stands.The stories in this book (some might be novelettes, for some are longer than a typical short story) are well written. According to the author's bio, Reggie Oliver is a stage actor and playwright. Perhaps it could be said that Reggie Oliver is developing a sub-genre
Heavy on atmosphere. A couple will stick with me for a while....
One of the stronger Oliver collections that I've read. Aside from the title story, I also greatly enjoyed "Tiger in the Snow," "The Black Cathedral," and "The Seventeenth Sister."
If you like early Thomas Ligotti or M.R. James, this collection is for you.This is a collection of short stories and, as such, varies in content and quality to a degree. Theater is a recurring theme, as are cursed objects and possession (in multiple meanings of the word), but the breadth of setting is encouraging.As is the quality of the work, as a whole. There are no bad stories, though a couple have eye-rolling moments (the game titles in Black Cathedral are awful, to the point that I wondered...
Elegant and erudite, Oliver is one of the most exciting contemporary writers of unsettling, supernatural and weird tales. He variously brings to mind MR James, Russel Kirk and Robert Aickman but always with a contemporary sensibility. Highly recommended. I will certainly be seeking out more of his work. This review is of the e-book version of this short story collection.
Reggie Oliver is probably the best living writer of the M.R. James species of weird tale, and one of the finest in the entire horror genre. Unfortunately, his collections of short fiction tend to appear in tiny press runs from small publishers, and are usually unavailable except from high-priced book dealers. The good news is that Tartarus Press, in addition to publishing his latest assortment of horrors ("Mrs. Midnight and Other Stories") is now starting to reissue the earlier collections, begi...
What can I say? Its Reggie Oliver! Of course its good!Thank you Tartarus Press for republishing.
✭✭✭½“Beside the Shrill Sea” ✭✭✭✭✭“Feng Shui” ✭✭✭½“In Arcadia” ✭✭✭½“The Evil Eye” ✭✭✭“Miss Marchant's Cause” ✭✭✭“Tiger in the Snow” ✭✭✭½“Garden Gods” ✭✭✭½“The Black Cathedral” ✭✭✭✭“The Boy in Green Velvet” ✭✭✭½“The Golden Basilica” ✭✭✭½“Death Mask” ✭✭✭“A Warning to the Antiquary” ✭½“The Seventeenth Sister” ✭✭✭½“The Copper Wig” ✭✭✭✭“The Dreams of Cardinal Vittorini” ✭✭✭½All stories 2003 except “Beside the Shrill Sea” (2002) and “The Dreams of Cardinal Vittorini” (2001).
