Personal Demons

by Christopher Fowler

Short stories by well known horror writer.

Genres: Horror, Fantasy, Short Stories, Fiction, Paranormal

317 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1998

About the author

Librarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name

Christopher Fowler was an English writer known for his Bryant & May mystery series, featuring two Golden Age-style detectives navigating modern London. Over his career, he authored fifty novels and short story collections, along with screenplays, video games, graphic novels, and audio plays. His psychological thriller Little Boy Found was published under the pseudonym L.K. Fox.
Fowler's accolades include multiple British Fantasy Awards, the Last Laugh Award, the CWA Dagger in the Library, and the inaugural Green Carnation Award. He was inducted into the Detection Club in 2021. Beyond crime fiction, his works ranged from horror (Hell Train, Nyctophobia) to memoir (Paperboy, Film Freak). His column Invisible Ink explored forgotten authors, later compiled into The Book of Forgotten Authors.
Fowler lived between London and Barcelona with his husband, Peter Chapman.

Reviews

[Merl Fluin · Rating 2 out of 5]

42 SHORT STORIES IN 42 DAYS*

DAY 25: Spanky's Back In Town
Disappointingly ordinary urban fantasy, and not really my thing.

*The rules:
– Read one short story a day, every day for six weeks
– Read no more than one story by the same author within any 14-day period
– Deliberately include authors I wouldn't usually read
– Review each story in one sentence or less

Any fresh reading suggestions/recommendations will be gratefully received 📚

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of short fiction that wanders the spectrum between fantasy and horror. Many of these are fully invested in their UK home, which is shown with an unvarnished but loving gaze. I'll cover the five I liked best. The first three are solid five-star stories, with the next two a bit behind as good but not great.

"Unforgotten" About as solid a Jamseian tale as I've read with a modern voice. There is a deep antiquarian love of architecture here, but it's modern instead of coinciding with M. R. James's aesthetic. It also has something of the feel of "The Rats in the Walls" without unfortunately named pets. It end with just enough of a hint of the supernatural to make it a question mark instead of an exclamation point.

"The Cages" This darkly fantastic satire piece is short and brutal.

"Midas Touch" This reminded me of a modern take on the themes of Machen's "The Great God Pan". Wonderful characters in this one. What can you do when your stalker is a representative of the gods?

"Permanent Fixture" Reminded me a bit of Bradbury's "The Crowd" with the fans of the local "football" club going from an object of confusion and fear to welcoming and belonging.

"Learning to Let Go" is a fun meta-story that ties together everything in the anthology while still providing a new direction and perspective. It's a great way to close an anthology.

[Bandit · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an incredibly impressive short story collection. I have only read one or two stories by Fowler before and watched a very average film adaptation of one, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but I was fascinated by the author that writes urban horror. In the genre overpopulated with "a family moves to a small town/remote location/rural locale/etc. to start a new life and ancinet evil awakens/something goes amiss/children become posessed/etc." stories, it is so refreshing and remarkable to read someone who understands that real horror can just as easily lie in the heart of a busy metropolis. Not all the stories were equal and special mention goes to Fowler's apocalyptic tale,an arabian nights style one and the one about the strangest housesitting gig ever. The last story in the collection is particularly excellent, because of how it brings the rest of the stories together. Fowler has the brass balls to liken Stephen King's elegance of writing to that of an orthopedic boot, so it's a good thing that with this collection he proves he has the goods to make such bold statements. I'm definitely going to read more of his work. Highly recommended.

[Mark Young · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although I didn’t click with one or two of these short stories, this collection has something for everyone. The Standouts for me were Inner Fire (a brilliant piece on life after a second ice age occurs - both chilling (no pun intended and horrifying), Armies of the Heart, The Grande Finale Hotel, Midas Touch and Looking for Bolivar.

The collection also ends with a very unconventional but entertaining and original story.

Highly recommend this one if your looking for a good mixture of short stories to read.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really good, four-star collection of short stories. Here are my ratings for each one.

Spanky's Back in Town: 4 stars

Dracula's Library: 5 stars and probably my favorite of the collection

Phoenix: 5 stars

Unforgotten: 5 stars

The Man Who Wound a Thousand Clocks: 5 stars

Inner Fire: 3 stars

Wage Slaves: 4 stars

Armies of the Heart: 4 stars

Five Star: 4 stars

Scratch: 3 stars

Still Life: 4 stars

The Cages: 3 stars

The Grand Finale Hotel: 4 stars

Midas Touch: 4 stars

Permanent Fixture: 3 stars

Looking for Bolivar: 4 stars

Learning to Let Go: 3 stars

[Tara Lozy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short stories are the best when you don't have a lot of time to read and but still want to be entertained. Christopher Fowler's collection of stories did just that. I enjoyed getting lost in his world of supernatural events and surprise endings. This book is a keeper for my collection.

[Jeff Goostrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great collection of stories from Mr Fowler

[Anjali · Rating 2 out of 5]

The writer is British and a jerk, but I repeat myself. Some of the words he uses are pretty though.

[Aaron Lindsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good classic feeling horror from across the pond.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 5 out of 5]

[revised for grammar and spelling errors - March 2025]

Christopher Fowler is one of my favourite authors - he is a great writer of short stories and this collection is one of his best. There are stories that have inspired other books like 'Wage Slaves'; fables such as 'The Man Who Wound Clocks' which is both about, and is not about, the Ottoman Empire (in this way it resembles Robert Irwin's brilliant 'Pin Cushions of the Flesh') and could be about anywhere and everything including the ability of the underdog to triumph; in 'Armies of the Heart' he gives us a story set in a gay discotheque which encompasses prejudice, sacrifice, brutality, learning to know yourself and much more so that to call it a 'gay' story would be insultingly simplistic. Finally I have to mention 'Grand Final Hotel' in which, although the storyline is different, it is impossible not to see a potential inspiration for Wes Andersen's 'Grand Budapest Hotel'.

There are also wonderful stories based in, but more importantly about, London such as 'Unforgotten'; and 'Still Life' - Fowler loves London and writes beautifully and movingly about London. Fowler's London is a place which has its own personality, history and living presence. He loves London, he loves England and because he loves it so much yet he mocks' it, sends it up, shows its flaws, foibles, prejudices and horrors, yet London is his DNA, his essential being and his inspiration. It is him in all essentials because only someone who loves something so thoroughly can excoriate its worst aspects.

Fowler is so much more than an author of 'horror' because so much of what he finds horrifying is the world we live and the people we live amongst. His real talent has yet to be appreciated.

[Isidore · Rating 4 out of 5]

Possibly the collection does not live up to its introduction, where Fowler offers some home truths about the horror genre (e.g. Stephen King's prose is "as elegant as an orthopaedic boot."), but there are some fine things in it. "Unforgotten", which manages to combine a sort of Jamesian antiquarianism with anti-capitalism, is probably my pick of the lot, although "The Man Who Wound a Thousand Clocks" is a strange, effective fable, and "Phoenix", in which a man discovers he is one of the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse, deserves credit for sheer cheekiness. Some stories, such as "Armies of the Heart" and "Still Life" (the latter a bizarre riff on "Brief Encounter") don't quite catch fire, and others are spoiled by platitudinous philosophizing: noteworthy among the latter is "Inner Fire", which remains a memorable picture of London overwhelmed by a new ice age, despite an annoyingly upbeat ending. "Looking for Bolivar" is a clever bit of whimsy, but in no sense weird fiction.



Altogether, a mixed bag, but Fowler is always interesting. One would like to see the cream of his ten collections of short stories assembled into a "Best of".

[Isabel (kittiwake) · Rating 2 out of 5]

I tried to imagine where Bolivar might have gone, but the dog knew so many stores and bars in the neighbourhood I had no idea where to start. He had a better social life than me.

I usually like reading collections of short stories, but I think Christopher Fowler is better at writing novels. I found some of the stories quite interesting, but none of them were that memorable, and the one about the hotel which performed taboo services for special guests was especially disappointing.

The best story by a long way was "Looking for Bolivar", about an Englishman who moved to New York, and how his life changed when he agreed to house sit for a stranger.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have come to find I enjoy short stories; I didn't used to. This is an older work of Fowler's and he admits to holding back a lot due to what he perceived the public would accept. There are some interesting concepts here and I'm curious to read some recent work of his, now that there seems to be "no-holds-barred" in literature. (As, I think, it should be.)

[Angie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A solid collection from one of my favorite mystery writers. Overall, very dark, not that I minded. My favorite of all the stories was, I think the shortest, called Cages. All about limitations and what we, as humans are willing to put up with vs. the unknown. I would read his other book not in the Peculiar Crimes series if this is any indication of the quality of the work.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

The opening story is a wonderful take on urban myths, worth reading the book
for this alone.

[Stephen Hayes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Seventeen stories, mostly of the horror genre, though most not sufficiently memorable or horrific to give one nightmares. Some are rather dreamlike in their unreality switching from scene to scene as dreams sometimes do. Good bedtime reading, since they won't give you nightmares. I fell asleep three times on the last page of the last story, and each time woke up and realised I didn't know how it ended, and started reading the last couple of paragraphs again.