New Terrors 2

by Ramsey Campbell (Editor)

Pan, 1980. Second of two volumes. “New Terrors” was a landmark anthology of cutting-edge horror stories by top writers. THE U. S. editions of these volumes omitted seven of the stories in these original British editions. Introduction by Ramsey Campbell and these “The Miraculous Cairn ” by Christopher Priest; “The Man Whose Eyes Beheld the Glory” by John Brunner; “The Rubber Room” by Robert Bloch; “Drama In Five Acts” by Giles Gordon; “The Initiation” by Jack Sullivan; “Lucille Would Have Known” by John Burke; “Teething Troubles” by Rosalind Ashe; “The Funny Face Murders” by R. A. Lafferty; “Femme Fatale” by Marianne Leconte; “Big A Tale of the Laundry Game” by Stephen King; “Richie” by the Sea” by Greg Bear; “Can You Still See Me?” by Margaret Dickson; “A Song at the Party” by Dorothy K. Haynes; “One Way Out” by Felice Picano; “The Ice Monkey” by M. John Harrison; “Symbiote” by Andrew J. Offutt; “Across the Water to Skye” by Charles L. Grant; “The Dark” by Kathleen Resch.

Genres: Horror, Anthologies

333 pages, Paperback

First published October 10, 1980

About the author

Ramsey Campbell is a British writer considered by a number of critics to be one of the great masters of horror fiction. T. E. D. Klein has written that "Campbell reigns supreme in the field today," while S. T. Joshi has said that "future generations will regard him as the leading horror writer of our generation, every bit the equal of Lovecraft or Blackwood."

Reviews

[Phil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Campbell may have been a better editor and short story writer than a novelist, although he did have some killer novels. This is a solid collection of stories published for this volume in 1980 and contains some of the established and up and coming horror stars of that era, including Graham Masterton, Robert Bloch and Charles L. Grant. Some of the stories veer into science fiction but almost all of them are very good. I did not read the first volume of this series, but may have to track it down. I liked how Campbell gave a short biography of each author while introducing their stories. Good stuff! 4 stars.

[Douglas Clegg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great anthology, particularly Offutt's "Symbiote" and Burke's "Lucille Would Have Known."

[Pam Baddeley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Volume 2 of the 'New Terrors' horror/dark fantasy anthology, published in 1980. This contains more of the output of those active in the field at the time, plus authors who are normally classified as science fiction writers. Stephen King appears in this - it seems that the US edition of these two books has a different lineup and his story is in the US volume 1 - but neither volume contains the best selling British author James Herbert, maybe because he wasn't one for short stories.

As the book description doesn't list the stories, I've included them here:

Christopher Priest - The Miraculous Cairn
John Brunner - The Man Whose Eyes Beheld the Glory
Robert Bloch - The Rubber Room
Giles Gordon - Drama In Five Acts
Jack Sullivan - The Initiation
John Burke - Lucille Would Have Known
Rosalind Ashe - Teething Troubles
R. A. Lafferty - The Funny Face Murders
Marianne Leconte - Femme Fatale
Stephen King - Big Wheels: A Tale of the Laundry Game
Greg Bear - Richie by the Sea
Margaret Dickson - Can You Still See Me?
Dorothy K. Haynes - A Song at the Party
Felice Picano - One Way Out
M. John Harrison - The Ice Monkey
andrew j. offutt - Symbiote
Charles L. Grant - Across the Water to Skye
Kathleen Resch - The Dark

Priest's story reads more as an alternative universe tale, with its background of an archipelago of islands, and one particular island near the mainland former capital city, a capital largely deserted since the onset of the 'war' against unspecified enemies. The narrator has to revisit the island for the first time in years, having been a childhood visitor to an uncle, bedridden aunt and girl cousin of much the same age. The uncle and aunt now having died and the cousin moved away, it falls to the narrator to clear out the uncle's remaining effects, at the seminary where they lived, a place similar to a Catholic seminary although it isn't clear if the religion is Christianity as we know it. I won't give away the big twist, but it is a story about sexual dysfunction and the unreliability of memory. I realised afterwards that it is one of the author's stories about this alternative world, and was included in his 'The Dream Archipelego' collection.

John Brunner's story is also part of a larger collection apparently: the character called Secrett who meets the protagonist for a chat in a pub and fills in more details about a Greek island the protagonist recently visited, is a recurring character in other stories by Brunner. Here, Secrett visited the island in the late 1940s and was befriended by a Greek Orthodox priest, Costos. They both became too interested in a ruined shrine near the extinct volcano, and started transcribing rock carvings there, bringing Costos too close to the secret of the supposed saint who had used that cave as her hermitage.

Some of the stories are self consciously experimental such as Giles Gordon's and R A Lafferty (having read Lafferty in the past, its standard Lafferty) and don't really appeal to me. Femme Fatale is translated from the French so I don't know whether the original is the same, but comes over as an excuse for sexual sadism. Some are fairly average including the Stephen King which hints at something - the presence of the chrome ornament and the customised car seems to be hinting possibly that someone was responsible for a long ago crime - but doesn't deliver, or ramble on too long such as the final vampires in New Orleans story. 'One Way Out' has an interesting build up but the resolution doesn't work for me.

The best stories in the collection are more along the lines of traditional ghost stories: 'Lucille Would Have Known' is about the emerging tensions between a group of middle aged people who go on touring holidays together, after the death of their leader who is gradually revealed to be a bit of a bully; 'A Song at the Party' has a nicely macabre recursive theme where each increasingly older woman tells the young girl protagonist to go and ask her (old woman's) mother; and 'Teething Troubles' is quite an interesting update on the M R James idea of a tale told after dinner by a group of university academics, only spoiled slightly by its weak ending.

[Robert Woford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most of the stories in this collection were at least passably horror, some more horrific than others. There was one that was less horror to me and more surreal, but the last of the collection is really sticking with me.