Strange Tales

Edited by Rosalie Parker.

Stories by: Quentin S. Crisp, Anne-Sylvie Salzman, David Rix, Brendan Connell, Rhys Hughes, Mark Valentine & John Howard, Adam Daly, William Charlton, Dale Nelson, Tina Rath, Nina Allan, Len Maynard & Mick Sims, John Gaskin, Don Tumasonis.

This collection of fourteen new stories, representing the very best writing in the fields of supernatural, fantasy and horror fiction, will entertain, chill and delight in equal measure. Strange Tales was the recipient of the World Fantasy Award for the best anthology.

The stories are immersed in both traditional themes and twenty-first century anxieties, and range from the melancholy, folk-tale fantasy of Anne-Sylvie Salzman's 'Meannanaich', to the pleasing mystery of Mark Valentine and John Howard's 'The Descent of the Fire'; from the seductive horror of Quentin S. Crisp's 'Cousin X', to the visceral terror of Adam Daly's 'The Self-Eater'; from the devastating psychological disintegration of David Rix's 'Number 18', to the gradual emotional disarray of Nina Allan's 'Terminus'.

There are ghosts too; an achingly beautiful, Classically Greek one in John Gaskin's 'From Lydia with Love and Laughter'; and the merest fang-trace of vampirism in William Charlton's 'The Grand Hotel'. Dale Nelson's subtly masterful 'Shelter Belt' is haunted by a presence that may or may not materialise. In 'Eye of the Storm' Don Tumasonis imbues a semi-autobiographical memoir with a troubling undercurrent of unease, whilst in Brendan Connell's 'Maker of Fine Instruments', and Maynard and Sims's 'Between the Dead Men and the Blind', the horror is more up-front: the former a kind of warped, Grimm-like morality fable, the latter a modern portrait of sick despair.

Fans of Rhys Hughes will delight in the post-modern pyrotechnics of 'The Itchy Skin of Creepy Aplomb', and for the more historically minded, Tina Rath's tour-de-force 'Mr Manpferdit' brilliantly evokes the eighteenth-century London (and the secret desires) of Boswell and Dr Johnson.

Strange Tales is a sewn hardback book of 289+vi pages with silk ribbon marker, head and tailbands, and d/w. ISBN 9781872621807.