Dark Fantasy S.
2 total works
"Cold Hand in Mine" was first published in the UK in 1975 and in the US in 1977. The story "Pages from a Young Girl's Journal" won Aickman the World Fantasy Award in 1975. It was originally published in "The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction" in 1973 before appearing in this collection."Cold Hand in Mine" stands as one of Aickman's best collections and contains eight stories that show off his powers as a 'strange story' writer to the full, being more ambiguous than standard ghost stories. Throughout the stories the reader is introduced to a variety of characters, from a man who spends the night in a Hospice to a German aristocrat and a woman who sees an image of her own soul. There is also a nod to the conventional vampire story ("Pages from a Young Girl's Journal") but all the stories remain unconventional and inconclusive, which perhaps makes them all the more startling and intriguing. 'Of all the authors of uncanny tales, Aickman is the best ever ...His tales literally haunt me; his plots and his turns of phrase run through my head at the most unlikely moments.' - Russell Kirk.
After Robert Aickman's death in 1981 the manuscript of The Model, a wintry rococo fable set in Czarist Russia, was located among his papers. Aickman had told a friend he considered this novella to be 'one of the best things I have ever written, if not the very best.' It was duly published for the first time in 1987.
The Model tells of Elena, a grave girl inclined to losing herself in dreams of becoming a student ballerina or coryphee. Her dolour darkens further when she learns she is to be sold into marital slavery by her father so as to settle the family's debts. Refusing an unendurable future she sets out to the city of Smorevsk to pursue her dream. First, however, she must traverse a landscape crowded by highly curious characters and creatures.
'A must for Aickman fans ... A model of eloquent elegant enchantment.' Robert Bloch (Psycho)
The Model tells of Elena, a grave girl inclined to losing herself in dreams of becoming a student ballerina or coryphee. Her dolour darkens further when she learns she is to be sold into marital slavery by her father so as to settle the family's debts. Refusing an unendurable future she sets out to the city of Smorevsk to pursue her dream. First, however, she must traverse a landscape crowded by highly curious characters and creatures.
'A must for Aickman fans ... A model of eloquent elegant enchantment.' Robert Bloch (Psycho)