Ancient Images

This was the book that really got me hooked on reading horror novels when it came out. It is a pretty strange story about ancient evil tied up with an old supressed Bela Logosi/ Boris Karloff movie. Ramsey Campbell is such a wonderful writer that I was hooked from the beginning all the way to the end!

ANCIENT IMAGES IS A brilliantly creepy novel that fully lives up the claustrophobic terror of Campbell's short fiction. Campbells' ability to create a scene of terror in broad daylight is unparalelled. I would certainly recommend this book highly to readers of intelligent, cerebral horror.

With a remarkable body of work spanning the last 30 or so years, Ramsey Campbell has distinguished himself as one of the greatest horror writers of the 20th century. His is a rare distinctive voice in modern horror fiction, one that has consistently lived up to the dauntingly high standards of horror storytelling set by accepted masters of the field such as M.R. James, while remaining as cutting edge and relevant as any of his contemporaries?.ANCIENT IMAGES, a typically excellent horror novel from Campbell, further reinforces this perspective on his career. The story, abetted by Campbell?s ever-vivid and suggestive prose, echoes the form and content of the classic Jamesian ghost story. We are presented first with an intriguing & quite plausible mystery in the form of an old horror film that apparently disappeared from the public eye shortly after release. Things take a deeply sinister turn when the mystery is linked to a remote, rural English village and its generations-old secrets. As the mystery unravels, the supernatural dread begins to mount, for there are hideous things lurking in the shadows or waiting, standing eerily still in distant fields (hence the resemblance to scarecrows), that will strike swiftly and kill mercilessly to protect those secrets.Apart from certain elements I felt the plot would have been stronger without (specifically, the ?feral? travellers, whose role in the book was never quite convincing), this is, in my view, a virtually flawless horror novel. Perfectly structured, deliberately paced, chillingly atmospheric, mysterious, frightening?but never sacrificing credibility for a quick, cheap shock. And all wrapped up with one of Campbell?s wonderful, darkly ironic stings at the end of the tale. Vital modern horror reading.

This book was very well thought out. The plot works well to the end. The way the story unfolds around actual historical horror figures is entertaining to say the least.

Read it when it first it first came out in Hardcover, it's been a while, but it still sticks out in my mind as one of the best horror novels I've ever read. And I have read many. "Midnight Sun" is also highly recommended.