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Published by Flame Tree Press
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
Table of Contents
About The Book
“Ramsey Campbell is the nearest thing we have to an heir to M. R. James” – The Times
Companion to the Special, collectable hardcover Edition for Ramsey Campbell's 60 years in publication.
When a weight landed on his legs he raised his head from the violently crumpled pillow. The bed already had another occupant, and as Leo flung the quilt back so that it wouldn’t hinder his escape the creature scurried up his body to squat on his chest, clutching him with all its limbs like half a spider…
The English town of Settlesham was twinned with Alphafen in Germany soon after the Second World War. During the war both towns were bombed, even though Alphafen seemed to have no strategic significance. To mark the fiftieth anniversary of the postwar reconciliation, pupils at the local schools were set to correspond with their opposite numbers. Leo Parker has been in touch with Hanna Weber ever since but has never previously visited her. As an adult he’s welcomed in Alphafen, but his stay seems idyllic despite the odd incident—a local who blames him for a hostile letter a schoolmate of Leo’s sent, a glimpse of an uncanny figure on an Alpine walk, a flapping intruder that seems to embody Hanna’s night fears, an encounter in a mountain restaurant with an English tourist who turns out to be there for his own disturbing reasons.
It’s only after Leo leaves the town that the nightmares begin: an airport turns into a labyrinth, his own words become treacherous if not lethal, a family meal grows unnaturally active, and what are those creatures that have appeared in the photographs he took? The man he met in the mountain restaurant hasn’t finished with him, and he has to deal with the town councillor who sent the warlike letter when they were teenage classmates. A local police inspector has reason to suspect his actions, even though the policeman is a friend of Leo’s parents. Even the therapy Leo undertakes becomes a source of menace. In his bid to cement international relations, Leo may have roused the source of an ancient Alpine legend and brought a supernatural infection home with him. Even once he understands what has travelled with him, his attempts to overcome its influence may lead into greater nightmares still…
The Ramsey Campbell Special Editions. Campbell is the greatest inheritor of a tradition that reaches back through H.P. Lovecraft and M.R. James to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and the early Gothic writers. The dark, masterful work of the painter Henry Fuseli, a friend of Mary Wollstonecraft, is used on these special editions to invoke early literary investigations into the supernatural.
Companion to the Special, collectable hardcover Edition for Ramsey Campbell's 60 years in publication.
When a weight landed on his legs he raised his head from the violently crumpled pillow. The bed already had another occupant, and as Leo flung the quilt back so that it wouldn’t hinder his escape the creature scurried up his body to squat on his chest, clutching him with all its limbs like half a spider…
The English town of Settlesham was twinned with Alphafen in Germany soon after the Second World War. During the war both towns were bombed, even though Alphafen seemed to have no strategic significance. To mark the fiftieth anniversary of the postwar reconciliation, pupils at the local schools were set to correspond with their opposite numbers. Leo Parker has been in touch with Hanna Weber ever since but has never previously visited her. As an adult he’s welcomed in Alphafen, but his stay seems idyllic despite the odd incident—a local who blames him for a hostile letter a schoolmate of Leo’s sent, a glimpse of an uncanny figure on an Alpine walk, a flapping intruder that seems to embody Hanna’s night fears, an encounter in a mountain restaurant with an English tourist who turns out to be there for his own disturbing reasons.
It’s only after Leo leaves the town that the nightmares begin: an airport turns into a labyrinth, his own words become treacherous if not lethal, a family meal grows unnaturally active, and what are those creatures that have appeared in the photographs he took? The man he met in the mountain restaurant hasn’t finished with him, and he has to deal with the town councillor who sent the warlike letter when they were teenage classmates. A local police inspector has reason to suspect his actions, even though the policeman is a friend of Leo’s parents. Even the therapy Leo undertakes becomes a source of menace. In his bid to cement international relations, Leo may have roused the source of an ancient Alpine legend and brought a supernatural infection home with him. Even once he understands what has travelled with him, his attempts to overcome its influence may lead into greater nightmares still…
The Ramsey Campbell Special Editions. Campbell is the greatest inheritor of a tradition that reaches back through H.P. Lovecraft and M.R. James to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and the early Gothic writers. The dark, masterful work of the painter Henry Fuseli, a friend of Mary Wollstonecraft, is used on these special editions to invoke early literary investigations into the supernatural.
Product Details
- Publisher: Flame Tree Press (November 12, 2024)
- Length: 256 pages
- ISBN13: 9781787589322
Raves and Reviews
"With razor-sharp prose, Campbell layers his satisfying narrative with intricate, unsettling details to create the feeling of glimpsing something strange out of the corner of one’s eye. Fans of cerebral, slow-burning horror will enjoy this twisty treat."
"Another towering achievement from one of the genre's living legends."
"The Wise Friend is a lyrical and trippy build of the uncanny to a crescendo of the weird. No one writes horror like Ramsey Campbell, or transforms the mundane world in such strange, ghastly and wondrous ways. Still the most distinctive living voice in the field. The Poet Laureate of the supernatural in fiction."
– Adam Nevill
"A truly haunting tale and an example of a master at work."
“The Wise Friend suggests more than shows. It is a slow-burning horror novel that hints at demonic activity without giving everything away until the very end.”
“Apart from Campbell’s acumen in the art of disturbing us, one fixed point may be observed about his writing – the sheer elegance in the use of language; a skill that is fully in place here.”
"The Wise Friend is a first-rate cautionary tale of a father who looks a little too deeply into mysteries whose allure he could never resist at any age and the mistake of bringing his son in on the secret. It’s allegorical, too – rarely has the truth of coming of age and the discoveries that brings about been told with such a deft stroke. Ramsey Campbell is known as an absolute master for a reason."
"The Wise Friend is a masterclass of unease and narrative drive, and pretty much un-putdownable."
“Engaging, thrilling, and a horribly-addictive page-turning horror novel. The imagery will have lasting effects.”
– Grimdark Magazine
"Ramsey Campbell has already left nearly every other weird writer, past or present, in the dust; and this new novel only cements the lofty reputation he has achieved through a lifetime of stellar work."
– S.T. Joshi in DEAD RECKONINGS
“One of the century’s great literary exponents of the gothic and horrific”
“Good horror writers are quite rare, and Campbell is better than just good”
– Stephen King
“The John Le Carre of horror fiction”
“He is unsurpassed in the subtle manipulation of mood... You forget you’re just reading a story”
“An absolute master of modern horror. And a damn fine writer at that”
– Guillermo del Toro
“I would say that only five writers have written serious novels which incorporate themes of fantasy or the inexplicable and still qualify as literature: T. E. D. Klein, Peter Straub, Richard Adams, Jonathan Carroll and Ramsey Campbell."
– Stephen King
“The most sophisticated and highly regarded of British horror writers”
“He writes of our deepest fears in a precise, clear prose that somehow manages to be beautiful and terrifying at the same time. He is a powerful, original writer, and you owe it to yourself to make his acquaintance”
“One of the few who can scare and disturb as well as make me laugh out loud. His humour is very black but very funny, and that’s a rare gift to have”
– Mark Morris
“For sheer ability to compose disturbing, evocative prose, he is unmatched in the horror/fantasy field... He turns the traditional horror novel inside out, and makes it work brilliantly”
– Fangoria
“A horror writer in the classic mould... Britain’s premier contemporary exponent of the art of scaring you out of your skin”
“The undisputed master of the psychological horror novel”
“Perhaps the most important living writer in the horror fiction field”
– David Hartwell
“The Grand Master of British horror... the greatest living writer of horror fiction”
“In Campbell’s hands words take on a life of their own, creating images that stay with you, feelings that prey on you, and people you hope never ever to meet”
“The finest writer now working in the horror field”
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High Resolution Images
- Book Cover Image (jpg): The Incubations eBook 9781787589322
