Now here's a fun throwback. it stands to mention I have read a number of Campbell's books and didn't especially like any of them. In fact, found them slow to torpid and uniformly underwhelming. But this one apparently at the time of reading worked just right. The book has recently been reissued by Flame Tree Press who love Campbell's work in the way I can't possibly. The new version's cover leaves a lot to be desired. But the book lives on.
So here it is...blasting from the distant past of 2011...and very different reading tastes. I wanted a change of pace from blood guts and gore of last week's Deathbringer, so I picked up Ancient Images, which has sat on my TBR list for a long long time. This is only my second book by Campbell, first one was Overnight, which has left me interested in the writer, but not overall impressed by the book. Ancient Images "wowed" me. I could barely put it down, the San Francisco Chronicle claims on the book cover that it's to be read in one sitting, took me 4 days on and off(life kept getting in the way), but what a great book. There is just something so right with the way this guy writes, the way he brings on the dread, the suspense, the unease without having to resort to gore and guts on every other page, not that I don't appreciate a gorefest now and then. The story is ingenious, a movie buff's dream, a film editor's in pursuit of a missing pre-war (WW2) horror film starring Lugosi and Karloff. The film's existence has been in question for 50 years and seems like someone or something will stop at nothing to keep it hidden...or maybe it's all a bunch of spooky coincidences and overactive imaginations. Campbell's done great things with this plot. It is set in the late 80s, so no cell phones or internet, which actually adds to the suspense and occasional isolation the main character deals with as she struggles to find the film. It's also occasionally extremely British, where politeness and propriety can be a tad maddening at times. Keeping that in mind, this is a great book, intelligent, well written and really scary. The cover, however cheesy, is actually plot relevant. I can't wait to read more of Ramsey Campbell's work and I highly recommend this book.
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