Cold hand in mine: Strange stories [Hardcover]

Robert Aickman (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 252 pages
• Publisher: Scribner's Sons; First Edition edition (1975)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684151324
• ISBN-13: 978-0684151328
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,367,534 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Stunning collection of supernatural fiction, July 10, 2001

By 

Fosky Bob "human" (Vacaville, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cold hand in mine: Strange stories (Hardcover)

I'm currently trying to read my way through the complete Aickman canon. I'm attacking this project with relish. There is no finer writer of a supernatural story than Robert Aickman. He had the literary skills of one of the world's finest writers, and his ability to create spooky and bizarre stories was unparalleled. He is a great author, and it's a shame that his books are not readily available.

This collection is perhaps Aickman's finest. The stories in here are of a consistently brilliant quality. The highlight is the World Fantasy Award-winning novella 'Pages from a Young Girl's Diary'. This story recounts the tale of a repressed young girl who falls in with a vampire. This is Aickman's only vampire tale. He tended toward more intellectual bogeyman, but in this story he shows the world how a vampire story should be written. It is, without question, the finest vampire tale I've ever read. Yes, better than Anne Rice, better than Lumley, better than Stoker, Simon Clark, and on and on. Aickman's literary abilities shine in this story.

Other excellent pieces include 'The Swords' and 'The Clock Watcher'. 'The Clock Watcher' is a creepy tale of a woman with an affinity for clocks. Her husband isn't sure what to make of her obsession and her strange link to clocks of any kind. This story kept me entranced and bedazzled until the end. 'The Swords' is a marvelous novella. It says something about a collection if there's a story of this caliber that ISN'T the best story in the book. 'The Swords' tells the story of a bizarre carnival sideshow with a girl and a pile of swords. I won't tell any more for fear of giving too much away. 'The Swords' is the lead-off story in the collection and it sets the tone. Fabulous.

I can't recommend Robert Aickman highly enough. I'm taking it upon myself as a one-man crusade to spread his name widely. I've only recently discovered the man and I've been ensorceled by his amazing talent. He writes with the ease and flair that's normally found in writers from the 19th century. It's often jarring to find Aickman characters in automobiles or airplanes. His stories, for the most part, could just as easily be set in the 1870s as the 1970s. Aickman is my literary find of the year. Let him be yours.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Take Aickman's cold hand into a strange literary world, January 7, 2002

By 

Richard Cody "witer of fine and not so fine p... (Big Sur, The Golden State) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cold hand in mine: Strange stories (Hardcover)

Robert Aickman (1914-1981), though he wrote plays and was active in the preservation of England's waterways, is best know for what he referred to as his "strange stories". Those seeking easy genre labels will, no doubt, insist on filing these stories away in the horror section. While this is not a completely inappropriate classification, it is more often than not misleading. At their best, Aickman's "strange stories" often possess many of the qualities of the horror genre (being weird, eerie, grotesque, etc.) while also sidestepping the conventional trappings of the field. My favorite Aickman stories leave me with a sense of unease and grim wonder beyond the ability of any other author I have ever read, the "horror" springing from subconscious realms and working upon those same areas in the psyche of the reader. Themes of alienation, squandered time, and sexual tension seem to be common in Aickman's work and "Cold Hand in Mine" contains elements of all three.

The book contains eight pieces:

"The Swords", "The Real Road to the Church", Niemandswasser", "Pages from a Young Girl's Journal", "The Hospice", "The Same Dog", "Meeting Mr. Millar" and "The Clock Watcher".

The most conventional piece in this collection, and thereby the most atypical for Aickman, is the award winning "Pages from a Young Girl's Journal". This is a fairly straightforward vampire narrative and, while certainly worth reading, not my favorite Aickman story.

All of the pieces in this book, in fact, are worth reading if you are interested in uncommon and literate fiction. There are, however, standout stories. For me these are (in order of appearance):

"The Swords" - An uneasy tale of sexual awakening, exploitation, and high sideshow weirdness with a strange young lady named Madonna (long before and definitely not the pop star).

"The Real Road to the Church" - A quite unconventional "ghost" story in which an unfulfilled woman comes face to face with. . .herself?

"The Hospice" - A motorist lost and low on gas spends a night in the title establishment. A tense and claustrophobic story that impresses itself upon one's mind like a bad dream.

"The Same Dog" - Love lost and cycles beyond human perception.

These four are Aickman at his unsettling and ambiguous best. You will find yourself captivated, moved and shaken by these stories and, if you are at all like me, you will not be sure what has actually happened in the narrative or why it has effected you. Rereading is almost imperative with Aickman's work if you seek to understand it.

Buy this book today if it is available (and consider yourself lucky if it is - it is a tragedy that Aickman's work is so difficult to come by).

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stunningly Different Fantasy, July 12, 2007

By 

Stephen Hancock "Scholar born 300 years late." (Snellville, GA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

I picked up this book and one other ("Painted Devils")at a garage sale, having heard good things about the author. I had thought they were more on the order of ghost or horror stories. Instead, this book is a cross-genre jewel that really can't be pushed into any easily recognized template. Each story involves somebody getting into a situation where something strange is happening, but can't seem to realize the danger until they are fully involved. Each story is so radically different that in some cases, it's like they were written by a different person. Out of the ten or so stories, there are one or two that don't fully work, but those that do are as original and wonderful as anything I've read in the field. Aickman shouldn't be considered anything less than a master, in spite of the fact that he's not as well known as some of his contemporaries of lesser talent.