darkling_tales | Robert Aickman's The Wine-Dark Sea

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY

dfordoom)

Robert Aickman was not one of the big names in horror during his lifetime and he remains an unfairly neglected author. He won the World Fantasy Award for his story Pages from a Young Girl’s Journal, which is, ironically, one of his weakest stories (in my opinion, although others seem to like it more than I did). Aickman did not write stories that would make you jump out of your seat in terror. He wrote stories that leave the reader disturbed, with a sense of having had a brush with the uncanny. He was the great master of subtle horror. Things happen in his stories that you feel should not have happened, but you’re not quite sure why. The Wine-Dark Sea is an exceptional collection of Aickman short stories. It includes my personal favourite, Never Visit Venice, and other classic Aickman tales like The Inner Room and The Trains. If you’ve never read Aickman before this is an excellent place to start. And if you’ve never read Aickman before then you’ve missed out on one of the greatest horror writers the 20th century produced.