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Use Once, Then Destroy by Conrad Williams
A serial killer is removing victims' hands in a Venice shackled by winter. A woman at the end of her tether finds a terrible release on holiday in the fens of East Anglia. A man is haunted by graffiti, and finds that his road to discovering the perpetrator leads to death. and worse. A husband trying to comfort his terminally ill wife seeks help in a forbidden zone from his childhood, where blood is the price of perfection. In this spellbinding collection of his best stories from the last ten years, award-winning writer Conrad Williams offers the kind of horrors that move subtly into you, like pain, or love, or regret. They are stories that explore the scarred outposts of desperation and desire, sickness and death, sex and decay. Within these pages you will also find the acclaimed novella Nearly People (nominated for awards by the International Horror Guild and the British Fantasy Society), in which a woman's search for food in a nightmarish city brings her attention from an enigmatic man known as The Dancer, and a host of terrible epiphanies. --Publishers Weekly (starred review) Includes three stories never before Nest of Salt, The Night Before and The Owl. Contents The Machine Supple Bodies The Light that Passes Through You Nest of Salt City in Aspic Other Skins The Windmill Wire The Burn The Owl The Night Before Edge MacCreadle's Bike Known The Suicide Pit Excuse the Unusual Approach Nearly People
- GenresHorrorShort Stories
Hardcover
First published May 31, 2004
63 people want to read
About the author
Conrad Williams
98 books170 followersIn 2007 Conrad Williams won the International Horror Guild Award for Best Novel for The Unblemished. In 2008 he won the British Fantasy Award for Best Novella, for The Scalding Rooms. In 2010 he won the British Fantasy Award for Best Novel for One.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 5, 2024
This book is 20 years old yet only has 30 ratings and 6 reviews on here. That feels criminally low. Meanwhile, books that are utter trash have a gajllion 5 star ratings from people who "received a free copy in exchange for an honest review".
But enough about society's shit taste; this book is quiet/literary horror in the tradition of Ramsey Campbell and Simon Strantzas. Free with an Audible Plus subscription, although I recommend slowing it down rather than speeding it up, it makes the stories sound like they're being read over a campfire at night and also gives the gothic imagery more time to visualize in your mind. And a lot of these stories have "blink and you'll miss it" endings lol
But enough about society's shit taste; this book is quiet/literary horror in the tradition of Ramsey Campbell and Simon Strantzas. Free with an Audible Plus subscription, although I recommend slowing it down rather than speeding it up, it makes the stories sound like they're being read over a campfire at night and also gives the gothic imagery more time to visualize in your mind. And a lot of these stories have "blink and you'll miss it" endings lol
March 27, 2011
(This is one of the times I really wish there half-star ratings; "it was ok" seems unduly harsh, but "liked it" is false.)
Williams brings a number of good, and often slightly contradictory, tricks to bear in this collection of 17 stories spanning a dozen years of his career:
*His prose juxtaposes lyrical, even pastoral imagery with the ugliness of urban decay. The book is full of description like, "There was a moon low in the sky, like an albino's eyelash. What light there was came from the stars, or the ineffectual blocks of orange in the pub windows," and "A layer of slate-colored cloud had slide across the sky. Only the thinnest edge of light trembled above the staggered horizon, like hope receding."
*Sometimes he approaches the apotheosis of horror with subtlety and occlusion, in phrases that left me sure something grotesque and horrible had happened but not always sure exactly what.
*Then again, sometimes he opts for stomach-wrenching clarity or the well-worn use of metaphor and simile to project characters' unease onto innocuous settings, like, "the exposed bones of more demolished houses on our dwindling street."
*Williams's sense of place is often extraordinary. The protagonist's search for a mysterious London street in "Nest of Salt" left me feeling almost as if I'd traipsed some of the same blocks. (On the other hand, I found the Venice travelogue of "City in Aspic," less convincing, as if Williams were laying out his tale with a city map at his side.)
*Williams' characters, with few exceptions, are either unhappily alone or on the cusp of realizing they'd be less unhappy if they were alone. He's eerily good at portraying guttering relationships:
(supernatural elements enter only at the end of several of these stories -- if at all -- as tensions between the characters reach a climax, which heightens my overall impression that Williams is very consciously using literal, physical horror as an externalization of his characters' internal, emotional horror.
*Scattered through the volume are a handful of supernatural entities or tropes that one might name, or have encountered previously. "You could arguably describe that one as a 'ghost story,'" one might say, or "the twist of that one was a bit like a certaini Twilight Zone episode." And there's at least one bona fide "serial killer" within these pages. But even the relatively comfortable, recognizable sources of horror are transmuted in Williams hands. Overall, this is one of the most original and surprising works of dark fantasy I've read in some time.
Despite its many strong qualities, I found this a difficult book to finish. Partly it's the familiar problem of the single-author short story collection: it perhaps over-emphasizes the extent to which an author revisits certain themes or uses certain literary devices.
But I think the problem here is substantially mine: I prefer my horror to have more likable characters and/or a little more potential for redemption. Not every story in this collection is relentless grim, but many are, and I found the cumulative effect oppressive.
For what it's worth: Williams seems so quintessentially British that I found the (US-based) publisher's use of American spellings for words like "color" almost distracting.
Williams brings a number of good, and often slightly contradictory, tricks to bear in this collection of 17 stories spanning a dozen years of his career:
*His prose juxtaposes lyrical, even pastoral imagery with the ugliness of urban decay. The book is full of description like, "There was a moon low in the sky, like an albino's eyelash. What light there was came from the stars, or the ineffectual blocks of orange in the pub windows," and "A layer of slate-colored cloud had slide across the sky. Only the thinnest edge of light trembled above the staggered horizon, like hope receding."
*Sometimes he approaches the apotheosis of horror with subtlety and occlusion, in phrases that left me sure something grotesque and horrible had happened but not always sure exactly what.
*Then again, sometimes he opts for stomach-wrenching clarity or the well-worn use of metaphor and simile to project characters' unease onto innocuous settings, like, "the exposed bones of more demolished houses on our dwindling street."
*Williams's sense of place is often extraordinary. The protagonist's search for a mysterious London street in "Nest of Salt" left me feeling almost as if I'd traipsed some of the same blocks. (On the other hand, I found the Venice travelogue of "City in Aspic," less convincing, as if Williams were laying out his tale with a city map at his side.)
*Williams' characters, with few exceptions, are either unhappily alone or on the cusp of realizing they'd be less unhappy if they were alone. He's eerily good at portraying guttering relationships:
Crumbling farmhouses; fields freshly opened by the tractors, the soil dark and dense, brown as wet leather; long gray roads. They turned on to one now, flanked by elm trees, an object lesson in perspective.
"Now there's pretty for you, Molly said.
"There are moves to pull trees like that down," Ian said, and then mentally kicked himself for once again putting a downer on things. Why couldn't he just agree occasionally? It was what she wanted to hear.
(supernatural elements enter only at the end of several of these stories -- if at all -- as tensions between the characters reach a climax, which heightens my overall impression that Williams is very consciously using literal, physical horror as an externalization of his characters' internal, emotional horror.
*Scattered through the volume are a handful of supernatural entities or tropes that one might name, or have encountered previously. "You could arguably describe that one as a 'ghost story,'" one might say, or "the twist of that one was a bit like a certaini Twilight Zone episode." And there's at least one bona fide "serial killer" within these pages. But even the relatively comfortable, recognizable sources of horror are transmuted in Williams hands. Overall, this is one of the most original and surprising works of dark fantasy I've read in some time.
Despite its many strong qualities, I found this a difficult book to finish. Partly it's the familiar problem of the single-author short story collection: it perhaps over-emphasizes the extent to which an author revisits certain themes or uses certain literary devices.
But I think the problem here is substantially mine: I prefer my horror to have more likable characters and/or a little more potential for redemption. Not every story in this collection is relentless grim, but many are, and I found the cumulative effect oppressive.
For what it's worth: Williams seems so quintessentially British that I found the (US-based) publisher's use of American spellings for words like "color" almost distracting.
November 23, 2021
A collection of literary horror short stories.
Williams has considerable sentence-level talent, which gives his stories mood (to which plot cohesion sometimes becomes secondary)and sophistication. Nearly all are urban and extremely British (or alternative-British) in setting and theme, and that, as well as the unrelenting grimth of his tone, gives the work a certain sameness. Williams can definitely ring the changes on one type of story effectively, but it would be interesting to see if he can do other things as well.
Toward the end of the collection a couple of New Weird-ish, alternate apocalyptic stories add interest.
This might appeal to readers who like Kathe Koja's earlier work, for example EXTREMITIES.
Williams has considerable sentence-level talent, which gives his stories mood (to which plot cohesion sometimes becomes secondary)and sophistication. Nearly all are urban and extremely British (or alternative-British) in setting and theme, and that, as well as the unrelenting grimth of his tone, gives the work a certain sameness. Williams can definitely ring the changes on one type of story effectively, but it would be interesting to see if he can do other things as well.
Toward the end of the collection a couple of New Weird-ish, alternate apocalyptic stories add interest.
This might appeal to readers who like Kathe Koja's earlier work, for example EXTREMITIES.
May 25, 2013
Each story delivers a level of description beyond the realms of some of the best horror. When Williams describes a red brick wall, you cant help but feel the grainy chalk between your fingers. The same is always true for his characters. Which I have always found the most impressive in his writing. Composed so well, it's difficult not to have to take a quick breath when they get a paper cut....They usually get a bit more then a paper cut. I feel lucky for having trodden through so many mediocre horror writers to gain the appreciation I have for this mans work. I hope Williams lives to be a hundred, and keeps writing until the day he dies.
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October 22, 2019The idea of this book is that it compiles all the "scary" stories written by Conrad Williams. This wouldn't be a bad approach if his stories were different and didn't have the same similar outcome. This book could've improved "immensely" if different writers were contributing their stories to this book. It would've given it a reason to push through to the end and have a new, refreshing perspective every time you started reading the next short story.
But...no. It's like eating stale bread that has, maybe, one to two soft spots in the middle of it. It was not a pleasant experience.
I will say he does a great job of describing scenes with grotesque worded descriptions that stick in your mind whenever you think about them. Sadly though, his stories aren't scary, they're just weird. What makes it worse is that when one of the stories ends it's anti-climactic with confusing wording and you're just left with awkwardness as you turn the page to another disappointing story.
Maybe I'm wrong though, with every story seeming the same, since I only read 4 1/2 of his short stories. Either way, I'm DNFing this book on page 52. There might be a possibility that I might come back to this if I'm desperate for this old stale piece of bread.
But...no. It's like eating stale bread that has, maybe, one to two soft spots in the middle of it. It was not a pleasant experience.
I will say he does a great job of describing scenes with grotesque worded descriptions that stick in your mind whenever you think about them. Sadly though, his stories aren't scary, they're just weird. What makes it worse is that when one of the stories ends it's anti-climactic with confusing wording and you're just left with awkwardness as you turn the page to another disappointing story.
Maybe I'm wrong though, with every story seeming the same, since I only read 4 1/2 of his short stories. Either way, I'm DNFing this book on page 52. There might be a possibility that I might come back to this if I'm desperate for this old stale piece of bread.
March 10, 2025
Dating British men truly is horrific
April 21, 2016
"Use Once, Then Destroy" is a collection of 17 stories which includes one novella, "Nearly People". I'll say from the start that "Nearly People" is quite a different work from the other stories and to be honest I couldn't finish it. It's a post-apocalyptic piece with too many new-named things for my personal taste and I couldn't engage. However, the other stories in the book are much more to my liking. If I could coin a term for them, it would probably be 'urban gristle'.
Williams is a word-dense writer. Each word counts, and the descriptions are (to quote Nicholas Royle from the back cover): muscular and beautiful. The stories are often of lost individuals in urban landscapes, presented with the fantastic as though it were mundane, but becoming irretrievably lost within it. My favourite was "The Machine", where a hidden object on the beach holds the power to transfer; but each of the stories are worth reading and if it wasn't for "Nearly People" I would have rated the book a 4.
Williams is a word-dense writer. Each word counts, and the descriptions are (to quote Nicholas Royle from the back cover): muscular and beautiful. The stories are often of lost individuals in urban landscapes, presented with the fantastic as though it were mundane, but becoming irretrievably lost within it. My favourite was "The Machine", where a hidden object on the beach holds the power to transfer; but each of the stories are worth reading and if it wasn't for "Nearly People" I would have rated the book a 4.
November 28, 2012
Don't know. I realized as I started reading it that I had borrowed it from the library before and not loved it then. Took another crack at it. I've read one or two of his stories in other collections and admired them (seems like it would be weird to say 'liked', because he's a fairly twisted puppy). I don't know if it was reading all of these together or if these just weren't quite as strong, but they all seemed to blend together into one oppressive, not entirely coherent, intriguing and yet ultimately unsatisfying mass.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews