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Thieving Fear
Charlotte Nolan and her cousins may not have ended up in the jobs they hoped to have when they were teenagers, but they've made their way in life. Charlotte works for a London publisher, Ellen cares for the elderly, Hugh has left teaching to work in a supermarket while his brother Rory is a controversial artist. Then more than their jobs begin to go wrong as something reaches out of the past for them.
What has it to do with the summer night they spent on Thursaston Common? If the dreams they had that night are catching up with them, how is the Victorian occultist Arthur Pendemon involved? Before the nightmare ends more than one of them will have to enter what remains of Pendemon's house and confront what still lives there in the dark.
What has it to do with the summer night they spent on Thursaston Common? If the dreams they had that night are catching up with them, how is the Victorian occultist Arthur Pendemon involved? Before the nightmare ends more than one of them will have to enter what remains of Pendemon's house and confront what still lives there in the dark.
- GenresHorror
302 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2008
3 people are currently reading
156 people want to read
About the author
Ramsey Campbell
858 books1,593 followersRamsey Campbell is a British writer considered by a number of critics to be one of the great masters of horror fiction. T. E. D. Klein has written that "Campbell reigns supreme in the field today," while S. T. Joshi has said that "future generations will regard him as the leading horror writer of our generation, every bit the equal of Lovecraft or Blackwood."
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Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
August 7, 2013
One fateful night, four cousins spend the night camping on a cliff in Thurstaston, England. As they go to sleep, Charlotte hears something calling her name. Assuming it's a trick by Rory or Hugh, she follows the voice toward the edge of the cliff, only to realise that it's coming from underground. She finds a trapdoor, opens it, and sees something writhing beneath, staring at her. Before anything else happens, Charlotte's kindly cousin Ellen leads her back to their sleeping bags.
Charlotte tells herself it was just a nightmare, and in fact her three cousins each had their own nightmare that night. When they return to the spot a decade later, it marks the beginning of real-life nightmares. The cousins' lives spiral out of control under the influence of a malicious force buried at Thurstaston - an evil magician named Arthur Pendemon. Each of them suffers a debilitating condition that leaves them vulnerable and isolated, but if the nightmare is ever going to end they need to come together and defeat their tormentor.
It's a mostly standard sort of horror plot, but it's the kind of story I like, so I was surprised at how much I came to hate reading it.
If Ramsey Campbell didn't have a prestigious reputation as a horror author, I would take Thieving Fear as a good reason never to open one of his books again. This can't be the kind of novel that earned Campbell a reputation as a master of the horror genre, so I'm just going to make the kindly assumption that it's a bit of twaddle he fobbed off on the publishers after they kept nagging about the book he owed them. And then even though they were unimpressed by the result they published it anyway because they figured his name alone could still rake in the cash.
Perhaps it's no coincidence that, in the novel, Ellen is an aspiring writer who is told that she will only be offered a publishing contract for her first book if she agrees to write a second. The publishers - for whom Charlotte works as an editor - have just been bought by some mega corporation that already owns a chain of Walmart-sized superstores, a search engine and telecommunications rights, so they're having to adjust their policies to focus more on marketing and sales. Ellen has to bring her work in line with their demands, and this actually becomes a major issue, to the point where all four cousins are involved. Notably the plot of Ellen's book is also based on an evil magician named Arthur Pendemon who torments four cousins. Hmmm.
If Campbell's being snarky then good for him, but Thieving Fear is pretty lame either way. On the bright side, it starts out ok, reads quickly, and the premise that drives the horror is an interesting one. The torment begins with some kind of persecution in the cousins' professional lives. Then each of them is increasingly trapped in a real-life nightmare based on the nightmares they had that night. Rory, an artist, dreamt that he couldn't see; now he starts to lose all sensory perception until he feels like nothing but a consciousness trapped in useless flesh. Hugh dreamt of being stuck in a house and unable to find his way out. He loses his sense of direction so completely that he can't find his way from the bedroom to the bathroom or tell left from right. I don't recall if Ellen described her dream, but in her real-life nightmare she becomes so disgusted with her grotesquely obese body that she can't even bear to look at her hands let alone her reflection. She's described in repulsive terms as a swollen, sweating, stinking mass of nausea-inducing flesh. Charlotte's dream, as the reader knows, was not a dream, but she still gets extreme claustrophobia where she can't even walk outside without feeling like the darkness is closing in on her.
In addition to these torments, all of them have glimpses of a shadow-like figure or unnaturally gaunt man who can never be viewed directly. It always seems to be slipping through elevator doors, reflected in glass, or standing just behind them, but disappears if they try to get a good look at it. And something keeps calling their names.
It's quite discomforting if you imagine being crushed professionally and having humiliating, debilitating afflictions, but it becomes extremely repetitive. Campbell reuses the same imagery and language throughout the story and eventually you're just sick of hearing it. Even more irritating is the way the main characters are in perpetual denial about what's happening to them. They try to ignore their afflictions or blame it on stress. The shadowy figure and other supernatural occurrences are always dismissed as a trick of the light or whatever.
It's possible, however, that the characters' denial is meant to be part of the plot and not just the general stupidity of horror-genre characters. It becomes increasingly clear that the four cousins are being psychologically stunted by the mysterious force at Thurstaston in a way that turns them into the kind of horror-movie idiots who die of low IQs. One thing those idiots do (and this often happens in stories with some kind of mystery) is fail to share or ask about important information. This really, really gets to me because it slows down the plot and is usually senseless. Typically, it seems like the author forces characters to be implausibly stupid or tightlipped so as to drag out a story that would otherwise be resolved too quickly.
Campbell at least doesn't make that mistake. Instead he gives his characters good (or at least decent) reasons for not sharing crucial information. Whatever's happening to them also affects their ability to communicate. Much of the narrative consists of tense, awkward little phone conversations where each person is easily offended, afraid to give offence, and extremely reluctant to talk about anything that could advance the plot. At first I thought this was bad writing. It's not really, although the book badly needs some commas and ellipses because you keep having to re-read some confusing sentence. Later, I thought it could be a reflection of the characters' strict English reserve (actually, that's part of it). Finally I realised that bad communication was part of the plot. The cousins struggle to talk about Thurstaston or Pendemon; even saying the names is difficult. It would take them about 15 minutes to figure out what's going on, but researching those topics is too much of a strain. They don't talk about their crippling afflictions until quite late in the novel, and even then they try to avoid doing so. All this inhibits them from doing anything about their situation, keeps them isolated when they could all be supporting each other, and makes them utterly miserable. It's a kind of horror in itself.
While I can appreciate this in theory, in practice it's just as frustrating as when authors do the same thing for all the wrong reasons - the plot moves too slowly, and you hate the characters for their behaviour. Worse, is that it never really ceases - even at the climax they can't quite face up to the supernatural causes of their afflictions or admit that that suspicious movement was not a trick of the light.
And speaking of the ending - totally unsatisfying. Not to mention vague. The final events are very detailed, but I couldn't tell you why any of it happened. In terms of imagery it's quite impressive, but when nothing makes any sense it's just an amalgamation of macabre weirdness.
So. A very bad introduction to Ramsey Campbell. If you've read his work please feel free to tell me what I should be reading. He's supposed to be so good that I'd like to give him another chance, and I'm always on the search for my particular brand of horror. I'll just try to pretend Thieving Fear never happened.
For more reviews, check out my blog Violin in a Void
Charlotte tells herself it was just a nightmare, and in fact her three cousins each had their own nightmare that night. When they return to the spot a decade later, it marks the beginning of real-life nightmares. The cousins' lives spiral out of control under the influence of a malicious force buried at Thurstaston - an evil magician named Arthur Pendemon. Each of them suffers a debilitating condition that leaves them vulnerable and isolated, but if the nightmare is ever going to end they need to come together and defeat their tormentor.
It's a mostly standard sort of horror plot, but it's the kind of story I like, so I was surprised at how much I came to hate reading it.
If Ramsey Campbell didn't have a prestigious reputation as a horror author, I would take Thieving Fear as a good reason never to open one of his books again. This can't be the kind of novel that earned Campbell a reputation as a master of the horror genre, so I'm just going to make the kindly assumption that it's a bit of twaddle he fobbed off on the publishers after they kept nagging about the book he owed them. And then even though they were unimpressed by the result they published it anyway because they figured his name alone could still rake in the cash.
Perhaps it's no coincidence that, in the novel, Ellen is an aspiring writer who is told that she will only be offered a publishing contract for her first book if she agrees to write a second. The publishers - for whom Charlotte works as an editor - have just been bought by some mega corporation that already owns a chain of Walmart-sized superstores, a search engine and telecommunications rights, so they're having to adjust their policies to focus more on marketing and sales. Ellen has to bring her work in line with their demands, and this actually becomes a major issue, to the point where all four cousins are involved. Notably the plot of Ellen's book is also based on an evil magician named Arthur Pendemon who torments four cousins. Hmmm.
If Campbell's being snarky then good for him, but Thieving Fear is pretty lame either way. On the bright side, it starts out ok, reads quickly, and the premise that drives the horror is an interesting one. The torment begins with some kind of persecution in the cousins' professional lives. Then each of them is increasingly trapped in a real-life nightmare based on the nightmares they had that night. Rory, an artist, dreamt that he couldn't see; now he starts to lose all sensory perception until he feels like nothing but a consciousness trapped in useless flesh. Hugh dreamt of being stuck in a house and unable to find his way out. He loses his sense of direction so completely that he can't find his way from the bedroom to the bathroom or tell left from right. I don't recall if Ellen described her dream, but in her real-life nightmare she becomes so disgusted with her grotesquely obese body that she can't even bear to look at her hands let alone her reflection. She's described in repulsive terms as a swollen, sweating, stinking mass of nausea-inducing flesh. Charlotte's dream, as the reader knows, was not a dream, but she still gets extreme claustrophobia where she can't even walk outside without feeling like the darkness is closing in on her.
In addition to these torments, all of them have glimpses of a shadow-like figure or unnaturally gaunt man who can never be viewed directly. It always seems to be slipping through elevator doors, reflected in glass, or standing just behind them, but disappears if they try to get a good look at it. And something keeps calling their names.
It's quite discomforting if you imagine being crushed professionally and having humiliating, debilitating afflictions, but it becomes extremely repetitive. Campbell reuses the same imagery and language throughout the story and eventually you're just sick of hearing it. Even more irritating is the way the main characters are in perpetual denial about what's happening to them. They try to ignore their afflictions or blame it on stress. The shadowy figure and other supernatural occurrences are always dismissed as a trick of the light or whatever.
It's possible, however, that the characters' denial is meant to be part of the plot and not just the general stupidity of horror-genre characters. It becomes increasingly clear that the four cousins are being psychologically stunted by the mysterious force at Thurstaston in a way that turns them into the kind of horror-movie idiots who die of low IQs. One thing those idiots do (and this often happens in stories with some kind of mystery) is fail to share or ask about important information. This really, really gets to me because it slows down the plot and is usually senseless. Typically, it seems like the author forces characters to be implausibly stupid or tightlipped so as to drag out a story that would otherwise be resolved too quickly.
Campbell at least doesn't make that mistake. Instead he gives his characters good (or at least decent) reasons for not sharing crucial information. Whatever's happening to them also affects their ability to communicate. Much of the narrative consists of tense, awkward little phone conversations where each person is easily offended, afraid to give offence, and extremely reluctant to talk about anything that could advance the plot. At first I thought this was bad writing. It's not really, although the book badly needs some commas and ellipses because you keep having to re-read some confusing sentence. Later, I thought it could be a reflection of the characters' strict English reserve (actually, that's part of it). Finally I realised that bad communication was part of the plot. The cousins struggle to talk about Thurstaston or Pendemon; even saying the names is difficult. It would take them about 15 minutes to figure out what's going on, but researching those topics is too much of a strain. They don't talk about their crippling afflictions until quite late in the novel, and even then they try to avoid doing so. All this inhibits them from doing anything about their situation, keeps them isolated when they could all be supporting each other, and makes them utterly miserable. It's a kind of horror in itself.
While I can appreciate this in theory, in practice it's just as frustrating as when authors do the same thing for all the wrong reasons - the plot moves too slowly, and you hate the characters for their behaviour. Worse, is that it never really ceases - even at the climax they can't quite face up to the supernatural causes of their afflictions or admit that that suspicious movement was not a trick of the light.
And speaking of the ending - totally unsatisfying. Not to mention vague. The final events are very detailed, but I couldn't tell you why any of it happened. In terms of imagery it's quite impressive, but when nothing makes any sense it's just an amalgamation of macabre weirdness.
So. A very bad introduction to Ramsey Campbell. If you've read his work please feel free to tell me what I should be reading. He's supposed to be so good that I'd like to give him another chance, and I'm always on the search for my particular brand of horror. I'll just try to pretend Thieving Fear never happened.
For more reviews, check out my blog Violin in a Void
September 19, 2017
Just finished my first reread of THIEVING FEAR. It's an agreeably strange book, with many an arresting passage concerning its protagonists' unseated orientation to the world. Each embodied pathology arises from the sufferer's social position and attendant duress -- e.g. claustrophobia as a consequence of occupational surveillance; anorexia as a response to moral character assassination -- and once established, these problems lend the novel 's textures an inescapable intensity, leading to *that* immersive conclusion.
Indeed, the penultimate chapter contains some of the author's most hypnotic prose. It occurs to me that this is what elevates Campbell above so many other dark writers. While most tacitly rely on readers' familiarity with similar scenes from films, using descriptions as prompts to that kind of imagery, Campbell presupposes no such knowledge. Starting as it were from scratch, he fully involves us in dense passages that enlist all the characters' senses, bringing scenes to life with intricate and comprehensive detail. This makes for challenging prose, certainly not the type you can pleasurably skim-read, but which yields far more atmosphere. I can happily imagine that this is what reading was like before the invention of film. There are sections right the way through the novel which demonstrate similar, including a memorably Jamesian trip home across London in the company of a nebulously thin companion.
Has the novel any faults? Well, I felt at one stage a few too many journeys were being made in consecutive chapters, resulting in a little structural repetition. Also, once the early exchanges between the cousins and their professional associates were dealt with, the book seemed to lose a little of its cultural scope (e.g. debates about the role of art and the impact of corporations, etc), even though the Epilogue brings this back with satirical force. But these are minor matters. The novel remains one of Campbell's strangest books, and in a world filled with retreads of the overfamiliar (however competently executed), that's always welcome.
Indeed, the penultimate chapter contains some of the author's most hypnotic prose. It occurs to me that this is what elevates Campbell above so many other dark writers. While most tacitly rely on readers' familiarity with similar scenes from films, using descriptions as prompts to that kind of imagery, Campbell presupposes no such knowledge. Starting as it were from scratch, he fully involves us in dense passages that enlist all the characters' senses, bringing scenes to life with intricate and comprehensive detail. This makes for challenging prose, certainly not the type you can pleasurably skim-read, but which yields far more atmosphere. I can happily imagine that this is what reading was like before the invention of film. There are sections right the way through the novel which demonstrate similar, including a memorably Jamesian trip home across London in the company of a nebulously thin companion.
Has the novel any faults? Well, I felt at one stage a few too many journeys were being made in consecutive chapters, resulting in a little structural repetition. Also, once the early exchanges between the cousins and their professional associates were dealt with, the book seemed to lose a little of its cultural scope (e.g. debates about the role of art and the impact of corporations, etc), even though the Epilogue brings this back with satirical force. But these are minor matters. The novel remains one of Campbell's strangest books, and in a world filled with retreads of the overfamiliar (however competently executed), that's always welcome.
September 12, 2022
DNF.
The writing itself is good, but the story dragged.
I had to really force myself to get as far as I did because it felt like nothing happened at all.
It’s a shame, but hey ho.
The writing itself is good, but the story dragged.
I had to really force myself to get as far as I did because it felt like nothing happened at all.
It’s a shame, but hey ho.
February 17, 2014
There's a blurb on the cover of Thieving Fear, an endorsement for Ramsey Campbell from Stephen King that reads "Good horror writers are rare, and Campbell is better than just good." I have to assume this quote was mined from King reading another book by the same author, because this book isn't good horror, nor even a good book. If I had to find something nice to say about it, I will say it helped me get to sleep several nights. But if a HORROR book is putting you to sleep at night, that's not really a good thing, is it?
Four cousins go camping, and one of them sleepwalks away from the others and thinks she hears someone calling her name. Maybe something happens, and maybe it doesn't. But either way, the scene is resolved without ratcheting up any sense of tension. The opening didn't do anything for me, but I thought, If King liked it, it has to get scary sooner or later. But no, it never does. If anything, it starts with that first disappointment and slides slowly down a dull path of increasing boredom.
The story fast forwards a few years, and all four cousins are tits and wankers. One's a writer who used to work in a nursing home before her meanie bosses framed her, and another is an editor at a publisher, meaning we get to see a lot of scenes about the process of publishing a book. There really should be a rule that writers are not allowed to write about publishing in any capacity, because most of the time, their "writing what they know" is a slow dull grind that pads a story, but does nothing to advance the plot. That's certainly the case here. Anywho, a third cousin is a visual artist, and that means he gets to complain about no one appreciating his vision, even though the descriptions of his work certainly makes him sound a bit rubbish. The last cousin used to be a teacher before moving into work at a grocery store clerk because he couldn't handle his job. He's teased by mean girls at work who then accuse him of sexual harassment, because girls are mean and icky and stupid. (If you can't tell, none of these four endeared themselves to me.)
The cousins are pursued by something that makes them claustrophobic and hallucinate or get confused, and they're all unable to talk to each other about that camping trip without "bad stuff" happening. If I've made any of this sound interesting, trust me, it isn't. The writing drags on, and on, and on, and there's nothing scary or even interesting going on. Most of the book feels like a padded delaying tactic to avoid getting to something worth reading about. This mess could have been edited down to a short story without losing anything. Even when the cousins make it back to the camp site and the secret buried there, the writing manages to drag on and kill any sense of dread. There's a dreadfully long sequence with one cousin wandering through a house, and it's all "dreary detail, boring shit, OH WAIT DID I SEE A MONSTER?!?! No, it's just another shadow. Gosh the dark is so skeery." This goes on for page after page, the world's slowest fucking search with NOTHING HAPPENING. I found myself wishing that at least the ceiling might fall and kill her to end the scene. But no, she eventually finds a monster, and the fight is dull and unsatisfying. Maybe if this were a short story, I wouldn't feel so cheated, but I had to drag through 270 pages of boring filler to reach this point. I just wanted to have at least one scary moment to justify the rest of the book, and that moment is like the author jamming two middle fingers in my face and saying, "Fuck you, lady, it's boredom and tedium all the way to the end for you."
The final chapter is a long flapping head scene that establishes that everyone is okay, and all of this will be made into a book, possibly even a series. If the book the cousins put out is anything like the one I've read, I see a huge risk of it boring people to death.
In order for me to get into a story, I either need interesting characters or an intriguing plot. This book has neither, and I frequently wished one or all of the main characters would be hacked apart by a proper psycho killer or monster. Instead, the worst that happens is, one of them has a car crash and goes into a coma. There's no sense of danger, no reason to care for these whiny little shits, and nothing to fear even when the big baddie makes their random attacks or their appearance at the conclusion. The stakes never felt high enough to raise my give-a-fuck meter above the meh zone.
Maybe I'll try something else from Campbell later, after my distaste for this book dissipates somewhat. But I can say it wasn't worth the time I invested in it. I give Thieving Fear one star, and I'd only recommend it to insomniacs looking for a great way to put themselves to sleep.
Four cousins go camping, and one of them sleepwalks away from the others and thinks she hears someone calling her name. Maybe something happens, and maybe it doesn't. But either way, the scene is resolved without ratcheting up any sense of tension. The opening didn't do anything for me, but I thought, If King liked it, it has to get scary sooner or later. But no, it never does. If anything, it starts with that first disappointment and slides slowly down a dull path of increasing boredom.
The story fast forwards a few years, and all four cousins are tits and wankers. One's a writer who used to work in a nursing home before her meanie bosses framed her, and another is an editor at a publisher, meaning we get to see a lot of scenes about the process of publishing a book. There really should be a rule that writers are not allowed to write about publishing in any capacity, because most of the time, their "writing what they know" is a slow dull grind that pads a story, but does nothing to advance the plot. That's certainly the case here. Anywho, a third cousin is a visual artist, and that means he gets to complain about no one appreciating his vision, even though the descriptions of his work certainly makes him sound a bit rubbish. The last cousin used to be a teacher before moving into work at a grocery store clerk because he couldn't handle his job. He's teased by mean girls at work who then accuse him of sexual harassment, because girls are mean and icky and stupid. (If you can't tell, none of these four endeared themselves to me.)
The cousins are pursued by something that makes them claustrophobic and hallucinate or get confused, and they're all unable to talk to each other about that camping trip without "bad stuff" happening. If I've made any of this sound interesting, trust me, it isn't. The writing drags on, and on, and on, and there's nothing scary or even interesting going on. Most of the book feels like a padded delaying tactic to avoid getting to something worth reading about. This mess could have been edited down to a short story without losing anything. Even when the cousins make it back to the camp site and the secret buried there, the writing manages to drag on and kill any sense of dread. There's a dreadfully long sequence with one cousin wandering through a house, and it's all "dreary detail, boring shit, OH WAIT DID I SEE A MONSTER?!?! No, it's just another shadow. Gosh the dark is so skeery." This goes on for page after page, the world's slowest fucking search with NOTHING HAPPENING. I found myself wishing that at least the ceiling might fall and kill her to end the scene. But no, she eventually finds a monster, and the fight is dull and unsatisfying. Maybe if this were a short story, I wouldn't feel so cheated, but I had to drag through 270 pages of boring filler to reach this point. I just wanted to have at least one scary moment to justify the rest of the book, and that moment is like the author jamming two middle fingers in my face and saying, "Fuck you, lady, it's boredom and tedium all the way to the end for you."
The final chapter is a long flapping head scene that establishes that everyone is okay, and all of this will be made into a book, possibly even a series. If the book the cousins put out is anything like the one I've read, I see a huge risk of it boring people to death.
In order for me to get into a story, I either need interesting characters or an intriguing plot. This book has neither, and I frequently wished one or all of the main characters would be hacked apart by a proper psycho killer or monster. Instead, the worst that happens is, one of them has a car crash and goes into a coma. There's no sense of danger, no reason to care for these whiny little shits, and nothing to fear even when the big baddie makes their random attacks or their appearance at the conclusion. The stakes never felt high enough to raise my give-a-fuck meter above the meh zone.
Maybe I'll try something else from Campbell later, after my distaste for this book dissipates somewhat. But I can say it wasn't worth the time I invested in it. I give Thieving Fear one star, and I'd only recommend it to insomniacs looking for a great way to put themselves to sleep.
August 8, 2009
Four friends camped at the coast as youngsters, and had a very bad night's sleep. Years later, returning to the spot as adults, something is triggered, and things rapidly decline for them, in very subtle ways. They can't seem to communicate properly with each other. Their lives are turning to shit.
One of the most common complaints about horror films is that if people just told each what's going on, most of their problems could be solved (Lost has always been notorious for the same thing). That could easily have provided the inspiration for this book. Why don't they talk to each other? What if they can't? What if something is stopping them? So it's all about characters who talk at cross-purposes, mishear and misconstrue words, and run everything through the filter of their own misery. In short, it's extremely realistic!
But it makes this a profoundly miserable and often frustrating reading experience, but a brilliant one. I haven't read anything so determined to make (and unafraid of making) the reader miserable since Dostoevskys's Notes from the Underground! For example, it begins with one lead being unfairly accused of racism in an employment tribunal... The weak point of human society and relationships (or maybe the thing that makes society possible!) is the imperfection of communication between us, and this book hammered away at that until it gave. It was very ambitious and difficult - you'd have thought it the work of a angry young man, if it wasn't for the absolute confidence of every word. I loved it.
Except for one thing, that is: the absence of commas before speech. I read an afterword by Campbell to one of his books where he had a little rant about small-minded proofreaders adding commas to his work. It's easy to overdo them, but they're generally useful and their absence in some circumstances causes confusion. The problem here is that if someone's talking, it says something like: he said "Goodbye to the world". The comma that should appear after "said" tells you something, it tells you to break what follows off from the descriptive text, it's a separate utterance by a different person, the character instead of the narrator.
Its total absence in this book means the reader must constantly back up after realising some speech is being reported. Yes, it's a little thing, but it isn't half infuriating, and in at least one place here it is difficult to be sure whether the text within the quote marks has even been said. Maybe it's a small thing, but if you're going to leave out that comma, why use a comma at the end of speech instead of a full stop, which is just as much of a convention rather than a necessity? For that matter, why use quotes at all? French novels get by with just a nice big dash. They're all just conventions that are there to help the reader, and omitting them is like leaving marbles on the stairs of your story.
Somehow, I survived the absence of commas to finish Thieving Fear, the last of the BFA-nominated novels, just an hour before the close of voting. This was the first Ramsey Campbell book I've read, and a BFS member told me it wasn't his best. Well, if that's not his best, I've got some good reading ahead of me! I suppose I was hit with all his good qualities at once, whereas an existing fan would compare it as much to his previous works as to the other nominees, but for me this was in a different league to the rest (though I think the best individual scene of any of the novels was in Rain Dogs, in the flooded estate, with the creatures coming up out of the water to tear people apart).
One of the most common complaints about horror films is that if people just told each what's going on, most of their problems could be solved (Lost has always been notorious for the same thing). That could easily have provided the inspiration for this book. Why don't they talk to each other? What if they can't? What if something is stopping them? So it's all about characters who talk at cross-purposes, mishear and misconstrue words, and run everything through the filter of their own misery. In short, it's extremely realistic!
But it makes this a profoundly miserable and often frustrating reading experience, but a brilliant one. I haven't read anything so determined to make (and unafraid of making) the reader miserable since Dostoevskys's Notes from the Underground! For example, it begins with one lead being unfairly accused of racism in an employment tribunal... The weak point of human society and relationships (or maybe the thing that makes society possible!) is the imperfection of communication between us, and this book hammered away at that until it gave. It was very ambitious and difficult - you'd have thought it the work of a angry young man, if it wasn't for the absolute confidence of every word. I loved it.
Except for one thing, that is: the absence of commas before speech. I read an afterword by Campbell to one of his books where he had a little rant about small-minded proofreaders adding commas to his work. It's easy to overdo them, but they're generally useful and their absence in some circumstances causes confusion. The problem here is that if someone's talking, it says something like: he said "Goodbye to the world". The comma that should appear after "said" tells you something, it tells you to break what follows off from the descriptive text, it's a separate utterance by a different person, the character instead of the narrator.
Its total absence in this book means the reader must constantly back up after realising some speech is being reported. Yes, it's a little thing, but it isn't half infuriating, and in at least one place here it is difficult to be sure whether the text within the quote marks has even been said. Maybe it's a small thing, but if you're going to leave out that comma, why use a comma at the end of speech instead of a full stop, which is just as much of a convention rather than a necessity? For that matter, why use quotes at all? French novels get by with just a nice big dash. They're all just conventions that are there to help the reader, and omitting them is like leaving marbles on the stairs of your story.
Somehow, I survived the absence of commas to finish Thieving Fear, the last of the BFA-nominated novels, just an hour before the close of voting. This was the first Ramsey Campbell book I've read, and a BFS member told me it wasn't his best. Well, if that's not his best, I've got some good reading ahead of me! I suppose I was hit with all his good qualities at once, whereas an existing fan would compare it as much to his previous works as to the other nominees, but for me this was in a different league to the rest (though I think the best individual scene of any of the novels was in Rain Dogs, in the flooded estate, with the creatures coming up out of the water to tear people apart).
June 29, 2012
This guy... this dude... awesome...
Anyway, I suddenly figured out the underlying mechanism with which he creates this disquieting, discomforting sense of disorientation and dread. Remember when you were a teen stoned out of your mind for like the first time, and suddenly you couldn't recognize the street you were on, and then someone called your cellphone and you tried to have conversation but you would mishear every second word and every sentence would wobble in a web of five equally plausable meanings, and then you tried to buy a snack and got completely tangled up in a conversation with the store clerk?
Yeah, he uses confusing-to-bad trip structures of narrative. Sneaky bugger. And his prose has sudden bursts of luminiscent clarity...
Anyway, I suddenly figured out the underlying mechanism with which he creates this disquieting, discomforting sense of disorientation and dread. Remember when you were a teen stoned out of your mind for like the first time, and suddenly you couldn't recognize the street you were on, and then someone called your cellphone and you tried to have conversation but you would mishear every second word and every sentence would wobble in a web of five equally plausable meanings, and then you tried to buy a snack and got completely tangled up in a conversation with the store clerk?
Yeah, he uses confusing-to-bad trip structures of narrative. Sneaky bugger. And his prose has sudden bursts of luminiscent clarity...
June 14, 2012
Perhap because the term 'horror' has been hijacked, or rather monopolized, by a brand of dynamic authors since the 1970's, I hesitate to call Ramsey Campbell a master of horror fiction. Rather, he is a master of unease fiction, of unsettling fiction, of rising confused dread fiction. He's the modern face of Blackwood and Lovecraft at their most psychological, insinuating, and subtly disturbing.
Every book my Campbell, this one included, is extremely difficult for me to read casually. I have to be healthy, at the top of my game, and not busy with anything, to be able to handle his stuff without going to pieces after half a dozen chapters.
Every book my Campbell, this one included, is extremely difficult for me to read casually. I have to be healthy, at the top of my game, and not busy with anything, to be able to handle his stuff without going to pieces after half a dozen chapters.
March 27, 2016
This book was recommended on the cover by Stephen King, but it was incredibly disappointing. Way too wordy, and not in a good way, this is terribly written. Filled with things like "he thought, or tried to think.." and ".. he murmered, or mouthed." Frustratingly self important writing that doesn't know how awful it is.
July 22, 2025
Such a fun horror concept, but such a dreary read.
I was anticipating characters with interesting perspectives and an array of complicated interpersonal relationship dynamics from which their nightmares would arise. Instead, each of the four main characters repeated the same thoughts, actions, and behaviour for each broad third of the story, with slight variations for each fresh chapter.
I get that fear and anxiety are loving bedfellows, but if every character is just a slightly version of the same neurotic hedgehog-like energy doing the same head-in-the-sand activity again and again, while also being frankly AWFUL communicators in slight variations of the exact same way, it can make for a dull reading experience.
I kept expecting the expositional nightmare vignettes to start building to something more when they finally came to meet up again in person. Alas, they were even more infuriating to read about when interacting with one another.
I'm sure some people find the detailed descriptions of each of the nightmares chilling or relatable, but it didn't take long for me to find them more irritating than atmospheric.
Why did I finish? Life stuff kept interrupting and picking the book back up with the certainty that things would get better. For me, it never did.
I was anticipating characters with interesting perspectives and an array of complicated interpersonal relationship dynamics from which their nightmares would arise. Instead, each of the four main characters repeated the same thoughts, actions, and behaviour for each broad third of the story, with slight variations for each fresh chapter.
I get that fear and anxiety are loving bedfellows, but if every character is just a slightly version of the same neurotic hedgehog-like energy doing the same head-in-the-sand activity again and again, while also being frankly AWFUL communicators in slight variations of the exact same way, it can make for a dull reading experience.
I kept expecting the expositional nightmare vignettes to start building to something more when they finally came to meet up again in person. Alas, they were even more infuriating to read about when interacting with one another.
I'm sure some people find the detailed descriptions of each of the nightmares chilling or relatable, but it didn't take long for me to find them more irritating than atmospheric.
Why did I finish? Life stuff kept interrupting and picking the book back up with the certainty that things would get better. For me, it never did.
October 29, 2018
By far the weakest one that I’ve read from the master’s books. So complex and dreamy that sometimes the author as well seems to be losing his control.
August 5, 2022
Mostly solid novel from Campbell, bar for some unsubtle axe-grinding. Full review: https://fakegeekboy.wordpress.com/200...
October 7, 2016
What a bizarre book!
I read this book because I was meeting the author at my book club. He has won many awards, has a great reputation, and I must say was a fascinating speaker.
However - this book was terrible! It's my first ever horror book and only the penultimate chapter was a little gruesome and scary. I still don't really know what was going on. The rest of the book was pretty boring and the sentence structures in parts were awful. If I hadn't been meeting the author I may not have finished it. I am almost tempted to try another of his books as they simply can't all be this bad!!
I read this book because I was meeting the author at my book club. He has won many awards, has a great reputation, and I must say was a fascinating speaker.
However - this book was terrible! It's my first ever horror book and only the penultimate chapter was a little gruesome and scary. I still don't really know what was going on. The rest of the book was pretty boring and the sentence structures in parts were awful. If I hadn't been meeting the author I may not have finished it. I am almost tempted to try another of his books as they simply can't all be this bad!!
June 28, 2013
A dead occultist makes life complicated for four cousins in Thieving Fear, a 2008 novel by Ramsey Campbell. Like Campbell's The Grin of the Dark (2006), Thieving Fear also features characters who have their perception of reality severely impaired by a supernatural force.
The story starts with Charlotte, Ellen, Hugh and Rory camping as youngsters at a site they later learn was the location of a house owned by a notorious magician. During the night they have nightmares and Charlotte almost walks off a cliff.
Years later, the four begin exhibiting strange symptoms, alternately ridiculous and horrific, in true Campbell style; Hugh loses his sense of direction, Charlotte gets claustrophobic, Rory loses his vision and Ellen begins to think she's disgustingly fat. Also, a thin shadow of a man always seems to lurk somewhere near. Ultimately they trace the events back to that one night in their youth, and discover the dark secrets buried inside the cliff.
It's all about the characters in this one, their experiences as their senses fail and their reality unravels in everyday situations. The downside is that the plot becomes secondary; there isn't much of a one, and even the adversary is handled as little more than a flitting shadow. As a result Thieving Fear doesn't quite have the impact of its immediate predecessor; The Grin of the Dark had the mystery of silent film comedian Tubby Thackeray going for it, giving the readers some good, firm plot to grab onto.
The subplots about Ellen's position at a care home and Hugh's job at a supermarket are tickly good fun, with some wickedly unpleasant supporting characters. Ellen's foray into the publishing world with Charlotte as her editor also makes for a fun read, with anecdotes that are possibly drawn from experience.
Campbell's sharp writing keeps things interesting, but the going does get quite frustrating in the middle, with all the characters suffering from some impediment or other. The end, however, rewards the reader with a nice, weird twist and great imagery. As a whole Thieving Fear is a low-key affair, but it does deliver where it counts.
Read all my reviews at mikareadshorrorfiction.wordpress.com
The story starts with Charlotte, Ellen, Hugh and Rory camping as youngsters at a site they later learn was the location of a house owned by a notorious magician. During the night they have nightmares and Charlotte almost walks off a cliff.
Years later, the four begin exhibiting strange symptoms, alternately ridiculous and horrific, in true Campbell style; Hugh loses his sense of direction, Charlotte gets claustrophobic, Rory loses his vision and Ellen begins to think she's disgustingly fat. Also, a thin shadow of a man always seems to lurk somewhere near. Ultimately they trace the events back to that one night in their youth, and discover the dark secrets buried inside the cliff.
It's all about the characters in this one, their experiences as their senses fail and their reality unravels in everyday situations. The downside is that the plot becomes secondary; there isn't much of a one, and even the adversary is handled as little more than a flitting shadow. As a result Thieving Fear doesn't quite have the impact of its immediate predecessor; The Grin of the Dark had the mystery of silent film comedian Tubby Thackeray going for it, giving the readers some good, firm plot to grab onto.
The subplots about Ellen's position at a care home and Hugh's job at a supermarket are tickly good fun, with some wickedly unpleasant supporting characters. Ellen's foray into the publishing world with Charlotte as her editor also makes for a fun read, with anecdotes that are possibly drawn from experience.
Campbell's sharp writing keeps things interesting, but the going does get quite frustrating in the middle, with all the characters suffering from some impediment or other. The end, however, rewards the reader with a nice, weird twist and great imagery. As a whole Thieving Fear is a low-key affair, but it does deliver where it counts.
Read all my reviews at mikareadshorrorfiction.wordpress.com
December 22, 2014
Ramsey Campbell perplexes me. He has written some of my absolute favorite horror books, like Incarnate, and then he writes utterly forgettable works like this. A book that feels dull, lifeless and stretched-out. It wasn't absolutely terrible, but it wasn't great either. Heck, it wasn't even middle-of-the-road good. It's one of those books whose plot and characters start drifting out of your mind the second you put it down.
Which is a shame, because had so much potential. And honestly, in a different book Campbell would have pulled it off. But with a glaring lack of tension or fear, I hesitate to even call this horror. More like "ever-so-slightly interesting story of a weird family."
Which is a shame, because had so much potential. And honestly, in a different book Campbell would have pulled it off. But with a glaring lack of tension or fear, I hesitate to even call this horror. More like "ever-so-slightly interesting story of a weird family."
March 29, 2019
This is one of those rare novels that I feel fiercely fascinated by despite having found its story a bit lacklustre. The reason I give it such a high rating is for its superb characterisations and the brilliant concept which gives the book textual vitality. The writing displays one astounding quality I've not yet encountered in weird or horror fiction: an inversion approach to sentence logic that generates deep unease as you read the text. I do not have the book to hand right now to quote direct examples, but, from memory, the technique is to describe the characters' paranoid hallucinations by negative allusion. This technique should be studied by all lovers and writers of weird and horror genres!
I'm just new to Ramsey Campbell and am excited to explore his more highly regarded novels.
I'm just new to Ramsey Campbell and am excited to explore his more highly regarded novels.
December 25, 2011
I have to be honest with the reader of this review. This book did absolutely nothing for me. I found myself pushing it aside for other books and had I not been reviewing it for Netgalley, I probably would have continued to push it aside. I finally forced myself to finish it because my time was elapsing that I had to review the book. I agree with what other reviewers on Netgalley have stated about the characters and storyline being very superficially written. I just was unable to get sucked into the story...at all.
September 6, 2012
This being Ramsey Campbell, an absolute master of horror and a good writer in any genre, period, Thieving Fear is well worth reading. However, I wouldn't place it amongst Campbell's strongest work (The Grin of the Dark, Incarnate, The Influence etc) as it feels a little ponderous at times. For sure, the build-up of tension is well-handled, though there is a little too much of it. The denouement is terrific and a novel take on an old old trope. So, worth checking out but not amongst the strongest novels by Campbell.
January 4, 2014
This was either two or three stars, but has fallen on the side of two as in all conscience I wouldn't recommend it to a friend. I was intrigued by two conflicting reviews, one saying it picked up halfway through, and one saying it fell away at the same point - would I find the same as either of them? Well, I hoped it would pick up, as it was slow to start ... it did ... and then rather fell away again. It had some moments, and occasionally got close to the suffocating terror that Campbell evokes on top form, but those moments are few and far between.
May 11, 2009
Halway through it really kicks into gear. Campbell is on top form at extracting surreal horror and desperation from everyday situations. Maybe it would have been tighter shortened as a novella, or had the theme of nightmares bertter developed as a longer novel. The central theme is not as well developed as, say in the recent The Grin of the Dark. Maybe it lacked better editing, ironic as one of the main characters is an editor.
But still, as usual with Campbell, it's an engrossing, quick read.
But still, as usual with Campbell, it's an engrossing, quick read.
October 3, 2012
I was very disappointed with Thieving Fear. It started off promising enough, but then got progressively slow and dull and boring. If you want a good, gripping, fast paced horror story, then I am afraid you will not find it here. And the ending was very puzzling and vague, and somewhat anti-climactic.
April 22, 2017
Very boring unfortunately. The books takes forever to get going, page 270ish, and then where it goes isn't anywhere very interesting. I think Ramsey probably writes these in his sleep! Never mind. It reminded me of another of his books, Ancient Images. Although that was a bit repetitive too it was a much better story.
August 27, 2012
This book starts weakly and limps on and on re treading the same ground over and over again. It is just boring ! I gave up after about 100 pages. I just didn't care and got so bored of hearing how the central characters were feeling watched - every chapter!
March 6, 2009
Couldn't read past page 100...very slow going and predictable.
July 15, 2011
Pretty boring, and the constant use of 'window-less grey cage' to describe lifts gets boring very quickly.
July 26, 2017
The ending is very good - terrifying in fact - but the build-up is very slow. Not Campbell's best.
September 14, 2016
Only read till chapter 7 I absolutely could not get into this book although i tried. Not for me x
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