The Attic Express and Other Macabre Stories

by Alex Hamilton

Alex Hamilton first turned his hand to writing macabre stories when it was suggested that he should contribute to Herbert Van Thal's Pan Horror series. He soon had enough material for a first collection, Beam of Malice, which was published in 1966, and this was followed in 1972 by Flies on the Wall, a volume which is now extremely difficult to come by.

These two collections form the basis of The Attic Express and Other Macabre Stories, but also included here are two stories from a third collection, The Christmas Pudding that Shook the World. In addition, Mr Hamilton has contributed a new tale, 'Night Mare', just to show that he has lost none of the edge demonstrated in his earlier stories.

Settle back with a copy of The Attic Express and devour the many and varied unpleasant chills from this master of the macabre.

CONTENTS:
Introduction
The Baby Sitters
What's Your Problem?
The Jinx
The Words of the Dumb
Only a Game
Dodensraum
Last Resource
A Glutton for Punishment
To Start a Hare
The Attic Express
Recall
Kiss of Death
Many a Slip
Night Mare
Flies on the Wall
Special Number
Below the Shadow
Not Enough Poison
A Shoal of Time
A Name to Conjure With
Canis Lupus Sapiens
The Hat
Smithson's Second Sight
Quittance
Words of Warning
Beaker Solstice
A Good Guy
The Image of the Damned

Genres: Horror

260 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Alex Hamilton was born in 1930 and was educated first in South America, then England and Oxford University. After experimenting with a wide variety of jobs, he turned to writing full-time in the early 1960s, beginning by alternating novels with short story collections such as Wild Track (1963), which, although not macabre, caught the attention of Herbert Van Thal, editor of the popular Pan Books of Horror Stories series. Hamilton went on to contribute stories to this and many other series, including his most celebrated, ‘The Attic Express’, and in 1966 he published his own collection, Beam of Malice, which won widespread acclaim in both England and the United States. During the 1960s and ’70s he also edited several collections of macabre and horror fiction containing early works by many important writers, including William Trevor, Anthony Burgess, Robert Nye, and Michael Moorcock, among others.

His last novel, The Dead Needle, was a macabre blend of fantasy and reality, but after publishing his third collection, Flies on the Wall (1972), Hamilton, now with a growing family to feed, worked increasingly in journalism, most notably for the Guardian, where he wrote about books and publishing as well as travel (in which he won several awards) for twenty-five years, and for the BBC World Service. Recently, a collection of Hamilton’s interviews with a remarkable array of authors over a fifty-year span, from Dennis Wheatley and John Wyndham to Gunter Grass and Chinua Achebe, was issued by Troubador.

Widely praised when first published, Hamilton’s short stories fell into a long period of neglect but are now being rediscovered, with a hardcover edition from the esteemed Ash-Tree Press in 2007 and recent praise from Britain’s foremost living horror author, Ramsey Campbell.

Reviews

[Riju Ganguly · Rating 1 out of 5]

The vaunted Ash Tree Press must have been going through a really lean patch when they had decided to publish these stories. Too bad the production values are far superior than one can expect regarding this somewhat tedious stories.