The Village Killings & Other Novellas by Ramsey Campbell (PS Publishing, 2022)

Review by Warner Holme: Ramsey Campbell’s The Village Killings & Other Novellas is more or less exactly what the name implies. Five pieces by a well-known figure in horror are collected inside, each providing their own look into the way the author works in a familiar genre.

Before the novellas proper there is a nice introduction by Campbell. In it he expounds upon the difficulty he suffered creating such stories as well as the philosophy that led to this difficulty. He goes on to describe the circumstances which led to each individual story, and through this gives a nice little insight into his process.

The first novella in the collection is Needing Ghosts, and has the functionally common horror cliche of an author as lead character. Still even from very early in the text it is clear that this is a bizarre and strange situation. He is rarely up during the day, yet thinks nothing odd of the fact he is supposed to be speaking somewhere even as he mixes up his name and the location he seeks. The atmosphere and situations get stranger and more bizarre, and will quickly become surreal and dreamlike.

While anything but the most traditional story in the collection, Needing Ghosts is at the bare minimum a story which well uses elements commonly seen in the genre. Ranging from the author protagonist, to references to horror video rental to the classic questioning reality, there is a lot in the piece that will seem familiar. It is because of that, however, that the story is able to shift in the surreal and strange elements so well.

Later in the collection comes The Enigma of the Flat Policeman and it serves as an odd story in its own way. Specifically, the text is treated as an incomplete manuscript by an author named John featuring intersections about the author or text which come at intervals and often show what seem weak associations with the story itself. These asides are entertaining enough, particularly in combination with the locked-room mystery that develops, yet their reflection upon reader response is the interesting choice about their inclusion.

This story is, of course, filled with Oddities in its own way. While the idea of reading commentary interspersed with a work of fiction is nothing new to genre fans, footnotes and the like being common, the chance seemed high that the particular way they are interspersed will seem unusual. What’s more, the extremely personal nature of the statements, including frivolities like his mother washing his hair, will help to put the reader off guard. The twisted solution to the mystery, such as it is, only proves a further oddity.

One noticeable attitude about this collection is that unlike many like it it does not take a specific section or page out to mark each story’s original publication. While this is not inherently a problem, it is decidedly unusual.

Overall one cannot say that this volume contains the absolute best work that Ramsey Campbell produced, yet one can say that the stories within are well worth reading. Further, for fans of Campbell it is easily a must read, containing tales old and relatively new in a format which does not get a lot of love.