Cold Hand in Mine stands as one of Aickman's best collections and
contains eight stories that show off his powers as a 'strange story'
writer to the full. The listener is introduced to a variety of
characters, from a man who spends the night in a Hospice to a German
aristocrat and a woman who sees an image of her own soul. There is also
a nod to the conventional vampire story ("Pages from a Young Girl's
Journal") but all the stories remain unconventional and inconclusive,
which perhaps makes them all the more startling and intriguing.
Cold Hand in Mine was first published in the UK in 1975 and in the US
in 1977. The story Pages from a Young Girl's Journal won the Aickman
World Fantasy Award in 1975. It was originally published in The
Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in 1973 before appearing in this
collection.
This collection includes:
- "The Swords"
- "The Real Road to the Church"
- "Niemandswasser"
- "Pages from a Young Girl's Journal"
- "The Hospice"
- "The Same Dog"
- "Meeting Mr Millar"
- "The Clock Watcher"
Robert Fordyce Aickman was born in 1914 in London. In 1951, he published
his first ghost stories in a volume called We Are the Dark, written in
conjunction with Elizabeth Jane Howard, then went on to publish 11
further volumes of horror stories, two fantasy novels, and two volumes
of autobiography. Dubbed 'the supreme master of the supernatural', he
won a World Fantasy Award and British Fantasy Award for his short
fiction, and also edited the first eight volumes of The Fontana Book of
Great Ghost Stories. Aside from his writing, Aickman was passionate
about preserving British canals and founded the Inland Waterways
Association in 1946. He died in February 1981.
Reece Shearsmith is a talented actor and writer. He is most famous for
co-writing and starring in the award-winning The League of Gentlemen,
along with Steve Pemberton, Mark Gatiss, and Jeremy Dyson. In 2009,
Shearsmith and Pemberton won Best New Comedy at the 2009 British Comedy
Awards for Psychoville. Reece Shearsmith has just finished filming Ben
Wheatley's horror A Field in England, out in July 2013.
