Compulsory Games

The best and most interesting stories by Robert Aickman, a master of the supernatural tale, the uncanny, and the truly weird.

Robert Aickman's self-described "strange stories" are confoundingly and uniquely his own. These superbly written tales terrify not with standard thrills and gore but through a radical overturning of the laws of nature and everyday life. His territory of the strange, of the "void behind the face of order," is a surreal region that grotesquely mimics the quotidian: Is that river the Thames, or is it even a river? What does it mean when a prospective lover removes one dress, and then another--and then another? Does a herd of cows in a peaceful churchyard contain the souls of jilted women preparing to trample a cruel lover to death? Published for the first time under one cover, the stories in this collection offer an unequaled introduction to a profoundly original modern master of the uncanny.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: New York Review of Books
Published: 05/08/2018
ISBN: 9781681371894
Pages: 368
Weight: 0.75lbs
Size: 7.90h x 5.00w x 0.80d

Review Citations: Publishers Weekly 03/26/2018
Kirkus Reviews 04/01/2018 pg. 4