The New Uncanny [Kindle Edition]

Fourteen modern writers were sent Freud's essay on "The Uncanny in Literature" and were asked to produce a story in response. Freud's essay concludes with a list of eight principle causes of the uncanny in fiction, a rather ragtag set that seems unequal to the task of summing up the realm of horror literature, but perhaps understandable considering Freud really only concentrated on the work of one writer, E T A Hoffmann, and in particular his masterpiece of weird nightmare, "The Sandman", which bagged all but two of Freud's eight causes (inanimate objects mistaken as animate, animate beings behaving as if inanimate or mechanical, doubles, being blinded, the all-controlling genius, and confusions between reality and imagination -- and the last two are: being buried alive (for which, of course, see Poe) and the rather vague "coincidences or repetitions"). A nice enough stab from a man who wasn't, after all, working in his chosen field, and certainly an interesting point to kick off an anthology of new writing.

This book is subtitled "Tales of Unease", but most of the authors have taken their inspiration from the items on Freud's list rather than striving for the uncanny itself, meaning that some of the stories don't necessarily produce the feeling of unease. But this is not a complaint, as one of the better stories is Hanif Kureishi's mostly angstless "Long Ago, Yesterday", in which a man meets his long-dead father in a pub and has an amiable drink with him.

But it's that feeling of not so much horror, as the unrelieved tension of unease which I was hoping for. Too often horror fiction anthologies lump the gory with the subtler, weirder, more ghostly stories, although I'm not convinced the readership for the two types is all that mixed. The New Uncanny certainly caters for the latter taste. Ramsey Campbell's excellent opener, "Double Room" (one of two of the book's stories set in a hotel, and one of many about people returning to old haunts) perhaps raises the bar unfairly, as Campbell is an old hand at the uncanny, and here he is certainly on form. Many of the subsequent stories update Hoffmann's automata theme, with Tamagotchi in Adam Marek's story, Sims in Frank Cottrell Boyce's, and an automated massage device in Jane Roger's "Ped-O-Matique", though none of the writers provide merely an update. The award for the best title surely goes to Ian Duhig's "Un(heim)lich(e) Man(oeuvre)", (though perhaps without the brackets!)

Inevitably in an anthology, some of tales weren't to my taste -- I found the less experimental, more straightforward approach captured the uncanny feeling most effectively, with A S Byatt's "Doll's Eyes" being a highlight -- but everyone who comes to the volume will have their own likes and dislikes.

Overall, it's one for those looking for that rare subtle strangeness in their fiction rather than out and out horror, and perhaps with a more literary bent -- the disturbing, or simply the weird, in the tradition of, say, Robert Aickman and Walter de la Mare.

I bought this book after hearing it discussed at a conference on the uncanny in Chichester. I enjoyed all the stories in different ways although my awareness of each tale being written as an *exercise*in the uncanny did perhaps make the collection a little safer, a little less unsettling. Perhaps not surprisingly children played an important role in many of the most effective tales. I recently listened to a play by Salley Vickers about Freud and Oedipus which made me realize that although we think of that myth as a representation of the repressed wish to kill one's father and sleep with one's mother, the story begins with a mother who exposes her baby to almost certain death. The unconscious or repressed wish to kill a child, or another loved one, seemed to be a resonant recurring theme in `The New Uncanny'. Among my favourite tales in the volume were Alison MacLeod's chillingly ambiguous `Family Motel', Nicholas Royle's genuinely disturbing `The Dummy' and Christopher Priest's characteristically haunting `The Sorting Out'.

Not a bad collection of stories with some real highlights, but I can't say I felt any particular uncanniness about most of them.

I would probably recommend skipping the introduction, after reading it I felt some of the stories were a little contrived to fit into the guidelines, and in some ways I think the idea of the book is a little detrimental to the stories contained within. Maybe if I skipped the intro and turned the lights off I might feel differently...

Some were amusing but not very uncanny, some were both amusing and uncanny, and others were more serious. Probably the majority of them feature some kind of modern technology, gadgets, the interwebs, etc. which I guess is where the 'new' mostly comes from. When this is done right it really works but in other cases I think bringing such things into the story brings it back into reality and lessens the tension you might normally expect from a 'tale of unease'.

My favourite is probably continuous manipulation which does have an element of uncanniness to it.
I bought the book after searching for Christopher Priest, based on the strength of his more uncanny tales from the Dream Archipilego, primarily about the mysterious towers on Seevl, his effort was decent and the idea was amusing (and not set in the dream archipelago I might add, although they do have funny names...).
Tamagotchi and Seeing Double were also good

I could go on and talk about the rest but it's really for you to make your own mind up. I would still recommend the book but don't go in expecting oodles of unease.