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 The White Hands
- and Other Weird Tales
-
- by Mark Samuels
-
- Paperback reprint available
now
-
- This is the first
collection of strange stories by contemporary writer Mark
Samuels. The themes that thread through these nine
accomplished stories are drawn from the great tradition
of the twentieth-century weird tale, and they are
suffused with a distinctly cosmopolitan, European feel.
Mark Samuels writes about the fundamental fears of modern
life, especially the effects of isolation and the
dislocation that city dwellers can experience in their
inhospitable, man-made environment. H.P. Lovecraft wrote
about entities beyond human comprehension that might be
summoned from beyond the stars, but did he ever consider
that they would feel quite at home in the sodium glare of
some run-down inner-city? When one of Samuel’s characters
stands alone looking up at the vast, illimitable darkness
of space, the reader is forced to wonder if there is much
difference between the hopeless emptiness of eternity and
the bleak interstices between the concrete and steel of
their daily life?
-
- The
White Hands was shortlisted for the British
Fantasy Awards this year in the best Collection
category. The title story of The White
Hands was also on their shortlist for the best
Short Story category.
-
- Born in
1967 in London, where he has lived ever since, Mark
Samuels’ first story was published in 1988. His writings
have appeared sporadically since then in a variety of
small press magazines. He is currently working on a weird
novel set in London.
-
- The new
paperback reprint of The White
Hands is £9.99/$20 inc. p&p.
-
- To read
Vrolyck from
The White Hands and Other Weird
Tales right-click with your mouse on the title
and choose "Save target as". You can then decide where to
download the story onto your computer. You will need
Adobe Acrobat to be able to view the story.
-
- Praise for The White Hands and Other
Weird Tales
-
- Samuels'
prose is some of the most highly polished and surreal it
has been my pleasure to read since I first discovered
Thomas Ligotti. Scott Connors in Weird
Tales, issue 342
-
- In
The White Hands, Mark Samuels earns a
reputation as the contemporary British master of
visionary weirdness. - Ramsey
Campbell, Postscripts Number 5
-
- A really
impressive collection of stories: genuinely chilling --
almost mercilessly so, I kept thinking -- with really
sharp, elegant writing, great sense of mood, and great
intelligence and control in each piece. And they work
extremely well with one another; I especially love the
way the final story ties the whole collection together by
once more bringing in Lilith Blake. - T.E.D.
Klein
-
- This is
a book that was recommended to me about a week ago by
Stephen Jones, who is a British anthologist, one of the
two or three leading anthologists working in the UK. He
said he'd come across a book called The White Hands
and Other Weird Tales by Mark Samuels, published
by Tartarus Press. It's a beautifully made book,
published in an edition of 350 copies. Steve Jones says
Samuels is the most exciting new young(ish) writer that
he (Jones) has come across in at least a year. … I think
that there is just a chance that we are seeing the
emergence of the next Clive Barker. Certainly a name
worth keeping in mind. - Richard
Lupoff, Cover to Cover
-
- [The White Hands] is a treasure and a
genuine contribution to the real history of weird fiction
... Even when the settings and characters are modern
Samuels manages to convey a sense of otherworldly
nightmare. For example, the use of computers in 'The
Impasse' gives these infernal machines the feel and
function of the strange books that stock the shelves of
so many of the best weird tales from Lovecraft to Borges.
('Mannequins in Aspects of Terror' is the other major
instance of this wonderful feat.) I thought the most
impressive story in the collection was 'The Search for
Kruptos.' The exotic locale and the historical setting
are not the sort of thing that I would attempt in a
story, and I thought Samuels handled both tasks
magnificently, not to mention the ingenious and awful
concept of a book in innummerable volumes. The other
stories that were among my favorites, and served most
powerfully to convey a uniform sensibility to
The White Hands, were 'Apartment 205' and
'Colony.' - Thomas Ligotti
-
- In my
opinion, although already in his late thirties, Mark
Samuels is a rising star of supernatural horror fiction.
Pick up a copy of his first collection now and be in at
the beginning of the career of a major new British
talent. You'll only regret it if you don't. -
Steve Jones, The Alien Online
-
- An
impressive debut collection, The White
Hands is an unexpected dark miracle of
invention, tradition, and archetypal revision.... The
author exhibits in this carefully arranged onslaught of
weird fiction individualistic taste, thoughtfulness, and
a strict control of literary subtlety. Re-envisioning the
archetypal images and concerns of traditional
supernatural fiction with distinctly contemporary, urban
settings and bleak if heartfelt characters, Samuels
weaves a deceptively subtle, menacing web of wizardry. -
William Simmons, Hellnotes
-
- If you
thought The White Hands sounded like a lost story
by Arthur Machen you would not be far from the truth.
Machen is the dominant influence on this collection . . .
One can also detect the influence of Kafka, of
Christopher Fowler's urban nightmares, perhaps even
Beckett at his most surreal. Samuels articulates
brilliantly what modern man secretly fears most about
death: not that it is extinction, but that it is an
eternity in which the utter meaningless of life is fully
revealed. - Reggie Oliver, All Hallows
-
- Those
good folks at Tartarus Press publish books that are
beautifully presented collectors' items and this
anthology of macabre tales by Samuels is a sewn hardback
with a silk ribbon marker. Tartarus has cornered an
intriguing market of cult writers who deal with arcane,
supernatural fiction. They publish Arthur Machen and M.P.
Shiel alongside lesser-known contemporary writers, such
as Mark Samuels.... The stories have an old-fashioned
feel about them, owing something to the sinister
atmospheres evoked by Poe and Lovecraft, but without the
torture and slime.... Much of the writing is subtle with
sinister undercurrents, always understated even when
describing torment and suffering.... Samuels has
certainly mastered the art of ambiguity most effectively
and understands well the power of fantasy. -
Jeff Gardiner, Prism
-
- Mark
Samuels is a perfectionist when it comes to creative
writing. The fact that this is his first book actually
makes me wonder if he's been holding back, continually
striving for a level of creativity with which he's truly
satisfied. And who wouldn't be satisfied with a book
written to this standard? I found this collection of
stories totally stunning! It's a book that Machen,
Lovecraft, or Ligotti would be proud to have written. The
stories are beautifully dark nightmares that mix escapism
with strange, haunting qualities, fascinating and always
compelling. - John B. Ford, Terror Tales
-
- With his
unique style, best described as something of a cross
between Lovecraft and Robert Aickman, Thomas Ligotti has
become an inescapable influence on the younger crop of
promising writers of literary horror like Matt Cardin,
Stephen Sennitt, Quentin Crisp and Mark Samuels. Samuels
may be the best of the lot, if this excellent collection
of weird fiction tales from Tartarus Press is any
indication. There are times when I actually prefer
Samuels to Ligotti, partly because he eschews the
latter's often maddening obliqueness but also because of
his uniquely urban sensibility. - Gabriel
Messa, 'A Year's Best List', Fantastic
Metropolis
-
- Samuels
is an extremely talented writer, his stories are superb
and the present collection highly recommendable." -
Mario Guislandi, Supernatural
Tales
-
- Probably
one of the most important debut collections by a writer
of ghost stories since Terry Lamsley and Thomas Ligotti
more than a decade earlier, The White Hands and Other
Weird Tales contained nine strange stories (two
reprints) by London writer Mark Samuels, limited to just
350 copies from Tartarus Press - Steve
Jones, Mammoth Book of Best New Horror #15
(Oct 2004)
-
- The
White Hands and Other Weird Tales is a highly
impressive, extremely well-written book that will appeal
to all with an interest in contemporary horror or “weird”
fiction. This is one to place on the bookshelf in the
company of Robert Aickman, Elizabeth Hand and Thomas
Ligotti. - Paul Kane, The Compulsive
Reader
Page Updated
23rd March 2008
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