The Edge magazine | Book reviews | The Unexplained (edited by Ric Alexander).

The Unexplained
Edited by Ric Alexander
(a pseudonym for Peter Haining)
Introduction by Peter James
Orion hardback, 433 pages, £17.99
Published April 1998
ISBN 0752810049
Review by David Clark (1998)

Stories of the Paranormal. Very fashionable. Peter James, in his introduction, suggests that the irrational and unknown play a larger part in our lives than we like to acknowledge. Well, I agree with him there. Furthermore, the current trendiness of the irrational and unknown seems to me to be a much better hook on which to hang an anthology than last year’s Cyber-Killers, by the same editor.

However, I don’t care so much for the categories in which Alexander places these stories. ‛Alien Encounters’, ‛Supernatural Mysteries’ and the others. Unnecessary, like the ugly cover. Why bother with a cover for this, a plain old library hardback binding would have done fine. That shade of green ideally, you know the one, and if you don’t, then you should spend more time in libraries looking for out of print stories by Nigel Kneale and Gerald Kersh. And it should be printed on nicer paper, too; paper that smells of old libraries.

Most of the stories are reprints. What Alexander’s actually done is find some out of print but very good stories by currently well-known (usually for writing horror or SF) authors, such as Campbell, Ellison, Ballard and Barker (‛The Forbidden’, the story of the streets of Liverpool that gave rise to Bernard Rose’s Candyman). He’s mixed these with some more surprising pieces. He sensibly includes Arthur Machen and Olaf Stapledon and, wonderfully, manages to find a Nigel Kneale ghost story out of print since 1949.

I don’t have room to bang on, so along with the authors mentioned above, the list is completed by Richard Laymon (not so good), Ramsey Campbell, David J Schow, Graham Masterton, Richard Matheson, Harry Bates, CJ Cherryh, Ballard, Heinlein, Theodore Sturgeon (he of ‛90% of anything is crap’, well, not this time, more like 10 or 15%), Roger Zelazny, Ursula K Le Guin, Kit Reed, Ian Watson, Basil Copper and, last but not least, Harlan Ellison.

That should give some idea of the range, which is superior to that in most such anthologies. The quality’s almost uniform. I can take or leave the categories, and merely leave the cover, but it’s a great stack of stories to read through. Classy, but deduct 3 Brownie points for a shortage of women. Then buy a second copy as a present for a bored 12 year old. •

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