- The White
Hands
- and Other Weird Tales
- by Mark Samuels
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- 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?
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- The White Hands was shortlisted
for the British Fantasy Awards in the best Collection category. The
title story of The White Hands was also on their
shortlist for the best Short Story category.
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- 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.
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- The new paperback reprint of The White Hands is £12.95 inc. p&p.
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- ISBN 9781872621890
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- 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.
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- Praise for
The White Hands and Other Weird
Tales
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- 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
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- In The White
Hands, Mark Samuels earns a reputation as the
contemporary British master of visionary weirdness. - Ramsey Campbell,
Postscripts Number 5
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- 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
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- 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
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- [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
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- 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
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- 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
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- 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
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- 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
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- 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
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- 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
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- Samuels is an extremely talented writer,
his stories are superb and the present collection highly
recommendable." - Mario
Guislandi, Supernatural Tales
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- 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)
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- 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
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- Sheer unadulterated brilliance, this title
is recommended for all lovers of the weirdly fantastic. - Bob
Freeman, Monsterlibrarian.com
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- "...dark, tragic, ominous but ultimately a
reflection on ourselves and the society we live in. Mark
Samuels, like Thomas Ligotti, looks beyond the supernatural into
some dark void which lurks in our minds, he then proceeds to
show us the really scary stuff that lurks in that darkness. This
a marvelous collection..." - Highlander's Book Reviews
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Page updated 3rd May 2012
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