donn@utah-gr.UUCP (Donn Seeley) (11/08/84)
Ramsey Campbell is a British horror writer, and INCARNATE (Tor 1983; 499pp. -- I have the MacMillan hardcover, which is 368pp.) is a decidedly nasty horror novel. But unlike many (most?) other books in the genre, INCARNATE does not depend on gore to make your palms become very wet; in fact there is only one actual murder in the book, and it takes place offstage. The plot, characters and setting are exceedingly realistic, with very little of the cardboard which one often finds strewn among the pages of horror novels. This attention to detail is perhaps somewhat misleading, because the focus of the novel is on dreaming: over the course of the novel the reader's grasp on reality (and sometimes on the narrative) can become rather slim. The story starts with an experiment in predictive dreaming that ends in panic and hysteria. Eleven years later the subjects of the experiments discover that their dreams are starting to invade their waking lives, and evidence begins to accumulate that other people are perceiving their nightmares, and that their actions while asleep are shaping events in the light of day. Will reality survive? Campbell keeps you guessing right up to the last few pages... The only other contemporary horror author who seems to me to have an equivalent sensibility for characters and setting is Stephen King, but Campbell is British, and this makes for a distinctly different tone. I could only think of a couple minor complaints about the style. The story is a bit deliberate in getting its job done; unlike King's works, INCARNATE never lets up for comic relief, never once forgets that every scene is carefully crafted to advance the plot. At the same time, although the novel feels nicely balanced and well structured, it misses the wonderful compactness of narrative which Campbell brings to his short story writing... But all in all it's quite a fun read, and I would strongly recommend it to people who are tired of the chainsaw school of horror writing: '"... You do remember how it was, don't you? You must remember. ... How nobody will be sure what's behind a door until they open it, and how you'll never know where any street leads, and the worst thing you can do will be to ask someone the way..."' Not recommended for paranoid schizophrenics, Donn Seeley University of Utah CS Dept donn@utah-cs.arpa 40 46' 6"N 111 50' 34"W (801) 581-5668 decvax!utah-cs!donn