BOOK DETAILS
Trade paper ISBN-13: 978-1941147269 List Price: $17.99 U.S. Pages: 208 Published: 2014 |
Beam of Malice (1966)
Alex Hamilton With a new introduction by the Author Book Description
Alex Hamilton’s contributions to the famous Pan Books of Horror Stories series quickly secured his reputation as one of the best and most original writers of macabre tales of his generation. Beam of Malice (1966), his first collection, features many of his finest and most unsettling tales and showcases his unique and unusual imagination. In these stories, Hamilton does not rely on ghosts, the supernatural, or the standard machinery of gothic fiction in order to induce his chills. Instead, his horrors spring from the familiar, with ordinary people finding their lives suddenly and inexplicably invaded by bizarre, disturbing, and sometimes deadly occurrences. Beam of Malice was acclaimed by critics when originally published, earning comparisons with the short stories of Saki and John Collier, and has been championed more recently by Ramsey Campbell, who writes that Alex Hamilton ‘is one of the absolute masters of the sunlit nightmare, the tale of insidious disquiet and relentless unease. He’s a true original, and it’s past time that he took his place in the pantheon of the elegantly macabre.’ This edition contains fifteen stories, including ‘The Attic Express’, which has been recognized as a classic of the genre, as well as a new introduction by the author. |
reviews
‘Alex Hamilton is one of the absolute masters of the sunlit nightmare, the tale of insidious disquiet and relentless unease. He's a true original, and it's past time that he took his place in the pantheon of the elegantly macabre.’ – Ramsey Campbell
‘Alex Hamilton is a master of the short, dark story.’ – Susan Hill (author of The Woman in Black)
‘He turns ordinariness inside out like a glove to show the darkness inside.’ – Robert Nye
‘Hamilton has a vibrantly wicked imagination comparable to Roald Dahl. . . . The author is a precise stylist, a talented terrorist.’ – Kirkus
‘A Saki-like atmosphere and effect in which the strange is suddenly interjected into the real as if it were really there all the time waiting to be discovered.’ – Choice
‘Alex Hamilton is a master of the short, dark story.’ – Susan Hill (author of The Woman in Black)
‘He turns ordinariness inside out like a glove to show the darkness inside.’ – Robert Nye
‘Hamilton has a vibrantly wicked imagination comparable to Roald Dahl. . . . The author is a precise stylist, a talented terrorist.’ – Kirkus
‘A Saki-like atmosphere and effect in which the strange is suddenly interjected into the real as if it were really there all the time waiting to be discovered.’ – Choice
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Alex Hamilton was born in 1930 and was educated first in South America, then England and Oxford University. After experimenting with a wide variety of jobs, he turned to writing full-time in the early 1960s, beginning by alternating novels with short story collections such as Wild Track (1963), which, although not macabre, caught the attention of Herbert Van Thal, editor of the popular Pan Books of Horror Stories series. Hamilton went on to contribute stories to this and many other series, including his most celebrated, ‘The Attic Express’, and in 1966 he published his own collection, Beam of Malice, which won widespread acclaim in both England and the United States. During the 1960s and ’70s he also edited several collections of macabre and horror fiction containing early works by many important writers, including William Trevor, Anthony Burgess, Robert Nye, and Michael Moorcock, among others.
His last novel, The Dead Needle, was a macabre blend of fantasy and reality, but after publishing his third collection, Flies on the Wall (1972), Hamilton, now with a growing family to feed, worked increasingly in journalism, most notably for the Guardian, where he wrote about books and publishing as well as travel (in which he won several awards) for twenty-five years, and for the BBC World Service. Recently, a collection of Hamilton’s interviews with a remarkable array of authors over a fifty-year span, from Dennis Wheatley and John Wyndham to Gunter Grass and Chinua Achebe, was issued by Troubador.
Widely praised when first published, Hamilton’s short stories fell into a long period of neglect but are now being rediscovered, with a hardcover edition from the esteemed Ash-Tree Press in 2007 and recent praise from Britain’s foremost living horror author, Ramsey Campbell.
His last novel, The Dead Needle, was a macabre blend of fantasy and reality, but after publishing his third collection, Flies on the Wall (1972), Hamilton, now with a growing family to feed, worked increasingly in journalism, most notably for the Guardian, where he wrote about books and publishing as well as travel (in which he won several awards) for twenty-five years, and for the BBC World Service. Recently, a collection of Hamilton’s interviews with a remarkable array of authors over a fifty-year span, from Dennis Wheatley and John Wyndham to Gunter Grass and Chinua Achebe, was issued by Troubador.
Widely praised when first published, Hamilton’s short stories fell into a long period of neglect but are now being rediscovered, with a hardcover edition from the esteemed Ash-Tree Press in 2007 and recent praise from Britain’s foremost living horror author, Ramsey Campbell.