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Ramsey Campbell
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Scared Stiff: Tales of Sex and Death Paperback – August 2, 2003

by Ramsey Campbell (Author), Clive Barker (Introduction)
3.7 3.7 out of 5 stars 24 ratings
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Ramsey Campbell has won four World Fantasy Awards, ten British Fantasy Awards, and the Horror Writers' Association's Lifetime Achievement Award. Publishers Weekly calls Campbell "a horror writer's horror writer," adding, "His control of mood and atmosphere is unsurpassed." The Cleveland Plain Dealer says his horror fiction is "of consistently high quality," and The Washington Post praises Campbell for continuing "to break new ground, advancing the style and thematic content of horror fiction far beyond the works of his contemporaries."

The original publication of Scared Stiff almost created the sub-genre of erotic horror. Never had sex and death been so mesmerizingly entwined. Clive Barker, in his Introduction, says, "One of the delightfully unsettling things about these tales is the way Ramsey's brooding, utterly unique vision renders an act so familiar to us all so fretful, so strange, so chilling. Sex . . . is the perfect stuff for the horror writer, and there can be few artists working in the genre as capable of analyzing and dramatizing [this] as Campbell."

For this edition, Campbell has added three new stories which have never before appeared in book form.

Previous page
  1. Print length
    240 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publication date
    August 2, 2003
  4. Dimensions
    5.5 x 0.75 x 8.5 inches
  5. ISBN-10
    0765306050
  6. ISBN-13
    978-0765306050
  7. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Sex is explicit here, and [the stories] are darker and more chilling for it.” ―Publishers Weekly

About the Author

Ramsey Campbell has won more awards than any other living author of horror or dark fantasy, including four World Fantasy Awards, nine British Fantasy Awards, three Bram Stoker Awards, and two International Horror Guild Awards. Critically acclaimed both in the US and in England, Campbell is widely regarded as one of the genre's literary lights for both his short fiction and his novels. His classic novels, such as The Face that Must Die, The Doll Who Ate His Mother, and The Influence, set new standards for horror as literature.  His collection, Scared Stiff, virtually established the subgenre of erotic horror.
 
Ramsey Campbell's works have been published in French, German, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, and several other languages. He has been President of the British Fantasy Society and has edited critically acclaimed anthologies, including Fine Frights. Campbell's best known works in the US are Obsession, Incarnate, Midnight Sun, and Nazareth Hill.



Clive Barker is the best-selling author of more than twenty novels and collections of short stories that range from horror to fantasy. He has had much success in film, directing Hellraiser and Nightbreed.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Tor Books; Enlarged edition (August 2, 2003)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 240 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0765306050
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0765306050
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 7.7 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.75 x 8.5 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.7 3.7 out of 5 stars 24 ratings

About the author

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Ramsey Campbell

Ramsey Campbell

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Ramsey Campbell (born 4 January 1946 in Liverpool) is an English horror fiction writer, editor and critic who has been writing for well over fifty years. Two of his novels have been filmed, both for non-English-speaking markets.

Since he first came to prominence in the mid-1960s, critics have cited Campbell as one of the leading writers in his field: T. E. D. Klein has written that "Campbell reigns supreme in the field today", and Robert Hadji has described him as "perhaps the finest living exponent of the British weird fiction tradition", while S. T. Joshi stated, "future generations will regard him as the leading horror writer of our generation, every bit the equal of Lovecraft or Blackwood."

Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by Jamiespilsbury (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Customer reviews

3.7 out of 5 stars
3.7 out of 5
24 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

James Robert Smith
5.0 out of 5 stars Campbell
Reviewed in the United States on August 2, 2023
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Ramsey Campbell is the finest living writer of short weird fiction. Nobody else creates these stories so effectively. The tales here are truly disturbing and spine-chilling.
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Human Shield
2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing and dull
Reviewed in the United States on December 21, 2016
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Two things I like mixed together are horror and eroticism, especially since one man's nightmare fuel is another man's turn-on. I expected great things from this book, which attempted to intentionally combine the two...and I was sorely disappointed. The 'eroticism', if it can so be called, was so dull and vanilla that I skimmed most of it - read one vanilla sex scene and you've pretty much read them all. There's so much more to eroticism than simply describing sex, but this author didn't seem to grasp that. To make matters worse, it didn't even get beyond heterosexual sex.
The horror was equally banal - mostly humans doing bad things to other humans. Even the stories that featured supernatural elements were entirely about humans using magic to do bad things to other humans. It was very depressing; I expected better from a man who wrote pastiches to the great Lovecraft; where were the tentacles and dark gods and the red-light districts from beyond the stars?
In fairness, a lot of the horror did involve the sex; they weren't just horror stories with sexy bits in, but they could have been so much more.
As with all things erotic, YMMV, but this one was a snore-fest for me, and the bland sex made my flesh crawl more than the horror did.
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Kindle Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
Reviewed in the United States on April 16, 2015
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love ramsey campbell, have you ever read midnight sun? i'm still working on this one.
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Tate Dixon
1.0 out of 5 stars Disappointed
Reviewed in the United States on July 25, 2022
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It' been nearly 2 months... I just want the book I paid for.
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Diane G.
5.0 out of 5 stars Unlike anything I've read
Reviewed in the United States on June 25, 2015
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This is a great book. My library withdrew it from circulation [chickens] so I bought this because it's good to dip into one of the stories every now and then.
2 people found this helpful
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thor
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on August 18, 2014
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Nice slip cased edition - perfect shape
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Jonathan C Neurath
2.0 out of 5 stars skip this one
Reviewed in the United States on May 6, 2013
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the short stories can be confusing and tough to follow, nevermind the fact that they simply arent very entertaining. 2 stars might be generous.
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Kindle Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars Not Free SF Reader
Reviewed in the United States on January 26, 2008
A short selection of Campbell's story wherein he is dealing more explicitly with
sexuality, from the disturbed and the alone kind, to the volunteer for group ritual with bad end variety. They are pretty decent, overall, with a 3.45 average.

Scared Stiff : Dolls - Ramsey Campbell
Scared Stiff : The Other Woman - Ramsey Campbell
Scared Stiff : Lilith's - Ramsey Campbell
Scared Stiff : The Seductress - Ramsey Campbell
Scared Stiff : Stages - Ramsey Campbell
Scared Stiff : Loveman's Comeback - Ramsey Campbell
Scared Stiff : Merry May - Ramsey Campbell
Scared Stiff : The Limits of Fantasy - Ramsey Campbell
Scared Stiff : The Body in the Window - Ramsey Campbell
Scared Stiff : Kill Me Hideously - Ramsey Campbell

Coven lubrication.

3 out of 5

Throat art.

3.5 out of 5

Artificial Love Mate.

3 out of 5

Must satisfy.

3.5 out of 5

It's a trip to not do it by myself.

3.5 out of 5

Sexual summoning.

4 out of 5

Ritual ending.

4 out of 5

New scenes.

3 out of 5

Spin show recognition.

3.5 out of 5

Like to be a victim, please.

3.5 out of 5
4 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Mr. S. J. Mulcahy
5.0 out of 5 stars Lynn - these are sex people!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 2, 2017
Verified Purchase
A great read. Sex and Horror intertwined and not horror stories with sex bolted on for no purpose like a lot of horror stories / films.
One person found this helpful
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Drew Rowsome
3.0 out of 5 stars Tales of Sex and Death
Reviewed in Canada on November 3, 2015
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Ramsey Campbell's Scared Stiff appears on every list of "great" or "must read" horror books and the introduction by Clive Barker raves. As research, or for completists, I can see where it is a collection of important stories. As a collection of horror stories, or as a collection of erotica or erotic horror, most of Scared Stiff falls flat.
When the stories were first published they must have been groundbreaking. And probably quite shocking and unusual, many of the stories were originally censored or banned. The afterword is quite possibly the most fascinating section: Campbell talks about his inspiration and details what it was like the '70s when most of the stories were written. Sex was not talked about, written about or depicted, let alone fetishes or sex mixed with horror.
A contemporary reader will find Scared Stiff a bit, pardon the pun, stiff. The stories all have elements of impotence and rape. The men's erections all become huge, swollen and throbbing, the women are all loose, gaping and wet. Spanking is a common fetish. It all seems rather quaint and the absence of political correctness is not done for a horrific effect, but because it was a time before being politically correct was de rigueur.
The stories that are riffs on horror tropes - a man is sexually sacrificed by a village, a voyeur is punished, a witch avenges her son - benefit from Campbell's classical prose. The repression simmers so that when it bubbles to the surface and pokes out its head, or other organs, it is as if Stoker or Poe suddenly dared to be somewhat explicit.
However when Campbell is explicit, it is often awkward (though not so much when rape is involved which is disturbing on a whole other level) in the same nerdy manner that King and Koontz have trouble writing sex scenes. A sex doll, the ultimate in compliance, is posited as the perfect partner and the doll's revenge and fate are ambiguously handled and ultimately flaccid.
Campbell is the bridge between the vampires of Stoker and vampires of Anne Rice or Twilight. But, as Clive Barker states, Campbell also made it possible for The Books of Blood, Poppy Z Brite and many others. Campbell is considered a master of the genre and an important figure so I'm glad I read all the stories in Scared Stiff. I just wish I had enjoyed them more.
Full review at: http://drewrowsome.blogspot.ca/2015/09/scared-stiff-tales-of-sex-and-death.html
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spyder
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 29, 2015
Verified Purchase
what it says on the cover good
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