Over the last few years Flame Tree Press has undoubtedly become the new home-from-home for horror legend Ramsey Campbell, who have released a number of both new novels and repackaged a number of his older works. His latest release, The Incubations, coincides with the celebrations connected to the author’s sixty years since he was first published. As a reader I have particularly enjoyed Campbell’s association with Flame Tree Press, the blend of old and new fiction is nicely balanced due to the fact that his recent output is so strong Campbell does not need to fall back upon past glories. However, mining one of the most outstanding back-catalogues in 20th century horror fiction for rereleases such as Ancient Images, The Influence (1988) and the much more recent Three Births of Daoloth trilogy is a clever move, hopefully bringing this unique talent to a younger generation of readers.

Although many of Campbell’s recent novels have been top drawer, check out Thirteen Days at Sunset Beach (2018), The Wise Friend (2020), Somebody’s Voice (2021) and The Lonely Lands (2023), his latest tested my patience. It was not a long book, and I never came close to abandoning it, but it ended when things were warming up after a lot of faffing around. There was barely anything supernatural in large parts of the novel which might well frustrate many readers. As I’ve read most of Campbell’s recent fiction, I have noticed his central characters have just become too samey; they’re argumentative, usually cross and always angry about something or someone. They also have an annoying habit of continually answering a question with their own question. Leo Parker is the main can in The Incubations and is slightly younger than most of Campbell’s main characters but behaves exactly the same as all the others lurching between bewilderment and confusion. He was incredibly unlikable and I had zero sympathy for the predicament he finds himself in.

The premise of The Incubations had a lot of promise but the manner in which it was delivered was clunky, much too talky, and underwhelming. Leo works as a driving instructor and after a trip to the German town of Alphafen (near Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest) begins to have nightmares and is paranoid something has followed him from Germany back to the UK. Historically, his local town has been paired with Alphafen and he renews a pen pal contact from his childhood. There are further complications brought on by the fact that this area was very badly bombed by Britain in the Second World War with questions over where blame and guilt ought to lie.

Bubbling in the background is the idea that there were occult or supernatural goings on during the war and that they are far from dead, tracking Leo back in the UK. Ramsey Cambell novels are usually littered with memorable scenes and set pieces; this was rather pedestrian and I struggled to follow the timeline from the war era, via the pen pal letters to Leo as an adult. On one occasion Leo tries to buy and then busy a mobile phone, on others avoids telephone calls from Germany, furtherly gets into a confrontation after helping a seemingly lost child. He seems to be permanently confused and the scenes with his parents, the success of their driving school, was more soap opera than horror. Accusations are thrown willy-nilly, (somebody might have poisoned the punch!) but this came across as an episode of Midsummer Murders, rather than a horror novel. There many well be Lovecraftian strands lurking in the ether but they were much to far in the background for my taste and there was very little to unsettle in this rather bland offering.

Long term fans may well be able to glean some nuggets from The Incubations, but of all the Campbell novels I have read this was one of the weakest and is not one I would recommend to a reader looking to investigate his work. In my recently published The YA Horror 400 almanac the prologue discusses some of my favourite adult horror novels and those I recommended to teenagers in the school library where I work and recount the story of a sixteen year old boy who said he had a nightmare after reading The Grin of the Dark (2007). So if you are looking to explore Ramsey Campbell, that’s the place to start, where you will discover this magnificent author at his terrifying best.

It starts with an ordinary man who works as a driving instructor for the family firm, but Leo Parker’s life of turning novices into safe drivers is about to abruptly change. He starts seeing things and has nightmares so vivid, the lines between his dream world and everyday life become hopelessly blurred.

But it is about to get worse. Much, much worse. A trip to Alphafen – near Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest – appears to have left a frightening legacy and, as Leo discovers, when the Weber family talk about Alps, they don’t necessarily mean the picturesque mountain range. These are creatures and they have strayed out of the legends and targeted Leo.

This latest novel, published sixty years after Ramsey Campbell’s first story – The Inhabitant of the Lake - is an enthralling story encompassing elements of the Nazi obsession with the supernatural and cult of the master race, mixed in with Lovecraftian threads and woven together in the author’s inimitable style. The sense of creeping dread that pervades Campbell’s work is well to the fore and keeps the reader hooked and guessing to the end.

Ramsey Campbell has lost none of his ability to tantalize, intrigue, hook and send us, his readers, scurrying under our duvets, hoping the monsters he has so clearly presented on the page don’t come after us.

The Incubations is for anyone who loves great fiction and accomplished prose, served up with a ticking time bomb and a twisted ending.

I'm usually a fan of Campbell's work but this one read as a bit of a disjointed mess. The prose was all over the place and the story almost indiscernible. Not one for me.

I’m giving this a three on the strength of it being a really terribly paced first book in a trilogy as opposed to a really terrible stand alone book. Very little gels and there are a lot of extraneous elements.

Another instant classic from the wonderful Mr Campbell. Only he can make eating salad, trying to locate a dropped mobile phone or walking along the street feel like truly horrific moments. This tale combines ancient curses, Nazi occultism and everyday paranoia into a fine stew that will have fans of Campbell (and horror fans in general) looking over their shoulders and seeing things that shouldn’t be there. Highly recommended.