Tartarus Press
Gathering together lost souls on the Sussex Downs, houses demolished and rediscovered, and half-remembered dreams, The Sanctuary and Other Strange Stories collects uncanny fiction written by R.B. Russell over two decades. Many stories are rooted in moments of real life, but are transformed into something disquieting, from the enigmatic commune of ‘The Sanctuary’ to the ex libris of a lost artist, these stories drift between memory, history and imagination.
Inspired by writers as varied as Mark Valentine and Ian Fleming, Robert Aickman, and Reggie Oliver, and shaped by influences, from forgotten cults and stamp collecting, Russell’s tales explore the boundaries between the ordinary and the otherworldly. Love, death, music and off-beat literary researches intertwine, giving rise to stories that feel both intimate and unsettling.
I've had the pleasure of reading Ray's fiction (and non-fiction) several times over the last few years and happily I have his new essay collection 'Bibliomancy & Other Essays' here on the top of the TBR mountain, but accompanying me on my recent travels has been this rather fine collection of short fictions that thanks to some health issues I've been reading on and off whenever I felt up to it over several months.
As the co-publisher of Tartarus Press it'll come as no surprise that the strange and the supernatural loom large in these stories but threaded through you'll find other of his interests such as cults and espionage. Ray's love of a spy gives a distinct ITC spy-fi flavour to many of the stories and you can taste traces of a youth spent watching shows like 'The Prisoner', 'The Champions', and 'The Saint'. Alongside this his fascination with the likes of the Scientologist cult, the Brotherhood of the Cross & Star, The Temple of Psychic Youth and T. Lobsang Rampa all of whom he wrote about in his book headed by his biography of the Plympton lama, 'T. Lobsang Rampa And Other Characters of Questionable Faith'.
Obviously it's a collection and in every collection you'll find yourself more invested in some stories more than others. My interest in cults pales next to my love of spy-fi which lives deep in the shadow of my abiding love of a strange and spooky story. There is though a lot to be said for breaking up your reading of a collection such as this one and so it got read piecemeal which helped as I kept coming back to it fresh and being re-immersed into Ray's story worlds.
It's a cracking read. I've read a few of Ray's shorts before but I'm mostly familiar with his longer form work and so to see his obvious mastery of the form was a joy and this is heartily recommended to all connoisseurs of the strange.
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