{"id":6020,"date":"2026-02-19T23:48:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T21:48:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/betweendrafts.com\/justdrafts\/?p=6020"},"modified":"2026-04-03T19:57:38","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T17:57:38","slug":"cold-hand-in-mine-eight-strange-stories-by-robert-aickman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/betweendrafts.com\/justdrafts\/2026\/02\/19\/cold-hand-in-mine-eight-strange-stories-by-robert-aickman\/","title":{"rendered":"Cold Hand in Mine: Eight Strange Stories<\/em> by Robert Aickman"},"content":{"rendered":"

The reason I picked up this (original) collection was, of course, the short story \u201cThe Hospice.\u201d Which is indeed terrific, not only as a \u201cstrange story\u201d but as an intensely disturbing horror story. As for most of the other stories, alas, they\u2019re not my cup of tea.<\/p>\n

To call these stories \u201cstrange,\u201d it appears to me, is a polite way of saying that they leave the reader baffled at the end. (Or even fall flat, as in \u201cThe Swords,\u201d except if you cast everything in psychoanalytical terms.) But that\u2019s not the only thing that makes them less enjoyable than they could be. Behind each story, in general, is an interesting and promising core idea. But the bulk of the story then develops more or less like a mainstream story, which, while nicely written, has only vaguely to do with the core idea, if at all, and fails to fall into place and connect with the ending.<\/p>\n

In one of the stories, \u201cPages from a Young Girl\u2019s Journal,\u201d the reverse happens, but not in its favor. The mainstream narrative develops along curious motifs that are more intriguing than the story\u2019s core idea itself (the more so as this core idea and its outcome are obvious two pages in). And in the end it\u2019s not the perfectly clear ending that is baffling, for a change, but that all the other mysterious ongoings have fallen by the wayside. (This story is quite famous too, and I read a few reviews that made sort of sense in, again, psychoanalytical terms, so your mileage may vary.)<\/p>\n

To wrap it up, there are two stories in this collection I\u2019d wholeheartedly recommend: \u201cThe Hospice,” as mentioned, and \u201cMeeting Mr Millar.\u201d The latter might leave you baffled as well, but the increasingly rambunctious events around that mysterious new tenant Mr. Millar are well written and thoroughly enjoyable.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

Aickman, Robert. Cold Hand in Mine: Eight Strange Stories<\/em>. Gollanz, 1975. Reprint Faber & Faber<\/a>, 2014.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\ud83d\udcda Two out of eight. Also, very English.<\/p>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-6020","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-archive","7":"h-entry","8":"hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/betweendrafts.com\/justdrafts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/betweendrafts.com\/justdrafts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/betweendrafts.com\/justdrafts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/betweendrafts.com\/justdrafts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/betweendrafts.com\/justdrafts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6020"}],"version-history":[{"count":35,"href":"https:\/\/betweendrafts.com\/justdrafts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6378,"href":"https:\/\/betweendrafts.com\/justdrafts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6020\/revisions\/6378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/betweendrafts.com\/justdrafts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/betweendrafts.com\/justdrafts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/betweendrafts.com\/justdrafts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}