The Dummy: & Other Uncanny Stories

The Dummy: & Other Uncanny Stories

"An uncanny effect often arises when the boundary between fantasy and reality is blurred . . ." - Sigmund Freud Nicholas Royle's stories are "immaculately sinister", according to Olivia Laing in the Times Literary Supplement , while Phil Baker, in the Sunday Times , described Royle as "a real craftsman of disquiet". In his third collection, The Dummy & Other Uncanny Stories , Royle focuses on archetypes and phenomena that, through their particular melding of the familiar and the unfamiliar, produce uneasy, or uncanny, effects. These stories reflect Royle's continuing development as an exponent of the form, in which he is always seeking to learn and to grow, and to push against boundaries. "Royle's dark fiction is always worth reading . . . His storytelling is impeccable, his plots always interesting and his characters credible." - SFRevu Nicholas Royle is the author of five short story collections-Mortality, Ornithology, The Dummy, London Gothic, and Manchester Uncanny-and seven novels, including Counterparts, Antwerp, and First Novel. He has edited more than twenty-five anthologies and is series editor of Best British Short Stories. He runs Nightjar Press, which publishes original short stories as signed, numbered chapbooks. His English translation of Vincent de Swarte's 1998 novel Pharricide was published by Confingo Publishing in 2019. In 2021 his first book of non-fiction, White Spines: Confessions of a Book Collecter, was published by Salt.