The Good Unknown and Other Ghost Stories
by Stephen Volk
(Tartarus Press, 2023)
(Tartarus Press, 2023)
Order the book direct from Tartarus Press here *HB SOLD OUT* PAPERBACK AND EBOOK STILL AVAILABLE
Order the paperback direct from Amazon
In this new collection of eleven stories, Stephen Volk explores the wide span of possibilities of the ghost story in its various manifestations — from hauntings set in the quotidian modern world, to ones that hark back to traditional, but no less chilling, tales of the past.
When battle-scarred army veterans are recruited for an archaeological dig in Wiltshire, more than bones are unearthed, in ‘Unrecovered’. A pleasure park becomes anything but pleasurable in ‘Three Fingers, One Thumb’. In ‘31/10’ a notorious, fateful BBC TV studio is revisited, while in ‘The Waiting Room’ a supernatural encounter makes Charles Dickens himself come to question both his creative inspiration and his fundamental beliefs.
Three brand new stories are included here: ‘The Crossing’, ‘Baby on Board’, and ‘Lost Loved Ones’ — the latter novella being a sequel to Volk’s television series Afterlife and a welcome return for him to the much-loved character of Alison Mundy, the troubled psychic medium, in a world post-Covid.
As with the rest of the book, these have the author’s trademark mixture of ‘horror and heartbreak’ (Nathan Ballingrud); qualities that have earned him praise as ‘one of our genre’s foremost practitioners in the short form’ (Peter Tennant, Black Static) and ‘one of the most provocative and unsettling of contemporary writers’ (Andy Hedgecock, Interzone).
CONTENTS:
Unrecovered
The Waiting Room
Three Fingers, One Thumb
31/10
The Good Unknown
The Flickering Light
Hoji the Fearless
Baby on Board*
Cold Ashton
Lost Loved Ones**
The Crossing
Acknowledgements
"Whether evoking the classic ghost story tradition or working in a more contemporary vein, Volk demonstrates complete mastery of the uncanny... Horror readers will be wowed" Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
Read the starred review at Publishers Weekly
"A fabulous collection. (The) Dickens story is worth the price alone. Glorious" Ashley Pharoah, co-creator, Life on Mars
"What’s real, what is imaginary, what’s possible—these are questions Volk excels in posing. This collection of eleven new stories orbits life after death like a satellite, taking readings and sending reports in the guise of story. The doggedness of the individual spirit, way after discarding the physical body, makes for uncanny tales of great depth... Every one will grab your throat while you look over your shoulder at that shadow in the corner. Best read in a quiet spot alone, so you can hear the voices" Clare Rhoden, Aurealis 169
"A brilliant collection of ten ghost stories. These succeed not only as examples of really exquisite writing (and there were frequently moments where I stopped to re-read a particularly outstanding or insightful sentence or paragraph), but as acutely considered character studies and moving meditations on loss. If I had to list my favourite stories, I would probably list them all, but standouts for me were The Waiting Room, featuring Charles Dickens (which is sublime), Three Fingers, One Thumb (which has an absolutely chilling ending), The Good Unknown (a quiet, haunting take on a Hollywood actress with a young unknown co-star), and Baby On Board (an encounter on the road between a police officer and a grieving father). But, as I said, this is a a near flawless collection of tales, and certainly an excellent choice if you want a quality Halloween read this October" Simon Avery, author of The Teardrop Method and Sorrowmouth
"To understand the supernatural, you have to understand what makes people tick. Stephen Volk has always got this, which is why his characters live and breathe and exist beyond these pages and his words. Couple that with description which puts you right in the scenes, compelling drama, and chills that stay with you long after you finish reading, and you have a master at work. I know it’s standard to compare authors to other authors, but The Good Unknown – and my particular favourite story, ‘Lost Loved Ones’, a long-awaited continuation of Afterlife – proves without a doubt that Volk is in a class of his own. An essential purchase for genre fans" Paul Kane, bestselling and award-winning author of Sherlock Holmes and the Servants of Hell, Before and the PL Kane thrillers
"Stephen Volk is not only one of our finest screenwriters, but one of our finest writers of short stories. His characterisation is deft and versatile and he can deliver an emotional gut-punch, a subtle sadness, or the deep eeriness of the supernatural with equal brilliance. Above all, he has the kind of smooth, swiftly immersive prose style that looks deceptively easy to do but is – as any writer knows – the hardest thing for an author to achieve. Any new collection of his is a prize, and The Good Unknown is no exception. Avail yourself of it at once" SImon Bestwick (Daniel Church, author of The Hollows)
"Stephen Volk’s ghostly tales are subtle, intelligent and brimming with a sense of unease. He can lull you into a fictive dream that feels closer than reality and cut you down with a finely-honed sentence. This is a superb collection from one of the most outstanding writers around" Alison Littlewood (A.J. Elwood), author of A Cold Season and The Hidden People
"Meticulously crafted, these stories are multi-faceted and brilliantly varied and imaginative. A masterful collection which demonstrates why Volk is justifiably regarded as one of the masters of short horror fiction" Lucie McKnight Hardy, author of Water Shall Refuse Them and Dead Relatives
"Stephen Volk has long been known for his dark tales, but The Good Unknown offers more than simply macabre thrills. From opener 'Unrecovered' to the deeply affecting title story, Volk displays a unique sensitivity and empathy for his characters, which makes the twist of the knife all the more painful when it comes. A startlingly good set of uncanny stories - but more than that, a wonderful collection of short fiction, period" Dan Coxon, award-winning editor of Writing the Uncanny, author of Only The Broken Remain
"A superb collection. I connected with all of the stories deeply in different ways. Two in particular quite literally moved me to tears" Stephen Laws, acclaimed author of Darkfall and Ghost Train
"Each of the eleven stories of The Good Unknown can stand up on its own; but together they add up to something more, to a different kind of telling of the ghost; for what is all the time engrossing in these stories is how we can never quite guess in what body or phantom the consciousness, feelings and thoughts of the story will settle. For by Volk’s craft, the story is the ghost, passing through walls, drifting down the shingle beach, floating in the waves, rising up in the dreams; not that annoying spectral thing that never explains itself, but instead a movement among things, a possessed volition, a curiosity without a will that hauls us in" Phil Smith, Mythogeography
Read the full review by Phil Smith at Mythogeography
"Stephen Volk's collection is superb - it's enough to make you believe in ghosts" Priya Sharma, World Fantasy Award-winning author of Pomegranates
"An excellent collection of compassionate, creepy and chilling stories - highly recommended" Alison Moore, author of The Lighthouse, He Wants and The Pre-War House and Other Stories
"This is another superb compilation from Stephen Volk, showing range and versatility and a compassionate insight that most writers can only envy. Highly recommended" Con Connolly, Phantasmagoria
"Stephen Volk is a legend in the horror and supernatural genre... a keen observer of human beings who get caught up in the supernatural, what makes them vulnerable to the strange and unexplainable, and the kind of things that happen when they start to believe them. Like all of his work, The Good Unknown is a must-read" David Surface, author of Terrible Things
"Stephen Volk is the master of the modern ghost story, as skilled in the short story form as he is as a screenwriter. The stories in this latest excellent collection are beautifully written – subtle, clever, often thought-provoking and always genuinely disturbing" Alex Walters, author of the DCI Kenny Murrain paranormal crime series
"The Good Unknown and Other Ghost Stories is another triumph from Volk, digging deep into the human condition via an extraordinary range of voices, perspectives, and periods. Often melancholic, frequently eerie or chilling, and above all, very, very human. Highly recommended" Kit Power, Ginger Nuts of Horror
Read the full review by Kit Power at Ginger Nuts of Horror
"The author makes the 'downright impossible' feel as real as the summoning of Charles Dickens, as he once summoned for me Peter Cushing and Alfred Hitchcock. Summoning (also) ghostly echoes of Dickens' Signalman - as we grapple with the narrative painter and Dickens himself in a conundrum of plagiarism... and the poignant secrets thus revealed. A ghost story for ghost story lovers" Des Lewis on "The Waiting Room"
"Some very fine writing by Stephen Volk, whose ability to pinpoint the subtle nuances of grief and loss, the haunting absences and aches of words unspoken, often blended with the eerie and uncanny, has reached new heights in this book" James Downs, author of Anton Walbrook, Joseph Pike, and A Carnal Medium
"Extremely impressive... in the otherworldly way perhaps associated with an earlier writer from Wales - Arthur Machen" Matthew G Rees, Nation.Cymru (Picks of 2023)
Read the review at Nation.Cymru
"A splendid book (by) a renowned, excellent author of dark fiction" Mario Guslandi, Hellnotes
Read the review at Hellnotes
"A fantastic and thought-provoking collection of ghost stories, one that is not just content to break the mould, but has great fun in assembling the pieces into new, imaginative and intelligent shapes" Jim Moon, Microgoria
Listen to the review on Hypnogoria: Microgoria
"Grief and loss infiltrate almost all the stories here, along with the need for closure... sometimes it's obtained, sometimes not, although both outcomes provide their own horrors along the way. Another outstanding collection from Stephen Volk (and) a book I heartily recommend" Anthony Watson, Dark Musings
Read the full review by Anthony Watson at Dark Musings
Order the paperback direct from Amazon
In this new collection of eleven stories, Stephen Volk explores the wide span of possibilities of the ghost story in its various manifestations — from hauntings set in the quotidian modern world, to ones that hark back to traditional, but no less chilling, tales of the past.
When battle-scarred army veterans are recruited for an archaeological dig in Wiltshire, more than bones are unearthed, in ‘Unrecovered’. A pleasure park becomes anything but pleasurable in ‘Three Fingers, One Thumb’. In ‘31/10’ a notorious, fateful BBC TV studio is revisited, while in ‘The Waiting Room’ a supernatural encounter makes Charles Dickens himself come to question both his creative inspiration and his fundamental beliefs.
Three brand new stories are included here: ‘The Crossing’, ‘Baby on Board’, and ‘Lost Loved Ones’ — the latter novella being a sequel to Volk’s television series Afterlife and a welcome return for him to the much-loved character of Alison Mundy, the troubled psychic medium, in a world post-Covid.
As with the rest of the book, these have the author’s trademark mixture of ‘horror and heartbreak’ (Nathan Ballingrud); qualities that have earned him praise as ‘one of our genre’s foremost practitioners in the short form’ (Peter Tennant, Black Static) and ‘one of the most provocative and unsettling of contemporary writers’ (Andy Hedgecock, Interzone).
CONTENTS:
Unrecovered
The Waiting Room
Three Fingers, One Thumb
31/10
The Good Unknown
The Flickering Light
Hoji the Fearless
Baby on Board*
Cold Ashton
Lost Loved Ones**
The Crossing
Acknowledgements
"Whether evoking the classic ghost story tradition or working in a more contemporary vein, Volk demonstrates complete mastery of the uncanny... Horror readers will be wowed" Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
Read the starred review at Publishers Weekly
"A fabulous collection. (The) Dickens story is worth the price alone. Glorious" Ashley Pharoah, co-creator, Life on Mars
"What’s real, what is imaginary, what’s possible—these are questions Volk excels in posing. This collection of eleven new stories orbits life after death like a satellite, taking readings and sending reports in the guise of story. The doggedness of the individual spirit, way after discarding the physical body, makes for uncanny tales of great depth... Every one will grab your throat while you look over your shoulder at that shadow in the corner. Best read in a quiet spot alone, so you can hear the voices" Clare Rhoden, Aurealis 169
"A brilliant collection of ten ghost stories. These succeed not only as examples of really exquisite writing (and there were frequently moments where I stopped to re-read a particularly outstanding or insightful sentence or paragraph), but as acutely considered character studies and moving meditations on loss. If I had to list my favourite stories, I would probably list them all, but standouts for me were The Waiting Room, featuring Charles Dickens (which is sublime), Three Fingers, One Thumb (which has an absolutely chilling ending), The Good Unknown (a quiet, haunting take on a Hollywood actress with a young unknown co-star), and Baby On Board (an encounter on the road between a police officer and a grieving father). But, as I said, this is a a near flawless collection of tales, and certainly an excellent choice if you want a quality Halloween read this October" Simon Avery, author of The Teardrop Method and Sorrowmouth
"To understand the supernatural, you have to understand what makes people tick. Stephen Volk has always got this, which is why his characters live and breathe and exist beyond these pages and his words. Couple that with description which puts you right in the scenes, compelling drama, and chills that stay with you long after you finish reading, and you have a master at work. I know it’s standard to compare authors to other authors, but The Good Unknown – and my particular favourite story, ‘Lost Loved Ones’, a long-awaited continuation of Afterlife – proves without a doubt that Volk is in a class of his own. An essential purchase for genre fans" Paul Kane, bestselling and award-winning author of Sherlock Holmes and the Servants of Hell, Before and the PL Kane thrillers
"Stephen Volk is not only one of our finest screenwriters, but one of our finest writers of short stories. His characterisation is deft and versatile and he can deliver an emotional gut-punch, a subtle sadness, or the deep eeriness of the supernatural with equal brilliance. Above all, he has the kind of smooth, swiftly immersive prose style that looks deceptively easy to do but is – as any writer knows – the hardest thing for an author to achieve. Any new collection of his is a prize, and The Good Unknown is no exception. Avail yourself of it at once" SImon Bestwick (Daniel Church, author of The Hollows)
"Stephen Volk’s ghostly tales are subtle, intelligent and brimming with a sense of unease. He can lull you into a fictive dream that feels closer than reality and cut you down with a finely-honed sentence. This is a superb collection from one of the most outstanding writers around" Alison Littlewood (A.J. Elwood), author of A Cold Season and The Hidden People
"Meticulously crafted, these stories are multi-faceted and brilliantly varied and imaginative. A masterful collection which demonstrates why Volk is justifiably regarded as one of the masters of short horror fiction" Lucie McKnight Hardy, author of Water Shall Refuse Them and Dead Relatives
"Stephen Volk has long been known for his dark tales, but The Good Unknown offers more than simply macabre thrills. From opener 'Unrecovered' to the deeply affecting title story, Volk displays a unique sensitivity and empathy for his characters, which makes the twist of the knife all the more painful when it comes. A startlingly good set of uncanny stories - but more than that, a wonderful collection of short fiction, period" Dan Coxon, award-winning editor of Writing the Uncanny, author of Only The Broken Remain
"A superb collection. I connected with all of the stories deeply in different ways. Two in particular quite literally moved me to tears" Stephen Laws, acclaimed author of Darkfall and Ghost Train
"Each of the eleven stories of The Good Unknown can stand up on its own; but together they add up to something more, to a different kind of telling of the ghost; for what is all the time engrossing in these stories is how we can never quite guess in what body or phantom the consciousness, feelings and thoughts of the story will settle. For by Volk’s craft, the story is the ghost, passing through walls, drifting down the shingle beach, floating in the waves, rising up in the dreams; not that annoying spectral thing that never explains itself, but instead a movement among things, a possessed volition, a curiosity without a will that hauls us in" Phil Smith, Mythogeography
Read the full review by Phil Smith at Mythogeography
"Stephen Volk's collection is superb - it's enough to make you believe in ghosts" Priya Sharma, World Fantasy Award-winning author of Pomegranates
"An excellent collection of compassionate, creepy and chilling stories - highly recommended" Alison Moore, author of The Lighthouse, He Wants and The Pre-War House and Other Stories
"This is another superb compilation from Stephen Volk, showing range and versatility and a compassionate insight that most writers can only envy. Highly recommended" Con Connolly, Phantasmagoria
"Stephen Volk is a legend in the horror and supernatural genre... a keen observer of human beings who get caught up in the supernatural, what makes them vulnerable to the strange and unexplainable, and the kind of things that happen when they start to believe them. Like all of his work, The Good Unknown is a must-read" David Surface, author of Terrible Things
"Stephen Volk is the master of the modern ghost story, as skilled in the short story form as he is as a screenwriter. The stories in this latest excellent collection are beautifully written – subtle, clever, often thought-provoking and always genuinely disturbing" Alex Walters, author of the DCI Kenny Murrain paranormal crime series
"The Good Unknown and Other Ghost Stories is another triumph from Volk, digging deep into the human condition via an extraordinary range of voices, perspectives, and periods. Often melancholic, frequently eerie or chilling, and above all, very, very human. Highly recommended" Kit Power, Ginger Nuts of Horror
Read the full review by Kit Power at Ginger Nuts of Horror
"The author makes the 'downright impossible' feel as real as the summoning of Charles Dickens, as he once summoned for me Peter Cushing and Alfred Hitchcock. Summoning (also) ghostly echoes of Dickens' Signalman - as we grapple with the narrative painter and Dickens himself in a conundrum of plagiarism... and the poignant secrets thus revealed. A ghost story for ghost story lovers" Des Lewis on "The Waiting Room"
"Some very fine writing by Stephen Volk, whose ability to pinpoint the subtle nuances of grief and loss, the haunting absences and aches of words unspoken, often blended with the eerie and uncanny, has reached new heights in this book" James Downs, author of Anton Walbrook, Joseph Pike, and A Carnal Medium
"Extremely impressive... in the otherworldly way perhaps associated with an earlier writer from Wales - Arthur Machen" Matthew G Rees, Nation.Cymru (Picks of 2023)
Read the review at Nation.Cymru
"A splendid book (by) a renowned, excellent author of dark fiction" Mario Guslandi, Hellnotes
Read the review at Hellnotes
"A fantastic and thought-provoking collection of ghost stories, one that is not just content to break the mould, but has great fun in assembling the pieces into new, imaginative and intelligent shapes" Jim Moon, Microgoria
Listen to the review on Hypnogoria: Microgoria
"Grief and loss infiltrate almost all the stories here, along with the need for closure... sometimes it's obtained, sometimes not, although both outcomes provide their own horrors along the way. Another outstanding collection from Stephen Volk (and) a book I heartily recommend" Anthony Watson, Dark Musings
Read the full review by Anthony Watson at Dark Musings
*Click here to find out more about the short film of Baby on Board, directed by Andrew David Barker
**Click here to find out more about the digital download audiobook of Lost Loved Ones, read by Lesley Sharp and produced by Bafflegab Productions
Not forgetting this *FREE DOWNLOAD*: Remembering Afterlife - a conversation between Stephen Volk and Lesley Sharp about their experience of making the award-winning ITV drama series and how the sequel, "Lost Loved Ones", came to be written (Bafflegab Productions)
Click on the Blog page to hear The Failed Writers Podcast: Stephen Volk and Ciaran O'Keefe on Writing Ghost Stories
Plus I spill all about The Good Unknown in an exclusive interview with Kit Power of Ginger Nuts of Horror. Includes full story notes for the contents and a discussion of the book's themes, inspirations and aspirations (Nov 28, 2023)
**Click here to find out more about the digital download audiobook of Lost Loved Ones, read by Lesley Sharp and produced by Bafflegab Productions
Not forgetting this *FREE DOWNLOAD*: Remembering Afterlife - a conversation between Stephen Volk and Lesley Sharp about their experience of making the award-winning ITV drama series and how the sequel, "Lost Loved Ones", came to be written (Bafflegab Productions)
Click on the Blog page to hear The Failed Writers Podcast: Stephen Volk and Ciaran O'Keefe on Writing Ghost Stories
Plus I spill all about The Good Unknown in an exclusive interview with Kit Power of Ginger Nuts of Horror. Includes full story notes for the contents and a discussion of the book's themes, inspirations and aspirations (Nov 28, 2023)
