NOTABLE WORKS REVIEW: “Know Your Code” by Ramsey Campbell
NOTABLE WORKS
REVIEW: “Know Your Code” by Ramsey Campbell
Reviewed by Penny Jones.
Short story published in Chiral Mad 3: An anthology of psychological horror, edited by Michael Bailey, published by Written Backwards.
Trigger Warning: This article addresses mental health.
Synopsis: A retired teacher encounters a down-on-his-luck former student at the cash dispenser, prompting him to change his security numbers in a tale of spiralling paranoia and memory loss.
The horror you feel reading Ramsey Campbell’s story “Know Your Code” may be a quiet, creeping horror, but it is one that we all feel. In the story, as in our own lives, it is an insidious horror that sneaks up on us, often catching us unaware. In his story Campbell makes us think, what is worse: the loss of a loved one to dementia, or your own mind failing you. Are you following the same awful path as your wife, or is it the strain and stresses of caring for her, protecting her; not wanting to lose what little you have left of each other. And this is what this story is ultimately about loss. Loss of ourselves, of loved ones, of our memories and histories, of our place in society. Campbell’s story is exquisitely written and nuanced. If the horror of our own minds isn’t enough, he also shines a light on the prejudices of our society, both conscious and subconscious. Campbell shows us how even the “simple” changes, which are made to make our lives “easier”, have a huge impact on those who are often the most vulnerable in our society. What is innovative for a business, can be just another trial for their customers. Then if the horror of ourselves and the horror of society isn’t enough, Campbell rips the carpet out from under you at the end of the story.
“Know Your Code” may not be what you traditionally think of when you think of visceral horror, but for me this story is body horror. As what do you have left once you have lost yourself.
Penny Jones knew she was a writer when she started to talk about herself in the third person (her family knew when Santa bought her a typewriter for Christmas when she was three). Penny’s debut collection “Suffer Little Children” published by Black Shuck Books was shortlisted for the 2020 British Fantasy Award for Best Newcomer, and her short story “Dendrochronology” published by Hersham Horror was shortlisted for the 2020 British Fantasy Award for Best Short Story. Her novella “Matryoshka” published by Hersham Horror was shortlisted for the 2022 British Fantasy Award for Best Novella. And her second collection “Behind a Broken Smile” published by Black Shuck Books was shortlisted for the 2023 British Fantasy Award for Best Collection.
She loves reading and will read pretty much anything you put in front of her, but her favourite authors are Stephen King, Shirley Jackson and John Wyndham. In fact Penny only got into writing to buy books, when she realised that there wasn’t that much money in writing she stayed for the cake. You can find Penny at www.penny-jones.com
Ramsey Campbell (born 4 January 1946) is an English horror fiction writer, editor and critic who has been writing for well over fifty years. He is the author of over 30 novels and
hundreds of short stories, many of them winners of literary awards. Three of his novels have been adapted into films.
Since he first came to prominence in the mid-1960s, critics have cited Campbell as one of the leading writers in his field: T.E.D. Klein has written that “Campbell reigns supreme in the field today”, and Robert Hadji has described him as “perhaps the finest living exponent of the British weird fiction tradition”, while S. T. Joshi stated, “future generations will regard him as the leading horror writer of our generation, every bit the equal of Lovecraft or Blackwood.” In a 2021 appreciation of his collected works, The Washington Post said: “Taken together, they constitute one of the monumental accomplishments of modern popular fiction.” Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Ramsey Campbell is the winner of four World Fantasy Awards, eleven British Fantasy Awards, the Horror Writers of America Lifetime Achievement Award, the World Horror Convention’s Grand Master Award and many other honours in the horror and fantasy fields. He is the only living horror writer to appear in the Oxford Companion to English Literature.
www.ramseycampbell.com
