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“Some writers haunt entire landscapes with their visions: Peter Ackroyd’s London, Joel Lane’s Birmingham. All the same, urban weirdness – however we might define it – is rarer. You’ll know it when you see it; I claim to, at any rate. Its two modern masters are Thomas Ligotti and Mark Samuels. Each has transformed the big city into something profoundly personal yet uncannily recognisable… There are echoes of Lovecraft in some of the tales, and in “A Gentleman from Mexico” Samuels writes a full-scale tribute. It respects the man’s philosophy in a way that very few Lovecraft imitations do – but then, this isn’t one; it’s a cosmic distance from the kind of slavish pastiche referred to in the tale. It finds a witty way for Lovecraft’s worldview to enter our world, and in the mental stasis that overtakes the protagonist, it’s true to one of Lovecraft’s most important criteria for the field – that the behaviour of the characters should be psychologically realistic. It’s a triumphant coda to a fine and varied collection, and it makes me want to go back and start reading the book once more. If you’ll excuse me, perhaps I shall rejoin the train. Perhaps I never got off.”
— Ramsey Campbell in his introduction