THE CENTURY'S BEST HORROR FICTION #55: A review of "Ringing the Changes" by Robert Aickman

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Well, so much for our hope from the previous entry. Pelan fucks up again by selecting a story that is somehow more boring than the last. We can be grateful that it’s shorter, but it’s annoying that it’s not shorter by much.



Gerald and Phrynne are newly weds, and it seems to be a big deal that she’s considerably younger than he. Since we’re still talking the so-called good ol’ days, it’s kind of a big deal. But they’re on their honeymoon, so they don’t really care. They stop off in a small town, where, you guessed it, nothing happens for the first three-quarters of the story. It’s them hanging out, meeting people, having dinners, and talking about the strange bells that sound off throughout the town.


Bells? Right. Two churches sound off, and they think that’s kind of weird. In a town this small, you’d only need one set, right? Well, it turns out that the other church is interested in using their bells to wake the dead.


Yeah. It’s one of those stories.


Since this is a horror story, you can guess that they succeed. The end (and this really isn’t a spoiler unless you still wear diapers and demand that Mommy bring you milk by bawling your eyes out) is an orgy of the dead dancing and celebrating in the streets, but, not to put too fine a point on it, WHO CARES? By the time you reach that point in the story, you just want it to be over.


Pelan’s a pretty perceptive guy. As with all such editors, they are not infallible. This means that he can’t possibly fuck up three times in a row. Tomorrow’s review, by necessity, must be favorable. Tune in and find out.

[This story first appeared in THE THIRD GHOST BOOK and cannot be read online at this time.]