Nearly People
PS Publishing, 2001
Finalist, International Horror Guild Award
Finalist, British Fantasy Award
“Williams brings the decayed and plague-ridden streets of his apocalyptic city to life though words and description directed with vivid economy. The use of metaphor and symbolism elevates this tale beyond a simple recitation of woe or grim harbinging for the future.”
SF Site
“…this novella will astonish you… a poetic and evocative work of fantasy… the ending is a tersely delivered shock that will take your breath away. This book is a first rate advertisement for fantasy as a serious literary medium.”
Joel Lane
“Like Hieronymus Bosch or M. John Harrison, he is a painter of infernos, his torments always briskly inventive, his grotesquerie always delineated with flair… pure visionary acid. Nearly People is cruelly brilliant, a dagger in the vitals.”
Infinity Plus
“Williams immerses the reader in world of bizarre imagery and language. They are so perfectly matched to something outside the reader’s ken that it’s as if you’re getting transmissions from a foreign radio program. The reader knows that the speaker is referring to a concrete reality that is created by the words, but enticingly just beyond the reader’s reach. Place names, creature names, human names, descriptions — they all contribute to creating a very realistic surreal milieu. Every bit of dirt, the taste of the gritty liquids, the feel of the viscous meat as it slides down the throat — the reader is there, whether or not they want to be. The prose is powerful, poetic. But don’t be put off by the poetry, because Williams also knows how to write a pulse-pounding tale of terror. The tension in Nearly People is nearly unbearable.”
Trashotron
Game
Earthling Publications, 2004
“Game is a novella that takes the material of very hardboiled crime fiction and adds a horror/dark fantasy twist. It’s a story diamond-hard in tone, studded with imagery that will stay in your mind whether you like it or not.”
Infinity Plus
“With the audacious violence and profanity of a Quentin Tartantino flick and the dystopian ambiance of Anthony Burgess’ 1962 classic A Clockwork Orange, Game by Conrad Williams is an unabashedly brutal novel about revenge, desperation – and inevitable karma. Fans who enjoy their horror extremely rare (pink on the inside with a lot of blood) and their characters evil personified will enjoy this intriguing novella.”
SF Reader
“It’s easy to get lost in the darkness. This is particularly true in the world of written fiction. When every turn leads into a dark alley or a blood-spattered abattoir, when every character is either deprived or depraved, the words have to shine with a beauty absent in the subject. Even plot velocity won’t carry the reader where the light never shines. It takes talent. Conrad Williams brings the power of poetry, the beauty of finely written prose, the delightful specificity of carefully chosen words to bear on that which will brook no discussion in even uncivilized circles. His novella Game is an example of how great writing can plumb the depths with a precision that brings pleasure even while describing agonizing pain. Unlike many works that tread this territory, this novella is a pure — and highly effective — work of horror. Williams matches his environmental distress with the emotional equivalent. The underpinning of all this is prose that begs to be read aloud. But don’t plan on doing so unless your audience is handcuffed to a metal pole in the midst of an empty warehouse, or really, really loves horror. Or appreciates the finest prose that money can buy, applied to the darkest visions the mind can contain. In a brief 80 pages, Williams’ prose unpacks a nightmare that keeps unfolding after the narrative is finished. For those who doubt that horror is still an effective art form, Williams rises up from the dark with a knife and a digital camera. He’ll be sending you a JPEG you’ll hope to forget; so powerful is his writing that you’ll wish your memory was as easily erasable as the card in your camera.”
Trashotron
The Scalding Rooms
PS Publishing, 2007
Finalist, Shirley Jackson Award
Winner, British Fantasy Award
“By the time you finish The Scalding Rooms you won’t know what hit you, partly because of the book’s concluding ambiguity, and partly because of its nonstop intensity. Either way, you’ll be left wanting more.”
Fantasy Book Critic
“This book is dark, seriously dark. This is a nightmare world. These characters live hard and desperate lives. The world they inhabit is ruined. It has the feel of a world recovering from an Armageddon. Red Meadows is surrounded by a seemingly endless desert of black glass, as though the result of an inferno. These wastelands are dangerous places populated by semi-savage cannibalistic tribes, degenerating back into an atavistic state. This book is compelling. I cannot say I enjoyed it in the truest sense, I don’t think this is the kind of book that you will truly enjoy. It’s a little too disturbing for that. But it is a book I am very glad to have read. Williams prose is very evocative.”
Eternal Night
“Conrad Williams is well known for writing dark, dark horror and there is none more black than this one. Conrad Williams is also noted for the strength and quality of his writing and this is a standout example. 5/5”
Tales from the Black Abyss
Rain
Gray Friar Press, 2007
Finalist, British Fantasy Award
“A short but strong story, like a summer storm, and it left a powerful mark on my mind.”
Dark Wolf’s Fantasy Reviews
“The writing is moody, evocative, involving, packed with incidental detail and chillingly perfect metaphors, Williams equally adept at describing the almost sublime eroticism of happier times and the gut wrenching horror of the finale… Williams’s skill at creating atmosphere, delineating damaged characters and simply shocking the reader to the core is as evident here as in any of his longer works.”
Black Static
Conrad Williams 