A Look at Ramsey Campbell’s Far Away & Never by Bill Ward Legendary British Horror author Ramsey Campbell’s prolific and best-selling output has been the stuff of nightmares – in a good way! – for more than a half-century. From his Lovecraftian roots to his contemporary novels of psychological and supernatural horror, Campbell continually pushed the frontiers of both his chosen genre and his own stylistic expression. A style Stephen King described as “so uniquely Campbell that it might as well be trademarked,” infusing a body of work that, at least in the opinion of uber-critic S.T. Joshi, ensures “future generations will regard [Campbell] as the leading horror writer of our generation, every bit the equal of Lovecraft or Blackwood.” But Campbell hasn’t had to wait for future generations to garner his honors, winning nearly every applicable literary award in his lifetime, plus more than a few with names like “Grand Master” and “Lifetime Achievement” in the title. In short, Campbell is right at the top of the Horror pantheon – and once upon a time, he wrote some sword-and-sorcery. Campbell’s sword-and-sorcery fiction, his entire fantasy output aside from some stories completed from Solomon Kane fragments for Baen Books, is collected in Far Away & Never, a slim volume released by Necronomicon Press nearly 25 years ago – but recently updated with an additional story and reprinted by DMR Books. Four stories in the collection chronicle the adventures of the wandering swordsmen Ryre that Campbell wrote by request for Andrew J. Offutt’s classic anthology series Swords Against Darkness. Others are works of dark fantastic secondary world horror, and one is a Howard pastiche in the form of Campbell’s contribution to the odd round-robin novel Ghor, Kin-Slayer. Ryre, a name that connotates to my ear both wryness and ire, is a grim blade in a grim land. Audiences met him in the first volume of Swords Against Darkness in 1977 in a creepy tale that has since achieved cult status,“The Sustenance of Hoak.” From a fiery and fast-paced-start which sees Ryre force himself into the decrepit walled town of Hoak, rumored to harbor a fabulous treasure, the story squirms into “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” territory as he interacts with a population overcome with a sinister lassitude. At Hoak’s center, a malignant tree thrives, worshiped by the population, the offshoots of...