Rest in peace, Mark Samuels

[Doctor Dugald Eldritch]

I have just been informed of the tragic passing of Mark Samuels at the age of fifty-six. I believe he died peacefully in his sleep, ten years on after another much-missed English master of the uncanny, Joel Lane. I was, and am, an admirer of his nightmarish fictions, which harkened back to Machen and Lovecraft, with inspiration also drawn from the likes of Ligotti and Borges and de Quincey. In his depiction of a universe blighted by metaphysical rot and evil, people by questers after the spectral and spiritually-malnourished loners, he was unmatched. Whether transcendent or decadent or absurdist, his style and themes were at once recognisable, his settings either his native London or that eerie Mitteleuropa where the supernatural and grotesque thrive; and, though he had a reputation for quarrelsomeness, his passion for the mystic and wyrd served as a beacon of inspiration for many, and he was always welcoming and jovial on the occasions when we met.

So, farewell, Mark; the Graal loses another champion.