The book was okay, I am mostly at odds with Aickman’s fiction. There are always scenes or images in them that make them worth reading but the time it takes to do so seems to outweigh the benefit. If you were to break his strange tales into three acts, the second act would be over-long and packed with mundane details and a general feeling of repetitiveness. The third would start on a genuinely creepy note and then carry on, almost too long as well, gradually fading out on a vague or ambiguous note.
This does provide his work with a strange quality of dreaminess occupying the mundane world with an occasional intense image intruding into daily life and merging the two. However, this makes the stories in this book a little bit of a slog halfway through. This construction of his does work extremely well in one story in this book, The Wine Dark Sea. It works as well in another of his stories, which does not appear in this collection: Ringing the Changes.
I did not feel that this was a waste of my time and I am glad that I read it. I especially like as I said before, the first story and namesake of the collection. Here the dreaminess in is in full effect. In another story, the image of the corpse tangled in a phone cord was a chiller. However, that story, Your Tiny Hand is Frozen, (great title by the way) definitely felt excessively long. The Trains in my opinion was the weakest tale in this collection although it was not bad it was an okay thriller/light-horror story.
Overall, I would probably read more of Robert Aickman's stories hoping for at least a strange image and a strong hint of a strange atmosphere. As for this collection, it’s okay. I would recommend this to someone who already is a fan though.
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Lovely stories that are superbly narrated. ( )

Having been a one-time lover of traditional stories by some of the greats of the last century or century and a half, I was much more at home with these tales than I might have been otherwise, assuming that I was in for tales of horror and the macabre.

What we have here are subtle tales that evoke more with atmosphere and themes of travel and disturbing discoveries than outright hack and slash.

My personal favorite was a retelling of [b:Death in Venice|53061|Death in Venice|Thomas Mann|http://images.gr-assets.com/books/1410132000s/53061.jpg|17413130] with a particularly fantastical bent and no sign of Mann's character's other proclivities in "Never Visit Venice".

Indeed, most of these must be fantastical retellings of classic short stories and novellas, or at least it seems so, with the twists of bygone days, of tourists of different flavors, and even of stories such as the "Wine-Dark Sea" itself which appears to be a modernized retelling of the Isle of the Lotus Flowers or sometime quite similar.

Trains, vacations, buisiness trips, unexpected strangers... all of these things make a collection of stories filling us with awe and wonder even when we're steeped in the commonplace. Indeed, it's the commonplace that leads us to our dooms when we're pushed right off the ledge or when we experience something completely inexplicable, patted on our heads, and then sent on our way.

The author doesn't hold our hands. In fact, he insists that we ponder and try to figure out just what we had experienced. I have to say I like it.

Again, if you're looking for a pat collection of stories, look elsewhere, but if you love detailed and niggling-darkness creeping up on you with stories that harken back to all the more traditional mainstream stories from the turn of the last century through the fifties, then look no further. We've got advanced horror techniques going on here mixed fully with old-style classics. :)
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Aickman was a master of horror stories - not blood, gore and vampire horror, but unsettling horror, like Poe. This is a collection of fairly lengthy suspenseful stories, most of which are quite lengthy. The beginnings of the stories are quite detailed; we get to know the characters very well. Sometimes the plot is outlined, sometimes it is not apparent and the characters drift into situations. Oftentimes the endings are ambiguous, or simply puzzling. I thought the title story, The Wine-Dark Sea, was the best, with the Inner Room a close second. ( )

A fine collection of quiet horror stories masterfully written. Some of these tales were genuinely wonderful, classics of the genre. and stood out, even amongst their most excellent peers. Highly recommended to fans of intelligent, articulate prose, and quiet, unsettling horror. ( )