We in the United States have led a blissfully sheltered existence when it comes to attacks by external enemies. Bypassing the dreadful single-day incident of 9/11 (and setting aside the incalculable devastation of our Civil War of 1861–65), we have to go all the way back to the war with Great Britain of 1812–14 to come upon a time when our country was actually invaded by a foreign foe.

England and Europe have not been so lucky. The two world wars of the twentieth century resulted in untold misery for nearly everyone who was alive during that time, and the relics of the destruction that unrelenting bombing caused can still be seen across the continent. The German blitz of 1940–41 left scars in England that have not yet healed, while the Allies’ appallingly cruel and needless bombing of Dresden and other German cities even as the Nazis were on their last legs cannot be called anything but a war crime.

Ramsey Campbell was born a year after the conclusion of World War II, but I do not recall any major work in which he addresses the devastation—physical and psychological—of that conflict. That has all changed with his new novel, The Incubations.

At the outset we hardly seem to be dealing with war wounds. Leo Parker, a driving instructor, experiences inexplicable slips of the tongue (“Bulfinch Terror” for “Bulfin Terrace”) that would be funny—and will no doubt drive translators to distraction—were it not that these verbal tics are interpreted by his client, Lucy Fenton, as making fun of her own dyslexia. She is so flustered that she cannot take a scheduled driving test. Leo himself now finds some difficulty in operating a vehicle—a serious threat to his livelihood. His father, Brian, who founded the business (Pass With Parker), has to take over Leo’s pupils.

Meanwhile, Leo sees a psychologist, Anita Chattopadhyay, to see if he can get to the bottom of his anomalous ailment. He recounts an incident from his childhood where he and a friend, Billy Wallace, broke into a deserted munitions factory that had been bombed during the war. As he is horsing around in the property, Billy ends up dying in a hideous accident (“The end of the metal beam had rammed deep into his head, leaving no room for a face”). Leo naturally feels guilty, although he cannot possibly have been responsible for his friend’s demise.

The town near Liverpool in which Leo lives, Settlesham (it is fictitious), is a “twin” city with a German town, Alphafen (also fictitious), which had been senselessly bombed by the Allies. The idea was to seek reconciliation after the war by emphasizing the common humanity of the people in both countries, and Leo participated in writing to a citizen of Alphafen, Hanna Weber; indeed, he was the only one in Settlesham who continued to write to his penpal after others had given up the task. Now Leo takes his first trip to the German city, where he meets Hanna and her parents, Emil and Gitte.

It is at this point that Campbell’s patented ability to create unease through ambiguous dialogue comes to the fore. While outwardly friendly, there is a sinister undercurrent in what the Germans say in response to Leo’s comments and queries about their town. Is it simply that their English is not quite up to grade? Leo is lavishly treated to a dinner in which the citizens of the entire city appear to be present; but he learns from an Engliush tourist, Jerome Pugh (who turns out to be something of a neo-Nazi), that Hitler was in Alphafen—and, indeed, for some mysterious reason found it of especial interest. An embittered German man, Dietrich Gebhardt, confronts Leo: “Your bombs were meant to cast down Hitler, but they raised his spirits.” Indeed, it appears that the bombing was “some sort of sacrifice.”

Jerome Pugh later meets up with Leo in England, making cryptic remarks about the effect of the English bombing of Alphafen: “The creatures must have taken all those deaths for nourishment.” What creatures are these? It appears that “Alp” does not only refer to a mountain; Leo finds that “the alp [is] a nightmare creature . . . [that] might be related to the elf,” and that it induces nightmares. What are we to make of the butterfly that flew into Leo’s face when he was in Alphafen (a name that could well mean “refuge of the alp”), and that appears to have somehow been caught in his luggage as he returns to England? Why is it that, after he gives a lecture—illustrated by the photographs he took with his mobile phone—the photographs have all disappeared?

Most dreadful of all, there is every reason to believe that Leo had “infected someone with dread.” Could the townspeople of Alphafen have infected Leo so that he “would be used to take their revenge on Settlesham”? From this point onward, things become increasingly harried and alarming for Leo. He feels he must destroy his phone, which may be the conduit for the creatures that are incubating within him; but this only leads to trouble with the police. His parents are afflicted with baffling ailments. But when he tells his girlfriend, Ellen, of his suspicions, she understandably scoffs and presents an elaborate psychological explanation of the whole situation. But then Jerome Pugh makes a dramatic and chilling warning about the alps:

“They’re the essence of the dark. They come up from the caves under the mountains and bring their darkness with them. Not a dark you can see, one you can feel. It feels as if you’re trapped where there’s never any light with things that need the dark to live in, and they delight in making you more afraid. It’s what they feed on."

The Incubations may be one of Ramsey Campbell’s quieter horror novels, but its relentless accumulation of unnerving details makes it a fearsomely compelling read from beginning to end. Campbell performs an exquisite dance between psychological terror and supernatural dread, and the plight of his well-meaning protagonist is keenly etched in a way that will cause every reader to feel for him and hope he can triumph over his baffling affliction—but with little confidence that he will do so. Lurking behind it all is the lingering shadow of Hitler’s war, a cataclysm that has indelibly scarred the people and the nations that were dragged into it.

Ramsey Campbell, who is celebrating the sixtieth anniversary of the publication of his first book, shows with The Incubations that he remains the premier writer of weird fiction in our time, and perhaps of all time.

S. T. Joshi is a leading authority on H. P. Lovecraft, Ambrose Bierce, H. L. Mencken, and other writers, mostly in the realms of supernatural and fantasy fiction.