This is a novel book. Dr. John Silence is best described as a doctor of the psychic world, a Sherlock Holmes of hauntings and psychic phenomenon and these stories are an interesting introduction to him. In A Psychical Invasion, the reader is introduced to the techniques of the good doctor with a story that is the least rewarding of the three. However, it serves as a good foundation for the remainder of the stories. It is in Ancient Stories that Blackwood really shines and as he tells the adventures of the narrator trapped in an eerie French provincial town, he presents a story with such a strong atmosphere of awe the reader cannot help but be strangely moved just by the prose.
