Demons by Daylight, Ramsey Campbell's second collection of weird tales, includes a number of stories which are, I would argue, nominally part of Campbell's Severn Valley Cthulhu Mythos cycle: 'Potential' (one of my favourite stories by Campbell), 'Made in Goatswood' and 'The Interloper' - none of which, interestingly, are included in PS Publishing's Visions from Brichester. I think that there are a few others from Demons By Daylight also set in Brichester and surrounding environs. In this respect, this is very much a transitional work, where Campbell continues to incorporate key thematic elements of the Lovecraftian milieu in his tales, whilst also abandoning many of its stylistic trappings in the finding of his own, very modern, voice. For those reasons this is one of my favourite collections of Campbell's work.
Whilst Campbell has continued to return to Lovecraftian themes in later novels and stories, his post-Demons by Daylight output has tended to gravitate more towards exploring urban alienation via forms of spectral, uncanny and psychological horror than the cosmic - although there is more in the way of explicit Lovecraftian/Cthulhu Mythos horror to look forward to by way of some of Campbell's forthcoming novels. Appropriately, my paperback edition of Demons by Daylight (shown here) was kindly signed by Ramsey just before he gave a reading from one of his new Cthulhu Mythos novels at NecronomiCon 2015!
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