Featuring the voice of actor Benedict Cumberbatch, The Nightjar was a creepy SF game sponsored by Wrigley’s chewing gum for free download onto iPhone.
For fans of H. P. Lovecraft, the Cthulhu Waterglobe was inscribed with the author’s famous couplet from the Necronomicon, or you could create your own eldritch lore with the Lovecraftian Letters magnetic words, which came in a metal tin containing more than 500 pieces.
The first issue of 2011 by Britain’s Royal Mail, “FAB: The Genius of Gerry Anderson”, featured six stamps honouring the TV creator’s five decades of work with Supercar, Fireball XL5, Stingray, Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet and Joe 90. The set also included the UK’s first-ever lenticular set that depicted the “4-3-2-1” opening sequence of Thunderbirds when the stamps were tilted back and forth.
In March, the Royal Mail issued a set of eight stamps celebrating “Magical Realms” with two images each from the Harry Potter movies, Terry Pratchett’s “Discworld” books, C. S. Lewis’ “Chronicles of Narnia” series and Arthurian Legend. The special presentation pack included an essay by Kim Newman about British magical fantasy.
In July, an insert poster for the 1936 Universal movie Werewolf of London sold for $47,800 (including 19.5 per cent Buyer’s Premium) at auction, and five months later, Orson Welles’ 1942 Oscar for Best Screenplay for Citizen Kane sold for $861,542 to an anonymous bidder.
Universal Studios added a “King Kong 360/3-D Ride” to its Hollywood amusement park. Created by Peter Jackson, the ride was promoted as the “world’s largest 3-D experience”.
Meanwhile, over at Disney World and Disneyland, a new 3-D Star Wars motion-simulator ride offered a different combination of more than fifty story elements, making every trip a unique experience.
An historic 1925 carousel in the George F. Johnson Recreation Park in Binghamton, New York, was refurbished in August with various scenes from The Twilight Zone painted by Cortlandt Hull. Rod Serling, the creator of the show, rode the same carousel as a boy and used it as the basis of a 1959 episode entitled “Walking Distance”.
The 2011 World Horror Convention was held in Austin, Texas, over 28 April–1 May. Guests of Honour were authors Jack Ketchum (Dallas Mayr), Joe Hill and Sarah Langan, ChiZine editors Brett Alexander Savory and Sandra Kasturi, British artist Vincent Chong, and media writer Steve Niles.
Brian Keene and bookseller Del Howison were Special Guests, and Joe R. Lansdale was Toastmaster. Jack Ketchum was given the convention’s Grand Master Award in a ceremony on the Friday night.
The winners of the Horror Writers of America 2010 Bram Stoker Awards for Superior Achievement were announced at the Stoker Awards Weekend in Uniondale, New York, on 19 June.
In a whole raft of announcements, the Silver Hammer Award for outstanding service to the HWA was presented to Angel Leigh McCoy, The President’s Richard Laymon Service Award went to Michael Colangelo, and Joe Morey of Dark Regions Press received the award for Specialty Press.
The Poetry Collection award went to Bruce Boston for Dark Matters, Gary A. Braunbeck’s To Each Their Darkness received Non-Fiction, and Stephen King’s Full Dark No Stars picked up Collection. The Anthology award was given to Haunted Legends edited by Ellen Datlow and Nick Mamatas, while Joe R. Lansdale’s story “The Folding Man” from the same book received the Short Fiction award. Long Fiction was given to Norman Prentiss for Invisible Fences, the First Novel award was a tie between Black and Orange by Benjamin Kane Ethridge and Castle of Los Angeles by Lisa Morton, and Peter Straub was presented with the Superior Achievement in a Novel award for A Dark Matter.
It had been previously announced that Ellen Datlow and veteran EC artist Al Feldstein each received Life Achievement Awards.
Celebrating the thirty-fifth British Fantasy Convention, FantasyCon 2011 was held in Brighton, England, over 30 September–2 October. Guests of Honour were Gwyneth Jones, John Ajvide Lindqvist, Peter Atkins and Joe Abercrombie. Brian Aldiss and Christopher Paolini were Special Guests and Sarah Pinborough was Mistress of Ceremonies.
The British Fantasy Awards were presented at a banquet on the Sunday afternoon. The awards for Best Film and Best Television went to Christopher Nolan’s Inception and the BBC’s Sherlock, respectively. Best Graphic Novel was At the Mountains of Madness: A Graphic Novel by I. N. J. Culbard, Best Magazine was Andy Cox’s Black Static, and the Best Small Press award went to Telos Publishing for the second year running.
Vincent Chong won Best Artist, and his book Altered Visions:The Art of Vincent Chong also picked up the Best Non-Fiction award. Back from the Dead: The Legacy of the Pan Book of Horror Stories edited by Johnny Mains was awarded Best Anthology, and Stephen King’s Full Dark, No Stars was announced Best Collection. Best Novella was presented to Humpty’s Bones by Simon Clark, while Sam Stone collected Best Short Story for “Fool’s Gold” (from The Bitten Word) and The August Derleth Award for Best Novel for Demon Dance, the third volume in the “Vampire Gene” series.
The Sydney J. Bounds Award for Best Newcomer went to Robert Jackson Bennett for his novel Mr Shivers, and Terry Pratchett was announced as the recipient of the Karl Edward Wagner Special Award.
Following the presentation of the awards, there was almost instant condemnation from many people in the audience who quickly realised that at least four of the winners were directly connected to the small press imprint run by the British Fantasy Society’s current Chairman/Awards Administrator/Co-Presenter (making it the most successful publisher in the forty-year history of the awards), while both the Best Short Story and Best Novel awards had gone to his partner.
While there was no evidence of any wrongdoing on anyone’s part, the subsequent online controversy, which also made the national press in Britain, resulted in the formation of an interim BFS committee and the entire voting process being made far more transparent in future.
Held in San Diego, California, over 26–30 October, World Fantasy Convention 2011 stuck rigorously to its somewhat watery theme of “Sailing on the Seas of Imagination”, thereby leaving Guests of Honour Jo Fletcher, Neil Gaiman, Parke Godwin, editor Shawna McCarthy and artist Ruth Sanderson, along with Toastmaster Connie Willis, a little becalmed.
As usual, the World Fantasy Award winners were announced at the banquet on the Sunday afternoon. The Special Award, Non-Professional Award went to Alisa Krasnostein for Twelfth Planet Press, and Marc Gascoigne received the Special Award, Professional for his Angry Robot imprint.
Best Artist was Kinuko Y. Craft, Karen Joy Fowler’s What I Didn’t See and Other Stories won Best Collection, and My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me edited by Kate Bernheimer was awarded Best Anthology.
The Best Short Story Award went to Joyce Carol Oates’ “Fossil-Figures” (from Stories: All-New Tales) and Elizabeth Hand’s “The Maiden Flight of McCauley’s Bellerophon” (from the same anthology) won Best Novella. In a surprisingly feminist list of winners, the Best Novel Award went to Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor, who subsequently complained about the award being in the form of a bust of H. P. Lovecraft, because she considered the author “a talented racist”. Her reaction was mostly based on a poem Lovecraft wrote almost a century earlier, when he was in his early twenties.
Peter S. Beagle and Angélica Gorodischer had previously been announced as the recipients of Life Achievement Awards for having demonstrated outstanding service to the fantasy field.
I’ve talked about integrity and the validity of awards in these pages before, and I don’t plan to go into the controversy surrounding the 2011 British Fantasy Awards any more than I have already done so elsewhere, other to say that I believe that people know when they really do or do not deserve to win an award, and they have to live with their actions – and the consequences of those actions – for the rest of their lives.
I’m not sure how worthwhile any award is if you know that you have actively campaigned to win it.
I would also not be surprised if many readers are now scratching their heads at some of the winners of the Worl
d Fantasy Awards above and asking themselves “Who?”
You may also have noticed that with this volume, the editorial matter is shorter than in recent editions of this series. This is because, according to my publishers (and a handful of “reviewers” on Amazon), the non-fiction elements are superfluous to the rest of the book, and they have ordered me to cut this material, despite the fact that it costs them nothing extra in editorial fees to include.
On a more positive note, I am delighted to announce that with this twenty-third volume, The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror has surpassed both Ellen Datlow’s The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror (twenty volumes) and Karl Edward Wagner’s The Year’s Best Horror Stories (twenty-two volumes) as the longest-running “Year’s Best” horror anthology series of all time!
We could not have done it without the authors, readers and booksellers who have continued to support these volumes for more than twenty years. Thank you all, and special thanks to Nick Robinson and my current editor, Duncan Proudfoot, for their continued belief in me and this series.
See you all in volume twenty-four!
The Editor
May, 2012
RAMSEY CAMPBELL
Holding the Light
RAMSEY CAMPBELL WAS BORN in Liverpool, where he still lives with his wife Jenny. His first book, a collection of stories entitled The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants, was published by August Derleth’s legendary Arkham House imprint in 1964, since when his novels have included The Doll Who Ate His Mother, The Face That Must Die, The Nameless, Incarnate, The Hungry Moon, Ancient Images, The Count of Eleven, The Long Lost, Pact of the Fathers, The Darkest Part of the Woods, The Grin of the Dark, Thieving Fear, Creatures of the Pool, The Seven Days of Cain and the movie tie-in Solomon Kane.
His short fiction has been collected in such volumes as Demons by Daylight, The Height of the Scream, Dark Companions, Scared Stiff, Waking Nightmares, Cold Print, Alone with the Horrors, Ghosts and Grisly Things, Told by the Dead, and Just Behind You. He has also edited a number of anthologies, including New Terrors, New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, Fine Frights: Stories That Scared Me, Uncanny Banquet, Meddling with Ghosts, and Gathering the Bones: Original Stories from the World’s Masters of Horror (with Dennis Etchison and Jack Dann).
“‘Holding the Light’ came out of an experience in Rhodes two years ago, at Epta Piges (‘Seven Springs’),” recalls the author. “During the occupation, Italians constructed an irrigation tunnel there, 180 metres long and very much like the one that figures in my tale. It’s a favourite stop on guided tours and turned up on two that we took. You won’t be surprised that I was delighted to go through it both times, though others in the party stayed out.
“Pete Crowther had mentioned a Hallowe’en chapbook he wanted to publish, including several new tales. Sadly, the event he wanted to build it around didn’t work out, but by that time I’d written my contribution, and he published it as a singleton.
“As soon as I went through the Epta Piges tunnel the first time I knew I had a tale for him.”
AS HIS COUSIN followed him into the Frugoplex lobby Tom saw two girls from school. Out of uniform and in startlingly short skirts they looked several years older. He hoped his leather jacket performed that trick for him, in contrast to the duffle coat Lucas was wearing. Since the girls were giggling at the cinema staff dressed as Hallowe’en characters, he let them see him laugh too. “Hey, Lezly,” he said in his deepest voice. “Hey, Dianne.”
“Don’t come near us if you’ve got a cold,” Lezly protested, waving a hand that was bony with rings in front of her face.
“It’s just how boys his age talk,” Dianne said far too much like a sympathetic adult and blinked her sparkly purple eyelids. “Who’s your friend, Tom?”
“It’s my cousin Lucas.”
“Hey, Luke.”
Lezly said it too and held out her skull-ringed hand, at which Lucas stared as if it were an inappropriate present. “He’s like that,” Tom mumbled but refrained from pointing at his own head. “Don’t mind him.”
“Maybe he doesn’t want to give you his germs, Lezly.” To the boys Dianne said “What are you going to see?”
“Vampire Dating Agency,” Lucas said before Tom could make a choice.
“That’s for kids,” Lezly objected. “We’re not seeing any films with them.”
“We don’t have to either, do we, Lucas?” Tom said in a bid to stop his face from growing hotter. “What are you two seeing?”
“Cheerleaders with Guts,” Dianne said with another quick glittery blink.
“We can’t,” Lucas informed everyone. “Nobody under fifteen’s allowed.”
Tom glared at him as the girls did. At least none of the staff dealing with the noisy queues appeared to have heard the remark. Until that moment Tom had been able to prefer visiting the cinema to any of the other activities their parents had arranged for the boys over the years – begging for sweets at neighbours’ houses, ducking for apples and a noseful of water, carving pumpkins when Lucas’s received most of the praise despite being so grotesque only out of clumsiness. Now that the parents had reluctantly let them outgrow all this Tom seemed to be expected to take even more care of his cousin. Perhaps Lucas sensed his resentment for once, because he said “We don’t have to go to a film.”
“Who doesn’t?” said Dianne.
Tom wanted to say her and Lezly too, but first he had to learn “Where, then?”
“The haunted place.” When nobody admitted to recognising it Lucas said “Grinfields.”
“Where the boy and girl killed themselves together, you mean,” Lezly said.
“No, he did first,” Dianne said, “and she couldn’t live without him.”
It was clear that Lucas wasn’t interested in these details, and he barely let her finish. “My mum and dad say they did it because they watched films you aren’t supposed to watch.”
“My parents heard they were always shopping,” Tom made haste to contribute. “Them and their families spent lots of money they didn’t have and all it did was leave them thinking nothing was worth anything.”
That was his father’s version. Perhaps it sounded more like a gibe at the girls than he was afraid Lucas’s comment had. “Why do you want us to go there, Luke?” Dianne said.
“Who’s Luke?”
“I told you,” Tom said in some desperation, “he’s like that.”
“No I’m not, I’m like Lucas.”
At such times Tom understood all too well why his cousin was bullied at school. There was also the way Lucas stared at anybody unfamiliar as if they had to wait for him to make up his mind about them, and just now his pasty face – far spottier than Tom’s and topped with unruly red hair – was a further drawback. Nevertheless Dianne said “Are you sure you don’t want to see our film?”
She was speaking to Tom, but Lucas responded. “We can’t. We’ve been told.”
“I haven’t,” Tom muttered. He watched the girls join the queue for the ticket desk manned by a tastefully drooling vampire in a cloak, and then he turned on Lucas. “We need to switch our phones off. We’re in the cinema.”
Accuracy mattered most to Lucas. Once he’d done as he was told Tom said “Let’s go, and not to the kids’ film either.”
A frown creased Lucas’s pudgy forehead. “Which one, then?”
“None of them. We’ll go where you wanted,” Tom said, leading the way out into the Frugall retail park.
More vehicles than he thought he could count in a weekend were lined up beneath towering lamps as white as the moon. In that light people’s faces looked as pallid as Lucas’s, but took on colour once they reached the shops, half a mile of which surrounded the perimeter. As Tom came abreast of a Frugelectric store he said “We’ll need a light.”
Lucas peered at the lanky lamps, and yet again Tom wondered what went on inside his cousin’s head. “A torch,” he resented having to elucidate.
“There’s one at home.”
/> “That’s too far.” Before Lucas could suspect he didn’t want their parents learning where the boys would be Tom said “You’ll have to buy one.”
He was determined his cousin would pay, not least for putting the girls off. He watched Lucas select the cheapest flashlight and load it with batteries, then drop a ten-pound note beside the till so as to avoid touching the checkout girl’s hand. He made her place his change there for him to scoop up while Tom took the flashlight wrapped in a flimsy plastic bag. “That’s mine. I bought it,” Lucas said at once.
“You hold it then, baby.” Tom stopped just short of uttering the last word, though his face was hot again. “Look after it,” he said and stalked out of the shop.
They were on the far side of Frugall from their houses and the school. An alley between a Frugranary baker’s and a Frugolé tapas bar led to a path around the perimeter. A twelve-foot wall behind the shops and restaurants cut off most of the light and the blurred vague clamour of the retail park. The path was deserted apart from a few misshapen skeletal loiterers nuzzling the wall or propped against the chain-link fence alongside Grinfields Woods. They were abandoned shopping trolleys, and the only sound apart from the boys’ padded footsteps was the rustle of the plastic bag.
Tom thought they might have to follow the path all the way to the housing estate between Grinfields and the retail park, but soon they came to a gap in the fence. Lucas dodged through it so fast that he might have forgotten he wasn’t alone. As Tom followed he saw his own shadow emerge from a block of darkness fringed with outlines of wire mesh. The elongated shadows of trees were reaching for the larger dark. By the time the boys found the official path through the woods they were almost beyond the glare from the retail park, and Lucas switched on the flashlight. “That isn’t scary,” he declared as Tom’s shadow brandished its arms.
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