California’s Dark Regions Press issued the attractive trade paperback collections Strange Mistresses: Tales of Wonder and Romance containing fourteen stories (two original) and thirteen poems by James Dorr with an introduction by Marge Simon; Winter Shadows and Other Tales featuring twenty stories (four original) by Mary Soon Lee, and Salt Water Tears, a collection of ten stories (one original) by Brian Hopkins with an introduction by Gary A. Braunbeck. All three volumes featured cover art by A.B. Word.
Gary Braunbeck’s This Flesh Unknown was an erotic ghost novel from Foggy Windows Books/Chimeras, while D.G.K. Goldberg’s . . . Doomed to Repeat It, published by The Design Image Group, was about a woman with an abusive ghostly boyfriend.
From Overlook Connection Press, Gary Raisor’s Graven Images appeared in various signed editions with an introduction by Edward Lee, who also somewhat predictably supplied the introduction for Duet for the Devil, a hard-core horror novel by T. Winter-Damon and Randy Chandler about serial slayer The Zodiac Killer. It was published by Florida’s Necro Publications in a signed and numbered edition of 400 trade paperbacks and 100 hardcovers.
Necro’s Bedlam Press imprint, dedicated to bizarre, weird and darkly humorous fiction, was launched with Tangy Bonanza!, a collection of two novellas by Doc Solammen published in a signed and numbered trade paperback edition of 300 copies and a fifty-two-copy signed and lettered hardcover.
Published by Delirium Books, Scott Thomas’s Cobwebs and Whispers collected twenty-six stories (seventeen original) of quiet horror with a foreword by Jeff VanderMeer and an introduction by Michael Pendragon in a signed hardcover edition limited to 250 numbered copies.
Also from Delirium, Greg F. Gifune’s Heretics contained eight short horror stories with an introduction by Brian Hopkins and was limited to just fifty signed and numbered hardcover copies. This also became the first title in Delirium’s new trade paperback line.
From the same publisher and edited by Shane Ryan Staley, The Dead Inn was an anthology of hardcore horror subtitled Gross Oddities, Erotic Perversities & Supernatural Entities. It featured stories by Don D’Ammassa, Charlee Jacob, Steve Beai, Mark McLaughlin, John B. Rosenman, Trey R. Barker, Jeffrey Thomas and others, including the editor. 4x4 contained eight stories by Michael Oliveri, Geoff Cooper, Brian Keene and Michael T. Huyck, Jr., with an afterword in which the authors/collaborators discussed why they write horror.
From Shadowlands Press, Tom Piccirilli’s The Night Class involved a college student who found his life unravelling around him, while Steven R. Cowan’s Gothica: Romance of the Immortals was a time-travel tale from Southern Charm Press involving vampires.
New York’s Soft Skull Press published Nick Mamatas’s novel Northern Gothic, about two serial killers connected over more than a century by the city’s bloody history.
Confessions of a Ghoul and Other Stories from Silver Lake Publishing contained seven stories by M.F. Korn and an introduction by D.F. Lewis. Boasting ‘Six Honorable Mentions’ in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror on the cover, Odd Lot: Stories to Chill the Heart was a collection of nine stories (one original) written and published by self-proclaimed ‘Storyteller of the Heart’ Steve Burt, illustrated by Jessica Hagerman.
The Bubba Chronicles was a collection of eleven stories (including several collaborations) by Selina Rosen from Yard Dog Press. Bubbas of the Apocalypse was a follow-up anthology edited by Rosen containing sixteen stories and three poems set in a zombie-filled post-holocaust future. From the same editor and imprint, Stories That Won’t Make Your Parents Hurl contained fifteen young-adult stories and three poems inspired by the Brothers Grimm.
Edited by Nicola Griffith and Stephen Pagel, Bending the Landscape: Horror was an anthology of eighteen original gay and lesbian horror stories published by Overlook Press.
Published by Chicago’s 11th Hour Productions and Twilight Tales, Blood & Donuts was a 250-copy trade paperback anthology edited by Tina L. Jens and containing eighteen crime/mystery stories (twelve original) by Jody Lynn Nye, Jay Bonansinga, Steve Lockley, Robert Weinberg, Brian Hodge, Yvonne Navarro, Edo van Belkom, Wayne Allen Salle and others.
John B. Ford’s collection of ten stories and four poems, Tales Of Deviltry & Doom, was published by artist Steve Lines’s Rainfall Books in a limited hardcover edition of 250 signed and numbered copies. Dark Shadows on the Moon contained a further thirty-six stories (seven original) by the same writer, published in trade paperback by Hive Press with an introduction by Simon Clark.
Meanwhile, Ford’s own BJM Press issued David Price’s The Evil Eye, Quentin S. Crisp’s The Nightmare Exhibition and Paul Kane’s Alone (in the Dark), each as trade paperback collections with introductions by the publisher.
Dark Whispers by Peter Ebsworth was a collection of ten stories published in trade paperback by Storybook, an imprint of David Searle’s Searle Publishing.
Edited and introduced by Nikolas Schreck for Creation Books, Flowers from Hell: A Satanic Reader featured stories, poetry and novel excerpts about the Devil by Edgar Allan Poe, John Milton, Charles Baudelaire and others.
The 1920s Investigator’s Companion to Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu role-playing game included background material by Keith Herber, John Crowe, Kenneth Faig, Jr. and others. Bruce Ballon’s award-winning Call of Cthulhu: Unseen Masters was another guide to the game, including a scenario partly inspired by Philip K. Dick. The trade paperback was illustrated by Paul Carrick and Drashi Khendup.
Also from Chaosium, Song of Cthulhu: Tales of the Spheres Beyond Sound edited by Stephen Mark Rainey contained twenty Lovecraftian stories (nine original) by Thomas Ligotti, Caitlín R. Kiernan and others.
Nameless Cults: The Cthulhu Mythos Fiction of Robert E. Howard was the latest Chaosium anthology edited and introduced by Robert M. Price. It included thirteen vaguely Lovecraftian stories by Howard plus five collaborations (including the round-robin tale ‘The Challenge from Beyond’ by Howard, C.L. Moore, A. Merritt, H.P. Lovecraft and Frank Belknap Long), illustrated by H.E. Fassl and Dave Carson.
Robert Price also contributed an introduction to The Gardens of Lucullus, a Cthulhu Mythos/Roman gladiator novel by Richard L. Tierney and Glenn Rahman, published as an attractive trade paperback by the enigmatic Sidecar Preservation Society.
Introduced by David G. Rowlands, A Ghostly Crew: Tales from The Endeavour was a welcome collection of fifteen all-reprint stories by Roger Johnson, published by Robert Morgan’s Sarob Press in a hardcover edition of 300 copies. Spalatro: Two Italian Tales was a slim 250-copy hardcover containing two stories from the Dublin University Magazine by J. Sheridan Le Fanu, edited and introduced by Miles Stribling and superbly illustrated by Douglas Walters.
The Sistrum and Other Ghost Stories by Alice Perrin (1867–1934) was the fifth volume in editor Richard Dalby’s ‘Mistresses of the Macabre’ series, with illustrations by Paul Lowe. The publisher had to revise the binding specifications for The Haunted River & Three Other Ghostly Novellas by Mrs J.H. Riddell (1832–1906), which included an introduction by editor Dalby and twenty-four full-page original illustrations that accompanied the Routledge’s Christmas Annual publication of the four stories. Both books appeared in 300-copy numbered hardcover editions.
Published the same month by Sarob was Can Such Things Be? & By the Night Express by the mysterious Keith Fleming, with an introduction by John Pelan, an afterword by Dalby, and dust-jacket and interior art by Randy Broecker. It contained the title novel from 1889 and three supernatural novellas (‘By the Night Express’, ‘Dolores’ and ‘Love Stronger than Death’) from the very rare 1889 paperback By The Night Express. The book was limited to just 250 hardcover copies.
From San Francisco’s Night Shade Books came The Devil is Not Mocked and Other Warnings and Fearful Rock and Other Precarious Locales, the second and third volumes respectively in The Selected Stories of Manly Wade Wellman series edited by John Pelan. Ramsey Campbell contributed a reminiscent introduction to the former and Stephen Jones to the latter. These welcome coll
ections were once again only marred by the poor interior artwork.
The Man With the Barbed-Wire Fists was a large collection of twenty-four stories (two original) by Norman Partridge, while Face was a new novel by Tim Lebbon about a supernatural hitchhiker. Both books were also issued in 100-copy signed/slipcased editions that included extra chapbooks.
. . . And the Angel with Television Eyes was a new fantasy novel by John Shirley, loosely based on the short story of the same title, and Lies & Ugliness was a big new collection from Brian Hodge, containing two new stories. The signed/slipcased edition of the latter also included a CD by the author’s musical side project, Axis Mundi.
Also from Night Shade, editor S.T. Joshi’s The Ancient Track: The Complete Poetical Works of H.P. Lovecraft eventually appeared in hardcover and trade paperback after a few delays.
Edited with an introduction by Joshi, Robert Hichens’s The Return of the Soul and Other Stories from Seattle’s Midnight House contained eight reprint tales and was the first of a proposed two-book set presenting the definitive collection of the prolific author’s supernatural tales.
The Scarecrow and Other Stories was an expanded edition of the 1918 collection containing seventeen tales by G. (Gwendolyn) Ranger Wormser (1893–1953), edited by Douglas A. Anderson. As a follow-up to the author’s earlier collection The House of the Nightmare and Other Stories, the same publisher also issued Edward Lucas White’s (1866–1934) Sesta & Other Strange Stories, which included fifteen stories (several previously unpublished), two poems, an introduction by Lee Weinstein and a bibliography.
Nineteen of Fritz Leiber’s best horror tales were collected in The Black Gondolier & Other Stories, the first of two hardcover volumes edited by John Pelan and Steve Savile.
The Beasts of Brahm was a reprint of the rare 1937 novel by the possibly pseudonymous Mark Hansom, with a fascinating introduction by Pelan. The equally obscure H.B. Gregory’s Dark Sanctuary was another rare British novel also rescued from obscurity, with an historical introduction by D.H. Olson. Both volumes appeared on the late Karl Edward Wagner’s list of ‘forgotten’ works of fantasy and horror and, like all the titles from Midnight House, were published in hardcover editions of just 460 copies with cover artwork by Allen Koszowski.
From Tartarus Press, Ghost Stories by Oliver Onions collected twenty-two classic tales. First published in 1931, Forrest Reid’s Uncle Stephen was a dream-story with a new introduction by Colin Cruise, while L.P. Hartley’s The Collected Macabre Stories, also from Tartarus, contained thirty-seven ghost stories by the author of The Go-Between, with an introduction by Mark Valentine. All were limited to just 350 copies.
L.T.C. Rolt’s Sleep No More: Railway, Canal and Other Stories of the Supernatural was a trade paperback collection of fourteen classic ghost stories from Sutton Publishing, with an introduction by Susan Hill.
From Ash-Tree Press, Where Human Pathways End: Tales of the Dead and the Un-Dead collected all ten of the supernatural short stories of 1930s author Shamus Frazer, whose story ‘The Fifth Mask’ is cited as an influence on Ramsey Campbell, with an introduction by editor Richard Dalby. Edited and introduced by John Pelan and Dalby, The Shadow on the Blind and Other Ghost Stories reprinted the 1895 collection of nine stories by Alfred Louisa Bladwin, along with a previously uncollected tale, and included seven illustrations by Symington from the first edition.
The Golden Gong and Other Night-Pieces by Thomas Burke reprinted twenty-one tales complete with an introductory essay by editor Jessica Amanada Salmonson.
Edited by David Rowlands and limited to 500 copies, Mystic Voices by Roger Pater (aka Dom Gilbert Hudleston), a member of the Order of St. Benedict, collected fourteen stories about psychic squire-priest Father Philip Rivers Pater, along with a chapter from a companion work, My Cousin Philip, and a contemporary obituary of the author.
Mrs Amworth, the third volume of The Collected Spook Stories of E.F. Benson, was limited to 600 copies and contained sixteen short supernatural stories (dating from 1922–23), with an introduction by editor Jack Adrian. Adrian was also responsible for Couching at the Door and Other Strange and Macabre Tales, which collected the supernatural stories of popular novelist D. (Dorothy) K. (Kathleen) Broster (1877–1950), including one previously unpublished tale. It was also limited to 600 copies, with dust-jacket art by Jason Van Hollander.
As usual, Adrian edited The Ash-Tree Annual Macabre 2001, which was limited to 500 copies and contained thirteen stories, only one of which had appeared in book form before, by writers better known for working in other genres. These included such well-known names as Marjorie Bowen, Jessie Douglas Kerruish and Leigh Brackett.
After Shocks was a collection of eighteen ‘classical’ supernatural stories by prolific small-press contributor Paul Finch, and Steve Rasnic Tem’s The Far Side of the Lake was a welcome collection of eight of the author’s ‘Charlie Goode’ ghost stories and twenty-five other horror tales, limited to 500 copies.
The Five Quarters by Steve Duffy and Ian Rodwell collected five novellas about meetings of the eponymous society with a handful of members, at which the talk inevitably turned to the supernatural. It was limited to 500 copies, and the dust jacket was illustrated by Paul Lowe.
Probably Ash-Tree’s finest achievement of the year was A Pleasing Terror: The Complete Supernatural Writings of M.R. James. With a preface by Christopher and Barbara Roden, and an introduction by Steve Duffy, the $75.00 hardcover reprinted thirty-four annotated stories plus prefaces, several rare fragments, articles, letters, translations, appendices, a bibliography, and information on James on film, radio and television. Paul Lowe also provided thirty-three illustrations along with a full-colour dust jacket.
The series of chapbooks published by the mysterious and elusive Sidecar Preservation Society (named after a classic Prohibition-era cocktail) continued with Richard L. Tierney’s The Blob That Gobbled Abdul and Other Poems and Songs, a collection of thirteen Lovecraftian verses, illustrated by Dave Carson and with an introduction by Ramsey Campbell. Tierney in turn introduced Campbell’s time-travel story Point of View, illustrated by Allen Koszowski.
Hugh B. Cave’s Loose Loot was a detective yarn featuring Officer Coffey with an afterword by Milt Thomas, while Swedish Lutheran Vampires of Brainerd was a humorous story by Anne Waltz, with an afterword by Karen Taylor and cover art by Jon Arfstrom.
Edited by D.H. Olsen, A Donald Wandrei Miscellany contained a number of shorter pieces of fiction, non-fiction, verse and humour by the late author, and Lee Brown Coye’s Chips & Savings and Another Writing (already in its second printing) was a collection of the artist’s homespun newspaper column in the Mid-York Weekly during the 1960s. Each of the Sidecar booklets was limited to 100 numbered copies (except for the Cave, which totalled 175), some of which may have been bound in boards by the publisher.
From Subterranean Press, Graham Joyce’s chapbook Black Dust contained the 1994 story ‘The Apprentice’ along with the previously unpublished title story, limited to 250 signed and numbered copies. From the same imprint, Graham Masterton’s The Scrawler, about an urban monster, was limited to 500 numbered copies.
Also from Subterranean, On Pirates was a deluxe chapbook by William Ashbless (a pseudonym for Tim Powers and James P. Blaylock) with interior two-colour illustrations by Gahan Wilson. Limited to 1,000 signed and numbered copies, it included ‘Slouching Toward Mauritius’, a short pirate story written more than twenty-five years ago but never published, along with a lengthy pirate poem, ‘Moon-Eye Agonistes’. Powers and Blaylock supplied the introduction and afterword respectively.
Cat Stories by Michael Marshall Smith was published by Paul Miller’s Earthling Publications, collecting three tales (one original) featuring fantastique felines in an attractive 350-copy chapbook designed by the author. Fifteen lettered and signed hardcover copies were also issued in a slipcase, along with a facsimile of the original handwritten manuscript for Smith’s short story ‘The Man Who Drew Cats’.
Chico Kidd
’s self-published Second Sight and Other Stories contained four rousing supernatural adventures introducing readers to turn-of-the-century sea captain Luís Da Silva, who had the power to see ghosts after losing his left eye to a demon. It proved an impressive showcase for one of the genre’s most interesting and genuinely original new characters.
From Sean A. Wallace’s Prime Books, The Hidden Language of Demons was a 33,000-word modern novella by L.H. Maynard and M.P.N. Sims which was billed as ‘Poe in his Sgt. Pepper period’.
Limited to 100 copies, W. (Wilum) H. (Hopfrog) Pugmire’s Songs of Sesqua Valley was published by Imelod and contained thirty-three weird sonnets inspired by H.P. Lovecraft, The Cthulhu Mythos and various dark places, with an introduction and cover illustration by Peter Worthy. From the same author, Tales of Love and Death published by Delirium Books was a 300-copy signed chapbook containing sixteen horror and Lovecraftian short stories (two original).
Mark McLaughlin’s Shoggoth Cacciatore and Other Eldritch Entrees was a chapbook collection of ten Lovecraftian stories (six original) also from Delirium, with an introduction by Simon Clark. The Night the Lights Went Out in Arkham was an anthology of Lovecraftian stories set in the 1970s from Undaunted Press. It contained five new tales by Shawn James, Megan Powell, Octavio Ramos, Jr., Lawrence Barker and the ever-popular McLaughlin.
Louis de Bernieres’s Gunter Weber’s Confession: The Final Chapter to Captain Corelli’s Mandolin was a thin chapbook from Tartarus Press, published in a special limited edition of 350 numbered copies. Hand-set in Perpetua type and printed and bound by Alan Anderson at the Tragara Press, it was available in a 250-copy edition on Teton paper or as one of 100 special copies on Zerkall paper signed by the author for $120.00.
Eden was a novelette by Ken Wisman about a drug-fuelled spiritual journey, published by California’s Dark Regions Press. True Tales of the Scarlet Sponge by Wayne Allen Sallee and Weston Ochse’s Natural Selection were both available from DarkTales.
The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 2002, Volume 13 Page 5