The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 10 - [Anthology]

by Edited By Stephen Jones

  A trade paperback printing ofTales of the Cthulhu Mythos was significantly revised from the 1969 edition, with a new introduction by James Turner, and Arkham House finally reprinted Lovecraft’s Selected Letters III.

  After going out of print for a short while, and just in time to tie-in with Gus Van Sant’s pointless shot-for-shot remake, Robert Bloch’s classic Psycho was reissued with a new cover by Tor Books.

  * * * *

  As usual, R.L. Stine ruled the young adult market with the first volume of “Goosebumps Series 2000”, Cry of the Cat, plus Fear Street: Camp Out andFear Street: Scream, Jennifer. Stine’s Fear Street: Seniors, a new twelve-part series about a class of doomed students at Shadyside High School, began with 1: Let’s Party, 2: In Too Deep, 3: The Thirst and 4: No Answer. Fear Street Super Chiller 1: Stepbrother was about a girl whose dreams revealed that her stepbrother murdered her in a previous life.

  Although credited to R.L. Stine on the covers, the pseudonymously written Fear Street Sagas series continued with 11: Circle of Fire (by Wendy Haley), 12: Chamber of Fear (by Brandon Alexander), 13: Faces of Terror (by Cameron Dokey),14: One Last Kiss (by Brandon Alexander), IS: Door of Death (by Eric Weiner) and 16: The Hand of Power (by Cameron Dokey).

  It Came from Ohio! My Life as a Writer was a young adult biography of Stine written by the author “as told to Joe Arthur”.

  Christopher Pike’s The Hollow Skull involved the inhabitants of yet another small town being taken over by an alien evil, while Christopher Pike’s Tales of Terror 2 collected five stories by the author.

  Nightworld: Witchlight by L.J. Smith was the ninth in the series, and Black Rot and Temper Temper were the third and fourth volumes, respectively, in the Weird World series by Anthony Masters.

  Four children battled with a city’s supernatural forces in Celia Rees’ H.A.U.N.T.S.: H is for Haunting, A is for Apparition, U is for Undercover, N is for Nightmare and T is for Terror, the first five volumes in a six-book series. M.C. Sumner’s Extreme Zone series continued with Dead End, and Monsters and My One True Love by Dian Curtis Regan was the fourth and final volume in the “Monsters of the Month Club Quartet”.

  Kipton & the Voodoo Curse by Charles L. Fontenay was the tenth volume in “The Kipton Chronicles” series of SF mysteries, and involved Kipton investigating a voodoo curse on Mars.

  The Flesh Eater by the excellent John Gordon was a variation on “Casting the Runes”, about a mysterious club and its ghostly bogeyman. Theresa Radcliffe’s Garden of Shadows was inspired by Nathaniel Hawthorne’s story “Rappacini’s Daughter”, and Louise Cooper’s Creatures: Once I Caught a Fish, If You Go Down to the Woods and See How They Run were the first three volumes in a series which reinterpreted old nursery rhymes.

  Another small town was menaced by evil in Darker by Andrew Matthews, a girl defied her uncle and openedThe Boxes by William Sleator, and a girl ended up at a Greek clinic run by gorgons in Snake Dreamer by Priscilla Galloway.

  In A Coming Evil by Vivian Vande Velde, a young girl and a medieval ghost helped hide refugees from the Nazis. From the same author, Ghost of a Hanged Man was set in the Wild West. A boy encountered the ghost of an old actor in The Face in the Mirror by Stephanie S. Tolan, and a girl with agoraphobia could hear strange voices inAngels Turn Their Backs by Margaret Buffie.

  Margaret Mahy’s novella The Horriby Haunted School was about a boy who had an allergy to ghosts, and there were more spooks in The Haunting by Joan Lowery Nixon, The Crow Haunting by Julia Jarman, The Ghost Twin by Richard Brown, The Ghost of Sadie Kimber by Pat Moon, The Ghost of Fossil Glen by Cynthia DeFelice, The Phantom Thief by Pete Johnson, and Blackthorn, Whitethorn by Rachel Anderson.

  A boy was pursued by an evil he could never escape in Catchman by Chris Wooding, and there were more devilish happenings in The Secret of the Pit by Hugh Scott. Vlad the Undead by Hanna Liitzen was a translation of the 1995 Danish novel about a young woman who read an account of a vampire in an old journal.

  Andrew Bromfield translated A Werewolf Problem in Central Russia and Other Stories, a collection of eight tales by Victor Pelevin, first published in 1994. Here There Be Ghosts collected eleven stories (five reprints) and seven poems (one reprint) by Jane Yolen. Shadows was a collection of seven horror stories by James Schmidt, and Somewhere Else featured two ghost/time-travel stories by Leon Rosselson.

  Classic Ghost Stories II edited by Glen Bledsoe and Karen Bledsoe contained eight stories by M.R. James, Henry James, Charles Dickens, Mary Wilkins Freeman and others, illustrated by Barbara Kiwak. Great Ghost Stories edited by Barry Moser collected thirteen tales by such authors as H.P. Lovecraft, H.G. Wells and Joyce Carol Oates. Edited by Alan Durant and illustrated by Nick Hardcastle, Vampire & Werewolf Stories contained eighteen stories and novel extracts by Bram Stoker, Richard Matheson and Jane Yolen, amongst others.

  * * * *

  Neil Gaiman’s Smoke and Mirrors collected thirty stories and poems. Subtitled “Short Fictions and Illusions”, it was a reworking of his 1993 collectionAngels & Visitations, with the addition of several new stories, including a couple original to the volume, plus a new introduction by the author.

  The Cleft and Other Odd Tales was exactly what you would expect from acclaimed cartoonist Gahan Wilson. Twenty-four stories of weirdness, including the original title story, illustrated by the author/artist.

  F. Paul Wilson’s The Barrens and Others reprinted twelve stories from the late 1980s, plus a stage adaptation and a teleplay, with introductions by the author.

  Published by Serpent’s Tail,Personal Demons by Christopher Fowler collected seventeen stories (eleven original), including a new “Spanky” novelette. Kathe Koja’s Extremities featured sixteen stories (two original) about human extremes.

  Distributed as a promotional item through the UK’s WHSmith bookstore chain, When God Lived in Kentish Town & Others was a small-format paperback containing four stories (three original) by Michael Marshall Smith.

  Bradley Denton’s One Day Closer to Death collected eight stories about the fate that awaits us all, including an original novella which was a coda to his novel Blackburn, featuring the sister of the eponymous serial killer. Published by The Book Guild, The Venetian Chair and Other Stories included twenty-two stories by Harry Turner.

  Once Upon a Nightmare collected ten horror stories by Australian journalist John Michael Howson, while Bill Congreve’s Epiphanies of Blood: Tales of Desperation and Thirst contained six mutant vampire stories (three original) and was published by Australia’s MirrorDanse Books in an edition of 501 numbered copies.

  * * * *

  Legends: Stories by the Masters of Modern Fantasy edited by Robert Silverberg was an anthology of new fiction which originally sold to Dutton/NAL for $650,000, before being resold to Tor Books. Although David Eddings and Terry Brooks eventually pulled out of the project, Terry Pratchett, Anne McCaffrey, Stephen King (a new “Dark Tower” story), Tad Williams, Robert Jordan, Robert Silverberg, Raymond E. Feist, Terry Goodkind, George R.R. Martin and Ursula K. LeGuin all contributed stories. The British edition came with two different covers, while in America Tor issued a boxed and leatherbound edition of 250 copies, signed by all the authors, for $250.00. These were apparently sold by lottery to book dealers only and, according to some reports, copies quickly surfaced for re-sale for as much as $1,000.

  After a long delay, the latest Horror Writers Association anthology finally appeared in hardcover from CD Publications and paperback from Pocket Books. Unfortunately, Robert Block’s Psychos was not really worth the wait. Despite a line-up that included Stephen King (a new novelette), Richard Christian Matheson, Charles Grant, Ed Gorman, Jane Yolen and others, it contained a selection of lacklustre serial killer stories that failed to live up to the expectation generated by the volume’s title. Bloch died before the book was completed, but I suspect even he would have had difficulty saying anything positive about the tired tales included therein.

  Dark Terrors 4: The Gollancz Book of Horror edited b
y Stephen Jones and David Sutton featured nineteen stories (one reprint) by such authors as Christopher Fowler, Neil Gaiman, Ramsey Campbell, David J. Schow, Roberta Lannes, Dennis Etchison, Poppy Z. Brite, Lisa Tuttle, Thomas Tessier, Michael Marshall Smith and Terry Lamsley.

  Sirens and Other Daemon Lovers edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling contained twenty-two erotic stories of magical, obsessional and irresistible love by Storm Constantine, Joyce Carol Oates, Tanith Lee, Edward Bryant, Neil Gaiman, Brian Stableford, Conrad Williams and others.

  At 550-plus pages, Dreaming Down Under was a major new anthology of Australian speculative fiction edited by Jack Dann and Janeen Webb. It contained thirty-one stories by such Australian authors as Cherry Wilder, Lucy Sussex, Damien Broderick, Stephen Dedman, Terry Dowling, Aaron Sterns, George Turner, Robert Hood and Sean McMullen, plus a preface by Harlan Ellison.

  Ellison was also one of the writers featured in In the Shadow of the Gargoyle edited by Nancy Kilpatrick and Thomas S. Roche, which included sixteen stories and a novel excerpt (three reprints) by Charles L. Grant, Neil Gaiman, Katherine Kurtz, Brian Lumley, Christa Faust and Caitlin R. Kiernan, Brian Hodge and others.

  The Crow: Shattered Lives & Broken Dreamsedited by J. O’Barr and Ed Kramer contained nineteen stories and ten poems based on O’Barr’s graphic novel and movie series. Authors included Iggy Pop, Gene Wolfe, John Shirley and Nancy A. Collins, and it was illustrated by Bob Eggleton, Tom Canty, Don Maitz and others. A.A. Attanasio supplied the introduction.

  Edited by Ric Alexander (Peter Haining), The Unexplained: Stories of the Paranormal contained twenty-one stories by Nigel Kneale, Ramsey Campbell, Richard Matheson, J.G. Ballard, Theodore Sturgeon, Arthur Machen, Basil Copper, Clive Barker, Harlan Ellison and others, including two originals by Graham Masterton and Richard Laymon and an introduction by Peter James. Under his own name, Haining also edited The Mammoth Book of Twentieth-Century Ghost Stories, which reprinted thirty tales from such unexpected authors as James Hadley Chase, Jack London, Stevie Smith, John Steinbeck, Muriel Spark, A. Merritt and P.G. Wodehouse, along with old hands Henry James, Agatha Christie, Arthur Machen, H.G. Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle and others.

  Only available in a book club edition, editor Marvin Kaye’s Don’t Open This Book! was an anthology of thirty-nine dark fantasy stories (sixteen original) that included Tanith Lee, Ron Goulart and Patrick LoBrutto.

  The Ex Files: New Stories About Old Flamesedited by Nicholas Royle contained twenty-five original stories about the breakup of relationships, from such authors as M. John Harrison, D.F. Lewis, Pat Cadigan, Conrad Williams, Joel Lane, John Burke, James Miller and Michael Marshall Smith. Royle also edited Neonlit: Time Out Book of New Writing Vol. 1, the first in a series of annual anthologies which featured Christopher Fowler (with the very clever “Thirteen Places of Interest in Kentish Town”), Mike O’Driscoll, James Miller, Jason Gould, Christopher Kenworthy and Conrad Williams.

  Editor and book packager Martin H. Greenberg celebrated the publication of his 1,000th book in a career so far spanning twenty-three years. With John Heifers he edited Black Cats and Broken Mirrors, which included seventeen original stories based around the premise that superstitions can come true from such authors as Bruce Holland Rogers, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Peter Crowther and Charles de Lint.

  Lawrence Schimel and Greenberg edited Fields of Blood: Vampire Stories of the Heartland, containing thirteen stories (four original) by Henry Kuttner, Nancy Holder, P.N. Elrod and others, and Streets of Blood: Vampire Stories from New York City, collecting another baker’s dozen tales by such writers as Suzy McKee Charnas, Edward Bryant and Esther M. Friesner.

  From the editorial team of Stefan Dziemianowicz, Robert Weinberg and Greenberg, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories was a massive, 700-plus page instant remainder anthology published by Barnes & Noble Books. It featured original short shorts by numerous horror authors, both new and established, including Peter Atkins, Steve Rasnic Tem, Don Webb, Brian McNaughton, Brian Hodge, Nancy Kilpatrick, Phyllis Eisenstein, Donald R. Burleson, Mandy Slater, Michael Marshall Smith, Wayne Allen Sallee, Edward Bryant, Lisa Morton, Brian Stableford, Yvonne Navarro and Hugh B. Cave.

  A much better anthology from the same editorial team was 100 Twisted Little Tales of Terror, also published by Barnes & Noble. It contained some excellent reprints by such well-known names as David J. Schow, Les Daniels, Karl Edward Wagner, Tanith Lee, H.P. Lovecraft, Frank Belknap Long, Fritz Leiber, Joe R. Lans-dale, Thomas Ligotti, Kim Newman, R. Chetwynd-Hayes, Ramsey Campbell, Hugh B. Cave, August Derleth, John Shirley, Edward Bryant, Joel Lane, Michael Marshall Smith, Clark Ash-ton Smith and many more.

  Stefan Dziemianowicz, Denise Little and Robert Weinberg edited the Barnes & Noble instant remainderMistresses of the Dark: 25 Macabre Tales by Master Storytellers, which included reprints by Margaret Atwood, A.S. Byatt, Angela Carter, Daphne du Maurier, Patricia Highsmith, Shirley Jackson, Doris Lessing, Joyce Carol Oates, Ruth Rendell, Muriel Spark and Fay Weldon.

  The Raven and the Monkey’s Paw was an uncredited anthology of fifteen stories and eight poems. Eight of the tales and all the poems were by Edgar Allan Poe, and there were also classic reprints from W.W. Jacobs, Charles Dickins, Saki and Edith Wharton, amongst others. Classic Ghost Stories edited by John Grafton featured eleven tales of the supernatural by Charles Dickens, M.R. James, J. Sheridan Le Fanu and other familiar names, and Patricia Craig edited 12 Irish Ghost Stories for Oxford University Press.

  Hot Blood X was the tenth volume in the sexual horror series edited by Jeff Gelb and Michael Garrett. It included seventeen pieces of fiction (one reprint) from Ramsey Campbell, Graham Masterton, Lawrence Block, Nancy Holder, Melanie Tem, Brian Hodge, and Bentley Little, amongst others. Demon Sex edited by Amarantha Knight (Nancy Kilpatrick) contained eleven explicit horror stories (including one reprint by Neil Gaiman) from Thomas S. Roche, Edo van Belkom and Kilpatrick herself.

  Lisa Tuttle edited Crossing the Border: Tales of Erotic Ambiguity, which included twenty-two stories (thirteen reprints). Although not really a horror book, it included stories by Poppy Z. Brite, Graham Joyce, Angela Carter, Joyce Carol Oates, Michael Blumlein, Nicholas Royle, Carol Emshwiller, Lucy Taylor, Neil Gaiman, Geoff Ryman and the editor.

  The Ghost of Carmen Miranda and Other Spooky Gay and Lesbian Talesedited by Julie K. Trevelyan and Scott Brassart, contained twenty-three stories (five reprints).

  Most horror readers also probably passed on Otto Penzler’s new crime anthology Murder for Revenge. If they did, they missed Peter Straub’s remarkable novella “Mr Clubb and Mr Cuff”, plus new stories by David Morrell, Joyce Carol Oates, Eric Lustbader, Lawrence Block and others.

  The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror: Eleventh Annual Collection,ably edited as usual by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, weighed-in at more than 500 pages and contained thirty-seven stories, nine poems, and summaries by the editors, James Frenkel, Edward Bryant and Seth Johnson, along with the usual pointless list of “Honorable Mentions”. The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror Volume Nine edited by Stephen Jones contained nineteen stories, only one of which (Stephen Laws’ “The Crawl”) overlapped with the Datlow/Windling volume.

  * * * *

  Eternal Lovecraft: The Persistence of HPL In Popular Culture was edited by Jim Turner and published under his Golden Gryphon Press imprint. Described as ex-Arkham House editor Turner’s farewell to H.P. Lovecraft, the retrospective anthology was split into three sections that contained eighteen reprints from Stephen King, Fritz Leiber, Nancy A. Collins, T.E.D. Klein and Harlan Ellison, amongst others.

  Meanwhile, Arkham House itself returned to its dark fantasy roots with Flowers from the Moon and Other Lunacies by the late Robert Bloch, which contained twenty previously uncollected stories, mostly reprinted from Weird Tales and Strange Tales, edited and with an introduction by Robert M. Price. Also from Arkham, Peter Cannon edited Lovecraft Remembered, a collection of sixty-five reminiscences and other pieces about HPL by Robert Bloch, August Derleth, Robert E. Howard,
Clark Ashton Smith and others, many reprinted from obscure sources.

  Canada’s Battered Silicon Dispatch Box revived Arkham’s Mycroft & Moran imprint to publish In Lovecraft’s Shadow, which collected all twenty-three of August Derleth’s original Cthulhu Mythos stories, along with three poems (one original) and an essay, illustrated by Stephen E. Fabian. The same imprint also issued Derleth’sThe Final Adventures of Solar Pons, an original collection of early unpublished Sherlockian detective stories, comprising a novel, six stories (including two collaborations with Mack Reynolds) and a number of vignettes, edited by Peter Ruber.

  Published by Fedogan & Bremer, A Coven of Vampires: The Collected Vampire Stories of Brian Lumley collected thirteen stories and a new foreword by the author. From the same imprint came Adam Niswander’s The Sand Dwellers, a Lovecraftian Cthulhu Mythos novel set in the mountains of the American southwest. Both books were available in trade hardcovers plus 100-copy signed and limited editions.

  From Britain’s Pumpkin Books cameGhosts and Grisly Things, a collection of twenty of Ramsey Campbell’s uncollected stories (one original) in simultaneous hardcover and trade paperback format. Pumpkin also published the first UK trade paperback and first world hardcover of Dennis Etchison’s macabre murder mystery Double Edge, plus Nancy Kilpatrick’s “Power of the Blood” vampire trilogy in uniform trade paperback editions, comprising the original novel Reborn, along with reprints of the first two volumes, Child of the Night and Near Death.