The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 16

by Stephen Jones

  The 500-copy signed Wormhole Fourth of July patriotic card contained the short SF story “In the Memory of Dogs” by the aptly-named John Kennedy, while the Greetings and Happy Holidays card featured Edward Bryant’s disturbing “The Letter Before Christmas”.

  Guy N. Smith’s Come in and Join Us was the first volume in “The Horror Express Chapbook Series”, limited to 100 signed and numbered copies. Editor/publisher Marc Shemmans followed it with his own story, The Forest, published in an edition of just fifty signed copies, illustrated by Teresa Tunaley.

  The Hydrocephalic Ward from California’s Dark Regions Press collected fifty poems by Steve Rasnic Tem, while Bone Sprockets from the same imprint contained thirty poems by G.O. Clark.

  The tireless Peter Crowther launched a new “quarterly” magazine, Postscripts, under his PS Publishing imprint. The first perfect-bound issue boasted fine fiction by Ramsey Campbell, Stephen Gallagher, Adam Roberts, Ed Gorman, Jay Lake, Gene Wolfe, Allen Ashley, Eric Brown, Joyce Carol Oates, Brian Aldiss, James Lovegrove and Peter F. Hamilton, plus a dreadful horror story from TV producer Lawrence Gordon Clark. Along with poetry by Ray Bradbury and non-fiction from Christopher Fowler and Mike Ashley, there was also an interview with James P. Blaylock.

  The second volume, dated “Summer 2004”, continued to display the same high quality fiction with contributions from Jack Dann, Rhys Hughes, Jeff VanderMeer, Iain Rowan, Michael Marshall Smith, Brian Stableford, Brian A. Hopkins, Robert B. Parker (a reprint) and others, along with Robert Silverberg’s article on the 1957 World SF Convention in London and an interview with Kage Baker. Both issues featured wraparound cover paintings by “Edward Miller” (Les Edwards) and were also available in signed and numbered hardcover editions, limited to just 150 copies.

  Another new title was Allen K’s Inhuman Magazine, edited and illustrated by Allen Koszowski and devoted to “monster” stories by Donald R. Burleson, Jeffrey Thomas, Paul W. Finch and others, including reprints from Robert Silverberg and film director John Carpenter. The debut issue of the perfect-bound periodical also featured movie and DVD reviews, along with a limerick by Darrell Schweitzer.

  Richard Chizmar and Bob Morrish’s Cemetery Dance Magazine celebrated its fifteenth year of publication with stories by Stewart O’Nan, Tim Waggoner, David B. Silva, Nancy Holder, Tony Richards, Gerard Houarner and others; interviews with O’Nan, Silva, Holder, David Morrell and Richard Matheson, and the usual columns from Bev Vincent, Thomas F. Monteleone, Paula Guran, Michael Marano, John Pelan and Ed Gorman. The title’s “Special 50th Issue” included interviews with Stephen King, Elizabeth Massie, artist Mike Mignola and film director Mick Garris, plus fiction from Douglas Clegg, Glen Hirshberg, Ramsey Campbell, Bentley Little, Norman Partridge and Gary A. Braunbeck, plus a poem by Ray Bradbury. From 2005, Cemetery Dance will also be released in a 200-copy signed and numbered hardcover edition available on subscription.

  George H. Scithers and Darrell Schweitzer’s Weird Tales only managed three thin issues in 2004 due to changes in distributors. These editions included fiction and (too much) poetry by co-publisher John Gregory Betancourt, co-editor Darrell Schweitzer, Ian Watson, Tanith Lee, Michael Bishop, Alan Dean Foster and the late Jane Rice, along with “classic” reprints from W.C. Morrow, Richard Middleton and F. Marion Crawford. Boasting some stunning cover paintings by Rowena Morrell and Tom Kidd, there was also a reviews column by Douglas E. Winter and an interview with Terry Pratchett (which was mostly about Neil Gaiman).

  The same distribution problems hit companion title H.P. Lovecraft’s Magazine of Horror. After the “Special Collector’s Issue” of 2003, the magazine only produced a new half-sized edition, numbered 1.5 and limited to 2,000 copies, that was distributed as a bonus to subscribers. Along with fiction and poetry by Charles Coleman Finlay, C.H. Sherman, Scott E. Green and others, it included book reviews by Craig Shaw Gardner, a convention report, a letters column and numerous advertisements for Wildside Press books.

  The first issue of Wildside’s semi-annual Adventure Tales, edited by John Gregory Betancourt, featured pulp stories and poetry by Hugh B. Cave, Harold Lamb, Vincent Starrett, F. Marion Crawford, H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard and Clark Ashton Smith, along with an interview with Cave. It was available in both magazine and expanded book versions.

  Under the psuedonym “Abner Gibber”, Darrell Schweitzer was also the editor of the one-shot Weird Trails: The Magazine of Supernatural Cowboy Stories, a “facsimile” from Wildside Press of the alleged April 1933 issue which combined Wild West fiction with the Cthulhu Mythos. (Apparently somebody still remembered Tom Reamy’s 1970s magazine Nickelodeon, and its “M.M. Moamrath” spoof.) It featured thirteen stories by Ron Goulart, Ray Faraday Nelson, P.D. Cacek, Mike Resnick and others.

  The June 1931 Ghost Stories, January 1933 Strange Tales and February 1937 Spicy Mystery Stories were all facsimile reprints of actual pulp magazines from Wildside.

  Gordon Van Gelder’s always-reliable The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction featured the usual offbeat mix of fiction by such authors as Michael Shea, Nancy Etchemendy, Steven Utley, Chet Williamson, Charles Coleman Finlay, Alex Irvine, David Gerrold, Robert Sheckley, Ray Vukcevich, Peter S. Beagle, A.A. Attanasio, Esther M. Friesner, Carol Emshwiller, Gene Wolfe, Dale Bailey, Michael Bishop, Sydney J. Van Scyoc, and a final story by the late Jack Cady. The July edition was a “Special All-American Issue”, while the double issue appeared, as usual, in October/November. Bud Webster, David Langford, F. Gwynplaine Maclntyre, John Kessel, Jason Van Hollander, Paul Di Filippo and Bill Sheehan all contributed to the “Curiosities” book review page, and there were columns by Charles de Lint, Robert K.J. Killheffer, Lucius Shepard, Elizabeth Hand, James Sallis, Kathi Maio, Michelle West and Di Filippo.

  After twenty years, Gardner Dozois announced that he was stepping down as editor of Asimov’s Science Fiction to pursue other projects. He remained with the magazine as a contributing editor. Meanwhile, Sheila Williams was named as the new editor, beginning with the January 2005 issue.

  David Pringle also resigned as editor of the struggling British science fiction magazine Interzone, which he helped co-found twenty-two years earlier. With Pringle’s departure with issue #193, the title became a publication of Andy Cox’s TTA Press. Unfortunately, along with the new publisher came a design revamp that left the bi-monthly magazine looking a total mess. The two TTA issues published before the end of the year featured fiction from the ubiquitous Jay Lake and others, plus interviews with Pringle and Ken MacLeod, and the usual media reviews and features.

  Meanwhile, Andy Cox’s The 3rd Alternative celebrated its tenth anniversary with a Hugo nomination and the opportunity to give the title yet another design overhaul. Disappointingly, this left it looking a bit too much like its revamped stable-mate Interzone. The four issues that took it up to its fortieth number included some fine fiction from Joe Hill, Tim Pratt, John Grant, Joel Lane, Nina Allan, Mike O’Driscoll, Christopher Barzak, Jay Lake and others, interviews with Ursula Le Guin, Joanthan Lethem, Russell Hoban, Christopher Fowler, Clive Barker and Bryan Talbot, plus the usual columns by Allen Ashley, Christopher Fowler, Stephen Volk and Peter Tennant. Guest editors Liz Williams, Graham Joyce, Paula Guran and Nicholas Royle debated the “New Weird” and other literary movements.

  Plans to print each issue of The 3rd Alternative on a different colour paper in 2004 were abandoned when the Spring issue’s “siskin green” was deemed “potentially vomit-inducing” by editor Andy Cox, who had most of the run pulped and the magazine reprinted on the usual white stock. However, 120 copies of the rare “absinthe” edition were held back and subsequently offered for sale.

  Also from TTA Press, the eighth issue of The Fix contained the usual A-Z reviews of magazines and anthologies, along with an interview with Gardner Dozois.

  Editor and publisher Marc Shemmans launched his new British glossy magazine The Horror Express with three issues featuring original and reprint fiction and poetry by Graham Masterton, Storm Constant
ine, Shaun Hutson, Simon Clark, Darrell Schweitzer and Jason Van Hollander, Tom Piccirilli, Guy N. Smith, Christopher Fowler, Jill Bauman and others, including Shemmans himself. There were also book and film reviews, articles on collecting Masterton’s and Fowler’s work, and interviews with writer and artist James R. Cain, publisher Gabriel Strange, actor Bruce Campbell, plus authors Constantine, Masterton, Fowler and Hutson.

  The third issue of Paul Calvin Wilson’s eclectic Lighthouse Magazine was a “Robert Weinberg Special” featuring interviews with Weinberg, David Gemmell, Poppy Z. Brite, Hugh B. Cave, Frank Kelly Freas, Anne Bishop, W. Paul Ganley and artist Dave Kendall, along with fiction by Cave, Weinberg, Brian Lumley, Gary Fry and others.

  After the distribution problems with its first edition, the second issue of the revived Argosy was published in two editions – a slipcased two-volume “Connoisseur Edition” and the single “Proletarian Edition” for news stands and chain stores. Featuring artwork by Dr Seuss, the second issue was once again beautifully produced, with fiction by O’Neil De Noux, Carol Emshwiller, Kevin J. Anderson, Jeff VanderMeer, Mike Resnick and others, along with a bonus novella by Charles Stross and Cory Doctorow illustrated by John Picacio. Unfortunately, some copies of the magazine suffered from a binding problem, with missing pages replaced by duplicates. Before a third issue could appear, Lou Anders resigned as Senior Editor of the title to concentrate on the new Pyr SF and fantasy imprint from Prometheus Books.

  The seventh issue of John O’Neill’s perfect-bound Black Gate: Adventures in Fantasy Literature contained stories by Todd McAulty, Don Bassingthwaite, Mark Summer and others, plus an appreciation of the old Planet Stories pulp by Rich Horton.

  Editor Pitch Black’s Horror Garage reached its ninth issue with fiction by Norman Partridge and interviews with Dennis Etchison, Brian Keene and Herschell Gordon Lewis.

  Gordon Linzner’s Space and Time included stories and poetry by Darrell Schweitzer and others.

  Edited by Michael D. Pederson and available free of charge, Nth Degree: The Fiction and Fandom ’Zine featured fiction and poetry by Peter Huston, C.J. Henderson and others, along with the usual convention and book reviews, and an interview with fan cartoonist Alexis Gilliland.

  Billed as “writing with attitude”, Shar O’Brien’s professional-looking NFG published two issues from Canada, featuring fiction, poetry and art from contributors in America, Canada, Britain, Australia and Japan, including Bruce Holland Rogers and Brendan Duffy, along with interviews with A.C. Crispin and Michael Moorcock.

  After a three-year hiatus, the world’s oldest science fiction magazine, Amazing Stories, was resurrected in yet another new incarnation by Paizo Publishing as a monthly large format fiction/media title. Edited by Dave Gross, issue #603 included fiction by Bruce Sterling, Ray Vukcevich, Gene Wolfe and Harlan Ellison, interviews with Robert Silverberg, Larry Niven and George R.R. Martin, along with plenty of reviews and features on films and TV. However, the magazine was put on “hiatus” again after only a handful of issues. Gross was replaced by Jeff Berkwits, who left his position as Senior Writer at Wolfson Public Relations to take the helm after Gross moved to computer game company Bioware.

  Christopher M. Cevasco’s Paradox: The Magazine of Historical and Speculative Fiction contained stories by Paul Finch and Charles Coleman Finlay, while Shawna McCarthy’s bi-monthly Realms of Fantasy included Tanith Lee’s revisionist vampire story “Israbel”, plus work by Liz Williams, Jay Lake, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Ian McDowell, Bruce Holland Rogers and a profusely illustrated article on artist Les Edwards/Edward Miller by Jane Frank.

  Now firmly established as the one-shop stop for everything to do with horror (especially the gory and the Gothic), Canada’s Rue Morgue published its usual six glossy colour editions, including a perfect-bound “Seventh Anniversary Halloween Issue” featuring cover and interior art by Clive Barker. Packed with media and book reviews, plus interviews with Barker, Mike Mignola, David Cronenberg, Marilyn Chambers, Brian Keene, Takashi Shimizu, Sam Raimi, Sean Cunningham, Jack Ketchum, Tobe Hooper, Gunnar Hansen and Forrest J Ackerman, the magazine announced that it would be increasing its schedule to ten issues per year in 2005.

  Tim and Donna Lucas’ Video Watchdog maintained its monthly schedule and even added laminated covers to an already attractive package. Along with all the usual DVD, video and book reviews, there were special articles on Japanese director Nobuo Nakagawa, Lon Chaney, Sr., Roman Polanski (by Kim Newman), Sherlock Holmes, the Alien Quadrilogy (sic), Universal Monsters, Jonny Quest (by David J. Schow), Tarzan, and Euro Lounge Soundtracks, plus interviews with French actress Édith Scob and director Georges Franju (Eyes Without a Face), and Tom Weaver’s rambling talk with “lost” horror star Donnie Dunagan, the curly-haired child in Son of Frankenstein. Dunagan also “personally signed” copies of a variant “Signature Edition” with an alternative cover design. However, Lucas’ long-promised Mario Bava book still failed to appear.

  With the slightly expanded title Filmfax Plus, Michael Stein’s fascinating historical movie magazine incorporated its sister publication Outré with issue #101. The in-depth periodical included interviews with Hugh B. Cave and Richard Matheson, comics artists Will Eisner and Jack Davis, actor John Saxon, composer Vic Mizzy, plus a multi-part look at the career of special effects pioneer Paul Blaisdell by artist Vincent Di Fate (who also contributed a superb cover painting of The She-Creature).

  Scott Edelman’s SciFi: The Official Magazine of the Sci Fi Channel continued to run puff-pieces on all the latest Hollywood releases and TV shows, with far too much space wasted on the derisory Van Helsing.

  Craig Miller’s Spectrum produced a very attractive “Super Special” issue devoted to Robert E. Howard and Conan in books, comics and movies. Gary Gianni, Mark Schultz and an opinionated Barry Windsor-Smith were among those interviewed, and there were plenty of illustrations and cover reproductions.

  The third issue of Michael Ambrose’s informative Charlton Spotlight: Exploring the History of Charlton Magazines was a special issue remembering late horror comics writer and artist Tom Sutton (who died in 2002), with memoirs, commentary and artwork by Nicola Cuti, Steve Skeates, Bill Pearson, Jim Amash, Bhob Stewart, Stefan Petrucha, Mark Burbey, Batton Lash and Sutton himself.

  The Winter 2003 edition of the academic journal Extrapolation from The University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College included a survey of the work of Ramsey Campbell, while Alice K. Turner looked at recent books about female werewolves in the July issue of The New York Review of Science Fiction.

  The 8 March issue of Publishers Weekly featured “Tomes of Terror and Trepidation”, a five-page spotlight on the current state of horror publishing written by Paula Guran with commentary by Ellen Datlow, Douglas E. Winter, Stefan Dziemianowicz, Neil Gaiman, Peter Straub and various editors, speciality publishers and booksellers.

  The 9 May issue of Britain’s The Sunday Express weekly magazine S:2 was a “horror special” timed to tie-in with the release of Van Helsing. Along with articles on the new film and the classic monsters, it also included an interview with Sara Karloff about her father Boris.

  The May/June issue of OP, the magazine of book culture, collectors and commerce, included an interesting article by Girasol Collectables publisher Neil Mechem about the inevitable disintegration of pulp magazines.

  Stephen King’s occasional but always-entertaining “The Pop of King” column in Entertainment Weekly covered such eclectic subjects as our attraction to the National Enquirer, The Passion of Christ (“Sam Peckinpah does Good Friday”), the MPAA’s movie rating system, good books for the summer, the death of Elvis, the failure of Kingdom Hospital, critical gradeflation, his pet peeves of 2004 (including Dr Phil) and a dozen things to be thankful for (including Jack Ketchum for being “the scariest guy in America”).

  King also contributed an article to the 30 July issue of Entertainment Weekly about favourite movie lines, while the 30 April edition featured an interview with Poppy Z. Brite a
bout her new food novel Liquor (“I never really set out to be a horror writer”).

  In the March issue of Paper Collectors’ Marketplace, William J. Felchner looked at the collectibility of Stephen King material, including books, magazines and movie items.

  The June issue of Fortean Times: The World of Strange Phenomena contained an extensive article on H.P. Lovecraft by Daniel Harms.

  For Christmas 2004, Book and Magazine Collector celebrated its 250th issue with a “Horror Special”. Featuring some nice colour cover reproductions, Richard Dalby contributed articles on “The Top 20 Horror Authors” and the centenary of M.R. James’ Ghost Stories of an Antiquary. There was also a profile of British comics artist Robert Forrest, and an interview with special effects wizard Ray Harryhausen about his friendship with Ray Bradbury, amongst other things.

  All Hallows, the award-winning Journal of The Ghost Story Society, produced another three excellent, perfect-bound issues edited by Barbara and Christopher Roden. Along with some subtle fiction from Paul Finch, Phil Locascio, Michael Dirda, Don Tumasonis, Tina Rath, Iain Rowan and others, there was the usual mix of regular columns and articles by Ramsey Campbell, Richard Dalby, Michel Parry, Roger Dobson, Reggie Oliver and John Howard.

  Edited by Becky Probert for The London Vampyre Group, The Chronicles was a regular digest-size magazine that for presentation put most other society’s journals to shame. The four issues published in 2004 included articles on Aleister Crowley, Algernon Charles Swinburne and Marilyn Manson, along with trip reports and book and film reviews. The LVG also published a Poetry and Fiction Supplement #1.

  The quarterly Bulletin of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America continued to offer important advice for writers. Although it contained another unconvincing attempt to justify the existence of e-books, there was also a strong and eloquent case put forward by Mike Resnick and Barry Malzberg for including such often overlooked names as Ian Ballantine, Avram Davidson, Robert A.W. Lowndes, Julius Schwartz, Donald A. Wollheim and others amongst a list of the “Heroes” of the genre.