The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 16

by Stephen Jones

  The multiple Hugo Award-winning news and reviews magazine Locus featured interviews with Gwyneth Jones, Robert Silverberg, Gordon Van Gelder, Charles Coleman Finlay, Terry Pratchett, Liz Williams, Michael Swanwick, Jeffrey Ford, Stephen Baxter, Stephen R. Donaldson, David G. Hartwell, Anne McCaffrey, Michael Bishop and Michael Chabon, amongst others. The paper quality of the monthly title was markedly reduced with the May issue, and Jennifer A. Hall resigned as editorial director at the end of that month, causing founder Charles N. Brown to return from his brief “retirement”.

  The British Fantasy Society’s Prism changed editors from Marie O’Regan back to Debbie Bennett and downsized from a quarterly perfect-bound magazine to a much more useful bi-monthly newsletter. The multimedia periodical included numerous reviews, features on Edgar Rice Burroughs and Alan Garner, articles by Christopher Fowler and Tony Richards, plus interviews with John B.Ford, Neil Gaiman, K.J. Bishop, Tony Richards, Stuart Young, Stephen Gallagher and Jon George. Bennett also edited two issues of the BFS magazine Dark Horizons, which featured fiction by Chris Naylor, Allen Ashley, Mike Chinn, Tony Richards, Tina Rath and others.

  Despite boasting an Introduction by Clive Barker, short contributions by Neil Gaiman, China Miéville, Graham Joyce, Kim Newman, Mark Chadbourn, Chaz Brenchley, Steve Lockley and others, the British Fantasy Society 2005 calendar edited by Paul Kane and Marie O’Regan was a credit to nobody. Based around the legend of Sir Gawain and The Green Knight, Les Edwards’ cover art was the only featured painting to achieve a professional standard.

  Edited by Roger Dobson and Mark Valentine, The Lost Club Journal included a look at August Derleth’s Solar Pons character, M.P. Shiel’s Prince Zaleski, the books of Michael Arlen and John Gawsworth, and other “unheralded” works.

  To commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the death of James Hilton, the author of Lost Horizon (1933), The Lost Club produced a beautifully designed Shangri-La postage stamp in a limited edition of just 200, illustrated by artist Colin Langeveld. Depicting the remote lamaserie from the classic novel, the stamps were used by the James Hilton Society for postage to its membership.

  Also edited by Valentine, the second issue of Wormwood from Tartarus Press included articles on Oliver Onions, Clark Ashton Smith, Francis Stevens, Robert Louis Stevenson and others, with contributions from Brian W. Aldiss, Scott Connors, Brian Stableford, Philip Pullman and Mark Samuels.

  Editor David Longhorn published two editions of Supernatural Tales, featuring stories by Paul Finch, Iain Rowan, Geoffrey Warburton, Joel Lane, Simon Bestwick, Michael Chislett and others, along with an article on Robert Aickman’s “The Stains”, an interview with D.F. Lewis, reviews and letters. From 2005 the title will become an annual, double-sized anthology.

  As always, the two issues of Patrick and Honna Swenson’s perfect-bound Talebones: A Magazine of Science Fiction & Dark Fantasy featured an impressive line-up of writers and poets, including Tom Piccirilli, Louise Marley, Charlee Jacob, Bruce Boston and Darrell Schweitzer, along with interviews with Kay Kenyon and Piccirilli, and numerous book reviews.

  The third issue of James R. Beach’s Dark Discoveries spotlighted the work of Gary A. Braunbeck, Simon Clark and Tim Lebbon with interviews, excerpts and reviews. The magazine also featured interviews with Earthling publisher Paul Miller, Tom Piccirilli and Bev Vincent.

  Produced by Manchester’s Comma Press and supported by the Arts Council of England, the first issue of Tane Vayu’s Liverpool Stories included reprint fiction from Ramsey Campbell and Martin Edwards.

  The fourteenth and fifteenth issues of Jack Fisher’s Flesh & Blood included stories by Douglas Clegg, Gerard Houarner and others, along with interviews with Peter Crowther and China Miéville.

  Studies in Modern Horror: A Scholarly Journal for the Study of Contemporary Weird Fiction included articles on Clive Barker’s The Thief of Always, China Miéville’s The Scar and Fritz Leiber’s Our Lady of Darkness, along with an annotated short story by John Pelan.

  From Small Beer Press, Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant’s Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet featured experimental fiction, poetry and articles by Susan Mosser, James Sallis, Jay Lake and others, while the second and third issues of Heather Shaw and Tim Pratt’s comparable Flytrap included work by Benjamin Rosenbaum, Jay Lake and Sonya Taaffe.

  John Klima’s Electric Velocipede featured stories and poetry by Liz Williams, Christopher Rowe, Kiel Stuart and Steve Nagy, amongst others.

  Then there was the usual erotic Lovecraftian horror in Michael A. Morel’s Cthulhu Sex #17, while the third issue of Brian Lingard’s Mythos Collector featured an interview with Peter Scartabello and an article on Lovecraftian audio adaptations.

  From Pentagram Publications, John Navroth’s Lovecraft’s Weird Mysteries included fiction by R. Michael Burns, James S. Dorr and others, along with a reprint from the pre-Code Tomb comics plus articles on how to shrink a head and the 1959 film The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake.

  The third issue of William Jones’ Book of Dark Wisdom: The Magazine of Dark Fiction and Lovecraftian Horror contained ten short stories by Don D’Ammassa and others, including a collaboration between Richard Gavin and D.F. Lewis.

  Published by Edgewood Press, Steve Pasechnick’s Alchemy featured six stories from Dale Bailey and others, while the two issues of John Benson’s Not One of Us included fiction and poetry by Kevin Anderson, Sonya Taffe and Terry Black.

  The first two issues of Andrew Hannon’s Thirteen contained new fiction by Lee Betteridge, David Turnbull, Hugh Cook and the editor himself. The debut edition of Jamie Rosen’s Irregular Quarterly included stories from Jay Caselberg, D.F. Lewis and Jay Lake, amongst others. Regrettably, the magazine’s shoddy production did not live up to the quality of the fiction.

  The prolific Lake was also one of the contributors to the third issue of Gary Fry’s Fusing Horizons, which also featured stories from Peter Tennant, Iain Rowan, John D. Rosenman and others, along with an interview with Stephen Gallagher.

  Lake was also sponsored by San Francisco’s Borderlands Books to create a short story in-store during an interactive process with artist Alan M. Clark and sculptor Paul Groendes. The combined result, “At the City of Rectified Errors”, was distributed in a signed and numbered edition of just fifty manuscript copies.

  Issues #33–35 of Aurealis: Australian Fantasy & Science Fiction were published as a single paperback volume by Chimaera Publications, edited by Keith Stevenson. The book contained twenty stories and various articles and reviews, along with an interview with author Hal Colebatch.

  Harlan Ellison’s irregular newsletter Rabbit Hole continued to supply information about the irrepressible author’s upcoming projects and appearances, along with four “6 Degrees of Separation” between Ellison and actor Kevin Bacon. In a joint statement issued in June, Ellison and America Online, Inc. announced a settlement of their four-year-old copyright infringement dispute for undisclosed terms.

  The Winter 2004 edition of Florida Atlantic University’s Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts featured an article on the Anglican/Catholic influence in James Herbert’s novel Shrine.

  In The Road to The Dark Tower: Exploring Stephen King’s Magnum Opus, Bev Vincent did just that with plot summaries, themes and motifs discussed, examined and explained.

  Hanging Out With the Dream King: Conversations With Neil Gaiman and His Collaborators from Fantagraphics Books was a collection of illustrated interviews by editor Joseph McCabe with Dave McKean, Kim Newman, Stephen Jones, Charles Vess, P. Craig Russell, Bryan Talbot, Tori Amos, Alice Cooper, Terry Pratchett, Gene Wolfe and others who have collaborated with Gaiman over the years in books and comics. The volume also included two interviews with Gaiman himself.

  Published by Kent State University Press, Ray Bradbury: The Life of Fiction by Jonathan R. Eller and William F. Touponce was a critical evaluation of Bradbury’s career, including a chronological bibliography, extracts from a 2002 interview and a Foreword by William F. Nolan. Aimed at younger read
ers, Wendy Mass’ biography Ray Bradbury: Master of Science Fiction and Fantasy was part of the “Authors Teens Love” series from Enslow Publishers.

  Edited by Steven L. Aggelis for the University Press of Mississippi, Conversations With Ray Bradbury collected a number of interviews with the author.

  In Muggles and Magic: J.K. Rowling and the Harry Potter Phenomenon, George Beahm took a look at the popular children’s books, with photos, quotes and illustrations by Tim Kirk. A Maggie’s Guide to the Wizarding World: Exploring the Harry Potter Universe by Fionna Boyle covered similar ground, while The Sorcerer’s Companion: A Guide to the Magical World of Harry Potter, Second Edition was a revised and expanded edition of Allan Zola Kronzek and Elizabeth Kronzek’s 2001 non-fiction study.

  Edited by David Baggett and Shawn E. Klein, the sixteen critical essays in Harry Potter and Philosophy: If Aristotle Ran Hogwarts were probably not aimed at Rowling’s usual readership.

  A Serious Life by D.M. Mitchell was a comprehensive history of maverick publisher Savoy Books, offering a fascinating insight into the imprint’s trials (literally!) and tribulations over the past thirty years. Produced in an attractive, illustrated deluxe edition, the book featured the first-ever extended interviews with the company’s founders, David Britton and Michael Butterworth.

  From the Texas-based MonkeyBrain Books, which specializes in non-fiction genre studies, came four attractively-produced trade paperbacks: Why Should I Cut Your Throat?: Excursions Into the Worlds of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror was a collection of essays and reviews by Jeff VanderMeer, while A Blazing World: The Unofficial Companion to The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume Two by Jess Nevins featured an Introduction by and interview with Alan Moore, plus a striking cover design by John Picacio.

  Picacio also produced the cover art for MonkeyBrain’s revised reissue of Michael Moorcock’s 1987 study Wizardry & Wild Romance: A Study of Epic Fantasy that included a new Introduction by China Miéville and a new Afterword by Jeff VanderMeer. Edited by Lou Anders, Projections: Science Fiction in Literature & Film contained twenty-nine essays by Michael Moorcock, John Clute, Tim Lebbon, Lucius Shepard, Robert Silverberg, David Brin and others, and Anders also contributed the Introduction to a new edition of The Discontinuity Guide, a deconstruction of the Doctor Who mythos by Paul Cornell, Martin Day and Keith Topping, with a Foreword by Terrance Dicks.

  As the Ambassador of Ireland to the Republic of Korea, there was no denying that Paul Murray knew his Irish history. Unfortunately, his dull biography From the Shadow of Dracula: The Life of Bram Stoker not only failed to achieve its title’s avowed purpose, but probably left anyone unfamiliar with the rest of Stoker’s work wondering what all the fuss was about. Richard Dalby’s 1983 Bram Stoker: A Bibliography appeared in an expanded edition from Desert Island Books.

  Donald Tyson’s Necronomicon: The Wanderings of Alhazred purported to be the legendary book of magic created by H.P. Lovecraft.

  Margaret L. Carter’s study Different Blood: The Vampire as Alien was a print-on-demand title, while Beth E. McDonald’s The Vampire as Numinous Experience: Spiritual Journeys With the Undead in British and American Literature from McFarland was another critical examination of the myth.

  Edited by Glenn Yeffeth, Five Seasons of Angel: Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors Discuss Their Favorite Vampire contained twenty-one essays by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Peter S. Beagle and others.

  Michael Marshall Smith: The Annotated Bibliography, compiled by Lavie Tidhar, was an attractive illustrated listing of the author’s works, with notes by Smith himself. The first in a proposed new series of author bibliographies from PS Publishing, it appeared in a slim edition of 200 signed and numbered hardcovers and 300 numbered paperbacks.

  From McFarland & Company, Thomas Mann’s Horror and Mystery Photoplay Editions and Magazine Fictionizations was an attractive reference guide to more 500 movie tie-in “photoplay” editions published before 1970. Leon E. Nielsen’s Arkham House Books: A Collector’s Guide was available from the same publisher as a trade paperback. With a Foreword by Barry Abrahams, it was a guide to collecting, buying and selling Arkham, Mycroft & Moran and Stanton & Lee books, featuring around sixty photos and a bibliography.

  Milt Thomas’ Cave of a Thousand Tales: The Life & Times of Hugh B. Cave was a biography of the legendary pulp writer, who died a few weeks before the book’s publication from Arkham House.

  Ronin Ro’s Tales to Astonish looked at the career of late comics artist Jack Kirby and his struggle to receive a fairer return for the many characters he helped create for Marvel and other publishers.

  Produced by Cummington Co. and only available through mailorder, Ray Guns, Robots and Rocket Ships was Ken Weiss’ guide to every American science fiction sound serial up to 1993, containing almost 250 stills.

  Compiled by Nancy Kilpatrick, The Goth Bible: A Compendium for the Darkly Inclined included everything any black-clad outcast needed to know to tell a Christian Goth from an Übergoth.

  Based loosely on a BBC Radio 4 series, Tolkien’s Gown & Other Stories of Great Authors and Rare Books amusingly detailed book dealer Rick Gekoski’s involvement with such titles as The Hobbit, Lord of the Flies, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Animal Farm, The Satanic Verses, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and other volumes and their authors.

  James Swallow adapted the time-travel movie The Butterfly Effect, while Stephen Hand novelized the redundant remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

  More interestingly, The Day After Tomorrow was novelized by Whitley Strieber, upon whose 1999 non-fiction book The Coming Global Superstorm (co-written with Art Bell) the disaster movie was loosely based.

  Other film tie-in titles of the year included Van Helsing by Kevin Ryan, The Punisher by D.A. Stern, The Chronicles of Riddick by Alan Dean Foster, Spider-Man 2 by Peter David, Catwoman by Elizabeth Hand, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow by K. (Kevin) J. Anderson, AVP: Alien vs. Predator by Marc Cerasini, Resident Evil: Apocalypse by Keith R.A. DeCandido, The Final Cut by Robert Westbrook, Exorcist: The Beginning by Steven Piziks, Blade: Trinity by Natasha Rhodes and Elektra by Yvonne Navarro.

  Navarro also wrote the Hellboy novelisation, while Christopher Golden’s earlier comic book tie-ins, Hellboy: The Lost Army and Hellboy: The Bones of Giants, both illustrated by Mike Mignola, were also reissued in paperback.

  Resident Evil: Genesis by Keith R.A. DeCandido, Resident Evil: Zero Hour by S.D. Perry, Terminator 3: Terminator Hunt by Aaron Allston and Underworld 2: Blood Enemy by Greg Cox were all original sequels set in various movie milieus, while Sholly Fisch’s Ghostbusters: The Return was a belated sequel to the 1984 film.

  The remake tie-in of Ira Levin’s The Stepford Wives included a 2002 Introduction by Peter Straub as an Afterword, while Richard Condon’s 1959 cold war thriller The Manchurian Candidate and Michael Crichton’s 1999 novel Timeline were both reissued in new movie editions.

  Although the TV show was finished, the Buffy, the Vampire Slayer novelisations proved as popular as ever with Apocalypse Memories by J. Laura Burns and Melinda Metz, Heat by Nancy Holder and Yvonne Navarro’s Wicked Willow trilogy (I: The Darkening, II: Shattered Twilight and III: Broken Sunrise), along with the anthology Tales of the Slayer, Vol. 4.

  Companion show Angel also came to an end, but that did not put a stop to the tie-in books, including Nemesis by Scott Ciencin and Denise Ciencin, Dark Mirror by Craig Shaw Gardner, Monolith by John Passarella, Book of the Dead by Ashley McConnell and Love and Death by Jeff Mariotte.

  The Charmed series – both books and TV show – continued to thrive with Luck Be a Lady by Scott Ciencin, Inherit the Witch by Laura J. Burns, A Tale of Two Pipers by Emma Harrison, The Brewing Storm by Paul Ruditis, Survival of the Fittest by Jeff Mariotte and Pied Piper by Debbie Viguie.

  The Smallville novelisation Temptation by Suzan Colón was mysteriously retitled Control in the UK. It was followed by Curse by Alan Grant, City by Drevin Grayson and Sparks by Cherie Bennett and Jeff Gottesfeld
.

  Inspired by Stephen King’s limited ABC-TV series Kingdom Hospital, The Journals of Eleanor Druse: My Investigation of the Kingdom Hospital Incident was purported to be written by the pseudonymous psychic, but was reportedly the work of co-producer/scriptwriter Richard Dooling.

  Anonymous Rex/Casual Rex was an omnibus edition of Erica Garcia’s 1999 and 2001 novels about a velociraptor PI, published to tie-in with the likeable Sci Fi Channel movie.

  From ibooks came The Twilight Zone: Book 3: Deep in the Dark by John Heffers, while stories from a more recent incarnation of the show appeared in the form of The Twilight Zone: Upgrade/Sensuous City by Pat Cadigan, Memphis/The Pool Guy by Jay Russell and Into the Light/Sunrise by Paul Woods.

  Based on the DC Comics series created by Neil Gaiman and John Bolton, The Books of Magic: Consequences and Lost Places by Carla Jablonski were the fourth and fifth volumes, respectively, in the young adult series about the magical adventures of Tim and his best friend Molly. Reckonings was the sixth and final volume in the series.

  The Unquiet Grave by Peter J. Evans was the first in a series based on the exploits of vampire agent Durham Red from 2000 AD.

  Lara Croft, Tomb Raider: The Lost Cult by E.E. Knight and Lara Croft, Tomb Raider: The Man of Bronze by James Alan Gardner were based on the video games.

  White Wolf’s “World of Darkness”, the contemporary horror setting for the majority of the company’s games and fiction, continued with Vampire: The Puppet-Masters by Tim Dedopulos, third in the “Clan Brujah Trilogy”, while Greg Stolze’s A Hunger Like Fire was based on the “Vampire: The Requiem” role-playing game.

  Vampire: The Clan Novel Saga, Vol.2 The Eye of Gehenna and Vol.3 Bloody September, both edited by Stewart Wieck, were omnibus/anthologies using material from various novels, anthologies and stories re-arranged chronologically. They were followed by Vol.4 End Games, edited by Philippe Boulle.