A junior FBI agent and a geeky barista teamed up to prevent a group of Cthulhu cultists from awakening the Great Old Ones in Seamus Cooper’s irreverent novel Mall of Cthulhu, from San Francisco’s Night Shade Books, which expanded its staff and publication schedule in 2009.
Tim Lebbon’s novel Bar None was subtitled A Novel of Chilling Suspense, Apocalyptic Beauty, and Fine Ales and was set six months after the end of the world, when a group of Welsh survivors set out to find quite possibly the last pub on Earth.
Mark Teppo’s Lightbreaker was the first volume in the “Codex of Souls” series and featured an antiquities dealer with psychic powers pursuing a body-hopping spirit while trying to stay out of the clutches of various secret socities and cults. Meanwhile, John Langan’s House of Windows wove a number of phantasmal stories around a beautiful widow living in an old mansion.
The Dream of X and Other Fantastic Visions was the fifth and final volume in Night Shade’s admirable compilations of the fiction of William Hope Hodgson. Edited by Douglas A. Anderson with an Introduction by Ross E. Lockhart, this volume contained a number of alternate versions of the author’s work.
The Maze of the Enchanter was the fourth volume in The Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith series edited by Scott Connors and Ron Hilger. Gahan Wilson supplied an Introduction to the nineteen stories and extraneous material.
The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and By Blood We Live were two more (mostly reprint) anthologies plundered from other anthologies by editor John Joseph Adams for Night Shade.
Strange Tales Volume III was another handsome-looking original anthology from Tartarus Press. Along with a Preface by uncredited editor Rosalie Parker, the hardcover featured seventeen slightly old-fashioned supernatural stories by Mark Valentine, Gary McMahon, Reggie Oliver, Tina Rath, John Gaskin, Gerard Houarner, Simon Strantzas and others.
Also from Tartarus, Simon Strantzas’ second short-story collection, Cold to the Touch, was just as good as his first, Beneath the Surface. It contained thirteen stories (six original) and an Afterword by the author.
Published in Bucharest, Romania, in editions of just 400 jacket-less hardcover copies, Dan Ghetu’s Ex Occidente Press issued new limited edition collections by a number of British authors: R.B. Russell’s Putting the Pieces in Place contained five genteel ghost stories with an Afterword by Elizabeth Brown.
Reggie Oliver’s Madder Mysteries contained eight stories (five original, including a posthumous collaboration with M.R. James), along with five articles about such authors as Stella Gibbons, Montague Summers, Henry James and M.R. James, and ten short “Curiosities”, all illustrated by the author.
Joel Lane’s The Terrible Changes contained fourteen previously uncollected “quiet” stories (two original) and was limited to 300 copies, while The Nightfarers, Mark Valentine’s collection of fourteen literary ghost stories (eight original), was published by Ex Occidente in a much classier format with a print run of just 350 copies.
Charnel House returned to the small press collector’s market with a numbered and signed 250-copy edition of Dean Koontz’s Your Heart Belongs to Me, and a twenty-six lettered copy priced at $1,500!
The same imprint also issued Koontz’s Relentless, while Tim Powers’ novella A Time to Cast Away Stones purported to be the waterlogged notebook of Percy Bysshe Shelley. A celebration of the imprint’s twentieth anniversary with an Introduction by publisher Joe Stefko, it was also limited to 250 signed and numbered editions and a leather-bound lettered edition of twenty-six copies ($1,250).
According to editor Lisa Morton, her anthology Midnight Walk, the premiere release from the Darkhouse Publishing collective, did not include any of “the same old crap” to be found elsewhere in the horror genre. It did contain fourteen original stories by mostly Californian or mid-western writers, including John Palisano, Mike McCarty, Vince Churchill, Del Howison, Kelly Dunn and the editor herself.
From New York’s Dark Scribe Press, Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet was a gay-themed horror anthology edited by Vince A. Liaguno and Chad Helder. It featured twenty-four original stories by Gary McMahon, Lisa Morton, Scott Nicholson, Kealan Patrick Burke and Sarah Langan, amongst others.
In the Closet, Under the Bed from the same imprint collected fifteen stories (nine original) by Lee Thomas, with a Foreword by David Thomas Lord and an Afterword by Michael Rowe.
Different Skins from Screaming Dreams contained two new novellas by Gary McMahon with an Introduction by Tim Lebbon and an Afterword by the author.
Sponsored by Boston’s Interstital Arts Foundation, Interfictions 2: An Anthology of Interstital Writing edited by Delia Sherman and Christopher Barzak contained twenty-one original stories by Jeffrey Ford, M. Rickert, Ray Vukcevich, Lavie Tidhar and others, along with an interview with the editors.
Published by California’s Counterpoint Press, A Robe of Feathers and Other Stories was the first collection from Japan-based author Thersa Matsuura. The seventeen original stories were all based on Japanese folk myths and legends.
Cern Zoo was the ninth volume in the Nemonymous series of anthologies from Megazanthus Press. Not only did the book provide a list of the authors in the previous volume, but it also revealed the contributors to the current volume, just not in the same order as the twenty-five stories found on the Contents.
From Immediate Direction Publications, The Edge of the Country and Other Stories contained fourteen tales (three original) and a poem by Trevor Denyer, the editor and publisher of Midnight Street magazine. The thin paperback came with an Introduction by Allen Ashley and all the reprint stories had been fully revised.
Limited to just 200 copies, Horror Reanimated 1: Echoes was a softcover collection of three original stories by Joseph D’Lacey, Bill Hussey and Mathew F. Riley that was designed to promote the authors’ blogging website.
Meanwhile, Hussey’s The Absence from Bloody Books was a ghost story set in a Fenland millhouse, while D’Lacey’s novel Garbage Man from the same imprint came with a cover quote by Stephen King.
Shards: Short Sharp Tales from Australia’s Brimstone Press was a collection of thirty-one stories (eight original) by Shane Jiraiya Cummings, with an Introduction by Richard Harland and illustrations and an Afterword by Andrew J. McKiernan.
Festive Fear: A Collection of Dark Tales was an anthology of fourteen seasonal stories from Australian imprint Tasmaniac Publications. From the same publisher, Matt Venne’s 1980s coming-of-age serial killer novel Cruel Summer came with an Introduction by Joe R. Lansdale and illustrations by Daniele Serra.
Published by Golden Gryphon Press and inspired by Fritz Leiber’s Conjure Wife, George Zebrowski’s Empties was about a third-rate detective investigating a series of murders where the victims’ brains had been removed.
Andrew Hook’s And God Created Zombies was a novella from NewCon Press.
S.T. Joshi edited and supplied the Foreword to Copping Squid and Other Mythos Tales from Perilous Press, a collection of eight Lovecraftian stories (half original) set in or around San Francisco by Michael Shea. The signed limited hardcover edition of 250 copies was illustrated by Steven Gilberts.
From Elder Signs Press, The Anthology of Dark Wisdom: The Best of Dark Fiction, edited with an Introduction by William Jones, collected twenty-five award-winning reprints and previously unpublished works by Peter Straub, John Shirley, Richard A. Lupoff, Alan Dean Foster, Tom Piccirilli, Gerard Houarner and others.
Side Real Press began reprinting the works of German author Hanns Heinz Ewers (1871-1943). Nachtmahr: Strange Tales collected eleven stories (many newly translated) and an essay on Edgar Allan Poe, with an Introduction by J.N. Hirschhorn-Smith. It was limited to just 350 numbered hardcover copies.
From Canada’s Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing, Tesseracts Thirteen: Chilling Tales from the Great White North edited by Nancy Kilpatrick and David Morrell was the latest volume in the acclaimed Canadian anthology series. After separate introductions by the two e
ditors, the book was split into four themed sections and featured twenty-three original stories by Edo van Belkom, Suzanne Church, Bev Vincent, Kelley Armstrong, David Nickle, Michael Kelly, Gord Rollo and Alison Baird, amongst others. However, the best part of the book was the fourth section, which consisted solely of an extensive and fascinating article by the incredibly knowledgeable Robert Knowlton, chronicling two centuries of Canadian dark fantasy and horror.
From the same imprint, Gaslight Grotesque: Nightmare Tales of Sherlock Holmes was edited by J.R. Campbell and Charles Prepolec and contained thirteen new stories by Lawrence C. Connolly, James A. Moore, Mark Morris, Barbara Roden, Simon Kurt Unsworth, Stephen Volk and others.
Edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Robert Eighteen-Bisang, Vampire Stories from Skyhorse Publishing collected nine stories by Arthur Conan Doyle along with a story by Bill Crider in which Sherlock Holmes met up with Bram Stoker and Van Helsing.
With an Introduction by Simon Clark and an Afterword by publisher Terry Grimwood, Mostly Monochrome Stories from The Exaggerated Press contained twenty-four stories (seven original) by British writer John Travis.
Swedish publisher Morrigan Books issued Dead Souls, a non-themed anthology of twenty-five stories edited by Mark S. Deniz. Contributors included Ramsey Campbell, Robert Hood and Gary McMahon.
Edited by Jennifer Brozek and Amanda Pillar, Grants Pass was a post-apocalyptic anthology of nineteen connected stories by Jay Lake, Cherie Priest and others from the same imprint.
Apparitions was an original anthology of thirteen stories about ghosts and revenants from Canadian imprint Undertow Publications. Despite being edited by Michael Kelly and featuring an impressive line-up of contributors that included Christopher Conlon, Joel Lane, Paul Finch, Gemma Files, Iain Rowan, Barbara Roden, Simon Bestwick, Gary A. Braunbeck, Gary McMahon and Steve Duffy, amongst others, the most chilling thing about the book was Erin Wells’ superbly spooky cover illustration.
A large corporation created the undead in John G. Rees’ Anoxic Zone from Black Water Books.
Published as a horribly designed trade paperback by TotalRecall Publications, Chicago Warriors: Midnight Battles in the Windy City was a Christian police procedural about the confrontation between the forces of Good and Evil by former Chicago cop and FBI Special Agent John M. Wills. The book featured 67(!) chapters, along with a Prologue and Epilogue.
From New Jersey’s Lethe Press, The Haunted Heart and Other Tales was a collection of twelve ghost stories (six original) by Jameson Currier about gay men and the memories that haunt them. The trade paperback also included an Introduction and story notes by the author.
Editor Sean Wallace acquired Prime Books from John Gregory Betancourt’s Wildside Press and relaunched the imprint in May as an independent publisher, while Paula Guran’s Juno romantic fantasy line moved from Wildside to become an imprint of Pocket Books. Wildside retained the Cosmos Books imprint and Betancourt continued to publish Weird Tales magazine.
However, original owner Philip Harbottle soon terminated his licence with Wildside to publish the Cosmos line, which had been edited by Wallace since 1997.
Published under the Prime imprint, Northwest Passages was an attractive hardcover collection of Barbara Roden’s work. Two of the ten stories were original to the book, which also included an Introduction by Michael Dirda and detailed story notes by the author.
Phantom was an original horror anthology from Prime edited by Paul Tremblay and Sean Wallace. It contained fourteen stories by Steve Rasnic Tem, Lavie Tidhar and others.
Roy Robbins’ Bad Moon Books issued a handsome series of signed and numbered chapbooks, most of them illustrated in full colour. Titles included The Hunger of Empty Vessels by Scott Edelman, This Ghosting Tide by Simon Clark, The Gray Zone by John R. Little, The Lucid Dreaming by Lisa Morton, Doc Good’s Traveling Show by Gene O’Neill, The Better Year by Bridget Morrow, Necropolis by John Urbanick and The Watching by Paul Melniczek.
Nicholas Royle launched his new Nightjar Press with two attractive short story chapbooks: What Happens When You Wake Up in the Night by Michael Marshall Smith and The Safe Children by Tom Fletcher.
The annual Rolling Darkness Revue chapbook from Earthling Publications was titled Bartlett: A Centenary Symposium. Not only did it include two fine ghost stories by Peter Atkins and Glen Hirshberg, but also the first printing of the complete version of “The Memory Pool”, a 1917 story by obscure British weird fiction author Thomas St John Bartlett (1875–1909). In addition, the attractive booklet featured three author biographies of Bartlett from various respected reference books and a historical Introduction by Barbara Roden.
The Rolling Darkness Revue 2009 was performed by Atkins and Hirshberg at the Alliance Repertory Theatre, Burbank, California, on October 22 and 29, with Kevin Gregg playing Thomas Bartlett.
Ray Bradbury’s The Shop of the Mechanical Insects was illustrated in full colour by Dave McKean and was limited to 500 deluxe copies from Subterranean Press.
Brief Encounters was a self-published booklet of four stories (two original) about Captain Luís da Silva by Chico Kidd, who also supplied a new Introduction.
From Canada’s Burning Effigy Press, Primeval Wood was a new story by Richard Gavin, while Fresh Blood from the same imprint collected three original tales by Dave Alexander, Kelli Dunlap and Bob Freeman.
Baltimore’s Old Earth Books reissued Howard Waldrop’s 1980 story The Ugly Chickens with a new Afterword by the author as a special 250-copy edition chapbook distributed free to members of the 2009 World Fantasy Convention. Convention members also received the first issue of The Fabulist from California’s Pharos Publications/Illuminated Media, featuring five stories originally published online.
A dying country singer made a deal with a vampire in Derek McCormack’s The Show That Smells, published by Akashic Books/Little House on the Bowery.
The Sour Aftertaste of Olive Lemon by British writer Catherine J. Gardner was the first chapbook from Bucket ‘O’ Guts Press, and Marley’s Ghost and Button, both by Simon Kurt Unsworth, were published as somewhat basic chapbooks by Dorset’s Ghostwriter Publications.
From Gothic Press, The Sound of Dead Hands Clapping contained six stories by Mark Rich.
Gordon Van Gelder’s The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (F&SF) switched from eleven issues a year to a bi-monthly schedule with the April/May issue. The publisher cited rising postage costs and the state of the economy for the cutback on frequency, although the page count was substantially increased and subscribers received all the issues they had paid for.
Among the authors contributing to F&SF were Charles Coleman Finlay, Carol Emshwiller, Fred Chappell, Marc Laidlaw, Ellen Kushner, Mike O’Driscoll, Terry Bisson, Melinda M. Snodgrass, Lawrence C. Connolly, Bruce Sterling, Nancy Springer, Tim Sullivan and Kit Reed, although no serious new horror stories were published in the magazine in 2009.
Both William Tenn and Ted White provided wonderful historical Introductions to Robert Bloch’s “That Hell-Bound Train” and Edward Jesby’s “Sea Wrack”, respectively, and there were other classic reprints by Patricia Ferrara, Jack Cady, Thomas M. Disch, John Varley, Gary Jennings, Tina Kuzminski and Jessie Thompson (with a typically exuberant Introduction by Harlan Ellison).
Charles de Lint, Elizabeth Hand, Michelle West, James Sallis, Chris Moriarty, Lucius Shepard and Kathi Maio supplied the usual book and movie review columns, and F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre, Lawrence Person, David Langford, Roberto de Sousa Causo, Graham Andrews and Patricia A. Martinelli all contributed to the “Curiosities” column.
F&SF’s 60th Anniversary Issue ran to more than 320 pages and contained fiction and reminiscences by Lucius Shepard, Elizabeth Hand, Albert E. Cowdrey, Robert Silverberg, Ron Goulart, Carol Emshwiller, Geoff Ryman, Joe Haldeman, M. Rickert and Kate Wilhelm, amongst others. The magazine also launched an online writing workshop run by Gardner Dozois, provoking some bloggers to accuse the publication of an ethical conflict.
The Very Best of Fantasy &
Science Fiction: 60th Anniversary Anthology was edited by Van Gelder for Tachyon Publications. It contained twenty-three stories by Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, Shirley Jackson, Philip K. Dick, Neil Gaiman and others.
Now billing itself as “The UK’s Premier Horror and Dark Fantasy Fiction Magazine”, Andy Cox’s Black Static: Transmissions from Beyond published its usual six issues.
Nina Allan, Maurice Broaddus, Gary Couzens, Paul Finch, Christopher Fowler, Joel Lane, Gary McMahon, Steve Rasnic Tem and Stephen Volk were amongst those who contributed fiction to the bi-monthly title. There were interviews with Tony Richards, Thomas Ligotti, Ellen Datlow, Steve Mosby, Gary A. Braunbeck, Joel Lane and Gary McMahon, along with the usual columns and reviews by Fowler, Volk, Mike O’Driscoll, Peter Tennant and Tony Lee.
Black Static’s companion title, Interzone, also produced six issues and, with #223, became the UK’s longest-running SF magazine, overtaking New Worlds. Interzone featured interviews with Jeffrey Ford, Bruce Sterling, Paul Di Filippo and artist Jim Woodring, Joe Abercrombie and Robert Holdstock.
Richard Chizmar’s Cemetery Dance managed three issues in 2009, with co-editor Robert Morrish bowing out with #60 and being replaced by Brian Freeman. Issue #61 also saw a welcome redesign of the logo and the interior layouts, along with the addition of a new subtitle: “The Magazine of Horror and Suspense”.
Don D’Auria, Ellen Datlow and Ed Gorman joined regular columnists Bev Vincent, Thomas F. Monteleone, Robert Morrish, John Pelan, Michael Marano and Mark Sieber, and there was new fiction from Thomas Tessier, Lisa Morton, Simon R. Green (a “Nightside” story), Tim Waggoner, Douglas Clegg (a new serial), Gary Raisor, David Morrell, Cody Goodfellow and others.
Among those interviewed were Ray Garton, Jeff Strand, Tananarive Due, Jeff Long, Glenn Chadbourne and Larry and Debra Roberts of Bloodletting Press, along with Peter Straub and William Peter Blatty, who both had special issues devoted to their work.
The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror Page 6