Subterranean also revived the old Dark Harvest Night Visions series with the tenth volume. Edited by Richard Chizinar and illustrated by Alan M. Clark, it contained new novellas by Jack Ketchum and John Shirley, along with five original short stories by David B. Silva. The volume was available as a trade hardcover and a 500-copy limited edition.
Simon Clark’s new novel,Darkness Demands, appeared from Cemetery Dance in a signed edition limited to 1,000 copies. It involved a writer of true-crime stories faced with choosing between the survival of his daughter or the rest of his family. A reissue of Clark’s 1995 end-of-civilization novel, Blood Crazy, was also available from the same publisher in a signed edition of 1,000 copies.
The signed, limited edition of Christopher Golden’s The Ferryman came with a quote from Clive Barker and involved a woman who spurned the eponymous soul-taker during a near-fatal medical ordeal. The book’s prologue was published as a chap-book with illustrations by Eric Powell.
Tim Lebbon’s short novel Until She Sleeps was about a young boy’s battle against a resurrected 300-year-old witch who released her suppressed nightmares on a quiet village. It was available in a deluxe limited edition of 1,000 signed copies. Edward Lee’sCity Infernal was a Southern Gothic horror novel set in Hell and also limited to 1,000 copies.
The Cemetery Dance hardcover of Richard Laymon’s Night in Lonesome October was the first US edition of the late author’s Halloween novel. Also from CD, Friday Night at Beast House was a short novel that was nominally a sequel to the author’s previous three books in the series. Laymon’s fable The Halloween Mouse was a thin, oversized hardcover illustrated in full colour by Alan M. Clark and limited to only 300 signed and numbered copies inside a handmade cloth slipcase.
Richard Matheson’s Camp Pleasant was possibly an early novel, about a murder at a children’s summer camp, while a limited edition of 1,500 copies of Jack Ketchum’s The Lost was published by Cemetery Dance simultaneously with the Leisure paperback.
Edited by Richard Chizmar,Trick or Treat was the first in a new hardcover anthology series celebrating Halloween. It collected five original novellas by Gary A. Braunbeck, Nancy A. Collins, Rick Hautala, Al Sarrantonio and Thomas Tessier. It was also available in a signed edition, limited to 400 slipcased copies.
F. Paul Wilson’s Sims Book Two: The Portero Method was the second in a new series of hardcover novellas published exclusively by Cemetery Dance in a limited edition of 750 signed copies. Wilson’s latest ‘Repairman Jack’ novel, Hosts, appeared from Gauntlet Press in a signed, limited edition of 475 copies, with cover art by Harry O. Morris. It introduced the enigmatic Jack’s sister, Kate Iverson, and featured an insidious virus that threatened to deprive humanity of its individuality.
Originally published in 1991 as a paperback original, Nancy A. Collins’s second novel, Tempter, appeared from Gauntlet Press in a completely rewritten version that the author considered the preferred text. It was available as both a signed and numbered hardcover and in a lettered, leather-bound and tray-cased edition priced at $150.
Edited by Donn Albright, Ray Bradbury’s classic collection Dark Carnival was limited to only 700 numbered and slipcased copies signed by Bradbury and Clive Barker (who contributed the afterword). This edition added five stories not contained in the 1947 Arkham House edition, along with several black and white pulp-cover reproductions and an archival section featuring photos of manuscript pages, letters, and some other rare items. Bradbury produced the dust-jacket art and interior illustrations himself. A lettered, leather-bound, tray-cased edition of fifty-two copies, containing an extra twenty-five pages, sold for $1,000 apiece.
For those who purchased the book directly from the publisher, there was also a chapbook of Bradbury’s story ‘Time Intervening’, limited to 752 copies.
The deluxe reissue of Richard Matheson’s classic The Shrinking Man contained a new afterword by David Morrell, photos from the movie and several pages of facsimile script. It was limited to 500 numbered copies signed by Matheson and Morrell.
Gauntlet’s new Edge imprint concentrated on publishing mass-market trade paperbacks and hardcovers. Released as an Edge title, Barry Hoffman’s serial-killer novel Judas Eyes was the third in the series about bounty hunter Shara Farris, with an afterword by Jack Ketchum.
The Gauntlet Press Sampler was a chapbook featuring new stories by Richard Christian Matheson, Barry Hoffman, Rain Graves and Richard Matheson, along with a poem by Clive Barker, illustrated by Harry O. Morris and David Armstrong.
Launched in November 2000 by Craig Spector and a venture capital company to sell books directly through the Internet, Stealth Press consolidated its publishing schedule in 2001 with a raft of nicely produced hardcover volumes that were not initially available in bookstores.
Celebrating the fortieth anniversary of Dennis Etchison’s first professional short-story sale,Talking in the Dark: Selected Stories was a handsome collection of twenty-four tales (one original), the earliest dating back to 1972. Unfortunately, despite being a commemorative volume, the book contained neither an introduction nor any story notes by the author.
Darkness Divided collected twenty-two stories (four original) by John Shirley, presented in two sections - one featuring stories set in the past and the present, and the other set in myriad futures. The book included collaborations with Walter Gibson and Bruce Sterling, plus a short introduction by Poppy Z. Brite.
Dark Universe contained forty-one stories that author William F. Nolan considered to be amongst his best work from the past fifty years, with an introduction by Christopher Conlon. Chelsea Quinn Yarbro’sTempting Fate, her third Saint-Germain vampire book from Stealth Press, weighed in at more than 600 pages.
In December, Stealth published a 800-page-plus edition of Clive Barker’s Books of Blood. The massive collection was available as a trade hardcover, a 500-copy signed edition and as a lettered edition of fifty-two copies that sold out pre-publication. Featuring a cover photograph by the author and a new preface by Peter Atkins, it was the first and only edition containing all six books in one volume (including the final story, ‘On Jerusalem’s Street’, previously unavailable in any North American printing).
However, having gone through a reported $1.3 million in venture capital, Stealth suspended all publication at the end of the year and let its consulting staff go. Amongst those who found that they were out of a job were Craig Spector, Pat LoBrutto, Peter Schneider, Paula Guran, Douglas Clegg and Peter Atkins, while imminent editions of Ray Bradbury’s poetry collection They Have Not Seen the Stars and Tabitha King’s Small World were left in limbo.
Sporting a jokey dust jacket by Gahan Wilson, Acolytes of Cthulhu was the third Lovecraftian anthology edited and introduced by Robert M. Price and published in hardcover by Fedogan & Bremer. It contained twenty-eight stories (two original) by Joséph Payne Brennan, C.M. Eddy, Manly Wade Wellman, Henry Hasse, Edmond Hamilton, David H. Keller M.D., Jorge Luis Borges, Randall Garrett, S.T. Joshi, Dirk W. Mosig, Don Burleson, Peter Cannon, Gustav Meyrinck, Neil Gaiman and others.
Fedogan also reissued H.P. Lovecraft’s Fungi from Yuggoth as an audio CD containing thirty-five sonnets and with an accompanying booklet.
Inspired by Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos, Strange Aeons from Wiltshire’s Rainfall Records was an atmospheric two-disk CD collection of words and music produced and directed by artist Steve Lines. Contributors to the audio anthology included Ramsey Campbell, Brian Lumley, Simon Clark, John B. Ford, Joel Lane, Robert M. Price and Tim Lebbon.
Robert T. Garcia’s American Fantasy imprint published a 600-copy signed and slipcased edition of Michael Moorcock’s The Dreamthief’s Daughter: A Tale of the Albino, in which Elric of Melnibone, Count Ulzic von Bek and other characters battled the evils of Hitler’s Nazi Germany. The beautifully designed volume, illustrated by Randy Broecker, Donato Giancola, Gary Gianni, Robert Gould, Michael Kaluta, Todd Lockwood, Don Maitz and Michael Whelan, was also issued in a twenty-six-copy lettered and tray-cased edit
ion.
Ranging from Lovecraftian horrors to hard SF, Claremont Tales was a collection of twelve recent stories (one original) by Richard A. Lupoff, illustrated by Nicholas Jainschigg and published by Golden Gryphon Press.
Peter Crowther’s PS Publishing released Tracy Knight’s impressive and offbeat debut novel The Astonished Eye (originally scheduled to appear from the now defunct Pumpkin Books) with an introduction by Philip José Farmer and dust-jacket illustration by Alan Clark. The hardcover was limited to 500 signed and numbered copies and twenty-six deluxe lettered editions.
Introduced by Paul Di Filippo, Eric Brown’s novella A Writer’s Life concerned an apparently immortal author whose previous incarnations included Ambrose Bierce. Conrad Williams’sNearly People included an introduction by Michael Marshall Smith and concerned a woman’s quest through a decaying and dangerous landscape. Both were published by PS in limited signed and numbered editions of 500 paperback copies and 300 hardcovers.
Manchester’s Savoy Books reprinted Anthony Skene’s (aka George Norman Philips, 1886-1972) incredibly rare 1936 pulp detective novel Monsieur Zenith the Albino as an attractive hardcover with an introduction by Jack Adrian, a foreword by Michael Moorcock, and numerous black and white illustrations and cover reproductions throughout.
From the same publisher, David Britton’s Baptized in the Blood of Millions was the third ‘Lord Horror’ novel with illustrations by the author, set in a bizarre alternate England spanning World War II and featuring the traitorous Lord Haw-Haw, British film star Jessie Matthews and poet Sylvia Plath as characters.
From editor David Sutton’s Shadow Publishing imprint, Phantoms of Venice was a solid anthology often tales (two reprints) by Peter Tremayne, Cherry Wilder, Conrad Williams, Mike Chinn, Tim Lebbon, Brian Stableford and others, including one by the editor himself, set in the ‘Serene Republic’ of dark canals. The hardcover also included an informative foreword by Joel Lane and dust-jacket art by Harry O. Morris.
Produced in conjunction with The British Fantasy Society, Telos Publishing was launched with Urban Gothic: Lacuna and Other Trips edited by David J. Howe, a trade paperback and hardcover anthology based on the disappointing Channel 5 TV series. Along with a very brief introduction by actor Richard O’Brien and interviews with the creators of the show, it included three original tales about London (the first two of them reprints) by Christopher Fowler, Graham Masterton and Simon Clark and a trio of stories by Paul Finch, Steve Lockley and Paul Lewis, and Debbie Bennett based on previously produced scripts by Tom de Ville.
Telos also began publishing a series of original hardcover Doctor Who novellas. The first, Time and Relative by Kim Newman, appeared as a standard hardcover and in a deluxe signed edition featuring a colour frontispiece illustration by Bryan Talbot.
Published in trade paperback by Brooklyn’s Small Beer Press, Stranger Things Happen was the first collection from the talented Kelly Link, containing eleven quirky, spooky and smart stories (two original). Meet Me in the Moon Room from the same imprint contained thirty-three often surreal tales (six original) by Ray Vukcevich.
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 withTangy 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, Caitlfn R. Kiernan and others.
Nameless Cults: The Cthulhu Mythos Fiction of Robert E. Howardwas 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.
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