Horror: The 100 Best Books
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PETER TREMAYNE (b. 1943) is the pseudonym of historian Peter Berresford Ellis, the author of The Dictionary of Irish Mythology and A Dictionary of Celtic Mythology. The youngest son of a journalist, he was born in Coventry, England, but because of his father’s work received his education in a dozen different schools around the country. After studying at Brighton College of Art he tried his hand as a reporter, magazine editor, and lecturer. Being of Irish descent on his father’s side, he travelled widely in Ireland, studying its history, politics, language and culture, later broadening his interest to all Celtic countries. Already the author of such political volumes as Wales — A Nation Again and A History of the Irish Working Class, Ellis used the “Peter Tremayne” alias on his first horror novel, Hound of Frankenstein (1977), published by Mills & Boon. Since then he has published more than a dozen fantasy and horror novels such as Dracula Unborn, The Ants, The Curse of Loch Ness, Dracula My Love, Zombie!, The Morgow Rises, Swamp!, Kiss of the Cobra, Angelus!, Trollnight, Bloodmist, Ravenmoon, Island of Shadows and Snowbeast. Tremayne has edited Masters of Terror: William Hope Hodgson and Irish Masters of Fantasy, his infrequent short fiction appears in magazines and anthologies on both sides of the Atlantic, and six short horror stories are collected in My Lady of Hy-Brasil.
LISA TUTTLE (b. 1952) was born in Texas but has lived in Britain since 1980. An early member of the Clarion SF Writer’s Workshop, she won the John W. Campbell Award for best new science fiction writer in 1974. Her first book, Windhaven, was a collaboration with George R.R. Martin. Since then she has published the novels Familiar Spirit, Gabriel, Lost Futures and The Pillow Friend, plus the nonfiction studies, Encyclopedia of Feminism and Heroines. Winner of the 1990 British Science Fiction Award for her story “In Translation”, Tuttle’s short fiction has been collected in A Spaceship Built of Stone, A Nest of Nightmares and Memories of the Body, and she edited the acclaimed horror anthology by women, Skin of the Soul
KARL EDWARD WAGNER (1945-1994) was born in Knoxville Tennessee, and trained as a psychiatrist before becoming a full-time writer and editor. His first novel, Darkness Weaves With Many Shades (which appeared in a much-butchered edition in 1970) introduced Kane the Mystic Swordsman, and was the first in an intelligent and often extremely brutal heroic fantasy series that continued with Death Angel’s Shadow, Bloodstone, Dark Crusade, and the collections Night Winds and The Book of Kane. Wagner also developed the exploits of two of Robert E. Howard’s characters, Conan and Bran Mak Morn, in the respective novels The Road of Kings and Legion from the Shadows. His other books include Sign of the Salamander, Killer (co-written with David Drake), In a Lonely Place, Why Not You and I?, Unthreatened By the Morning Light and Exorcisms and Ecstasies. For fourteen years he was the editor of The Year’s Best Horror Stories series and he also edited three volumes of Echoes of Valor and Intensive Scare. Wagner collaborated with artist Kent Williams on the graphic novel, Tell Me, Dark, which he later disowned, and he was a multiple winner of both the World Fantasy Award and British Fantasy Award.
IAN WATSON (b. 1943) was born in Northumberland and raised on Tyneside. After receiving a first class Honours degree in English and a research degree from Oxford, he lectured in literature for several years in Tanzania and Tokyo. Returning to teach future studies at Birmingham Polytechnic, he has been a full-time writer since 1976. His first SF story was “Roof Garden Under Saturn” in New Worlds (1969), and although he has published numerous stories since, it is as a novelist that he has gained his reputation. His novel The Embedding was nominated for the John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 1974 and won the Prix Apollo in its French translation the following year. Subsequent novels have included The Jonah Kit (winner of the British Science Fiction Award for 1978), Miracle Visitors, God’s World, The Martian Inca, Alien Embassy, The Book of the River, Chekhov’s Journey, Queenmagic Kingmagic, Whores of Babylon, The Flies of Memory and the gaming novel, Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor. He has also turned to horror with the novels The Power, The Fire Worm and Meat, and his short fiction can be found in such collections as Evil Water, Salvage Rites and Other Stories, and Stalin’s Teardrops. Watson lives with his wife and daughter in a small Northamptonshire village and is an active member of CND and the Labour Party.
TAD WILLIAMS (b. 1957) has been a rock ‘n’ roll singer, a shoe salesman, a talk-show host, an insurance agent, a radio journalist and a commercial artist. Born in California, he grew up in Palo Alto, where he loved reading from an early age. He began writing at the age of 24 and his first novel, Tailchaser’s Song (1985), became a bestseller. Moving from ginger tomcats to heroic fantasy, he is also the author of the The Dragonbone Chair, Stone of Farewell and Green Angel Tower, the three books in his “Memory, Sorrow and Thorn” trilogy, and Child of An Ancient City (with Nina Kiriki Hoffmann).
CHET WILLIAMSON (b. 1948) was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. His first short story was published in 1981, since when more than sixty stories have appeared in such magazines as Playboy, The New Yorker, Esquire, Twilight Zone, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and New Black Mask, as well as numerous anthologies. Williamson’s first novel, Soulstorm (1986), was an inventive reworking of the traditional haunted house theme, and he has since published Ash Wednesday, Lowland Rider, Dreamthorp, McKain’s Dilemma and Reign. He lives with his wife and son in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania.
JACK WILLIAMSON (b. 1908) was born in Arizona and raised in New Mexico, where he still lives. After discovering Amazing Stories and being influenced by its 1927 serialization of The Moon Pool by A. Merritt, he decided to try writing stories for the magazine. His first published effort, “The Metal Man” (1928), was obviously influenced by Merritt, but over the next couple of decades he produced a prolific amount of SF and fantasy fiction for the pulp magazines, including “Golden Blood” (Weird Tales, 1933), “The Reign of Wizardry” (Unknown, 1940), and the classic werewolf novel, “Darker Than You Think” (Unknown, 1940). Early in his career he began writing his most famous work, the “Legion of Space” series, comprising The Legion of Space (1934), The Cometeers (1936), One Against the Legion (1939) and Nowhere Near (1967). Williamson’s best-known novel, The Humanoids, was published in 1949 and he has collaborated with Frederik Pohl on the “Undersea” and “Starchild” trilogies as well as the 1989 volume, Land’s End. His recent books include Lifeburst, Firechild, Mazeway and Beachhead, and the collection Into the Eighth Decade. Since 1960, Williamson has been actively involved in promoting SF as an academic subject, winning the Pilgrim Award in 1973 for his work. In 1976 he was awarded the second Grand Master Nebula.
J. (JERRY) N. WILLIAMSON (b. 1932) was born and lives in Indianapolis, where he and his wife Mary raised six children. Since starting out as a horror writer in 1979, his incredibly prolific output has resulted in nearly forty novels, from publishers such as Dell, Tor and Zebra Books, with colourful titles like The Evil One, Death-Coach, Ghost Mansion, Horror House, The Black School, Shadows of Death, Babel’s Children, Hell Storm, The Night Seasons and The Monastery. His short fiction is collected in The Naked Flesh of Feeling, has appeared in such magazines as Twilight Zone, Fantasy Tales and Pulphouse, and the anthologies Stalkers I, II and III, Scare Care, Under the Fang, PsychoPaths 1 and 2, Narrow Houses and The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. Williamson is also the editor of four volumes of the popular Masques anthologies and How To Write Tales of Horror, Fantasy and Science Fiction. He has also been a contributing editor to various magazines.
COLIN WILSON (b. 1931) was born in Leicester and is at once one of Britain’s most respected and controversial literary figures. He left school at the age of sixteen and worked in a variety of jobs until he gained international recognition eight years later with his first book — an “inquiry into the nature of the sickness of mankind” — titled The Outsider. Since then he has written more than fifty books on a diversity of subjects: psychosexual thrillers (Ritual in the Dark, The Sex Diary of Gerard Sorme, Lingard), nonfiction studies of literary creativity and
the paranormal (The Strength of Dream, The Occult, Mysteries, Poltergeist!, The Mammoth Book of the Supernatural), H.P. Lovecraft-inspired horrors (The Mind Parasites, The Philosopher’s Stone) and straightforward science fiction adventures (The Space Vampires (filmed as Lifeforce)) and the four-volume Spider World series: The Tower, The Delta, The Fortress and The Magician), as well as historical fiction, mysteries, spy stories, biographies and works on philosophy, psychology and sexuality.
F. PAUL WILSON (b. 1946) was born and raised in New Jersey, where he misspent his youth playing with matches, poring over E.C. and Uncle Scrooge Comics, listening to Chuck Berry and Alan Freed, and watching Soupy Sales and horror movies. (He would sneak off on Saturday afternoons to catch horror double features at the Oritani Theatre in Hackensack, stay up late to watch Zacherly on TV’s Shock Theatre, and managed to see King Kong eleven times in one week on Million Dollar Movie). Eventually he learned to read, and even write. His short fiction first saw print in Startling Mystery Stories 18 in 1971, while he was studying as a medical student, and since then he has appeared in most of the major science fiction and fantasy magazines. He is the author of over a dozen books: five science fiction novels (Healer, Wheels Within Wheels, An Enemy of the State, Dydeetown World, The Tery), six horror thrillers (The Keep, The Tomb, Reborn, Reprisal, Sibs, Nightworld), a supernatural medical thriller (The Touch), and a historical horror novel (Black Wind). He wrote one-third of Night Visions 6 and the novellas Midnight Mass and Pelts, while his short fiction is collected in Soft and Others and Ad Statum Perspicuum. Wilson also edited the second Horror Writers of America anthology, Freak Show. Close to four million copies of his books are in print in America; he hasn’t the faintest idea how many are floating around overseas. Wilson describes the 1983 movie version of The Keep as “visually striking but perfectly incomprehensible.” He resides at the Jersey Shore with his wife, two daughters, and three cats.
DOUGLAS E. WINTER (b. 1950) is a Washington B.C. lawyer and probably the horror/fantasy genre’s premier critic. He is the author of the definitive biography and literary study, Stephen King: The Art of Darkness (1984), a history of contemporary horror fiction, Faces of Fear (1985), the novella Splatter: A Cautionary Tale, and a horror novel in collaboration with Charles L. Grant, From Parts Unknown. He is currently working on a biography of Clive Barker. Winter’s fiction, criticism and interviews have appeared in books and magazines as diverse as Gallery, Harper’s Bazaar, Saturday Review, Twilight Zone, Fantasy Newsletter/Review, Midnight, Greystone Bay, Book of the Dead, The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural and Clive Barker’s Shadows in Eden. He is also the editor of Shadowings, Black Wine, Prime Evil, Night Visions 5 and Revelations. In 1986 he won the World Fantasy Special Award.
GENE WOLFE (b. 1931) was born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised mainly in Houston, Texas. He attended Texas A&M, the University of Houston and Miami University, and today lives with his wife, Rosemary, in Barrington, Illinois. The author of more than a hundred science fiction and fantasy stories, he made his debut with a supernatural thriller, “The Dead Man”, published in 1965 in Sir magazine. His first book, Operation Ares, appeared in 1970, and was followed by The Fifth Head of Cerberus (a collection of three linked novellas), Peace, The Devil in a Forest, Free Live Free, Soldier of the Mist, Soldier of Arete, There Are Doors, Castleview, Pandora By Holly Hollander, Nightside the Long Sun, Castle of Days and the nonfiction volume, Letters Home. His short fiction has been collected in The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories, Gene Wolfe’s Book of Days, Storeys from the Old Hotel (winner of the 1989 World Fantasy Award) and Endangered Species. In 1980, the first volume of Wolfe’s “The Book of the New Sun” tetralogy was published to major acclaim: The Shadow of the Torturer won both the World Fantasy Award and the British Science Fiction Award. The second book, The Claw of the Conciliator, won the 1982 Nebula Award, and was followed by The Sword of the Lictor and The Citadel of the Autarch. A coda to the series, The Urth of the New Sun, was published in 1987.
DONALD A. (ALLEN) WOLLHEIM (1914-1990) was born in New York City and together with Forrest J Ackerman and others was one of the leading members of the embryonic science fiction fandom during the 1930s. His first published story was “The Man from Ariel” in Wonder Stories (1934), although his fiction didn’t appear widely until the following decade. The author of more than twenty books and numerous short stories (often under the pseudonym “David Grinnell”), Wollheim was a professional editor since 1941, with such magazines as Cosmic Stories, Stirring Science Stories and The Avon Fantasy Reader, as well as a multitude of SF anthologies to his credit (including The Pocket Book of Science Fiction (1943), the first mass-market SF anthology). After World War II he became the entire editorial staff at Avon Books, before starting Ace Books with A.A. Wyn in 1952, where he edited their acclaimed SF list for twenty years. He formed his own highly successful specialist imprint, DAW Books, in 1971, which is still going strong. He was a major editorial influence on the entire SF and fantasy field, and discovered and developed many new writers until suffering a stroke in 1988.
JANE YOLEN (b. 1939) was born in New York City, grew up in Westport, Connecticut, and currently lives with her husband in the small New England town of Hatfield, Massachusetts. The author of more than one hundred fantasy books for both children and adults, her output ranges from picture books (Owl Moon, The Emperor & The Kite, An Invitation to the Butterfly Ball, Tarn Lin, Wings), to fairy tale collections (The Girl Who Cried Flowers, Merlin’s Booke, Dragonfield and Other Stories, Favorite Folktails from Around the World), to nonfiction (Ring Out: A Book of Bells), to novels (Cards of Grief, Dragon’s Blood, Children of the Wolf, The Devil’s Arithmetic, A Sending of Dragons), and poetry (Best Witches). Her recent volumes include the acclaimed Sister Light Sister Dark and its sequel, White Jena; the anthologies Werewolves, Vampires and Things That Go Bump in the Night (all with Martin H. Greenberg); The Dragon’s Boy, Wizard’s Hall, the collection Dream Weaver, and the Xanadu series of anthologies. Yolen is the recipient of numerous awards, including the World Fantasy Award, the Caldecott Medal, the Christopher Medal, the Mythopoeic Society’s award, the 1988 Kerlan Award for attainments in children’s literature, and the 1992 Regina Medal, given by the Catholic Library Association, for a continuing body of work in children’s literature. For several years she was also editor-in-chief of Jane Yolen Books, an imprint created in 1990 by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, specializing in fantasy and science fiction books for children and young adults, and she is a past president of the Science Fiction Writers of America.
ABOUT THE EDITORS
STEPHEN JONES (b. 1953) was born in Pimlico, London, and currently lives in Wembley. He is the winner of two World Fantasy Awards, two Horror Writers Association Bram Stoker Awards and The International Horror Critics Guild Award as well as being a ten-time recipient of the British Fantasy Award and a Hugo Award nominee. A full-time columnist, television producer/director and genre movie publicist and consultant (the first three Hellraiser movies, Night Life, Nightbreed, Split Second, Mind Ripper, Last Gasp etc.), he is the co-editor of Horror: 100 Best Books, The Best Horror from Fantasy Tales, Gaslight & Ghosts, Now We Are Sick, H.P. Lovecraft’s Book of Horror, The Anthology of Fantasy & the Supernatural, Secret City: Strange Tales of London, and the Best New Horror, Dark Terrors, Dark Voices and Fantasy Tales series. He has written The Illustrated Vampire Movie Guide, The Illustrated Dinosaur Movie Guide, The Illustrated Frankenstein Movie Guide and The Illustrated Werewolf Movie Guide, and compiled The Mammoth Book of Terror, The Mammoth Book of Vampires, The Mammoth Book of Zombies, The Mammoth Book of Werewolves, The Mammoth Book of Frankenstein, The Mammoth Book of Dracula, Shadows Over Innsmouth, Dancing With the Dark, Exorcisms and Ecstasies by Karl Edward Wagner, The Vampire Stories of R. Chetwynd-Hayes, Dark of the Night, Dark Detectives, James Herbert: By Horror Haunted, Clive Barker’s A-Z of Horror, Clive Barker’s Shadows in Eden, Clive Barker’s The Nightbreed Chronicles and The Hellraiser Chronicles.
KIM NEWMAN (b. 1959) was born in Brixton, London, and currently lives in Islington. He has won the Bram Stoker Award, the British Science Fiction Award, the Children of the Night Award, the Fiction Award of the Lord Ruthven Assembly and the International Horror Critics Guild Award. A film and book critic for Monthly Film Bulletin, Shock Xpress, Sight and Sound and many other publications, he was the regular film critic for the Channel 4 Daily, and appears frequently on radio and television. He has scripted the TV documentaries The Hero Strikes Back and The Vault of Horror, three seasons of Dr. Terror’s Vault of Horror for the BBC, Radio 3’s Film in the Forties: Out of the Dark — Val Lewton, and Radio 2’s The Rise and Fall of the House of Hammer. His novels are The Night Mayor, Bad Dreams, Iago, Anno Dracula, The Quorum, The Bloody Red Baron, Back in the USSA (with Eugene Byrne), Life’s Lottery and Dracula Cha Cha Cha. As “Jack Yeovil”, he has written Drachenfels, Demon Download, Krokodil Tears, Comeback Tour, Beasts in Velvet, Genevieve Undead, Route 666 and Orgy of the Blood Parasites. His short stories are collected in The Original Dr. Shade and Other Stories and Famous Monsters, and his nonfiction books are Ghastly Beyond Belief: The Science Fiction and Fantasy Book of Quotations (with Neil Gaiman), Horror: 100 Best Books, Nightmare Movies: A Critical History of the Horror Film Since 1968, Wild West Movies and The BFI Companion to Horror. He also edited (with Paul J. McAuley) the anthology, In Dreams.
Index to the Books, Authors and Contributors
Book titles included in this volume are capitalized; authors are indicated by a bold page number, and contributor’s notes are shown as an italicised page number.