The Best New Horror 5

by Ramsay Campbell

  Sinistre: An Anthology of Rituals edited by George Hatch was the seventh volume of Noctulpa: Journal of Horror from Horror’s Head Press, illustrated with collages by t. Winter-Damon. It is perhaps easier to understand why no mainstream publisher would be interested in Spartacus Publications’ Blood-Lust of the Devil by Desmond Edwards, an apparently self-published collection of nine horror stories.

  Mindwarps was a self-published collection of twenty-two horror stories by John Maclay, and from the same publisher, Maclay & Associates, came one of the best anthologies of the year, After the Darkness, containing seventeen stories edited by Stanley Wiater. Claudia O’Keefe edited Ghosttide for Revenant Books, and from CD Publications came Thrillers edited by Richard T. Chizmar, the first in a new series, featuring an introduction by Joe R. Lansdale and new fiction by Rex Miller, Nancy A. Collins, Chet Williamson and Ardath Mayhar.

  Cold Cuts was the first volume in another proposed series, edited by Paul Lewis and Steve Lockley, which included seventeen Welsh-based stories. Chris Kenworthy edited two anthologies for his own Barrington Books, The Sun Rises Red and Sugar Sleep, and also published Nicholas Royle’s novel debut Counterparts.

  A first novel about Native Indian magic, The Charm by Adam Niswander, was in danger of publicity overkill from Integra Press. Matthew J. Costello’s novel Garden was a sequel to his 1991 book Wurm, introduced by F. Paul Wilson and published by Twilight Publishing Co., and Donald Tyson’s occult novel The Messenger appeared from Llewellyn Press. Joe R. Lansdale’s Mister Weed-Eater was a slim limited edition from Cahill Press.

  As part of its “Creation Classics” line, Creation Press kicked off an H.P. Lovecraft reprint series with Crawling Chaos: Selected Works 1920–1935, edited by James Havoc and introduced by Colin Wilson. It was followed by a new edition of Arthur Machen’s The Great God Pan. From Chaosium came Robert Bloch’s collection of Lovecraftian stories, Mysteries of the Worm, and The Hastur Cycle, a collection of twelve Cthulhu Mythos tales and one poem edited by Robert M. Price.

  The Gothic Society published a collection of eight supernatural stories, Tales My Mother Never Told Me by Jennie Gray. Richard Dalby’s Ghost Story Press resurrected two welcome short story collections from obscurity, Tedious Brief Tales of Granta and Gramarye by “Ingulphus” (aka Arthur Gray) and Flaxman Low, Psychic Detective by Kate and Hesketh Prichard, and followed them up with Two Ghost Stories: A Centenary by M.R. James, edited by Barbara and Christopher Rhoden, and Fear Walks the Night by Frederick Cowles.

  For those small publishers with slightly less resources, then regular journals or signed, numbered and illustrated chapbooks proved to be the best format for showcasing old masters, new authors, and important reprints.

  Probably the most prolific publisher of these limited edition booklets was Necronomicon Press, who turned out a bewildering variety of titles on a regular basis: Ramsey Campbell’s Two Obscure Tales would perhaps have been better titled Too Obscure Tales, while S.T. Joshi edited The Count of Thirty: A Tribute to Ramsey Campbell which contained fours essays, an interview and a working bibliography.

  The Lodger by Fred Chappel was a Lovecraftian short story illustrated by Stephen Fabian, and William Hope Hodgson’s At Sea included four previously uncollected non-fantasy stories, edited with an introduction by Sam Gafford. On the non-fiction front, there were various editions of Crypt of Cthulhu and Lovecraft Studies, H.P. Lovecraft Letters to Robert Bloch edited by David E. Schultz and S.T. Joshi and its subsequent supplement, plus the first issue of The New Lovecraft Collector.

  Necronomicon was also responsible for issues of The Dark Man: The Journal of Robert E. Howard Studies and The Dark Eidolon: The Journal of Clark Ashton Smith Studies, Studies in Weird Fiction, and the debut of Other Dimensions: The Journal of Multimedia Horror, which included an interview with Clive Barker. Necrofile: The Review of Horror Fiction clocked up four issues and is, quite simply, the best magazine devoted to the subject currently available.

  From the World Fantasy Award-winning Roadkill Press came Edward Bryant’s short collection Darker Passions, and a new author double featuring Going Mobile by Glen E. Cox back-to-back with La Luz Canyon by Royce H. Allen. Meanwhile, Del Stone Jr’s Roadkill, from Caliber Press, was a post-holocaust zombie story illustrated by David Dorman.

  Silver Salamander Press launched itself into the chapbook market with Close to the Bone, featuring ten erotic horror stories by Lucy Taylor, and followed it with Adam-Troy Castro’s debut collection Lost in Booth Nine and a revised version of Michael Shea’s novella I, Said the Fly. From Bump In the Night Books, another new imprint, Voyages Into Darkness contained stories by Stephen Laws and Mark Morris, illustrated by Frank X. Smith, and Jwindz Publishing collected six Brian Lumley stories in The Last Rite. Lemon Drops and Other Horrors was a debut collection by Donald R. Burleson from Hobgoblin Press, while Southern Discomfort, subtitled “The Selected Works”, was a first story collection by Elizabeth Massie, published by Dark Regions Press.

  From Rosemary Pardoe’s Haunted Library came Supernatural Pursuits, three humorous ghost stories by William I.I. Read. Nigel Taylor’s Prodigies & Effigies contained thirty-two short tales, and Transients and Other Strange Travellers by Darrell Schweitzer, published by W. Paul Ganley, contained fifteen stories illustrated by Stephen E. Fabian.

  Crossroad Press tried to do something different with the chapbook format, producing Andrew Vachss’ psycho story A Flash of White as a short story, a script adaptation by Rose Dawn Bradford, and a finished graphic sequence by David Lloyd. It was followed by Vachss’ Crossroads Drive, which included the story, a treatment by Joe R. Lansdale, and the finished comics version illustrated by Gary Gianni.

  Stanislaus Tal continued his bid for worldwide small press domination with his ubiquitous TAL Publications. Unfortunately, such releases as Yellow Matter by William Barton, Bizarre Sex & Other Crimes of Passion II, Bizarre Bazzaar 93, and Deathrealm only reflected the dearth of writing talent and editing skills, coupled with an adolescent treatment of sex and violence, which permeates far too much of the American small press. It was also hard to know what to make of Wayne Allen Sallee’s episodic misery Pain Grin, t. Winter-Damon’s non-fiction rant Rex Miller: The Complete Revelation, or even The Best of D.F. Lewis, although Ramsey Campbell made a brave effort with his introduction to the latter.

  As usual, Interzone turned out some of the most eclectic and interesting fiction in the field on a monthly basis. Its companion publication, Million: The Magazine About Popular Fiction, included a Clive Barker interview, a look at Dracula movies by Kim Newman, and a controversial essay about Stephen King by S.T. Joshi. However, editor and publisher David Pringle admitted that it was impossible to keep Million afloat with a weak subscription base and poor bookstore sales and the two magazines combined with the August 1993 issue of Interzone.

  The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction continued to thrive under the editorship of Kristine Kathryn Rusch, but the enlarged-format Weird Tales only managed two issues, devoted to Nina Kiriki Hoffman and Ian Watson. The Scream Factory included stories and interviews with Brian Lumley and Andrew Vachss and also produced a special edition, The Night of the Living Dead: A 25th Anniversary Tribute, featuring (almost) everything you needed to know about zombies. The World Fantasy Award-winning Cemetery Dance included interviews with Clive Barker, Gahan Wilson and Poppy Z. Brite.

  Dead of Night was resurrected with the seventh issue, after a three-year hiatus, and followed it up with a special holiday supplement in the eighth number showcasing a trio of Christmas tales by J.N. Williamson. Gordon Linzer’s Space & Time was also revived under a new publisher with number 81. There were also various issues of Aberrations: Adult Horror, Science Fiction and Dark Fantasy, Avallaunius: The Journal of the Arthur Machen Society, Chills, Dark Horizons, Eldritch Tales, The End, Grue Magazine, Peeping Tom, Pulphouse: A Fiction Magazine, The Silver Web, 2AM, The Urbanite, and Weirdbook.

  The Australian magazine Sirius made its debut with an article on Dan Simmons a
nd a checklist of Charles L. Grant’s Shadows anthologies, and The New York Review of Science Fiction included David J. Skal’s look at horror in the 1950s and ’60s.

  For news and reviews, Americans could choose between Hugo Award-winners Locus or Science Fiction Chronicle, while in Britain readers could pick from a revitalised British Fantasy Newsletter or the faltering Critical Wave. Looking like a poorly-produced copy of Locus, John Betancourt’s Horror: The News Magazine of the Horror & Dark Fantasy Field, managed just one hard-to-find issue in 1993.

  Probably the most entertaining non-fiction book of the year was Once Around the Bloch: An Unauthorized Autobiography by the always fascinating Robert Bloch. David J. Skal’s The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror took an informed look at the role of horror in pop culture. Although many of the horror entries are missing from the updated edition, The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction edited by John Clute and Peter Nicholls still weighed in at a hefty 1400-plus indispensable pages.

  Stephen King: Master of Horror by Anne Saidman was a biography aimed at children about the bestselling author. On Poe: The Best from American Literature edited by Louis J. Budd and Edwin H. Cady was an anthology of seventeen critical essays about Edgar Allan Poe published between 1934 and 1987. Classic Horror Writers edited by Harold Bloom looked at twelve nineteenth century authors of horror and Gothic fiction, while Clive Bloom edited the highly selective Creepers: British Horror and Fantasy in the Twentieth Century. Wordsmiths of Wonder: Fifty Interviews with Writers of the Fantastic by the reliable Stan Nicholls included chats with eleven horror writers, including Clive Barker, James Herbert, Ramsey Campbell, Kim Newman and Guy N. Smith. The British Library issued Shadows in the Attic: A Comprehensive Guide to British Ghost and Supernatural Fiction 1820-1945, compiled by Neil Wilson.

  Katherine Ramsland’s The Vampire Companion: The Official Guide to Anne Rice’s “The Vampire Chronicles” was an encyclopedia for those devoted to the best selling series. The Vampire Encyclopedia by Matthew Bunson was a coffee table volume aimed at fans of the undead, but didn’t really live up to its title. Greg Cox’s long-awaited The Transylvanian Library: A Consumer’s Guide to Vampire Fiction might not have included every vampire story and novel, but it at least tried with the help of a bat rating system.

  (Vampires) An Uneasy Essay on the Undead in Film by Jalal Toufic and The Vampire Film: From Nosferatu to Bram Stoker’s Dracula by Alain Silver and James Ursini both looked at cinematic bloodsuckers, while The Illustrated Vampire Movie Guide by Stephen Jones reviewed more than 600 titles with bat ratings and included an introduction by Peter Cushing.

  It was followed by the second volume in the series, The Illustrated Dinosaur Movie Guide, introduced by Ray Harryhausen, and dinosaurs proved to be big business in 1993 with The Making of Jurassic Park by Don Shay and Jody Duncan reaching the bestseller lists.

  Brian Senn and John Johnson’s Fantastic Cinema Subject Guide: A Topical Index to 2500 Horror, Science Fiction and Fantasy Films contained a fully annoted and cross-indexed filmography arranged in subject categories. With Songs of Love and Death: The Classical American Horror Film of the 1930s, Michael Sevastakis took a critical look at eleven horror movies, and Michael F. Blake’s Lon Chaney: The Man Behind the Mask was generally regarded as the best biography yet of The Man of a Thousand Faces. Philip Riley continued his invaluable series of filmbooks reprinting the Classic Universal scripts with The Wolf Man.

  Given all the fuss over its authenticity, perhaps The Diary of Jack the Ripper more properly belonged with the fiction titles . . .

  Underwood-Miller continued its attractive series of art books with Virgil Finlay’s Strange Science (with a foreward by Robert Bloch and an introduction by Harlan Ellison), Virgil Finlay’s Phantasms (introduction by Stephen E. Fabian), Ladies & Legends by Stephen E. Fabian (introduction by the late Gerry de la Ree), and the very welcome A Hannes Book Treasury (with an introduction by Ray Bradbury).

  Horripilations: The Art of J.K. Potter was another beautifully produced volume from Paper Tiger, with text by Nigel Suckling and an introduction by Stephen King. The Art of Michael Whelan was an equally impressive, if somewhat expensive, volume and included separate interviews with the artist by Anne McCaffrey, Terry Booth and David Cherry. Morpheus International’s Mind Fields combined the distinctive art of Jacek Yerka with original short fiction by Harlan Ellison.

  Danger is My Business: An Illustrated History of the Fabulous Pulp Magazines by Lee Server included chapters on the horror and science fiction titles, and Playboy fiction editor Alice K. Turner took her readers on an illustrated tour of The History of Hell. James Herbert’s Dark Places: Locations and Legends was a collection of photographs by Paul Barkshire of locations which either inspired or featured in Herbert’s novels, with accompanying text by the author himself.

  Clive Barker created a variety of superheroes for Marvel/Razorline’s Hyperkind, Hokum and Hex, Ecktokid and Saint Sinner comics, and Eclipse continued its series of graphic adaptations of Barker’s Books of Blood stories with The Yattering and Jack coupled with “How Spoilers Bleed” (illustrated by John Bolton and Hector Gomez), Dread with “Down Satan!” (illustrated by Dan Brereton and Tim Conrad), and The Life of Death with “New Murders in the Rue Morgue” (illustrated by Stewart Stanyard and Hector Gomez). Eclipse also used Ed Gorman to adapt Dean Koontz’s Trapped into a graphic novel illustrated by Anthony Bilau.

  Malibu continued its comic adaptations of Brian Lumley’s Necroscope series with Book II: Wamphyri, illustrated by Dave Kendall. The Ray Bradbury Chronicles reached a fourth volume from NBM with original graphic adaptations of Bradbury’s stories and a reprint from EC Comics’ Haunt of Fear. New California publisher Tuscany Press released System Shock 1, featuring graphic adaptations of “Metastasis” by Dan Simmons, “Special” by Richard Laymon, and “Film at Eleven” by John Skipp.

  Meanwhile Skipp and Craig Spector returned to one of their favourite themes – zombies – with a story called “Triumph of the Will” in DC Comics’ Green Lantern Corps Quarterly No.7. Joe R. Lansdale scripted the five issue mini-series Jonah Hex: Two-Gun Mojo, illustrated by Tim Truman, and DC’s new series Anima was a gritty combination of horror and magic dealing with, among other things, the AIDS crisis, written by Paul Witcover and Elizabeth Hand. Grant Morrison and Mark Millar took over the scripting chores on Swamp Thing from Nancy A. Collins, promising to expand the character in new directions. Morrison also published a new graphic novel, The Mystery Play.

  DC collected Neil Gaiman’s The Books of Magic into graphic novel format with a new introduction by Roger Zelazny. Gaiman’s ongoing Sandman saga included such spin-offs as Death: The High Cost of Living, introduced by singer/songwriter Tori Amos, and The Children’s Crusade, a crossover project involving characters from a number of different titles.

  After 1992’s sixteen year low, the boxoffice bounced back with the best year ever for movies. The estimated total American gross for 1993 was more than $5 billion. Despite Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park becoming the highest-earning film of all time (almost $869 million worldwide and still climbing), it wasn’t a particularly good year for genre movies. The only other title in Variety’s Top Ten was Disney’s animated Aladdin at number six, which continued to add to its 1992 total, pushing past the $200 million mark.

  The third most successful genre film of the year was the fantasy comedy sleeper Groundhog Day starring Bill Murray, followed by the science fiction adventure Demolition Man, which didn’t do as well as Cliffhanger for revitalized star Sylvester Stallone. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Last Action Hero was not the hit everyone expected, and its domestic gross was little more than producer Tim Burton’s delightfully bizarre Nightmare Before Christmas (which cost a great deal less to produce).

  Among the rest of the top earners, the year’s sequels included Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III, Addams Family Values, Jason Goes to Hell, Army of Darkness (Evil Dead III), RoboCop 3, Warlock: Armageddon and Witchboard 2.

  Stephen King
had three movie adaptations of his work released, but Sometimes They Come Back, The Dark Half, and the unjustly ignored Needful Things all failed to work at the boxoffice. Films attempting to cash in on the success of Jurassic Park also never made much of an impact: Super Mario Brothers, Spielberg’s animated We’re Back! A Dinosaur’s Story and Carnosaur did marginal business and only the latter, based on the novel by Harry Adam Knight, probably had a good gross-to-budget ratio.

  Hocus Pocus presented a trio of comedic witches, Man’s Best Friend explored Cujo territory, and Leprechaun (“The Luck of the Irish Just Ran Out!”) marked the start of another franchise series. Most of the following titles quickly found their way onto the video shelves: Bloodstone: Subspecies II, Abel Ferrara’s powerful Body Snatchers (the third version of Jack Finney’s novel), Jennifer Lynch’s Boxing Helena, Coneheads, the underrated Dust Devil, Stuart Gordon’s Fortress, Freaked, Frogtown II, Maniac Cop 3, Puppet Master 4, and The Unnamable II, which was supposedly based on H.P. Lovecraft’s story.

  One of the best new shows on television was The X Files, about two likeable FBI agents investigating the paranormal. Highlander badly needed the charm of Sean Connery, but at least The Adventures of Briscoe County Jr had Bruce Campbell. Time Trax concerned criminals from the future being hunted in the twentieth century, while Babylon 5 suspiciously resembled Star Trek Deep Space Nine.

  For superhero fans there was the wonderfully witty Lois and Clark (retitled The New Adventures of Superman in Britain for those who didn’t get the joke), and Batman proved to be the most popular animated show in syndication, even spawning a theatrical feature, Batman Mask of the Phantasm.