The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 23 (Mammoth Books)

by Jones, Stephen

  A group of TV ghost-hunters investigated an abandoned summer house in David L. Golemon’s The Supernaturals from Seven Realms Publishing.

  Vampires: The Recent Undead from Prime Books was an anthology edited with an Introduction by Paula Guran. It collected twenty-five stories from the first decade of the twenty-first century by Charlaine Harris, Kim Newman, Michael Marshall Smith and others.

  For the same imprint, Guran also edited Halloween, which contained thirty stories and three poems by Peter Straub, Ray Bradbury, Esther M. Friesner and others, and New Cthulhu: The Recent Weird, which featured twenty-seven stories by, amongst others, Neil Gaiman, Michael Marshall Smith and Caitlín R. Kiernan.

  Edited by John Langan and Paul Tremblay, Creatures: Thirty Years of Monsters contained twenty-six stories by Clive Barker, Joe R. Lansdale, Kelly Link and others.

  The cleverly-titled Bewere the Night, edited by Ekaterina Sedia for Prime, contained twenty-nine stories about shape-shifters (seventeen original).

  Limited to just 100 copies from Moshassuck Press, Lovecraft’s Pillow and Other Strange Stories collected seventeen tales (seven original) by Kenneth W. Faig, Jr., most of then taken from amateur press association publications.

  From gaming-related imprint Chaosium, Cthulhu’s Dark Cults edited by David Conyers contained ten stories (one reprint) inspired by H. P. Lovecraft’s Mythos.

  Lois Gresh’s collection Eldritch Evolutions from the same publisher contained twenty-six Lovecraftian stories (nine original) with an Introduction by Robert Weinberg.

  Age-old horrors returned to the small town of Parr’s Landing in Michael Rowe’s 1970s-set horror novel Enter, Night, published by Canada’s ChiZine Publications.

  From the same imprint, a despondent man made his way across an unsettling American landscape in Tom Piccirilli’s novella Every Shallow Cut, while a wealthy industrialist attempted to create a perfect community amongst a race of shape-shifters in David Nickle’s Eutopia: A Novel of Terrible Optimism.

  A Rope of Thorns was the second novel in Gemma Files’ “Hexslinger” weird Western series.

  Most ChiZine books were available in signed hardcover editions only by pre-order.

  Chilling Tales, somewhat obliquely subtitled Evil Did I Dwell: Lewd I Did Live, was the first in an original horror anthology series edited with an Introduction by Michael Kelly and published in trade paperback by Canadian imprint Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing. The eighteen contributors included Richard Gavin, Barbara Roden, Simon Strantzas, Nancy Kilpatrick, David Nickle, Brett Alexander Savory, Sandra Kasturi, Gemma Files and others, while the cover was by the distinctly non-Canadian Les Edwards.

  Gaslight Arcanum: Uncanny Tales of Sherlock Holmes was the third in a series of supernatural Sherlockian anthologies edited by J. R. Campbell and Charles Prepolec. It contained twelve stories (one reprint) by Stephen Volk, Christopher Fowler, Fred Saberhagen, Simon Kurt Unsworth, Simon Clark, Paul Kane, Tony Richards, Kim Newman and others, with artwork by Dave Elsey, Mike Mignola and Luke Eidenschink.

  Edited by Nancy Kilpatrick, Evolve Two: Vampire Stories of the Future Undead contained twenty-two new stories about how bloodsuckers and humans might co-exist after a future apocalypse. Contributors included Kelley Armstrong, William Meikle, John Shirley, Bev Vincent, Thomas Roche, Tanith Lee and Sandra Kasturi.

  From Edge’s Hades Publications imprint, Rigor Amortis was an anthology of zombie erotica edited by Jaym Gates and Erika Holt which featured thirty-three stories and two poems, while Those Who Fight Monsters: Tales of Occult Detectives edited by Justin Gustainis contained fourteen “urban fantasy” stories by Carrie Vaughn, Tanya Huff, Lilith Saintcrow, Simon R. Green, T. A. Pratt and others, including the editor.

  From PS Publishing’s poetry imprint, Stanza Press, A Woman of Mars: The Poems of an Early Homesteader collected thirty-three poems about the red planet by Australian writer Helen Patrice. It was limited to 300 hardcovers signed by the poet and illustrator Bob Eggleton.

  Blood Wallah and Other Poems from Dark Regions Press collected forty-three poems (fifteen original) by Robert Borski, illustrated by Marge Simon.

  From Australian PoD imprint P’rea Press, The Land of Bad Dreams edited by Charles Lovecraft featured twenty-eight poems by Kyla Lee Ward, who also supplied the black and white illustrations.

  PS Publishing also launched its first issue of the “PS Quickies” chapbook series with Ramsey Campbell’s original short story Holding the Light.

  Hector Douglas Makes a Sale was another slim chapbook from PS that contained a missing section from Ian R. MacLeod’s alternate-world novel Wake Up and Dream, the reasons for which were explained by the author in an extensive Afterword.

  From Nicholas Royle’s chapbook imprint Nightjar Press came Remains by Ga Pickin, Sullom Hill by Christopher Kenworthy, Lexicon by Christopher Burns and Field by Tom Fletcher. Each title was limited to 200 signed and numbered copies.

  Simon Marshall-Jones’ similar Spectral Press imprint was launched with the chapbook What They Hear in the Dark, a haunted house story by Gary McMahon. It was followed by King Death by Paul Finch, Nowhere Hall by Cate Gardner and Abolisher of Roses by Gary Fry. Each slim volume was limited to only 100 signed and numbered copies apiece.

  From Bedabbled’s B! imprint, Three Demonic Tales by Michel Parry contained two reprints (originally published in the 1970s under the pseudonym “Roland Caine”) and an original story. It was limited to just fifty signed copies.

  Mysterious Islands was a selection of nautical nightmares (including H. P. Lovecraft’s “Call of Cthulhu”) and other horrors by artist Gary Gianni. The chapbook was limited to 1,000 signed and numbered copies from Flesk Publications.

  There was a touch of the memento mori hanging over The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, which put out its usual six bumper issues featuring fiction by Kate Wilhelm, Albert E. Cowdrey, Richard A. Lupoff, Alan Dean Foster, Paul Di Filippo, Chet Williamson, Don Webb, Scott Bradfield, Steve Saylor, Peter S. Beagle, Esther M. Friesner, Geoff Ryman, Sarah Langan, M. Rickert, Tim Sullivan, and the deceased Joan Aiken, Alan Peter Ryan and Evangeline Walton, among others.

  David Langford, Paul Di Filippo, Paul Dellinger and the late F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre contributed to the “Curiosities” column, and editor Gordon Van Gelder wrote a fascinating editorial in the May/June issue about the strange life and even stranger death of “Froggy” MacIntyre.

  A free Kindle version of F&SF was also launched that included various columns and a sample short story.

  Andy Cox’s Black Static turned out six colourful issues with the usual news, reviews and opinion columns by Peter Tennant, Tony Lee, Stephen Volk, Christopher Fowler and Mike O’Driscoll. Maura McHugh, James Cooper, Simon Kurt Unsworth, Joel Lane, Simon Bestwick, Ramsey Campbell, Alison Littlewood, Christopher Fowler, Gary McMahon and Andrew Hook were amongst those who contributed stories, and there were interviews with Angela Slatter, Steven Pirie, Tim Lees, Tom Fletcher, Kaaron Warren and D. F. Lewis.

  Black Static’s sister SF publication, Interzone, also produced six attractive-looking issues.

  The two issues of the magazine that continued to call itself Weird Tales was filled with the usual whimsical nonsense, along with interviews with writer Caitlín R. Kiernan, Angry Robot publisher Marc Gascoigne and artist Carrie Ann Baade.

  Thankfully, in August, editor Ann VanderMeer announced in a surprisingly self-congratulatory press release that publisher John Betancourt of Wildside Press was selling the magazine to author/editor Marvin Kaye. However, as a result of the change in ownership, VanderMeer – who had been reading fiction for the magazine for five years – and her all-female management staff would be let go.

  The new owners of Weird Tales, Nth Dimension Media, Inc., brought out a special electronic issue in time for the 2011 World Fantasy Convention that featured stories by Meg Opperman, Jean Paiva, Parke Godwin, Tanith Lee and Christian Endres.

  The second annual issue of editor Michael Kelly’s Shadows & Tall Trees from Un
dertow Publications retained its trade paperback format with eight original stories of “quiet, literary horror” by Steve Rasnic Tem, Ian Rogers, Alison J. Littlewood and others.

  The first perfect-bound issue of David Memmott’s ambitious literary journal Phantom Drift: A Journal of New Fabulism included eleven stories (one reprint), eight poems, two essays and two artist features. Contributors included Brian Evenson and Ray Vukcevich.

  For the third time in recent years, it was announced that Realms of Fantasy magazine was being closed down, with the October edition being the final issue from the current publisher. Meanwhile, editor John Joseph Adams purchased both Fantasy and Lightspeed magazines from Prime Books and announced plans to combine them into a single ebook.

  The April issue of Suspense Magazine included an interview with Jack Ketchum.

  Issue #117 of Granta: The Magazine of New Writing was a special devoted to “Horror” that included contributions from Paul Auster, Don DeLillo, Will Self and Stephen King.

  In the first issue of the year, King announced that he was giving up his column “The Pop of King” in Entertainment Weekly after seven years. However, the author did contribute a “Summer Reading List” to the magazine’s special June issue that featured Robert McCammon’s The Five, Graham Joyce’s The Silent Land and Michael Koryta’s The Cypress House, and he was back in December with a list of the year’s “Pop Culture Favourites” that included Justin Evans’ ghost novel The White Devil.

  The 28 October edition of the magazine also featured an exclusive excerpt from the author’s new novel, 11/22/63.

  Canada’s Rue Morgue produced eleven high-quality issues featuring interviews with filmmakers John Waters, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Tom Holland and Guillermo Del Toro, veteran actress Carla Laemmle, singer Alice Cooper, authors Michael Louis Calvillo, John Shirley and John Landis, and editors Ellen Datlow, Christopher Golden and S. T. Joshi.

  The bumper 14th Anniversary Halloween Issue celebrated twenty-five years of The Fly with interviews with director David Cronenberg and cast and crew members of both the original trilogy and the remake.

  The May/June issue of the revived Famous Monsters of Filmland was a H. P. Lovecraft special, featuring articles on the author and the movie adaptations. Bob Eggleton produced covers for that issue and the following one, a special Japanese monsters (Kaiju) edition, which confusingly resurrected the Monster World logo on one version of the magazine. The artist also contributed an article about his connection with Godzilla.

  The six issues of Tim Lucas’ Video WatcHDog included an overview of the Friday the 13th series, a tribute to French director Jean Rollin, an extensive look at the career of actor Eddie Constantine and interviews with actresses June Lockhart and Mimsy Farmer, along with all the usual reviews and columns.

  To celebrate the opening of the British Library’s science fiction exhibition “Out of This World”, the Guardian newspaper’s Review section on 14 May was a “SF Special Issue”, in which some of the world’s leading SF writers were asked to choose their favourite author or novel in the genre. Russell Hoban chose H. P. Lovecraft, Liz Jensen picked The Day of the Triffids and China Miéville went for The Island of Doctor Moreau. The supplement also included a “My Hero” piece on Gene Wolfe by Neil Gaiman.

  In January, Locus celebrated its 600th issue with a special feature on digital publishing that featured contributions from Neil Gaiman, Cory Doctorow and Charles Stross, amongst others. That same month, the magazine launched a new digital edition, which was initially offered free to overseas subscribers.

  Throughout the year Locus featured interviews with Robert J. Sawyer, Gene Wolfe, Oscar-winning artist Shaun Tan, Jay Lake, Margo Lanagan, Geoff Ryman, Andy Duncan, Charles Stross, Gemma Files and a lot of new writers that most readers had probably never heard of.

  Now published by Centipede Press, the first edition of Allen K’s Inhuman Magazine for a couple of years was a bumper one. Issue No. 5 included twenty-three stories (five reprints) and three poems by, amongst others, Donald R. Burleson, David Gerrold, Cody Goodfellow, Barry N. Malzberg, James A. Moore, Lisa Morton, Darrell Schweitzer, Michael Shea and Tim Waggoner. Although, as usual, editor Allen Koszwoski illustrated all the stories, there was also a Lovecraftian art gallery featuring work by Dave Carson, Jill Bauman, Bob Eggleton, Randy Broecker and others.

  Centipede also brought out the second issue of The Weird Fiction Review edited by S. T. Joshi. The annual trade paperback journal included eight stories (by Caitlín R. Kiernan, Simon Strantzas, Donald R. Burleson and others), seven poems, six essays and an artist’s gallery by Alexander Binder.

  With its two 2011 issues, Rosemary Pardoe’s The Ghosts & Scholars M. R. James Newsletter reached its twentieth edition. Contents included Jamesian fiction from Christopher Harman and C. E. Ward, articles by Mark Valentine and the editor, plus news, letters and reviews, along with the first publication of a 1888 supernatural poem by M. R. James.

  David Longhorn’s Supernatural Tales reached its twentieth issue with six stories by Daniel Mills, Katherine Haynes, Michael Chislett and others, along with a brief reviews section.

  Published both online and in print, the four issues of Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction featured some impressive stories along with the book reviews. Edited by Stephen Theaker and John Greenwood, contributors included Rhys Hughes, Alison Littlewood, Maura McHugh and Daniel Mills.

  The August issue of Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet included fiction by Carol Emshwiller and an obscure reprint by the late Joan Aiken.

  The three issues of Hildy Silverman’s Space and Time: The Magazine of Fantasy, Horror, and Science Fiction included fiction and poetry by Adam Corbin Fusco, Michael Kelly, Don Webb, Josepha Sherman, Don D’Ammassa, Kim Antieau, Forrest Aguirre, Darrell Schweitzer, Kurt Newton, James S. Dorr and others, along with interviews with Ben Bova and Harry Turtledove, and some excellent black and white illustrations.

  The four attractive-looking issues Terry Martin’s Murky Depths: The Quarterly Anthology of Graphically Dark Speculative Fiction featured a number of comic strips (including continuing series by Richard Calder and Lavie Tidhar), plus short stories and artist interviews.

  The four issues of Morpheus Tales were packed with the usual fan fiction, while the fortieth edition of Ireland’s perfect-bound Albedo One was a bumper 100-page issue that included twelve stories and interviews with James Patrick Kelly and the late Colin Harvey.

  After a bonus-sized 65,000-word issue #13, the following edition marked the final publication of R. Scott McCoy’s Necrotic Tissue: The Horror Writers’ Magazine from Stygian Publications. It featured the usual mix of fiction and 100-word shorts, along with an interview with writer John P. McCann.

  The two issues of James R. Beach’s Dark Discoveries included interviews with Sir Christopher Lee, Bruce Campbell, F. Paul Wilson and Allen Koszowski; articles on the Weird Tales artists, giallo cinema and the history of splatterpunk, and fiction and poetry from Gene O’Neill, Joe R. Lansdale, Nick Mamatas, Edward Lee and the late Richard Laymon, among others.

  The Winter issue of Machenalia: The Newsletter of The Friends of Arthur Machen was a thin one, mostly devoted to a 2010 Australian stage production of The Great God Pan.

  Issues #18 and #19 of The Paperback Fanatic included interviews with authors Basil Copper and David Case, fascinating articles by Ramsey Campbell (on Solomon Kane), Lionel Fanthorpe, Bill Pronzini and Graham Andrews (on J. G. Ballard’s US editions), a tribute to artist Jeff Jones, and an always-lively letter column.

  The second issue of Martin Jones’ Bedabbled!, devoted to British horror and cult cinema, was a “Cult of Satan” edition that included informative articles on such films as Virgin Witch, Satan’s Slave, The Devil’s Men and Nothing But the Night, along with interviews with director Norman J. Warren and film-maker/ anthologist Michel Parry.

  The delayed Winter 2010 BFS Journal, published by The British Fantasy Society, turned out to be a somewhat haphazard hardcover omnibus of New Horizons, Prism and Dark
Horizons, edited by Andrew Hook, David A. Riley, and Sam Stone and Ian Hunter, respectively. Along with fourteen stories and six poems, the book also contained columns by Ramsey Campbell, Mark Morris, John Llewellyn Probert (on R. Chetwynd-Hayes) and Mike Barrett (on Fritz Leiber), plus interviews with Mark Samuels and Kari Spelling.

  The subsequent four issues settled down as a trade paperback, with Peter Coleborn replacing Sam Stone as editor of Dark Horizons. Fiction and poetry authors included Allen Ashley, Mike Chinn, Sam Stone, Michael Kelly, Storm Constantine and Joel Lane; Rod Rees, Mary Danby, Jo Fletcher and Peter Crowther were interviewed, and Mike Barrett contributed a fascinating series of articles on lesser-known Arkham House writers.

  However, with the Winter 2011/2012 edition it was all change again, as Lou Morgan replaced David Riley and New Horizons was dropped from the now fully-integrated line-up.

  Amongst his many other responsibilities to the Society, Chairman David J. Howe not only served as Editorial Consultant on the above editions of the BFS Journal, but he also found time to edit a huge celebratory anthology, Full Fathom Forty: British Fantasy Society 40th Anniversary. Boasting a Cthulhu cover by Bob Eggleton, the nearly 500-page volume featured forty stories (thirteen original) by, among others, Conrad Williams, Christopher Fowler, Jasper Kent, Robert Shearman, Paul Finch, Stephen Gallagher, Simon Clark, Kim Newman, Ramsey Campbell, Graham Masterton, Stephen Laws, Sam Stone and Jonathan Carroll.

  Midnight Echo was an attractive-looking magazine put out by the Australian Horror Writers Association. Edited by Leigh Blackmore, the perfect-bound fifth issue included numerous short stories and poetry by Terry Dowling, Rick Kennett, Bryce Stevens, Charles Lovecraft, Kyla Ward and others, along with interviews with Jeff Lindsay and Chris Mars.

  Patrick McAleer’s The Writing Family of Stephen King: A Critical Study of the Fiction of Tabitha King, Joe Hill and Owen King from McFarland & Co looked at the literary careers of the author’s wife and two sons.