The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 2002, Volume 13

by Stephen Jones

  Also from Cosmos, Similar Monsters was a decade-spanning collection of fifteen stories (five original) and an afterword by Steve Savile, while City of Saints and Madmen: The Book of Ambergris collected four novellas by Jeff VanderMeer with an introduction by Michael Moorcock.

  Dan Clore’s The Unspeakable and Others was a collection of forty-seven Lovecraftian tales and non-fiction pieces, with an introduction by S.T. Joshi. Stephen Mark Rainey’s Balak from Wildside Press was a Lovecraftian novel involving a woman searching for her missing child.

  Fluid Mosaic collected thirteen horror stories (one original) by Michael Arnzen. Gemini Rising, Downward to Darkness and Worse Things Waiting were substantially revised versions of Brian McNaughton’s novels Satan’s Love Child (1977), Satan’s Mistress (1978) and Satan’s Seductress (1979), while McNaughton’s Nasty Stories and Even More Nasty Stories collected twenty-five stories (eight original) and twenty-one stories (two original), respectively.

  Strange Pleasures was an anthology of fourteen stories edited by Cosmos Books’ Sean Wallace and featuring contributions by Keith Brooke, Adrian Cole, Barrington Bayley, Maynard and Sims, John Grant and others.

  Wallace also announced a new imprint, Prime Books, which would include a number of titles originally announced by Imaginary Worlds. These included books by Tim Lebbon, Jeff VanderMeer, Brett Savory and Michael Laimo. Subsequently, Jeff VanderMeer’s Ministry of Whimsy Press became a print-on-demand imprint of Prime.

  Edo van Belkom’s Teeth from Meisha Merlin was an erotic police procedural about vagina dentata, introduced by Richard Laymon. From the same publisher, Lee Killough’s Blood Games was the third in the series featuring vampire detective Garreth Mikaelian.

  David Nordhaus’s online imprint DarkTales launched the collections Dial Your Dreams & Other Nightmares by Robert Weinberg, Cold Comfort by Nancy Kilpatrick and the erotic Six-Inch Spikes by Edo van Belkom at the Seattle World Horror Convention. Later in the year, the publisher released the novels Soul Temple by Steven Lee Climer, A Flock of Crows is Called a Murder by James Viscosi, and the second volume in the Asylum anthology series, The Violent Ward, edited by Victor Heck and featuring stories by D.F. Lewis, James Dorr, Gerard Houarner and others.

  Harlan was a new novel by David Whitman, while The Charm was the first book in the reissued ‘Shaman Cycle’ series of Southwestern supernatural thrillers by Adam Niswander. It was followed by The Serpent Slayers and The Hound Hunters, with more volumes in the projected thirteen-volume series due from DarkTales.

  Harry Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle teamed up to battle dark magic in Harry R. Squires’s print-on-demand novel What Rough Beast.

  Published in a signed and numbered 500-copy hardcover by Oregon’s IFD Publishing, Escaping Purgatory: Fables in Words and Pictures by Gary A. Braunbeck and Alan M. Clark contained seven thematically linked stories (five original) and a foreword by Peter Crowther, illustrated throughout by Clark. From the same imprint, Flaming Arrows was a collection of short-short stories by Bruce Holland Rogers, published in both trade paperback and hardcover, with an introduction by Kate Wilhelm. Set in a ridiculously huge typeface, the twenty-seven tales (many of them reprints) were illustrated by Jill Bauman and publisher Clark.

  Edited by Elizabeth Engstrom, Imagination Fully Dilated Volume 2 contained twenty-nine stories by such authors as Ramsey Campbell, Poppy Z. Brite and Charles de Lint, based around Alan M. Clark’s artwork. With an introduction by Paula Guran, the hardcover was limited to 600 signed copies from IFD.

  Independent Texas imprint Clockwork Storybook was founded in 2001 by a writers’ collective and published nine titles in its first year. These included the trade paperback collection Beneath the Skin and Other Stories, containing six original stories and a somewhat pretentious introduction by Matthew Sturges, and Chris Roberson’s Cybermancy Incorporated, a collection of two stories and two linked novellas introducing modern-day pulp hero Jon Bonaventure Carmody and his associates. The Clockwork Reader was a trade paperback sampler containing work by the above-mentioned authors, along with Mark Finn and Bill Willingham. Hundreds of short stories, novels and sample chapters were also available for free download on the publisher’s website.

  William E. Rand’s Painted Demons was a collection of nine linked horror stories available from iUniverse/Writers Club Press. Rand’s That Way Madness Lies and Rita Dimitra’s The Blood Waltz were vampire novels from the same imprint.

  Gus Smith’s Feather & Bone was a debut novel from British print-on-demand publisher Big Engine and involved an ancient spirit loose in a Northumberland farming community beset by BSE.

  Edited by Forrest J. Ackerman, Rainbow Fantasia: 35 Spectrumatic Tales of Wonder from Sense of Wonder Press featured stories with colours in their titles by Ray Cummings, Robert W. Chambers and others.

  From Subterranean Press, Douglas Clegg’s Naomi was originally published as an online serial novel. About a man pursuing a ghost into the underground world that exists beneath New York City, it was limited to 1,500 signed copies. Clegg’s other novel from Subterranean, Dark of the Eye, involved a woman whose healing powers made her a target for evil forces.

  Joe Lansdale’s Zeppelins West was a wild parody of Westerns, alternate universes and pulp stories, involving a cast of historical characters, the Frankenstein Monster and Captain Nemo and his intellectual seal, Ned. Illustrated by Mark A. Nelson, it was available in a signed hardcover edition limited to 1,500 copies with full-colour endpapers.

  Ray Garton’s Sex and Violence in Hollywood lived up to its title, while John Shirley’s novel The View from Hell was published in a signed edition of 1,000 copies and a twenty-six-copy lettered edition.

  Published as an attractive hardcover limited to 750 signed and numbered copies, Thomas Tessier’s novella Father Panic’s Opera Macabre concerned a successful historical novelist who stumbled upon a remote Italian farmhouse filled with supernatural secrets. The story was unfortunately marred by some extremely graphic depictions of Nazi tortures.

  Delayed from the previous year, David J. Schow’s collection Eye contained thirteen stories (two original) and a witty afterword by the author, limited to 1,000 signed copies. An extra new story was included in the lettered-state edition.

  Edward Bryant’s The Baku: Tales of the Nuclear Age contained a new introduction by the author, three short stories and a previously unpublished teleplay, bought by The Twilight Zone but never produced. It was limited to 500 signed copies and a twenty-six copy lettered edition.

  Guilty But Insane was a collection of Poppy Z. Brite’s non-fiction, limited to 2,000 signed hardcover copies with a full-colour dust jacket and autograph page art by J.K. Potter. Brite and Caitlín R. Kiernan each had a new story plus a collaboration in Wrong Things, an attractive hardcover illustrated by Richard Kirk and published in a signed edition of 1,500 copies and a lettered edition.

  Subterranean also revived the old Dark Harvest Night Visions series with the tenth volume. Edited by Richard Chizmar 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 chapbook 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 w
as available in a deluxe limited edition of 1,000 signed copies. Edward Lee’s City 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’s Tempting 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 Joseph 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 Melniboné, 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 edition.

  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’s Nearly 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 att
ractive 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 of ten 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.