The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 2002, Volume 13

by Stephen Jones

  Billed as ‘A Double Shot of Repugnance’, the first release in the new Necro Chapbooks line from Florida was Partners in Chyme, featuring Ryan Harding’s ‘Gross-Out Contest’-winning story ‘Damaged Goods’ paired with ‘The Dritiphilist’ by Edward Lee. It was published as a 300-copy signed and numbered chapbook and a twenty-six-copy signed and lettered hardcover.

  Quantum Theology Publications was a new chapbook line from Canada that launched with The Narrow World, a collection of five stories by the talented Gemma Files, including a new vampire tale, plus an introduction by Michael Rowe.

  Colorado’s new online bookstore and specialty press Wormhole Books launched its limited-edition Contemporary Chapbook line in May with Pioneer by Melanie Tem, briefly introduced by Nancy Holder, and A Sad Last Love at the Diner of the Damned by Edward Bryant, with a new introduction by S.P. Somtow and an afterword by the author.

  Also from Wormhole, Pink Marble and Never Say Die were two short stories by Dawn Dunn with an introduction by Nancy Kilpatrick, and Dunn also contributed an author biography to While She Was Out by Bryant. Steve Rasnic Tem’s bizarre novella about a travelling salesman, In These Final Days of Sales, included an autobiographical afterword by the author and interior photography by Bryant.

  Each Wormhole booklet was limited to 750 signed copies, a 200-copy hardcover edition and a fifty-two-copy lettered edition, featuring full-colour covers, illustrated interiors and archival materials.

  Fallen Angel Blues was an apocalyptic round-robin novella from Succubus Press/horror.net which, despite owing a little too much to Stephen King’s The Stand, succeeded because of the enthusiasm of its ten collaborators, who included Suzanne Donahue, James Newman, Steve Savile and Mark Tyree.

  Lee Martindale’s The Folly of Assumption was a chapbook collection of five stories (one original) from Yard Dog Press, while A Game of Colors by John Urbanick was a novella from the same publisher.

  The Exchange by Nicholas Sporlender (aka Jeff VanderMeer) was a beautifully produced little enveloped chapbook illustrated by Louis Verden (aka Eric Schaller) and published by Hoeg-bottom & Sons to celebrate the city of Ambergris’s 300th Festival of the Freshwater Squid. It was available in a 300-copy edition or as a 100-copy deluxe limited signed edition in a box containing several items traditionally used during the Festival.

  The Haunted River produced Oliver Onions’s Tragic Casements: A Ghost Story as a seventy-five-copy chapbook with an introduction by Jonathan Harker. Published by Athanor Press, Because Horrors Linger contained four classic tales by Terence Ekenan.

  The second volume of Jeff Paris and Adam Golaski’s New Genre included new SF and horror stories by M.J. Murphy, Jan Wildt, Barth Anderson, Jon-Michael Emory and Zohar A. Goodman.

  Darrell Schweitzer’s They Never Found His Head: Poems of Sentiment and Reflection collected twelve Lovecraftian poems, four of which were Cthulhuoid hymns, in a chapbook published by Zadok Allen.

  Defacing the Moon and Other Poems by Mike Allen was a slim chapbook from DNA Publications with illustrations by the poet. From Dark Regions Press, A Box Full of Alien Skies collected thirty-one poems by G.O. Clark in a signed edition of 200 copies.

  Published by New Jersey’s Flesh & Blood Press, What the Cacodaemon Whispered by Chad Hensley and Jacie Ragan’s Deadly Nightshade both collected thirteen poems each and were limited to 150 copies apiece. The Temporary King by P.K. Graves was a short story also available from the same imprint.

  Travelers by Twilight was the first volume of a portfolio of selected illustrations by Allen Koszowski with an introduction by Brian Lumley and an appreciation by fellow artist Jason Van Hollander. It was published by Magic Pen Press in an edition of 350 numbered copies.

  It was reported that Famous Monsters of Filmland was facing an uncertain future after US Bankruptcy Judge Arthur Greenwald declared that its publisher, Ray Ferry, fraudulently transferred the magazine’s ownership to his housemate, Gene Reynolds. In 2000, a Van Nuys jury found Ferry liable for breach of contract, libel and trade-mark infringement and awarded the title’s creator and former editor Forrest J. Ackerman $518,000 and rights to the pen name ‘Dr Acula’.

  Ferry then transferred his assets to Reynolds and filed for bankruptcy protection. However, the judge found the asset transfers fraudulent because Ferry was trying to keep them away from creditors (including Ackerman) and continued to function as the magazine’s editor. As a result, a US Bankruptcy trustee filed suit for $750,000 plus punitive damages against the law firm that represented Ferry in the case.

  Published in Canada, Rod Gudino’s Rue Morgue is probably the most attractive and informative magazine currently covering horror in popular culture. The glossy bi-monthly featured interviews with Dario Argento, William Lustig, Alan Moore, Rob Zombie, Guillermo del Toro and many others, along with plenty of film, DVD and video, book, audio, toy and gaming news and reviews.

  As usual, Weird Tales produced four issues from DNA Publications with fiction and verse by Keith Taylor, Ian Watson, editor Darrell Schweitzer, Tanith Lee, Stephen Dedman, Thomas Ligotti, Ashok Banker, David Langford, Phyllis and Alex Eisenstein and others, along with articles by Douglas Winter (on Clive Barker), Gary J. Weir (on how he rediscovered his father through the latter’s correspondence with H.P. Lovecraft), S.T. Joshi (reviews of Cthulhu Mythos fiction), and John Betancourt (on vampires).

  From the same publisher, but far less professional-looking, was the quarterly Dreams of Decadence: Vampire Poetry and Fiction. Edited by Angela Kessler, contributors included Brian Stableford, Sarah A. Hoyt, N. Lee Wood, Wendy Rathbone and others.

  Meanwhile, DNA’s Aboriginal SF, the semi-professional magazine first published in 1985, folded with the spring issue. Editor Charles C. Ryan cited the periodical’s excessive time demands, rather than any failure of the magazine, for his decision. Aboriginal’s inventory was absorbed by Absolute Magnitude, which also agreed to fulfil all outstanding Aboriginal subscriptions with its own magazine.

  Edited by Richard Chizmar, Robert Morrish and Kara L. Tipton, the long-running Cemetery Dance published four issues featuring fiction by John Shirley, Jack Ketchum, Richard Laymon, Christa Faust, Dennis Etchison, Richard Christian Matheson, Simon Clark, Al Sarrantonio, Darrell Schweitzer, David B. Silva, Tim Lebbon, Bentley Little, Nancy Holder, T.M. Wright, Conrad Williams, Michael Cadnum and others. The magazine also included interviews with Bentley Little, Douglas Clegg, Simon Clark, Peter Straub, Tim Lebbon, Kim Newman, T.M. Wright and Al Sarrantonio, the usual review and opinion columns by Poppy Z. Brite, Bev Vincent (Stephen King news), Thomas F. Monteleone, John Pelan, Michael Marano, Charles L. Grant and various tributes to Richard Laymon.

  Paula Guran’s Horror Garage published a further two issues featuring pin-up covers of a woman in a fur bikini and another wielding a bloody cleaver. That aside, there was fiction by the mandatory John Shirley, Kim Newman (a new ‘Anno Dracula’ story), Peter Crowther, Don Webb, Gerard Houarner, Bruce Holland Rogers and others, a reprint interview with China Miéville, Norman Partridge’s Drive-In reviews and various other regular columns.

  As usual, Gordon Van Gelder’s The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction featured an impressive selection of fiction by such authors as Lucius Shepard, Esther M. Friesner, Michael Bishop, Geoff Ryman, Lucy Sussex, Michael Cadnum, Robert Sheckley, Thomas M. Disch, Paul McAuley, Ron Goulart, Terry Bisson, Ian Watson, the late Poul Anderson, James Morrow, Ray Bradbury, Gene Wolfe, Neil Gaiman, Carol Emshwiller, Michael Blumlein, and even actor Alan Arkin! There were also all the usual book and film review columns by Charles de Lint, Elizabeth Hand, Robert K.J. Killheffer, Michelle West, James Sallis, Kathi Maio and the always excellent Lucius Shepard, plus other non-fiction from Mike Ashley, Paul Di Filippo, Jeff VanderMeer, Bradley Denton and Barry N. Malzberg, amongst others. Unfortunately, a number of copies of the April issue were printed without any punctuation, and the bumper October/November issue appeared without its cartoons, although all the gag-lines were included!

  David Pringle’s Inte
rzone published stories by Stephen Baxter, John Whitbourn, Graham Joyce, Ian Watson, Ashok Banker, Eric Brown, Liz Williams, Ian R. MacLeod, Gwyneth Jones, Thomas M. Disch, Lisa Tuttle, Gregory Benford and Richard Calder’s interminable ‘Lord Soho’ series based around famous operas and operettas. The monthly magazine also featured interviews with Calder, Stephen Baxter, John Clute, Frank Kelly Freas, Lucius Shepard, Ian R. MacLeod, Ian McDonald, Connie Willis, David Zindell and John Christopher (the March issue was a special celebration of his career), an always lively letters column, David Langford’s ‘Ansible’ column, Gary Westfahl’s opinion column, Evelyn Lewes’s controversial media commentary, plus various book and film reviews by Nick Lowe, Paul McAuley, Tom Arden, Liz Williams, Chris Gilmore, David Mathew, Paul Beardsley, Matt Colborn, Phil Stephensen-Payne, Paul Brazier, John Clute and others.

  Having finally succumbed to illustrated covers, Paul Fraser’s Spectrum SF produced two issues featuring fiction by John Christopher, Stephen Baxter, Michael Coney, Mary Soon Lee, Eric Brown and Charles Stross. The best thing about this paperback periodical was its extensive listing and often grumpy reviews of recent publications.

  Realms of Fantasy included a feature on Stephen King’s best and worst, and managed to spell the author’s name incorrectly on the cover!

  Christopher Fowler joined Andy Cox’s The Third Alternative with a regular column about the cinema. The three issues published also featured fiction by James Lovegrove, Simon Ings, Mike O’Driscoll, Joel Lane, Muriel Gray, James Van Pelt, Douglas Smith and others; interviews with Lovegrove, Gray and Graham Joyce, and articles about film directors Michael Powell, Andrei Tarkovsky and Tim Burton. With Issue 28, there was a subtle title change to The 3rd Alternative.

  Also edited by Andy Cox, Crimewave 5: Dark Before Dawn featured three novellas and seven short stories, the stand-out being Christopher Fowler’s contribution.

  The ever-busy Mr Cox also launched the first two issues of The Fix: The Ultimate Review of Short Fiction from TTA Press, featuring interviews with Gordon Van Gelder and Ellen Datlow, columns and features by Mat Coward, Peter Tennant, Tim Lebbon and others, and numerous reviews of magazines, anthologies and collections.

  For vampire fans, Arlene Russo’s Bite Me: The Magazine for the Night People from Scotland, included interviews with ‘Gothic supermodel’ Donna Ricci, film director Kevin J. Lindenmuth, authors Nancy Kilpatrick and Fred Saberhagen, articles about Hammer’s Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb and Captain Kronos, Vampire Hunter, plus such useful hints as ‘10 Ways to Become a Werewolf!’

  The fourteenth issue of the impressive French magazine Ténèbres featured modern ghost stories by L.H. Maynard and M.P.N. Sims, Stephen Laws, Rick Hautala and others, articles by Brian Stableford, Ramsey Campbell and Maynard and Sims, and interviews with Laws and Hautala.

  The Book and Magazine Collector contained a useful article by David Whitehead looking at books about ‘Horror Stars’, while ‘Relaunch of Clive Barker’ was a special sixteen-page magazine ‘outsert’ by Jeff Zaleski which appeared in Publishers Weekly to tie-in with the publication of Barker’s latest novel, Coldheart Canyon.

  After publishing two bi-monthly issues in 2001, Sovereign Media officially terminated Dan Perez’s editorship of Sci Fi at the end of May, following the breakdown of negotiations between the publisher and the Sci Fi Channel regarding the transfer of ownership and the future management of the magazine.

  Despite the tragic death of founder Frederick S. Clarke, Cinefantastique still produced six issues under publisher Celeste C. Clarke and editor Dan Pearsons. These included a Farscape double issue and cover features on Hannibal, The Mummy Returns, Planet of the Apes, Ghosts of Mars and The Lord of the Rings.

  Produced on a strict monthly schedule, Tim and Donna Lucas’s Video Watchdog featured the usual fascinating articles on James Bond, AIP’s Beach Party series, both versions of The Haunting of Hill House, Godzilla 2000, Frank Herbert’s Dune, Hitchcock on DVD, the restorations of The Lost World and Planet of the Vampires, superheroes and an interview with Mel Welles. With a list of contributors that included Kim Newman, Douglas E. Winter, Stephen R. Bissette and Tom Weaver, the quality of the reviews was exemplary. However, readers were once again left wondering whether Lucas’s long-promised book on Mario Bava would ever be published.

  From Visual Imagination Limited, David Miller’s Shivers included cover features on Shadow of the Vampire, the cinema’s greatest bogeymen, the Buffy monster make-up, Resident Evil, Jeepers Creepers and a bumper edition on The Mummy Returns.

  Cult Movies featured a fascinating piece about Bela Lugosi visiting England, while Dennis J. Druktenis’s enthusiastic Scary Monsters Magazine reached its fortieth issue and celebrated ten years of publication with the usual articles on TV horror hosts, regional conventions and old movies.

  Alternative Cinema, the magazine of independent and underground film-making edited by Michael J. Raso, included interviews with Donald F. Glut, Julie Strain and Sam Sherman, plus an article about the making of Erotic Witch Project 2.

  The revived Castle of Frankenstein magazine began reprinting Don Glut’s series of novels The New Adventures of Frankenstein in an appallingly illustrated magazine format from Druktenis Publishing. At least they also included a black and white reprint of Dick Briefer’s Frankenstein comic book from the 1950s.

  For serious fans of model kits, the fortieth issue of Kitbuilders was a special Halloween edition featuring some impressive monster models.

  After twenty-one years, Rosemary Pardoe’s acclaimed M.R. Jamesian publication Ghosts & Scholars rounded out the year and its print incarnation with issues 32 and 33 featuring fiction by David Longhorn, C.E. Ward, Anthony Wilkins, Don Tumasonis, James Doig, David G. Rowlands, Katherine Haynes and Michael Chislett, plus articles by Pardoe, Christopher and Barbara Roden, and Andy Sawyer.

  With Pardoe’s fine fanzine transformed into a web-based, non-fiction magazine and the recent demise of Maynard and Sims’s Enigmatic Tales, David Longhorn launched Supernatural Tales to fill the gap in the British small-press market. The first two issues contained some fine new supernatural stories by Chico Kidd, Michael Chislett, David G. Rowlands, Tina Rath and Steve Duffy. However, the dull presentation and lack of artwork did not do the new title any favours.

  As usual, Gordon Linzner’s Space and Time published two issues, featuring fiction and poetry by Mary Soon Lee, Darrell Schweitzer, Bruce Boston and others, plus interviews with Ursula K. Le Guin and James Morrow. Joe Morey and Bobbi Sinha-Morey’s Dark Regions: A Journal of Fantasy, Horror & Science Fiction also managed two issues that included stories and poems by Charlee Jacob, Bruce Boston, P.D. Cacek and James S. Dorr.

  James Van Pelt, Denise Dumars and Bruce Boston were amongst those contributing fiction and poetry to Patrick and Honna Swenson’s Talebones, which also featured interviews with Dan Simmons and Charles de Lint and a review column by Edward Bryant.

  The twelfth issue of Mark McLaughlin’s The Urbanite was a special ‘Zodiac’ issue featuring stories by Christopher Fowler, Shane Ryan Staley, John Pelan, Hugh B. Cave and others, plus an impressive poetry suite by Jo Fletcher.

  Subtitled ‘a journal of parthenogenetic fiction and late labelling’, the first edition of Nemonymous was an attractively designed collection of sixteen stories, whose author bylines would not be revealed until the second issue.

  Graeme Hurry’s Kimota published its regular two issues, with stories by Peter Tennant, Joel Lane, Hugh Cook, Paul Finch and others, along with articles on old radio drama and artist Sidney H. Sime, the usual reviews and letters columns, and more outstanding artwork from ‘T23’.

  Indigenous Fiction, edited by Sherry Decker, featured the usual mix of fiction, poetry and reviews, while Jack Fisher’s Flesh & Blood: Tales of Dark Fantasy & Horror included an interview with Tom Piccirilli.

  Paul Bradshaw’s The Dream Zone reached its tenth number with two issues packed with fiction and poetry by Ian Watson, Mark McLaughlin, Allen Ashley, Peter Tennant, Rhys Hughes and many
less familiar names, plus reviews and letters columns, and a useful article aimed at writers explaining how to avoid rejection.

  Robert M. Price’s Crypt of Cthulhu No. 104 featured fiction and poetry by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr., Darrell Schweitzer, Richard L. Tierney, Frank Searight and David E. Schultz, articles by Ross F. Bagby, Rawlik and T.G. Cockcroft, plus the usual ‘Mail-Call of Cthulhu’ and ‘R’lyeh Reviews’.

  The Lovecraftian Dark Legacy from ‘H’chtelegoth Press included Cthulhu Mythos fan fiction and poetry from James Ambuehl, Phillip A. Ellis, Ron Shiflet and Peter Worthy, plus artwork by Sinestro. There was more of the same in Cthulhu Cultus, including work by James and Tracy Ambuehl, and Chris Loveless.

  The fourth issue of Pentagram Publications’ Lovecraft’s Weird Mysteries featured four stories and a poem, plus an old interview with Weird Tales cover artist Margaret Brundage.

  Brian Lingard’s Mythos Collector was a new magazine devoted to Lovecraft with fiction by Christopher O’Brian and James P. Roberts, an interview with artist John Coulthart, and articles on collecting Mythos-related material.

  Paul Fry’s Peep Show was launched by Birmingham’s Short, Scary Tales Publishing with a colour cover by Mike Bohatch and fiction from Sheri White, Daniel Harr, Michael O’Connor, Alex Severin, Glen Hamilton, Kobe Nihilis and Jim Lee.

  The latest double issue of Aurealis, Australia’s longest-running science fiction and fantasy magazine, was mailed to subscribers just before Christmas. It included fifteen stories by Dirk Strasser, Robert Hood, Robert Browne and others, plus a warts-and-all interview with outgoing editors Strasser and Stephen Higgins, an interview with author Ian Irvine, Bill Congreve’s book reviews, and new editor Keith Stevenson’s plans for the future of the title.

  Also from Australia came the second issue of small-press magazine Orb, edited by Sarah Endacott, and former Allen & Unwin publicist Darran Jordan launched two issues of a new magazine called Eschaton from his Eclectica imprint.