The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 22

by Stephen Jones

  When a preserved giant squid mysteriously disappeared from London’s Natural History Museum, a clueless tour guide found himself caught up in the city’s criminal and magical underworld in China Miéville’s sometimes Lovecraftian novel Kraken. Subterranean Press did a 500-copy signed and limited edition, along with twenty-six lettered and traycased copies ($250.00).

  The body of an old Native American shaman held the ghost of General Custer after the Battle of Little Big Horn in Dan Simmons’ sprawling historical fantasy Black Hills. Subterranean produced a signed, limited edition of 500 copies, plus a twenty-six copy lettered and traycased edition ($500.00).

  Simmons’ classic Nazi vampire novel Carrion Comfort was also reissued for the twentieth anniversary of its publication, in a revised edition with a new Introduction by the author.

  An alcoholic father returned to the mysterious island where his six-year-old daughter disappeared two years previously in John Ajvide Lindqvist’s spooky third novel, Harbour.

  New father and serial killer Dexter Morgan found himself dealing with a group of cannibal killers in the Everglades in Dexter is Delicious, the fifth volume in Jeff Lindsay’s increasingly silly series.

  The Heavenstone Secrets and Secret Whispers were the first two volumes in a new Gothic series credited to “V.C. Andrews®”, while Daughter of Darkness was a vampire novel from the same long-dead, yet still prolific, author.

  Frankenstein’s Monster by Susan Heyboer O’Keefe was a sequel to Mary Shelley’s classic novel that followed the creature down through the years following the death of its creator. Meanwhile, Michelle Lovric’s equally literary The Book of Human Skin was a sweeping historical horror novel in which sibling rivalry took a decidedly evil turn during the late 18th century.

  In A Matter of Blood, the first in Sarah Pinborough’s crossover “The Dog-Faced Gods” crime/horror trilogy, Detective Inspector Cass Jones discovered that the three murder cases he was working on were somehow connected, including that of a serial killer who could turn himself into a swarm of flies.

  Having moved to Pan Books, British author Adam Nevill’s first title from his new publisher was Apartment 16, about a haunted building in Knightsbridge.

  The Chamber of Ten by Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon was the third book in the “Hidden Cities” series, this time set beneath the city of Venice, while the end of the world was only the beginning in Coldbrook, a solo novel by Lebbon.

  Fatal Error was the latest novel about Repairman Jack by F. Paul Wilson, and a female arson investigator tried to avert the apocalypse in Fire Spirit by Graham Masterton.

  Ghost of a Chance was the first book in the new “Ghostfinders” series by Simon R. Green, about agents from the Carnacki Institute.

  Gary McMahon’s Pretty Little Dead Things featured psychic investigator Thomas Usher, who looked into the violent death of the daughter of a local gangster. The novel came with glowing quotes from Ramsey Campbell, Stephen Volk, Christopher Fowler and Tim Lebbon.

  In Yvonne Navarro’s Highborn, a fallen angel seeking redemption teamed up with a Chicago detective tracking a serial killer in the first in a new series.

  Those who desecrated an Etruscan tomb were apparently torn apart by a large beast in The Ancient Curse by Valerio Massimo Manfredi, while a recently widowed celebrity found himself at the mercy of his malicious mansion in The Haunting of James Hastings by Christopher Ramsom.

  A future Hollywood director filmed his extras really being killed onscreen while battling mechanical monsters in The Extra by Michael Shea.

  Former accountant Owen Pitt was stalked by the “Shadow Man” in Monster Hunter: Vendetta by Larry Correia, and the inhabitants of a small Californian town were infested by a wormlike parasite in Jeff Jacobson’s Wormfood.

  Skinners: Teeth of Beasts and Skinners: Vampire Uprising were the third and fourth books, respectively, in the monster-hunting series by Marcus Pelegrimas.

  Shift by Tim Kring and Dale Peck was the first book in the “Gate of Orpheus” trilogy, about an LSD mind-control experiment in the 1960s, while supernatural creatures attached themselves to people in Drift by the pseudonymous “Sharon Carter Rogers”.

  Ghost Shadow, Ghost Night and Ghost Moon made up Heather Graham’s “Bone Island” trilogy set in the Florida Keys.

  A newly renovated spa hotel harboured ghosts in So Cold the River by Michael Koryta, and in Trish J. MacGregor’s Esperanza, a female FBI agent ended up in the eponymous Ecuadorian city haunted by hungry ghosts.

  When a woman opened a new guesthouse, she discovered that the property came with a pair of resident ghosts who wanted her to solve their murder, in Night of the Living Deed by E.J. Copperman (Jeffrey Cohen), the first book in the “Haunted Guesthouse” series.

  The Fuller Memorandum was the third Lovecraftian spy novel in Charles Stross’ “Laundry Files” series featuring computational demonologist Bob Howard.

  Dog Blood was the sequel to David Moody’s Hater, about a plague that sparked sudden rage and killing. Moody’s horror novel Autumn, originally published free online, also finally received a mass-market edition.

  After all of humanity blacked out, one girl partially remembered what happened in Dalia Roddy’s A Catch in Time.

  Cat’s Claw was the second novel about Death’s daughter, Calliope Reaper-Jones, by Buffy actress Amber Benson.

  In The Devil, Ken Bruen’s sixth novel about an Irish alcoholic “finder”, Jack Taylor found himself up against the Prince of Lies himself, while The Devil’s Playground was the fourth book in the series by Jenna Black featuring exorcist Morgan Kingsley.

  Stephen Leather’s Nightfall was the first in a series featuring former cop Jack Nightingale, and a drug-addicted investigator for the only surviving Church in a world filled with ghosts was the main protagonist of Stacia Kane’s Unholy Ghosts.

  Police detective Kara Gillian could also summon demons in Diana Rowland’s mystery Blood of the Demon, and a sceptical homicide detective teamed up with a psychic to solve a ritualistic murder in Book of Shadows by Alexandra Sokoloff.

  Johannes Cabal the Detective was the second volume in the series by Jonathan L. Howard, in which the titular necromancer found himself fleeing execution by escaping on a state-of-the-art flying ship beset with mysterious murders.

  Sir Richard Burton investigated a series of sexual attacks in an alternate 1861 London in Mark Hodder’s steampunk horror novel The Strange Affair of Spring-Heeled Jack, the first book in the “Burton & Swinburne” series.

  Over at the struggling Leisure imprint, a group of travellers found themselves trapped in a snow-bound deserted town in Snow by Ronald Malfi, while a boy befriended a monster in the woods in Dweller by Jeff Strand.

  The government agents of Department 18 had to deal with vampire-like “Breathers” in Night Souls, the latest in the series by L.H. Maynard and M.P.N. Sims.

  Magus Levi Stoltzfus tried to protect a small town from five demonic creatures in Brian Keene’s A Gathering of Crows, a grieving father was entranced by a legendary sea creature in John Everson’s Siren, and a group of rich teens on spring break were stalked by serial killers in Bryan Smith’s The Killing Kind.

  The teenagers in Nate Kenyon’s Sparrow Rock were stalked by mutant monsters in a post-apocalyptic future. The novel was also available as a 100-copy signed edition and twenty-six lettered copies from Bad Moon Books.

  Reprints from Leisure included John Skipp and Craig Spector’s The Bridge, Gord Rollo’s Strange Magic, Ray Garton’s Scissors, Ramsey Campbell’s Creatures of the Pool, Brian Keene’s Darkness on the Edge of Town (in an expanded edition) and Jack Ketchum’s Joyride (with an added novella). The late Richard Laymon’s Friday Night in Beast House was an omnibus edition of two reprint novellas.

  Edited by Chris Keeslar, My Zombie Valentine contained four paranormal romance stories (one reprint) about the walking dead by Katie MacAlister, Angie Fox, Marianne Mancusi and Lisa Cach.

  In August, Dorchester Publishing, whose imprints include Leisure,
Love Spell and Cosmos, announced that it was dropping its mass-market paperback lines for a revised business model that would move titles to e-books and print-on-demand formats immediately. Declining mass-market paperback sales were blamed.

  Just two weeks later, Dorchester CEO John Prebich confirmed that the company had let go of two of its top editors: editorial director Leah Hultenschmidt and senior editor Don D’Auria (who was responsible for Leisure and other genre lines), along with all the sales reps. Prebich claimed that the departures were part of the company’s new operating plan, and that Dorchester would still be publishing scheduled product through 2011. However, the changes came amid mounting complaints from Dorchester authors of late royalty payments and defaulted contracts, with several writers reclaiming the rights to their works.

  Prebich himself left the company in November, as agents and authors revealed that Dorchester was continuing to sell e-book editions even after the rights had been reverted. Robert Anthony stepped into the top role and immediately reversed the earlier decision to stop publishing print editions.

  Dead in the Family was the tenth book in Charlaine Harris’ phenomenally successful Southern vampire series featuring Sookie Stackhouse. The complicated plot involved the aftermath of the brief but deadly Faery War and a number of more personal problems that the telepathic waitress had to deal with.

  Flirt, the eighteenth volume in Laurell K. Hamilton’s “Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter” series, featured an Afterword by the author, in which she discussed where she got her ideas, and a graphic story illustrated by Jennie Breeden. It was followed by Bullet, in which the Mother of All Darkness attempted to possess Anita’s body.

  The Fall was the second volume in the “Strain” trilogy about a vampire plague, written by film director Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan.

  Syrie James’ Dracula, My Love: The Secret Journals of Mina Harker retold Bram Stoker’s novel from the viewpoint of Mina Harker, while a soap opera writer named “Meena Harker” fell for a talk, dark and fanged stranger in Insatiable, Meg Cabot’s paranormal riff on Dracula.

  Credited solely to actress Adrienne Barbeau, Love Bites was a sequel to Vampires Over Hollywood (co-written with Michael Scott).

  Humans and vampires teamed up in an unlikely alliance to fight back against alien invaders in Out of the Dark by David Weber, and a vampire saved a waitress from a serial killer in Murder in Vein by Sue Ann Jaffarian.

  An ordinary-seeming suburban family denied their unusual appetites in Matt Haig’s English vampire novel The Radleys, which strangely attempted to hide its genre roots.

  Set during Napoleonic times, a 150-year-old vampire tried to cure his affliction in Blood Prophecy by Stefan Petrucha, and a young 19th-century widow discovered she was a vampire hunter in Jacqueline Lepore’s Gothic novel Descent Into Dust.

  Alaya Johnson’s Moonshine was about a vampire in 1920s New York, while an opera singer carried the composer’s musical talent down through the centuries in Mozart’s Blood by Louise Marley.

  Nathaniel Cade was an undead secret agent who had protected successive American presidents down through the decades in Blood Oath, the first in the “President’s Vampire” series by Christopher Farnsworth.

  A vampire agent and a human police detective teamed up to find a killer bloodsucker in Uprising, the first volume in Scott G. Mariani’s “Vampire Federation” series.

  Prisoners were transformed into the undead by a covert government experiment in The Passage, the first volume in a new vampire trilogy by Justin Cronin, and Vampire Empire: The Gateway was the first volume in Clay Griffith and Susan Griffith’s steampunk trilogy.

  Blood & Sex: Michael and Blood & Sex: Jonas were the first two volumes in Angela Cameron’s erotic vampire series, originally published as e-books.

  Thirteen Years Later was the second volume in Jasper Kent’s historical vampire series that began with Twelve, while The Girls with Games of Blood was Alex Bledsoe’s follow-up to Blood Groove and involved a century-old feud between a nest of vampires and two beautiful undead sisters in 1975 Memphis.

  Terence Taylor’s Blood Pressure was the second book in the “Vampire Testament” series, and Blood Maidens was the third volume in Barbara Hambly’s “James Asher” series.

  Bite Me was the third in the humorous vampire series by Christopher Moore that began with Bloodsucking Fiends and You Suck. This time San Francisco vampires Jody and Tommy found themselves pitted against an enormous vampire cat named “Chet”.

  Memories of Envy by Barb Hendee was the third in the “Vampire Memories” series, about a deadly bloodsucker who was turned into one of the undead during the Roaring Twenties.

  Demon Dance, the third volume in Sam Stone’s “Vampire Gene” series, was about a time-travelling female vampire, and The Season of Risks was the third in the “Ethical Vampire” series by Susan Hubbard.

  Latino vampire PI Felix Gomez became involved in a turf war amongst rival werewolf gangs in Werewolf Smackdown, the fifth volume in the mystery series by Mario Acevedo, and Chosen was the sixth volume in Jeanne C. Stein’s series about vampire Anna Strong.

  Vampire Mistress was an erotic paranormal romance by Joey W. Hill, while The Vampire Maker was the fourth book in Michael Schiefelbein’s gay vampire series about Victor Decimus, who moved to New Orleans.

  Blood Sacraments was an anthology of twenty gay erotica vampire stories edited by Todd Gregory, published by the aptly named Bold Strokes Books.

  A descendant of the Homo Lupens who once ruled the world was forced to protect the woman he loved from those of his own blood in A Taint in the Blood, the first volume in S.M. Sterling’s “Shadowspawn” series.

  A TV bounty hunter set his sights on shape-shifter Mercy Thompson’s werewolf boyfriend Adam in Patricia Briggs’ Silver Borne, while Wolfsbane was the author’s second book about female shape-shifting mercenary, Aralorn.

  Wolfsangel was the first in a new series by M.D. Lachlan involving werewolves and Norse mythology, and a New York homicide detective hunted a rogue werewolf serial killer in The Frenzy Way by Gregory Lambertson.

  In Gail Carriger’s Changeless, the second Victorian steampunk adventure in the “Parasol Protectorate” series featuring the soulless Alexia Tarabotti, something had caused all the vampires, werewolves and ghosts in London suddenly to lose their supernatural powers, and it was up to Alexia and her alpha werewolf husband Conall to investigate.

  S.A. Swann’s Wolf’s Cross was the second volume in the historical werewolf series that began with Wolfbreed, Overwinter was the follow-up to David Wellington’s Frostbite, and Wolf’s Bluff was the third book in W.D. Gagliani’s series about werewolf homicide detective Nick Lupo.

  Never Cry Werewolf and Left for Undead were the fifth and sixth volumes, respectively, in the “Crimson Moon” series by L.A. Banks, about a lycanthropic Special Ops team, while the leader of a werewolf special forces team went crazy in Kitty Goes to War, the eighth in the series by Carrie Vaughn.

  The Reapers Are the Angels by Alden Bell (Joshua Gaylord) was a literary novel set in a post-holocaust world decimated by a zombie plague.

  Rise Again: A Zombie Thriller was a post-apocalyptic novel by Ben Tripp, a nasty epidemic in Northern Island resulted in victims returning as the walking dead in Wayne Simmons’ Flu, and Zombie Britannica by Thomas Emson was set in a London overrun by the reanimated dead.

  A mysterious girl had the power to repel the zombie hordes in Bob Fingerman’s Pariah, while the ordinary folk of a small Minnesota town found themselves battling the waking dead in the parody The Zombies of Lake Woebegotten by “Harrison Geillor”.

  “Created by” Stephen Jones, Zombie Apocalypse! was an ambitious “mosaic novel” set in the near future, when a possibly supernatural plague swept across the world. Told through a series of interconnected eyewitness narratives, including text messages, e-mails, blogs, letters, diaries and transcripts, contributors included Michael Marshall Smith, Christopher Fowler, Sarah Pinborough, Jo Fletcher, Kim Newman, Lisa
Morton, Tanith Lee, Tim Lebbon, Peter Crowther, Robert Hood, Mark Samuels, Peter Atkins, Scott Edelman, Mandy Slater and others.

  In Desperate Souls by Gregory Lamberson, a New York detective uncovered a mystery involving zombies, and Nancy Holzner’s Deadtown introduced demon-slayer Victory Vaughn and her zombie apprentice.

  A zombie cheerleader investigated the theft of students’ brains in My So-Called Death by Stacey Jay, and a pair of sibling bloggers were the main protagonists of Feed, the first book in the futuristic “Newsflesh” zombie trilogy by “Mira Grant” (Seanan McGuire).

  Dead Love by Linda Watanabe McFerrin was a zombie novel set in Japan. One chapter appeared both in a text version and as a sixteen-page manga comic illustrated by Botan Yamada.

  An ex-forces hotel manager had to deal with an outbreak of a zombie virus during a Star Trek convention in Night of the Living Trekkies by Kevin David Anderson and Sam Stall.

  David Moody’s zombie novel Autumn was originally published free online and was the first in a series.

  Walter Greatshell’s Xombies: Apocalypticon was the second novel in the series that began with Xombies in 2004, and Day by Day Armageddon: Beyond Exile was the second volume in the seven-book zombie series by J.L. Bourne.

  While working as a bodyguard to Lucifer, paranormal enforcer James Stark had also to deal with a zombie outbreak in Los Angeles in Richard Kadrey’s Kill the Dead, the author’s follow-up to Sandman Slim, and a mad scientist hired a pair of zombie exterminators in Flip This Zombie, the second book in the humorous series by Jesse Petersen.

  Battle of the Network Zombies was the third volume in Mark Henry’s comedic “Amanda Feral” series, set around the murder of a reality TV show host, while Silver Zombie was the fourth book in the series by Carole Nelson Douglas featuring paranormal investigator Delilah Street.