The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 22

by Stephen Jones

  Having taken a reported five years to develop, Alan Wake was divided into six episodes in which the eponymous best-selling horror writer used light to destroy the game’s monsters, “The Taken”.

  Darksiders concerned a conflict between the forces of Heaven and Hell that led to the destruction of humanity. As War, one of the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse, the player had to discover what caused the Apocalypse.

  A witch used her hair to battle her enemies in Bayonetta, while PC players had to elude radioactive mutants in the exclusion zone around Chernobyl in the oddly-titled S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat.

  Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands was a follow-up game to The Sands of Time, which makers Ubisoft hoped would benefit from the release of the movie starring Jake Gyllenhaal.

  Robert Downey, Jr and Don Cheadle voiced their movie characters in the Iron Man 2 interactive game, which used a new story expanded from the film franchise.

  Alien vs Predator made a belated return to the games market in February. Set on a jungle planet being exploited by the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, players could experience the game from the point of view of an Alien, Predator or cannon-fodder space marine.

  Matt Smith’s Doctor and new sidekick Karen Gillan were digitally recreated for Doctor Who: The Adventure Games, a series of four original “interactive episodes” available to download for free.

  Walt Disney’s first-ever creation, “Oswald the Lucky Rabbit”, which he lost in a contract dispute with Universal Studios in 1928, returned as the warden of a warped version of Disneyland full of forgotten characters in Junction Point’s Epic Mickey game for the Wii console.

  A twelve-inch limited edition action figure of Christopher Lee as the Creature in Hammer’s The Curse of Frankenstein was the first in a new series custom designed by Distinctive Dummies. A glow-in-the-dark version was also available.

  In a desperate attempt to tie in with the now-cancelled TV show, each Ghost Whisperer Cup and Saucer ($65.00 online) featured a “haunted” set from the 1940s or 1950s that came with a certificate of authenticity, its own unique history, and a special message from Jennifer Love Hewitt’s character Melinda.

  For those who take their “Lovecraft” seriously, for $220.00 a company called Necronomicox offered a hand-crafted two-colour Mythos Art sex toy for women that preferred their Deep Ones to come in sculptured silicone.

  At the end of November, an obscure church group in the UK demanded that supermarket chain Tesco withdrew its “sinful” Twilight advent calendar from sale as it claimed that mixing religion and vampires was “deeply offensive” to Christians.

  In February, London auction house Bonham’s hosted a sale of props from the BBC’s Doctor Who. A 1988 Dalek sold for £15,600 while a black Dalek from a 1985 episode went for £20,400. Other sale items included a steel panel from the Tardis, a 1988 Cyberman (£4,080), David Tennant’s blue shirt (£1,260) and a waitress outfit, boots and bloomers worn by Kylie Minogue in the 2007 Christmas special (£3,120).

  Four months later, a fan paid more than £10,800 at the same Knightbridge auction house for a Tardis used in the Christopher Eccleston series. An exhibition prop of the Tardis sold for £900 and a 1967 Cyberman helmet went for £7,800. Two Daleks from the 1960s sold for £4,800 apiece.

  The Lone Ranger’s original mask and gloves from The Lone Ranger and the City of Gold, along with Tonto’s original headband, were put up for auction in March. They had been hidden away for fifty years and were sold by a woman who had won them in a competition.

  That same month, a rare American insert poster for the 1926 Fritz Lang movie Metropolis sold at auction in Dallas, Texas, for $47,800, while an oversized 1933 Swedish poster for King Kong went for $28,680.

  An Alberta, Canada, man who discovered a horde of vintage movie posters being used as insulation in a recently purchased 1912 house, put around forty of them up for auction in July. In fact, the house contained more than 350 posters and title lobby cards dating back to the silent era. Amongst the titles represented were a title lobby card for The Mysterious Dr Fu Manchu (1929), which realised just over $1,000, and a rare rotogravure one-sheet poster for Tod Browning’s The 13th Chair (1929), which sold for nearly $3,000.

  For the first time in its history, the World Horror Convention was held in England in 2010. Over March 25–28, almost 600 horror fans from all around the world attended the event in the Victorian seaside town of Brighton.

  Tanith Lee and David Case were the Author Guests of Honour, Les Edwards and Dave Carson were the Artist Guests of Honour, and Hugh Lamb was the Editor Guest of Honour. James Herbert was the Special Guest of Honour, Ingrid Pitt was Special Media Guest, and Jo Fletcher served as Mistress of Ceremonies.

  Brian Lumley and William F. Nolan had earlier been announced as winners of Horror Writers Association Lifetime Achievement Awards. As Nolan was unable to attend, Dennis Etchison was there as the HWA Special Guest.

  At the awards ceremony, held at a banquet on Brighton Pier on the Saturday evening, James Herbert was the recipient of the WHC Grand Master Award, while Basil Copper received the convention’s new Lifetime Achievement Award.

  The 2009 HWA Bram Stoker Awards were also presented the same evening. Superior Achievement in Poetry went to Lucy A. Snyder’s Chimeric Machines (Creative Guy) and the Non-Fiction award went to Writers Workshop of Horror by Michael Knost.

  Gene O’Neill’s A Taste of Tenderloin won for Fiction Collection, and the Anthology award went to He is Legend: An Anthology Celebrating Richard Matheson edited by Christopher Conlon.

  Norman Prentiss’ “In the Porches of My Ears” (from PostScripts #18) picked up the award for Superior Achievement in Short Fiction, Lisa Morton’s The Lucid Dreaming won for Long Fiction, and the First Novel Award went to Damnable by Hank Schwaeble. Sarah Langan’s Audrey’s Door was recognised for Superior Achievement in a Novel.

  Ray Russell and Rosalie Parker’s Tartarus Press won the Specialty Press Award, the Richard Laymon President’s Award went to Vince Liaguno, and Kathy Ptacek was given the Silver Hammer Award for her HWA volunteer work.

  The British Fantasy Society’s FantasyCon 2010 was held in Nottingham over September 17–19 with Guests of Honour Garry Kilworth, Bryan Talbot and Lisa Tuttle, Special Guest Peter F. Hamilton, and James Barclay as Master of Ceremonies.

  In a whole raft of awards, Let the Right One In was voted Best Film and Doctor Who won Best Television. Murky Depths was awarded Best Magazine/Periodical and Ansible picked up Best Non-Fiction. What Ever Happened to the Caped Crusader? won Best Comic/Graphic Novel, and The PS Publishing Small Press Award went to Telos Publishing.

  Vincent Chong was voted Best Artist, Robert Shearman’s Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical collected Best Collection, and The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror Volume Twenty won Best Anthology.

  The Best Short Fiction Award went to Michael Marshall Smith’s “What Happens When You Wake Up in the Night”, Sarah Pinborough’s The Language of Dying was presented with Best Novella and the August Derleth Award for Best Novel was given to One by Conrad Williams.

  The Sydney J. Bounds Award for Best Newcomer was won by Karri Sperring for Living with Ghosts, and the British Fantasy Society’s Special Karl Edward Wagner Award went to the late Robert Holdstock.

  The thirty-sixth World Fantasy Convention was held in Columbus, Ohio, over October 28–31. Dedicated to “A Celebration of Whimsical Fantasy”, writers Dennis L. McKiernan and Esther M. Friesner, editor David G. Hartwell and artist Darrell K. Sweet were the Guests of Honor (apparently you had to have a middle initial to qualify!).

  Presented at the usual Sunday banquet, World Fantasy Awards were given to Susan Marie Groppi for Strange Horizons (Special Award, Non-Professional), anthology editor Jonathan Strahan (Special Award, Professional), and Charles Vess (Artist).

  The Collection Award was a tie between There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor’s Baby: Scary Fairy Tales by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya and The Best of Gene Wolfe, while American Fantastic T
ales: Terror and the Uncanny: From Poe to the Pulps: From the 1940s to Now edited by Peter Straub picked up the Anthology Award.

  Karen Joy Fowler’s “The Pelican Bar” (from Eclipse Three) won Short Fiction, Margo Lanagan’s “Sea-Hearts” (from X6 ) won Novella, and China Miéville’s The City & The City was the recipient of the Novel Award.

  Life Achievement Awards were previously announced for Brian Lumley, Terry Pratchett and Peter Straub.

  Held over the same Halloween weekend, the Halifax Ghost Story Festival included talks and readings by Jeremy Dyson, G.P. Taylor, Mark Morris, Stephen Volk and legendary BBC producer/ director Lawrence Gordon Clark, amongst others.

  There is no doubt that the way books are published is changing. As indicated in the above summary, e-books are beginning to take off in a huge way now that a variety of electronic reading platforms have become available, while the single-author collection has all but disappeared from the lists of mass-market publishers.

  Also, few would disagree that far too many titles are still being published for an ever-decreasing audience (most major publishers recorded a fall in sales of up to 20 per cent in 2010).

  However, perhaps the biggest change in recent years is the domination of our genre by books variably described as “paranormal romance”, “urban fantasy” or “steampunk”. In the case of the latter two appellations, these labels once belonged to well-respected sub-genres of imaginative fiction, much in the same way that vampires, werewolves and other creatures of the night were once figures of fear and wonder. Of course, since the start of the boom in so-called “paranormal romances” several years ago now, these iconic tropes of horror have now been reduced to romantic stereotypes, mindless action heroines or teenage fantasies aimed at a totally undiscerning readership.

  Written mostly by hacks who have no knowledge or interest in the horror genre, and churned out so quickly that they often have to use multiple pseudonyms to meet an admittedly voracious audience of mostly middle-aged or teenage women, the majority of these “horror-lite” books do nothing for our genre beyond diluting its impact and clogging up the bookshelves with identical-looking volumes that accentuate the romantic aspects of these formerly monstrous metaphors for our greatest fears.

  In a recent newspaper interview, Neil Gaiman is quoted as saying: “I will be glad when the glut is over. Maybe they will be scary again . . . Maybe it’s time for this to play out and go away. It’s good sometimes to leave the field fallow. I think some of this stuff is being over-farmed.”

  He’s obviously correct, but you cannot blame the publishers – they are in business to make money, and if this is the kind of stuff that sells at the moment, then they will continue to pump it out. And you cannot really blame the readers either – although I doubt that many of them would ever think of picking up a real horror novel (other than maybe the odd title by King or Koontz); they will continue buy these kinds of books until the next marketing fad comes along (“literary mash-ups” anybody?).

  However, I can blame people like the Horror Writers Association for embracing this dissolution of the genre by putting their name to such books as the Blood Light anthologies in the sole pursuit of recognition and royalties, or the publishers of Weird Tales for reducing a once venerable and influential magazine to the level of fan drivel.

  Over the past couple of years I have cut back significantly on the amount of coverage I give “paranormal romance” titles and similar books in these volumes. I will obviously continue to support well-written and thoughtful fiction, but the majority of these works have no place in a publication devoted to the Best New Horror. The sooner our industry realises this, then the sooner its practitioners and publishers will move on to exploit another literary genre, allowing us once again to reclaim ours for the scary and disturbing fiction that is its true legacy.

  The Editor

  May, 2011

  SCOTT EDELMAN

  What Will Come After

  SCOTT EDELMAN HAS PUBLISHED more than seventy-five short stories in magazines such as The Twilight Zone, Absolute Magnitude, Science Fiction Review and Fantasy Book, and in many anthologies, including The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Crossroads, MetaHorror, Once Upon a Galaxy, Moon Shots, Mars Probes and Forbidden Planets. New short stories are forthcoming in Why New Yorkers Smoke, PostScripts, Space and Time and other publications.

  What Will Come After, a collection of his zombie fiction, and What We Still Talk About, a collection of his science fiction stories, were both published in 2010, and he has appeared in two previous volumes of The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. He has been a Bram Stoker Award finalist five times, in the categories of both Short Story and Long Fiction.

  Additionally, Edelman has worked for the Syfy channel for more than a decade, where he’s currently employed as the editor of Blastr. He was the founding editor of Science Fiction Age, which he edited during its entire eight-year run, and has been a four-time Hugo Award finalist for Best Editor.

  “When Peter Crowther agreed to collect my many zombie short stories for publication by PS Publishing,” recalls the author, “he asked only one thing of me – that I write a new piece of fiction for the volume to entice readers who might already be familiar with my undead oeuvre. Which I, of course, immediately agreed to do.

  “But having already pushed the zombie envelope as far as I thought it could go with the story I’d written most recently at the time, ‘Almost the Last Story by Almost the Last Man’, and wanting to make the new story truly special, I realised that there was only one place to go. I had to get personal. Very personal.

  “And so, I wrote a story in which I was the protagonist, and looked ahead to what would happen after my own death . . . and rebirth. It was an emotionally difficult story to write, but what I didn’t realise was that it would become even more emotionally difficult for me as time went by.

  “What I should have known when writing ‘What Will Come After’ was that it would become more difficult for me to reread as time went on. You see, because the story is about me, it is also about the people I love. Even though within the story, many of them are dead, at the time I wrote the tale, they were all alive – and I still had trouble not losing it at the ending during a public reading.

  “It’s been a rough couple of years since I wrote this story, and when I next read it aloud, one of those loved ones had died, and my voice cracked and I had trouble keeping it together during the section that mentioned that death. Now yet another relative is gone, and I had difficulty even proofing this for publication. And there are other relatives still alive, but they, too, will go someday . . .

  “So I appear to have set myself up for many more difficult emotional experiences in the future. But it was, of course, worth it. I only hope that when you read the story that follows, some small part of that love bleeds through from me to you . . .”

  I AM ALREADY AWARE of certain events surrounding my coming death – which, if I’m reading the signs correctly, is not that far off – as surely as if they’d already occurred and I am merely remembering them.

  I will not really begin to live until after I die. I will not be alone in that. It will be that way for many, as if what had up until then been the entirety of human existence had suddenly instead become its prologue. Death – though not dying, which will remain as painful, frightening, and mysterious as ever – will have lost its finality. We won’t understand why. There’ll be no explanation, at least none which will be found acceptable to us. That’s just the way it will be one sudden morning, when we will all wake to a world in which death has become only temporary. Some of us will take it to be the vengeance of God, while others will place the blame on the hubris of science. But the finger-pointing of billions will not alter our new situation. Life, for lack of a better word, will go on, and what will come after will more often than not be far more interesting than what had come before. Because how many of us, if tasked to speak the truth, could ever say that we fully used what we had been given in the firs
t place?

  Long before everything changes, I will have already seen the script for my desired death acted out by others. It won’t, however, have been an end capable of rehearsal. It’s a scenario I will have hoped for, but which I, which we, will be denied. I will not be as lucky as the ninety-year-old woman, married for sixty-seven years, who had a stroke, or her husband, also ninety, who then phoned 911. I have already read about their ends, now, even as I write these words, long before the world’s rebirth, long before I’ll need to fear the transformation. As the emergency crew bundled up that elderly woman to rush her to the hospital, the stress from the flurry of activity, from seeing his wife limp and unmoving, caused her husband to have a stroke as well. Neither of the pair ever regained consciousness. They died within days of each other. If I could choose a manner in which to leave this world, it would be that one, my wife and I taken from the world at once, neither of us suffering extended solitude, never alone for long. Those few minutes apart would be an eternity enough. My wife and I have talked about that, hoped for that, and will continue to hope, even after everything changes. But who among us gets to choose the time and place of his or her death? Especially when the world becomes the way the world will henceforth be forever.

  I will die in my own home. Even though I will have sickened, I will not have sought help as once I might have. The world will no longer contain enough help to go around, not for all the frail and faltering, not once people have changed into predators. Besides, places which used to be symbols of safety will have become too suspect to act as havens. Hospitals, for example, will have become far too dangerous by then for any sane person to visit, what with the undead coming back to life, and though those institutions will uneasily live on, struggling to be more than just a feeding ground as patients become hunters, they will never be safe again, no matter what precautions are taken. Neither will malls, movie theatres, sports arenas, convention centres, schools, or any other businesses at which the public had previously gathered in so carefree a manner. For humans, stepping out of one’s sphere of solitude will become a rarity. We will adapt to telecommuting not only in our jobs, but in our personal lives as well. In love, in family, and in marriage, too, the long distance will become commonplace. Our race’s slow march to solitude will increase to a breakneck speed.