The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 20

by Stephen Jones (ed. )

  In January, the Vatican condemned the Harry Potter books in its official newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano. The article described the boy wizard as “the wrong kind of hero”.

  J. K. Rowling appeared in a New York court in April in an attempt to prevent the publication of RDR Books’ The Harry Potter Lexicon, which the author described as constituting “the wholesale theft of seventeen years of my hard work”. She went on to claim that Steve Vander Ark’s book of his fan website had “decimated my creative work over the last month”.

  Five months later, a US judge ruled that the Lexicon was banned because of copyright infringement as the book appropriated “too much of Rowling’s creative work for its purposes as a reference guide”, and that the publisher “had failed to establish an affirmative defence of fair use”. Because The Harry Potter Lexicon had not yet been published, Warner Bros. (which owns the property rights to the Potter books) and Rowling were awarded statutory damages, which amounted to $6,750.

  “I don’t feel bad about the decision,” said Vander Ark, who announced that he was writing a new book, In Search of Harry Potter, about real-life inspirations for locations in Rowling’s series.

  Meanwhile, independent imprint RDR Books announced that, despite the ruling, it was going ahead with plans to publish a rewritten version of Ark’s Lexicon early in 2009.

  Wealthy fans were reportedly rushing to stay in the same suite at Edinburgh’s luxurious Balmoral Hotel where J. K. Rowling completed Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Renamed in the author’s honour and containing a marble bust that she signed, the room cost almost £1,000 per night.

  In July, a signed set of all seven first edition Harry Potter books sold at auction in the UK for £17,800.

  To celebrate National Year of Reading, in August Waterstones issued the postcard collection What’s Your Story?, which included a 800-word Harry Potter prequel by Rowling featuring Harry’s father James and Sirius Black in the 1970s. It became the fastest-selling short story collection of all time, with 10,000 copies sold on its first day of release.

  Rowling’s original hand-written postcard was sold for £25,000 (£31.25 per word) to a mystery bidder at a charity auction to benefit English PEN and Dyslexia Action.

  Originally produced as an extremely limited, hand-crafted, illustrated edition of seven copies (one of which sold at Sotheby’s in December 2007 for £1.95 million), Rowling’s book of spoof fairy tales, Beedle the Bard, was issued commercially in time for the Christmas market. With a print run of eight million copies worldwide, the author donated a percentage earned from each copy to her special charity, Children’s Voice.

  J. K. Rowling topped Forbes magazine’s list of the world’s richest celebrities, with her 2007 earnings estimated at $300 million. Stephen King was at #3 with $45 million and Dean Koontz tied at #6 with $25 million.

  Stephen King’s Duma Key was about a crippled millionaire living in a house situated on a remote Florida island, who discovered that his prognosticate drawings had revived a malignant evil power. The book had a first US printing of 1.5 million copies.

  In the UK, publisher Hodder & Stoughton held a competition for the public to design an advertising poster for the film, which the author himself judged.

  Just After Sunset: Stories was King’s first collection since 2002. It contained thirteen tales, including the previously uncollected “The Cat from Hell” and an original Lovecraftian tale written for the volume, plus an Introduction and story notes by the author. The American “collector’s set” included a bound-in DVD of the animated twenty-five episode webseries N, which appeared online during the summer.

  Thirty-four-year-old Stephenie Meyer, author of the bestselling “Twilight Saga” series was named one of Time magazine’s “100 Most Influential People of 2008”. The author had more than fifty million books in print worldwide, including a new adult SF/horror novel, The Host, which went straight to #1 in the US.

  Little, Brown announced a 3.7 million-copy first printing for Meyer’s Breaking Dawn, the fourth and possibly final volume in her young adult vampire series. When an unfinished draft of a fifth novel, Midnight Sun, was leaked on the Internet, the author ceased work “indefinitely” on the book.

  According to Nielsen Bookscan, Meyer’s “Twilight” books took four of the top six slots (including #1 and #2) in the top fifty bestselling books in the US in 2008. Depressingly, the author’s titles were also at #13, #15, #24, #30 and #42. By the end of the year there were around thirty million copies of the books in print in the US alone.

  Set thirty-five years after The Witches of Eastwick, John Updike’s belated sequel to his 1984 novel, The Widows of Eastwick, found the three ageing witches returning to the eponymous Rhode Island town for the summer and taking stock of their lives.

  Dean Koontz’s Odd Hours was the fourth book in the “Odd Thomas” series. It debuted at #1 on the Publishers Weekly bestseller list with 600,000 copies in print. To promote the book online, Bantam Books produced a four-part film about the character, Odd Passenger, created by Jack Placione, Jr and Jerry White.

  A heart transplant patient was pursued by the organ’s original owner in Koontz’s Your Heart Belongs to Me.

  Fifty-nine-year-old Terry Pratchett, who revealed at the end of 2007 that he had a rare form of early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, gave £500,000 ($1 million) to the Alzheimer’s Research Trust charity in March, as well as taking on the role of a spokesperson for Alzheimer’s research. The author’s bestselling “Discworld” series celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary in 2008.

  Jim Butcher reached the #1 slot in America for the first time with his tenth “Dresden Files” novel, Small Favor, in which wizard Harry Dresden found himself in a supernatural battle, with the fate of the world as the prize.

  Supposedly sealed for 125 years, Dan Simmons had fun playing literary games with his hefty novel Drood. It was a murder mystery told in the first person, in which writer Wilkie Collins teamed up with his former friend Charles Dickens to pursue the eponymous spectral figure through the slums, sewers and catacombs of Victorian London.

  Repairman Jack was on the trail of a legendary Japanese sword in F. Paul Wilson’s By the Sword. There was also a limited edition from Gauntlet Press.

  Inaccurately described as “Lovecraft meets Blade Runner”, Gene Wolfe’s novel An Evil Guest was set in the future.

  In John Farris’ Avenging Fury, which concluded the author’s epic four-book series that began with The Fury, psychic Eden Waring’s doppelgänger Gwen had to travel back through time to the 1920s to prevent an ancient evil from being resurrected.

  Swedish author John Ajvide Lindqvist followed up his acclaimed vampire novel Let the Right One In with Handling the Undead, in which the dead of Stockholm just wanted to go home.

  New York City medical examiner Dr Laurie Montgomery and her husband Dr Jack Stapleton went to the aid of an idealistic medical student who had become aware of a series of unexplained deaths in overseas hospitals in Robin Cook’s latest thriller, Foreign Body.

  Although she died in 1986 at the age of 63, V. C. Andrews had the first in a “new” Gothic series published in 2008. However, Delia’s Crossing was most probably written by a pseudonymous Andrew Niederman. Also published under the late author’s by-line was Secrets in the Shadows, a sequel to Secrets in the Attic.

  Button, Button: Uncanny Stories collected eleven reprint stories and a poem by Richard Matheson. The cover trumpeted a forthcoming movie version of the title story starring Cameron Diaz.

  ER doctor Marie Laveau, the descendant of New Orleans’ famous voodoo queen Marie Laveau, was on the trail of an African vampire (“wazimamoto”) in Yellow Moon, the second volume in Jewell Parker Rhodes’ trilogy that began with Voodoo Season.

  In Britain, Virgin Books launched a stylish new horror list with Stephen Gregory’s psychological suspense novel, The Perils & Dangers of This Night, plus mass-market reprints of The Grin of the Dark by Ramsey Campbell, Teatro Grottesco by Thomas Ligotti, The Unb
lemished by Conrad Williams and Banquet for the Damned by series editor Adam L. G. Nevill.

  A Glimpse Into the Abyss was a paperback sampler of Virgin’s horror list that included excerpts from the books by Ligotti, Campbell and Williams.

  Dorchester’s Leisure Books imprint continued to churn out mass-market paperback originals. The demolition of an old church revealed an object of great power in Michael Laimo’s Fires Rising, while more ancient artefacts unleashed evil on a small Maine town in Sarah Pinborough’s Tower Hill.

  A great evil waited beneath a New York building in Edward Lee’s Brides of the Impaler.

  A woman tried to hide her psychic ability in Deborah LeBlanc’s The Water Witch, and a girl with telekinetic powers was held prisoner in a research facility in The Reach by Nate Kenyon.

  Bryan Smith’s Queen of Blood was a sequel to the author’s House of Blood, while Mary SanGiovanni’s Found You was a sequel to The Hollower.

  Old Flames collected two novellas (one original) by Jack Ketchum, while Gary A. Braunbeck’s serial killer novel Coffin Country was a prologue to the author’s “Cedar Hill” cycle and also reprinted two stories from the same series.

  Ghost Walk was a Halloween novel by Brian Keene, in which a rookie reporter and an Amish sorcerer were forced to confront the darkness that existed in LeHorn’s Hollow, while a werewolf epidemic menaced a small Californian town in Ravenous by Ray Garton.

  Reprint titles from Leisure included John Everson’s Bram Stoker Award-winning Covenant, Brian Keene’s Dark Hollow (aka The Rutting Season), Gord Rollo’s The Jigsaw Man, a “definitive” edition of Robert Dunbar’s The Pines and the late Richard Laymon’s Cuts and Beware.

  A reissue of Laymon’s 1981 novel The Woods Are Dark restored almost fifty pages of previously-deleted material, and Thomas Tessier’s 1979 werewolf novel The Nightwalker included the reprint novella “The Dreams of Dr Ladybank”, a new Introduction by Jack Ketchum, and an Afterword by the author.

  Strangely credited to “William Heaney” on the UK Gollancz edition entitled Memoirs of a Master Forger, Graham Joyce was properly credited as the author on the American Night Shade printing, confusingly retitled How to Make Friends with Demons. Whatever the title, the genre-bending novel was about a bookseller of fake first editions who believed he could see demons.

  Steve Rasnic Tem and Melanie Tem expanded their World Fantasy Award-winning novella The Man on the Ceiling into a novel for Wizards of the Coast’s “Discoveries” imprint. However, after publishing only seven titles in 2008, the adult fiction imprint was cancelled when the parent company decided to refocus on core brands.

  I, Zombie by Al Ewing was the latest volume in Abaddon Books’ Tomes of the Dead series.

  Unmarked Graves was more grue from Shaun Hutson featuring zombies, and zombies invaded New York in Christopher Golden’s Soulless.

  Following her mother’s brutal murder, a woman at the centre of an ancient conspiracy discovered a secret world below London’s Underground system in Mind the Gap, the first volume in a new supernatural series by Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon.

  Graham Masterton’s The Painted Man was the author’s second novel about “Sissy Sawyer”, while music opened up a composer’s mind in the same author’s Ghost Music.

  Vincent Van Gogh was among the characters that turned up in Simon Clark’s supernatural mystery, The Midnight Man. The author’s other novel of the year was Vengeance Child.

  William Hope Hodgson’s psychic detective Thomas Carnacki, the Ghost-Finder, came to the aid of Sherlock Holmes, who was suffering from amnesia, in The Shadow of Reichenbach Falls by John R. King (aka J. Robert King).

  Author Bram Stoker became a suspect in the Ripper murders in The Dracula Dossier by James Reese, while an immortal warrior was sent to Victorian London to stop Jack in Night Falls Darkly, the first in the “Shadow Guard” series by Kim Lenox.

  Paranormal psychologist Gillian Key encountered Jack the Ripper in Key to Conspiracy and the Phantom of the Opera in Key to Redemption, the second and third books in the series by Talia Gryphon.

  Night Child by newcomer Jes Battis was the first in a series about the OSI – Occult Special Investigations – in which urban forensic investigator Tess Corday became involved with vampires, demons and other supernatural creatures.

  Supernatural investigator Quincey Morris and his partner Libby Chastain attempted to banish an ancient curse in Black Magic Woman, the first in a series by Justin Gustainis. It was followed by Evil Ways, in which the pair investigated the murders of white witches.

  The Outlaw Demon Wails (aka Where Demons Dare) was the sixth volume in “The Hollows” series by Kim Harrison (Dawn Cook), in which witchy private investigator Rachel Morgan was menaced by an escaped demon at Halloween. Although intended to be the final book in the series, it wasn’t.

  A man could hear the final thoughts of the dying in Jan Burke’s The Messenger, while a clairvoyant woman was invited to join a group of demon hunters in The Exorsistah by Claudia Mair Burney.

  The Unnatural Inquirer was the eighth volume in Simon R. Green’s “Nightside” series, in which a tabloid newspaper reporter went looking for proof of life after death.

  Solaris reissued more of the author’s “Nightside” novels in the omnibus volumes Into the Nightside, Haunting the Nightside and The Dark Heart of the Nightside.

  Fleeing for her life, Destiny McCree teamed up with a master thief whose powers matched her own in Keri Arthur’s Destiny Kills.

  A British Civil Service clerk found himself fighting against the forces of evil in The Domino Men by Jonathan Barnes, and a group of Texas teens were infected by strange cave water in River Runs Red by Jeffrey J. (Jeff) Mariotte.

  The Fabric of Sin was the ninth book about Merrily Watkins by Phil Rickman, while Blood Colony was the latest entry in the “Black Immortals” series by Tananarive Due.

  Psychic twins abducted children for bizarre experiments in Cameron Cruise’s paranormal thriller Dark Matters, and an unearthed plane from World War II revealed dark secrets in the thriller Crucified by Michael Slade (Jay Clarke and Rebecca Clarke).

  Visitors to modern-day Greece fell foul of an ancient mythological cult in David Angsten’s supernatural thriller Night of the Furies, inspired by The Bacchae of Euripides.

  A Native American spirit menaced Underground Seattle in Kat Richardson’s Underground, the third book in the “Greywalker” series featuring supernaturally-tinged investigator Harper Blaine.

  Neuropath by [R.] Scott Bakker was a high-tech horror thriller about a serial killer scientist who could control human emotions.

  A mysterious pathogen transformed people into psychotic killers in Contagious, Scott Sigler’s sequel to Infected, and mutant militia invaded a small town in Afraid by Jack Kilborn (J.A. Konrath).

  Strange things started happening in a former high school in Bentley Little’s The Academy, and an office building fed on fear in Gary Frank’s Institutional Memory.

  When offered a deal that seemed too good to be true, a Boston District Attorney uncovered the malignant evil that possessed a hospital treating his young daughter in Alexandra Sokoloff’s The Price.

  In Larissa Ione’s Pleasure Unbound, a slayer had his life saved in the Underworld General Hospital staffed by demons. It was the first volume in the “Demonica” series.

  In the cursed New England town of Raine’s Landing, the descendants of the original Salem witches found themselves confronting an ancient god that fed on blood and terror in Dark Rain by Tony Richards.

  The residents of the small Pennsylvania town of Pine Deep found their Halloween Festival beset by a monstrous evil in Bad Moon Rising by Jonathan Maberry.

  The Hollow and The Pagan Stone were the second and third volumes in Nora Roberts’ “The Sign of the Seven” trilogy, in which a blood oath brought evil every seven years to the idyllic town of Hawkins Hollow.

  Lilith Saintcrow’s Night Shift introduced renegade exorcist Jill Kismet, who battled the hellbreed and the humans
who worked with them. It was followed by Hunter’s Prayer.

  Half-demon tabloid journalist Hope Adams infiltrated a gang of young supernaturals and investigated a murder with necromancer homicide detective John Findlay in Kelley Armstrong’s Personal Demon and Living with the Dead, the eighth and ninth books in the “The Otherworld” series. The Canadian author also had a new short story in the second issue of Bantam Dell Publishing’s Spectra Pulse magazine.

  A demon preyed on refugees of Hurricane Katrina in Kassandra Sims’ paranormal romance Hellbent & Heartfirst.

  Ghost of a Chance was the first in a series about ghost-hunter and house exorcist Karma Marx by Kate Marsh (aka Katie MacAlister and Katie Maxwell).

  Terri Garey’s A Match Made in Hell was a humorous sequel to Dead Girls Are Easy. It once again featured vintage clothing store owner Nicki Styx, who could see dead people.

  Devil May Ride by Wendy Roberts was the second in the “Ghost Dusters” series, about a crime scene cleaner who could see ghosts.

  Ghost-hunting psychic M. J. Holliday and her team investigated an attack by the legendary “Hatchet Jack” at an exclusive private school in Victoria Laurie’s Demons Are a Ghoul’s Best Friend, the second in a series.

  In the thirteenth volume of Nancy Atherton’s cosy mystery series, over-protective mother Lori Shepard and her ghostly aunt uncovered a local scandal in Aunt Dimity: Vampire Hunter.

  Damien and Noah were the fourth and fifth volumes in the “Nightwalkers” series by Jacquelyn Frank.

  Jamie Leigh Hansen’s Cursed was a sequel to Betrayed and again featured fallen angels and demonic forces, while House of Cards, the second volume in C. E. Murphy’s “The Negotiator/Old Races” series, found lawyer Margrit Knight once more involved with vampires, dragons and gargoyles.

  Predatory Game was the sixth volume in Christine Feehan’s “GhostWalkers” series, while Dark Curse was the latest title in the same author’s “Carpathian” books.