The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror

by Stephen Jones

  The BBC’s go-to man for horror, Mark Gatiss, hosted a new five-part series of The Man in Black on Radio 7, which debuted in October with “Phish Phood”, a half-hour drama scripted by Kim Newman. The show’s original concept dated back to the 1940s.

  Weird Tales was an original series of four half-hour plays broadcast on Radio 4 in late January and February narrated by a character named “Lovecraft”.

  As a curtain-raiser to its week-long Torchwood event, the BBC broadcast three new forty-five-minute radio plays at the end of June on Radio 4’s Afternoon Play slot. “Asylum”, “Golden Age” and “The Dead Line” reunited John Barrowman as Captain Jack Harkness, Eve Myles as Gwen Cooper and Gareth David-Lloyd as Ianto Jones in stories about an unusual teenage runaway, a mystery surrounding Torchwood India and the cause of a comalike plague in Cardiff.

  For fans of classic radio SF, the same week Radio 4 revived the Charles Chilton’s series Journey Into Space with a new half-hour story (“The Host”) in which stiff space captain Jet Morgan (Toby Stephens) and his crew searched for life on one of Saturn’s moons. The voice of the alien “Host” was performed by David Jacobs – the original voice of Jet Morgan in the 1950s.

  Broadcast on Radio 4 in November, Nick Perry’s first radio play, The Loop, was about a writer named Nick Perry struggling to write his first radio play who found himself talking on the phone with a stranger in New York in 1959 who was trying to write the first episode of a new TV series called The Twilight Zone.

  Broadcast that same month, It Was a Dark and Stormy Night was a half-hour look at the life of Victorian author Edward Bulwer-Lytton, who coined the classic phrase in his now-forgotten novel Paul Clifford.

  In December, Radio 4’s Book at Bedtime featured a ten-part adaptation of The Ingoldsby Legends, a collection of myths, legends and ghost stories written by “Thomas Ingoldsby of Tappington Manor” (the Reverend Richard Harris Barham) and published in Bentley’s Miscellany in 1837.

  Derek Jacobi introduced five fifteen-minute adaptations M.R. James at Christmas on BBC Radio 7, featuring “Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad”, “The Tractate Middoth”, “Lost Hearts”, “The Rose Garden” and “Number 13”.

  Dark Adventure Theatre Presents H.P. Lovecraft’s Shadow Over Innsmouth was the latest audio CD from the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. Along with the radio play adaptation, the package included a fishy scratch and sniff map, matchbook, postcard and newspaper clippings.

  The recession and a strong dollar badly affected New York’s theatre district with more than fourteen shows closing in the first two months of 2009. However, that didn’t stop numerous new shows trying to attract an audience: Shrek the Musical opened on Broadway with Brian D’Arcy James playing the green-faced ogre and Sutton Foster as Princess Fiona, the object of his affections. The Toxic Avenger Musical, based on the cult 1980s film series, opened in New York in April and ran for more than 300 performances. The show then moved on to Toronto, where it opened on Halloween.

  Angela Lansbury and Rupert Everett starred in a hit Broadway revival of Noël Coward’s 1941 play Blithe Spirit. The show ran for four months and Lansbury won a Tony Award for her performance as the eccentric medium, Madame Arcati.

  Ahead of its Broadway premiere, The Addams Family musical opened in Chicago in November with Nathan Lane playing Gomez and Bebe Neuwirth as Morticia.

  Creature from the Black Lagoon was a twenty-five-minute Broadway-style musical that opened in July as an attraction at Universal Studios theme park in California. The production’s climax featured a twenty-three-foot-tall puppet version of the Gill Man. However, the comedy show, staged by Tony Award-nominated director and choreographer Lynne Taylor-Corbett, was not really suitable for younger children, and it apparently closed early following unfavourable reviews.

  Thriller – Live, a three-hour stage musical based around twenty-eight songs by Michael Jackson, opened at London’s Lyric Theatre in January.

  For fifteen days in May, Kevin Spacey’s Old Vic theatre and the Punchdrunk company turned the disused British Rail tunnels under London’s Waterloo Station into a free performance-installation entitled Tunnel 228, inspired by Fritz Lang’s classic 1927 movie Metropolis. All 15,000 tickets, sponsored by Bloomberg, were claimed within hours of the venture being announced.

  Mike Oldfield’s 1973 album Tubular Bells, which provided the theme music for The Exorcist, was performed in cities across the world at 6.00 p.m. on June 6. The time and date – 666 – was a reference to the number of the Devil. The global event was held in London, Paris, Berlin, Milan, Sydney and elsewhere to promote a digitally remastered version of the popular album.

  The Woman in Black, Stephen Mallatratt’s stage adaptation of the 1983 novel by Susan Hill, celebrated its twentieth anniversary in London’s West End with a gala performance in June.

  In October, the city’s Southwark Playhouse presented Terror 2009, a quartet of half-hour horror plays by Lucy Kirkwood, Mark Ravenhill, Anthony Neilsen and Neil LaBute. Under eighteen-year-olds were banned from the show, which featured two world premieres.

  Terry Pratchett’s YA historical desert island adventure Nation opened in November at London’s Olivier National Theatre as a musical, while a stage version of Stephen King’s The Shawshank Redemption closed the same month at Wyndham’s Theatre amid allegations that a quote used to publicize the play was “misleading” because it referred to the 1994 film version.

  In the improved multiplayer sequel game Left 4 Dead 2, four survivors of a zombie apocalypse worked together to overcome hordes of neck-biting and fire-retardant walking dead in the American South.

  Creepy child Alma was back to spread terror in Fear 2: Project Origin, and Agent Chris Redfield was slaying zombies in Africa in Capcom’s Resident Evil 5. To promote the latter game, severed body parts were scattered across a London bridge in March.

  The following week, a publicity stunt to promote Sega’s Madworld videogame also backfired when fake severed limbs left around London provoked outrage from MPs and decency campaigners.

  Wolfenstein was an updated version of the old shooter game featuring evil Nazi monsters, while Deep Space: Extraction was a prequel to the hit SF game.

  Aliens: Colonial Marines was based on the James Cameron movie, as was Avatar: The Game, a third-person shooter you could play in 3-D that was actually a prequel to the movie that inspired it.

  Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince continued one of the most successful film tie-in franchises, and it was especially well suited for playing on the Wii system.

  Also designed to tie in to the movie, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra was an old-fashioned shooter game, and Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray and Harold Ramis recreated their original roles for a new game version of Ghostbusters.

  The Joker and his gang of crazies were running the madhouse in Batman: Arkham Asylum, and only the Dark Knight could stop them.

  Toy manufacturer Hasbro posted returns above expectations in the second quarter of 2009. The company made a £24 million profit, mostly as a result of the movie Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen sending children out to buy action figures.

  For those with some spare cash in their pockets (£165 to be precise), The Creature from the Black Lagoon Diorama was a hand-painted polystone figure of the Gill Man holding his unconscious victim in a classic pose. There was also The Creature from the Black Lagoon Super-Size Creepy Collector’s Figure, which stood 22 inches high.

  Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart may have got their own Twilight dolls in November, but far more exciting was the 12-inch collector’s action figure of William Marshall as Blacula, which came with three interchangeable heads.

  The second in a series of deluxe action figures from George A. Romero’s Day of the Dead was Dr Tongue, which featured the zombie’s shotgun-blasted face and a rubbery tongue.

  From Sideshow Collectibles, the 12-inch Vincent Price Masque of the Red Death figure from the 1964 movie came with a removable mask.

  Available from St Ma
rtin’s Press in a boxed set, The Vampire Tarot written and illustrated by Robert M. Place featured a four-colour, fully illustrated seventy-eight-card deck and booklet that explored the history of the undead from Bram Stoker’s Dracula onwards.

  Issued each month for fifteen months by Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, Neil Gaiman’s Fifteen Painted Cards from a Vampire Tarot featured a small bottle of perfume inspired by the story and a corresponding tarot card created by Madame Talbot. T-shirts were also available through the company’s website, and all proceeds went to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.

  A 22-inch metal animation skeleton of the 1933 King Kong, which was used in the climactic scenes where the giant ape scaled the Empire State Building, was sold at the London Christie’s in November for £121,250 ($200,000) to an anonymous bidder.

  Following the announcement in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list, eighty-seven-year-old Christopher Lee was knighted by Prince Charles for services to drama and charity the day before Halloween. Meanwhile, the woollen cape the actor wore in

  Hammer’s 1958 Dracula (aka Horror of Dracula) was sold at auction in London for £26,400 ($43,290).

  In January, the United States Postal Service issued a stamp to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Edgar Allan Poe. Later in the year there was a good chance that the USPS’ stamp of The Twilight Zone, one of a set of twenty commemorating “Early TV Memories”, might have diverted your letter to the fifth dimension. Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Lone Ranger were among the other shows featured.

  In June, the UK’s Royal Mail issued a series of six “Mythical Creatures” postage stamps illustrated by Dave McKean. The presentation pack included a very short short story for each of them by Neil Gaiman.

  The World Horror Convention 2009 was a complete disaster. Held in Winnipeg, Canada, April 30 – May 3, almost nobody showed up, despite a Guest of Honour list that included Conrad Williams, Edo van Belkom and F. Paul Wilson, artist Tommy Castillo and editor Joshua Gee. Tanith Lee was announced as the winner of the Grand Master Award.

  The winners of the 2008 Bram Stoker Awards for Superior Achievement were announced at a banquet on June 13, held as part of the Horror Writers Association’s excellent Stoker Awards Weekend in Burbank, California.

  Stephen King’s Duma Key was the recipient of the Novel award, and First Novel went to The Gentling Box by Lisa Mannetti. John R. Little’s Miranda received the award for Long Fiction, and Sarah Langan’s The Lost picked up Short Fiction. King’s Just After Sunset was announced for Collection, Unspeakable Horrors edited by Vince A. Liaguano and Chad Helder collected Anthology, A Hallowe’en Anthology edited by Lisa Morton received Non-Fiction, and Bruce Boston’s The Nightmare Collection topped the votes for Poetry Collection.

  F. Paul Wilson and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro received Life Achievement Awards, the Specialty Press Award went to Larry and Debra Roberts for Bloodletting Press, Sèphera Girón received the Silver Hammer Award for outstanding service to the Horror Writers Association, and the President’s Richard Laymon Service Award went to John R. Little.

  Jasper Fforde, Gail Z. Martin and legendary scriptwriter Brian Clemens were the Guests of Honour, and Ian Watson was Master of Ceremonies at FantasyCon 2009, held on September 18-20 in Nottingham.

  The winners of the British Fantasy Awards were announced at a banquet on the Saturday night. The Dark Knight and Doctor Who won two new awards for Best Film and Best Television, while Locke & Key by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez won Best Comic/Graphic Novel.

  The Best Non-Fiction Award went to Basil Copper: A Life in Books edited by Stephen Jones, Vincent Chong won for Best Artist, and Andrew Hook’s Elastic Press picked up the Best Small Press Award sponsored by PS Publishing.

  Best Anthology was The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 19 and Best Collection was Bull Running for Girls by Allyson Bird (Screaming Dreams). Sarah Pinborough collected the Best Short Fiction Award for her story “Do You See” in Myth-Understandings, Tim Lebbon won the Best Novella Award for The Reach of Children (Humdrumming), and Graham Joyce was presented with the August Derleth Fantasy Award for Best Novel for Memoirs of a Master Forger (Gollancz).

  The Karl Edward Wagner Award for Special Achievement went to Hayao Miyazaki and the Sydney J. Bounds Best Newcomer Award was presented to Joseph D’Lacey for his novel Meat (Bloody Books).

  The World Fantasy Convention in San Jose, California, at least had nice weather to recommend it. Held on October 29-November 1, the Guests of Honour were Garth Nix, Lisa Snellings, Michael Swanwick, Ann and Jeff VanderMeer and Zoran Zivkovic, with Jay Lake as Toastmaster and Donald Sidney-Fryer and Richard A. Lupoff as Special Guests.

  The World Fantasy Awards were announced on the Sunday at the banquet. Michael Walsh’s Old Earth Books won the Special Award, Non-Professional for its Howard Waldrop collections, while the Special Award, Professional went to Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant for their . . . er, small press imprints Small Beer Press and Big Mouth House.

  Australian Shaun Tan won the Artist award; the Collection award went to The Drowned Life by Jeffrey Ford (HarperPerennial) and Paper Cities: An Anthology of Urban Fantasy edited by Ekaterina Sedia (Senses Five Press) collected the Anthology.

  Short Fiction was awarded to “26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss” by Kij Johnson (Asimov’s) and Richard Bowes’ “If Angels Fight” (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction) picked up the award for Novella.

  The Novel award was a tie between The Shadow Year by Jeffrey Ford (Morrow) and Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan (Allen & Unwin and Knopf).

  At least the Life Achievement Awards for Ellen Asher and Jane Yolen made a bit more sense.

  So when, exactly, did it become wrong to be honest about your views?

  The reason I ask is that I have had a couple of recent experiences where people who I consider to be close friends took great offence to my unbiased opinion of their work.

  I began in the genre by working my way up as a reviewer back in the 1970s and 1980s for a number of small press and later professional magazines, and I have always held the belief that I would rather get a negative review from a critic whose views I respect than a rave review from someone whose judgment I didn’t.

  It surely goes without saying that when you produce a piece of creative work – either as a writer, editor, artist, performer, musician or whatever – you leave yourself open to being reviewed. People either will or will not like your work. That’s the nature of the business.

  However, these days, it seems that anybody can be a critic. What people have to realize is that just because you can post a “review” on Amazon (anonymously!) or on your own blog telling the world why you like or dislike a certain thing, that does not necessarily make you a critic. It just makes you opinionated.

  Any critic worth the title needs to support their comments with knowledge, experience and, perhaps most importantly of all, critical acumen. Otherwise, it’s just an opinion.

  I feel I have worked in this genre for enough years and read and seen enough material over the decades to have a pretty good idea of what works and what does not in the horror field (obviously still within the context of my own personal likes and dislikes).

  So when an actor friend asked me what I thought of his new DVD project, I told him that although I considered his performance remarkable, I was disappointed by the packaging and felt that the supporting graphics let him and the production down. That apparently was not what he wanted to hear.

  More recently, a Californian specialist bookstore cancelled its entire order of the previous edition of this anthology because I had happened to mention that, in my opinion, a book one of the owners was involved with putting together was not worthy of a major award nomination.

  What I was perhaps not aware of at the time was that my actor friend wasn’t actually interested in my opinion but probably just wanted to be told how good his product was, and, in the second instance, some people just can’t take criticism – no matter how honestly and sincerely it is given.

&
nbsp; I have to admit that this is apparently a cultural thing. Whereas the British will invariably tell you straight about what they think of something, many Americans would rather not say anything negative (presumably under the cultural delusion that “everybody’s a winner”).

  Well, everybody’s not. Just because you’ve written a story, published a book or produced a piece of art, it does not automatically mean that you have achieved anything special (no matter how many self-help manuals and reality TV talent shows tell you differently).

  Once you put your work into the public arena, then you are leaving yourself open to criticism. Whether you ultimately agree with that criticism or not is entirely up to you, but I know I would prefer someone to tell me honestly what they liked or didn’t like about my work rather than hide their true opinion behind false – or even worse, bland – platitudes.

  But maybe that’s because I’ve always tried to be honest in my opinions. If I think something is special, then I am more than happy to share my enthusiasm with the world. And if I don’t care for it, then I will also express my convictions in a manner that I hope is at least a constructive and informed.

  As a reviewer, if you are going to assert your opinions, then you have to do it honestly and without bias. And any creative person should be aware that they will sometimes have to accept the bad along with the good. Otherwise, how is that individual going to develop and hopefully mature in their chosen field?

  Criticism can be both important and beneficial – but only when it is given knowledgeably and without prejudice. Which is useful because, as far as I am concerned, I simply do not believe anybody who tells me that they don’t read, or don’t care about, reviews of their own work.

  I, for one, shall be look forward to seeing the comments about this volume . . .

  The Editor

  June, 2010