Compiled by Tom Roberts and published by Black Dog Books to tie-in to the Chicago pulp and paperback convention, Windy City Pulp Stories #13 celebrated the 100th Anniversary of Fu Manchu and the 90th Anniversary of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazines with fascinating articles and other pieces by E. Hoffman Price, Charles D. Hornig, Leigh Brackett, Doug Ellis, Robert Weinberg and others.
From PS Publishing, a special 30th Anniversary edition of Stephen King’s Christine included a new Introduction by Michael Marshall Smith and a new Afterword by Richard Chizmar. It was limited to 750 slipcased copies signed by Smith, Chizmar and artists Jill Bauman and Tomislav Tikulin.
Christopher Golden’s 2004 novel of paranormal suspense, The Boys Are Back in Town, was reprinted in a special signed edition of 200 copies with a new Introduction by Don Murphy.
PS also reissued Joanne Harris’ early supernatural novel Sleep, Pale Sister in a special signed edition of 200 copies with a new Introduction by Christopher Fowler.
Introduced by Stephen Gallager, Rabbit Pie & Other Tales of Intrigue collected fifteen original stories by Brian Clemens, best known for creating TV’s The Avengers.
Shades of Nothingness contained seventeen stories (five original) by Gary Fry, while The Moment of Panic collected twelve stories (five apparently original) along with notes on each by author Steve Duffy.
Stardust: The Ruby Castle Stories collected seven linked stories (one reprint) by Nina Allan, with an Introduction by Robert Shearman.
Brian W. Aldiss’ The Invention of Happiness was a slim collection of thirty-four original short-short stories written over consecutive days and illustrated by the author.
Exotic Gothic 5 edited by Danel Olson was published as a two-volume slipcased set. It contained twenty-six original stories by Simon Clark, Nancy A. Collins, Joyce Carol Oates, Terry Dowling, John Llewellyn Probert, Thana Niveau, Reggie Oliver, Paul Park, Lucy Taylor and others.
Edited with an Introduction by Lois H. Gresh, Dark Fusions: Where Monsters Lurk! included eighteen original tales by, amongst others, Darrell Schweitzer, Michael Marano, Lisa Morton, Nancy Kilpatrick, Yvonne Navarro and Robert M. Price.
Four for Fantasy: A Quartet of Fantastical Stories Collected for World FantasyCon 2013 was a slim hardcover featuring reprints by Brian Aldiss, Joanne Harris, Joe Hill and Richard Christian Matheson, edited by Peter Crowther.
As usual, Crowther also co-edited Postscripts 30/31: Memoryville Blues with Nick Gevers. The hardcover anthology contained twenty-five original stories by Alastair Reynolds, Mike Resnick, Lavie Tidhar, Lynda E. Rucker, Darrell Schweitzer, Ramsey Campbell, Scott Edelman and others. A signed edition was also available.
PS Publishing’s series of hardcover novellas continued with The Last Revelation of Gla’aki and The Pretence by Ramsey Campbell, The Ritual of Illusion by Richard Christian Matheson, The Réparateur of Strasbourg by Ian R. MacLeod, and We Three Kids, a Christmas tale by Margo Lanagan. All were available in signed hardcover editions of varying print runs.
The two-volume collection Darkness, Mist & Shadow: The Collected Macabre Tales of Basil Copper was reissued in three matching paperback editions from the PS imprint Drugstore Indian Press, adding a new Introduction by Christopher Fowler to those by Kim Newman and editor Stephen Jones.
Under the Stanza Press imprint, PS reissued Brian Lumley’s 1982/1999 poetry collection Ghoul Warning and Other Omens with illustrations by Dave Carson and an Afterword by David Sutton.
The secret of a poem with supposedly eldritch powers led a San Francisco bookseller back in time to the Beat-era of 1957 in Tim Powers’ Salvage and Demolition from Subterranean Press.
From the same publisher, Brian Lumley’s short novel Necroscope: The Möbius Murders was another adventure about speaking with the dead, Harry Keough, illustrated as usual by Bob Eggleton. A 250-copy signed leatherbound edition was also available.
Robert McCammon’s 19th-century-set vampire novella I Travel by Night was also available from Subterranean in both slipcased and traycased editions. The author’s 1980 novel The Night Boat was reissued by the publisher in a signed edition limited to 750 copies, along with a lettered edition of twenty-six.
The Ape’s Wife and Other Stories contained thirteen stories with notes on each by Caitlín R. Kiernan. It was also available in a signed, leatherbound edition of 600 copies that included a bonus hardcover novella.
Jewels in the Dust was a collection of thirteen previously published stories by Peter Crowther, with story notes by the author. The book was limited to a special signed and numbered edition of 750 copies.
Bleeding Shadows contained twenty-one stories and nine poems by Joe R. Lansdale, with notes by the author, and Lansdale’s daughter Kasey edited Impossible Monsters, which featured twelve stories by David J. Schow, Neil Gaiman, Charlaine Harris, Chet Williamson, Al Sarrantonio and the editor’s dad, amongst others.
Beautifully produced as a slim hardcover designed to evoke the American Arts & Crafts Movement, The Gist featured the title story by Michael Marshall Smith, plus the same story translated into French by Benoît Domis and then translated back into English by Nicholas Royle. A 300-copy signed and leatherbound edition was also available.
Dan Simmons’ 1993 collection Lovedeath was reissued by Subterranean Press in a signed edition of 250 copies ($125.00) and a lettered edition ($250.00).
The residents of a quiet neighbourhood discovered strange things kept happening in Bentley Little’s The Circle from Cemetery Dance Publications, while The Influence from the same author was about an Arizona community menaced by a creeping evil that came out of the desert.
Also from CD, Undead was an omnibus of John Russo’s novels Night of the Living Dead and Return of the Living Dead with an Introduction by the author. It was published in a signed edition limited to 750 copies.
Turnaround was a novella by Craig Spector, about a man writing a life-changing screenplay, while Sick Chick Flicks contained three screenplays by Spector’s old writing partner John Skipp, with commentary by the author and an interview conducted by Cody Goodfellow.
The Dark Man contained a reprint poem by Stephen King, illustrated by Glenn Chadbourne. It was published in a regular trade edition and a slipcased edition ($40.95).
Cemetery Dance celebrated twenty-five years as a publisher with Turn Down the Lights edited with an introduction by Richard Chizmar and featuring stories by some of their biggest authors, including Stephen King, Clive Barker and Peter Straub, while Thomas F. Monteleone supplied an Afterword. There were also special artist editions signed by the editor and artists, the most expensive being $750.00.
Published under the Edgeworks Abbey imprint, Harlan Ellison’s Honorable Whoredom at a Penny a Word collected fifteen crime and detective stories from the author’s early career, while Blood’s a Rover contained Ellison’s Nebula Awardwinning novella “A Boy and His Dog”, along with additional new “Vic and Blood” material and a two-hour teleplay pilot.
Harlan Ellison’s® Brain Movies: Volume Five included scripts for The Dark Forces, an unproduced mid-1970s TV pilot, along with an outline for a Batman episode, an unfilmed episode of The Rat Patrol, the original outline for the author’s episode of Logan’s Run, and episodes of Burke’s Law and Ripcord.
A schoolboy adventure turned into something much darker when a fourteen-year-old girl wanted a relationship from beyond the grave in Michael Aronovitz’s novel Alice Walks, published by Centipede Press.
From Pendragon Press, To Usher, the Dead was a 200-copy hardcover collection of fourteen stories about psychic investigator Thomas Usher by Gary McMahon, with an Introduction and Story Notes by the author. Gardner Goldsmith’s vampire novella Bite was available in a slim paperback from the same imprint with two additional reprint stories.
Gary McMahon’s short novel The Bones of You was the ninth volume in Earthling Publications’ annual Halloween Series. A divorced father suspected that the abandoned house next door was haunted by the deeds of a dead serial killer. It was avail
able in a signed edition of 500 copies and a traycased edition of just fifteen copies ($350.00).
A teenager dealing with the death of his mother started experiencing bizarre dreams in Mark Morris’ novel It Sustains, which came with an Introduction by Sarah Pinborough. It was also available in a 500-copy signed edition and a ten-copy traycased edition ($400.00).
Everything You Need was a welcome new collection by Michael Marshall Smith from Earthling. It featured seventeen stories (five original) along with story notes by the author. It was published in a 1,000-copy signed edition and a twenty-six copy handmade traycased lettered edition.
Limited to just 400 copies from Tartarus Press, Flowers of the Sea: Thirteen Stories and Two Novellas was a hefty hardcover collection written and illustrated by Reggie Oliver that included three previously unpublished tales, along with an Introduction by Michael Dirda and story notes by the author.
Also published by Tartarus in a run of 400 copies, Herald of the Hidden and Other Stories collected ten adventures of Mark Valentine’s psychic detective Ralph Tyler (three original), along with six further tales of the supernatural.
Translated by William Charlton, Darkscapes by French author Anne-Sylvie Salzman contained fifteen stories (one original) exploring the horror in life and the beauty in strangeness.
Timothy Parker Russell edited Dark World: Ghost Stories, featuring fourteen stories (one reprint) by Reggie Oliver, Christopher Fowler, Mark Valentine, John Gaskin, Steve Rasnic Tem and others. The anthology was limited to just 300 numbered softcover copies from Tartarus, with all profits going to the Amala Children’s Home in India.
The Heaven Tree & Other Stories from Sarob Press collected five stories (two original) and an Afterword by Christopher Harman.
Ghosts from Spectral Press contained seventeen stories (three original) by Paul Kane, along with the script for a short film directed by Brad Watson, which was included in the book as a DVD insert.
From the same publisher, Whitstable by Stephen Volk was the third title in the “Spectral Visions” series. Published to honour the 2013 Peter Cushing Centenary, this masterful novella pitted the ageing Hammer actor against a very real, contemporary evil.
The next book in the series, Still Life, was an original hardcover novella by Tim Lebbon, about humans struggling for survival in a post-apocalyptic world.
All Spectral Press titles were available in paperback, and also as hardcover editions limited to 125 signed and numbered copies.
North American Lake Monsters: Stories was the debut collection from Nathan Ballingrud, from Small Beer Press. It contained nine tales, one original.
She Walks in Darkness from Tachyon Publications was a “lost” 1960s Gothic novel by Evangeline Walton with an Introduction by Paul Di Filippo.
Edited by Ellen Datlow for the same publisher, Hauntings featured twenty-four reprint stories about ghosts by Neil Gaiman, Joyce Carol Oates, Peter Straub, Caitlín R. Kiernan, F. Paul Wilson, Kelly Link and others.
Richard Klaw edited the anthology The Apes of Wrath for Tachyon. It featured sixteen reprint stories about special simians by, amongst others, James P. Blaylock, Edgar Allan Poe, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard, Hugh B. Cave, Clark Ashton Smith, Philip José Farmer, Steven Utley, Joe R. Lansdale and Howard Waldrop, along with short articles by Jess Nevins, Scott A. Cupp, Mark Finn and the editor.
Set in 1899, a black rain returned the dead to the lonely village of Hardgrove, Nebraska, in When They Came Back, a collaborative novel from writer Christopher Conlon and photographer Roberta Lannes-Sealey from BearManor Media.
Edited by Ross Lockhart, Tales of Jack the Ripper from Word Horde contained nineteen stories and poems (three reprints) by Ramsey Campbell, Joe R. Lansdale, Laird Barron and others.
Crimewave 12: Hurts from TTA Press contained fourteen stories by Melanie Tem, Stephen Volk, Joel Lane, Christopher Priest, Kristine Kathryn Rusch and others.
Overlook Connection Press reissued Lucy Taylor’s 1990s collections Close to the Bone, The Flesh Artist, Painted in Blood and Unnatural Acts in trade paperback and ebook editions, along with a new hardcover compilation, Fatal Journeys. Overlook also produced Fatal: A Lucy Taylor Sampler for the 2013 World Horror Convention, containing six stories and an Introduction by Dave Hinchberger.
For JournalStone, Christopher Golden edited two volumes of Mister October: An Anthology in Memory of Rick Hautala. Along with brief remembrances, the two volumes featured forty-five stories (eight original) by Clive Barker, Neil Gaiman, Graham Joyce, Kim Newman, Michael Marshall Smith, Peter Straub and others. Both books were also available as a slipcased set signed by all the contributors.
Published by Jurassic London in conjunction with the Egypt Exploration Society, Unearthed edited by John Johnston and Jared Shurin collected eleven classic mummy stories by, amongst others, Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Allan Poe and Louisa May Alcott. Shurin alone edited the companion volume, The Book of the Dead, which featured nineteen original tales about mummies, illustrated by Garen Ewing.
Edited by Stephen Jones, Weirder Shadows Over Innsmouth was the third volume in the loosely connected Lovecraftian series from Fedogan & Bremer. Illustrated by Randy Broecker, it contained seventeen stories (seven original) and a poem by, amongst others, H. P. Lovecraft, Kim Newman, August Derleth, Reggie Oliver, Adrian Cole, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Angela Slatter, Brian Hodge, Ramsey Campbell, Michael Marshall Smith and Brian Lumley. A signed edition of 100 copies was also available.
Meanwhile, Titan Books issued the previous two volumes, Shadows Over Innsmouth and Weird Shadows Over Innsmouth, as revised and updated paperbacks.
From Chaosium Publication’s Cthulhu Mythos-inspired series, Undead & Unbound: Unexpected Tales from Beyond the Grave was edited by Brian M. Sammons and David Conyers. It featured nineteen stories of the undead from Cody Goodfellow, Gary McMahon, Robert M. Price, William Meikle and others, including a collaboration between the editors.
Sammons also teamed up with co-editor Glynn Owen Barrass for Eldritch Chrome: Unquiet Tales of a Mythos-Haunted Future from the same imprint. Price, Meikle, Conyers, Tim Curran, Lois Gresh, Jeffrey Thomas and the editors were amongst those who contributed eighteen “Cyberpunk-Cthulhu” tales to the anthology.
Following a thirty-five year hiatus, Spectre Press revived its Cthulhu: Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos magazine with a fourth edition edited by Jon M. Harvey and featuring Adrian Cole’s “Nick Nightmare” story “Nightmare on Mad Gull Island”, illustrated by Jim Pitts. Unfortunately, aside from the change to a slim hardcover format with dust-jacket, the design and typography were firmly stuck in the past.
Chandler Klang Smith’s Goldenland Past Dark from Canada’s ChiZine Publications was about a travelling circus in the 1960s.
Terrible secrets and a malignant darkness awaited the new owner of the eponymous haunted summerhouse in Wild Fell (A Ghost Story) by Michael Rowe. A woman haunted by her poltergeist met a man with strange sexual predilections in David Nickle’s The ’Geisters, and two dead people watched each other’s pasts through mirrors in Melia McClure’s The Delphi Room.
Joey Comeau’s gory The Summer is Ended and We Are Not Yet Saved dealt with the relationship between a mother and son. The Mona Lisa Sacrifice was the first book in “The Book of the Cross” series by Peter Roman, and the humorous Zombie versus Fairy Featuring Albinos was a sequel to Ninja versus Pirate Featuring Zombies by James Marshall.
Celestial Inventories from ChiZine collected twenty-two stories (one original) by Steve Rasnic Tem, while Tell My Sorrows to the Stones contained twelve stories by Christopher Golden, one in collaboration with Mike Mignola. Cherie Priest supplied the Introduction.
Canada’s Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing published Chilling Tales: In Words, Alas, Drown I, the second volume in a series of original horror anthologies edited with an Introduction by Michael Kelly. It contained twenty stories by David Nickle, Lisa L. Hannett, Ian Rogers, Helen Marshall, Edo van Belkom, Douglas Smith, Simon Strantzas, Sandra Kasturi, Rio Y
ouers, Gemma Files, Bev Vincent and others.
Jennifer Brozek edited Coins of Chaos, an anthology of seventeen original stories from Edge about mysterious money. Contributors included Gary A. Braunbeck and Seanan McGuire.
From Canada’s Exile Editions, Dead North: Canadian Zombie Fiction edited with an Introduction by Silvia Moreno-Garcia was the eighth volume in the “Exile Book of” anthology series. It featured twenty stories (five reprints) by Gemma Files, Simon Strantzas, Claude Lalumière and others.
From the same publisher, This Strange Way of Dying: Stories of Magic, Desire and the Fantastic was a debut collection by the Mexican-born Moreno-Garcia, containing fifteen original short stories.
Nicholas Royle’s Nightjar Press added to its series of chapbooks with The Jungle by Conrad Williams and Touch Me with Your Cold, Hard Fingers by Elizabeth Stott. Both were limited to 200 copies.
The Spectral Press chapbook series continued with Soul Masque by Terry Grimwood and Creakers by Paul Kane, which came with an Introduction by Sarah Pinborough. Both titles were limited to 125 signed and numbered copies.
Scenes Along the Zombie Highway from Dark Regions Press collected forty-two poems (nine reprints) about the walking dead by G. O. Clark, and explorers discovered a strange island in Jason V. Brock’s novella Milton’s Children, available from Bad Moon Books.
The Rolling Darkness Revue 2013: The Impostor’s Monocle was performed at The Missing Piece Theatre in Burbank, California, on October 18 and 19, 2013. As usual, Earthling Publications produced a tie-in chapbook containing stories by Peter Atkins, Glen Hirshberg and the elusive Thomas St. John Bartlett, limited to seventy-five signed copies.
Spider Web Castle was a slim, 100-copy chapbook from Ferret Fantasy reprinting a facsimile of Australian writer James Francis Dwyer’s story from the December 1926 edition of Pearson’s Magazine, along with the beautiful two-colour illustrations by Charles Robinson. George Locke supplied a tantalizing historical Afterword.
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