STEPHEN JONES is the winner of two World Fantasy Awards, two Horror Writers of America Bram Stoker Awards and The International Horror Critics Guild Award, as well as being a ten-time recipient of the British Fantasy Award and a Hugo Award nominee. A full-time columnist, television producer/director and genre film publicist and consultant (the first three Hellraiser movies, Night Life, Nightbreed, Split Second, Mind Ripper, Last Gasp etc.), he is the co-editor of Horror: 100 Best Books, The Best Horror from Fantasy Tales, Gaslight & Ghosts, Now We Are Sick, H.P. Lovecraft’s Book of Horror, The Anthology of Fantasy & the Supernatural, and the Best New Horror, Dark Terrors, Dark Voices and Fantasy Tales series. He has written The Illustrated Vampire Movie Guide, The Illustrated Dinosaur Movie Guide, The Illustrated Frankenstein Movie Guide and The Illustrated Werewolf Movie Guide, and compiled The Mammoth Book of Terror, The Mammoth Book of Vampires, The Mammoth Book of Zombies, The Mammoth Book of Werewolves, The Mammoth Book of Frankenstein, Shadows Over Innsmouth, The Vampire Stories of R. Chetwynd-Hayes, James Herbert: By Horror Haunted, Clive Barker’s A-Z of Horror, Clive Barker’s Shadows in Eden, Clive Barker’s The Nightbreed Chronicles and The Hellraiser Chronicles. He lives in London.
THE
BEST NEW
HORROR
VOLUME SEVEN
Edited by
STEPHEN JONES
Constable & Robinson Ltd.
55–56 Russell Square
London WC1B 4HP
www.constablerobinson.com
First published in the UK by Raven Books,
an imprint of Robinson Publishing Ltd 1996
Selection and editorial material
copyright © Stephen Jones 1996
All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication data
is available from the British Library
ISBN 1-85487-464-0
eISBN 978-1-4721-1363-4
Printed and bound in the EC
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Cover Art by Luis Rey
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Horror in 1995
THE EDITOR
Tirkiluk
IAN R. MacLEOD
The Most Boring Woman in the World
CHRISTOPHER FOWLER
Extinctions in Paradise
BRIAN HODGE
Food Man
LISA TUTTLE
More Tomorrow
MICHAEL MARSHALL SMITH
Going Under
RAMSEY CAMPBELL
Survivor
DAVE SMEDS
The Stones
PATRICK THOMPSON
Back of Beyond
CHERRY WILDER
A Hundred Wicked Little Witches
STEVE RASNIC TEM
The Finger of Halugra
MANLY WADE WELLMAN
The Toddler
TERRY LAMSLEY
Not Here, Not Now
STEPHEN GALLAGHER
The Bungalow House
THOMAS LIGOTTI
Cradle
ALAN BRENNERT
The Sixth Dog
JANE RICE
Scaring the Train
TERRY DOWLING
La Serenissima
DAVID SUTTON
The Bars on Satan’s Jailhouse
NORMAN PARTRIDGE
The Bone-Carver’s Tale
JEFF VANDERMEER
Queen of Knives
NEIL GAIMAN
The True History of Doctor Pretorius
PAUL J. McAULEY
The Grey Madonna
GRAHAM MASTERTON
Loop
DOUGLAS E. WINTER
The Hunger and Ecstasy of Vampires
BRIAN STABLEFORD
Lacuna
NICHOLAS ROYLE
Necrology: 1995
STEPHEN JONES & KIM NEWMAN
Useful Addresses
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank Ramsey Campbell, Kim Newman, Stefan Dziemianowicz, Gordon Van Gelder, Nicholas Royle, Sara Broecker, David A. Drake, Steve Proposch, Ellen Datlow, David Pringle, Stuart Hughes, Peter Crowther and, especially, Mandy Slater for their continued help and support. Special thanks are also due to Locus, Science Fiction Chronicle, Variety, Screen International and all the other sources that were used for reference in the Introduction and the Necrology.
INTRODUCTION: HORROR IN 1995 copyright © 1996 by Stephen Jones.
TIRKILUK copyright © 1995 by Ian R. MacLeod. Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, February 1995. Reprinted by permission of the author.
THE MOST BORING WOMAN IN THE WORLD copyright © 1995 by Christopher Fowler. Originally published in Flesh Wounds. Reprinted by permission of the author.
EXTINCTIONS IN PARADISE copyright © 1995 by Brian Hodge. Originally published in Werewolves. Reprinted by permission of the author.
FOOD MAN copyright © 1994 by Lisa Tuttle. Originally published in Crank!, Issue No.4, Fall 1994. Reprinted by permission of the author.
MORE TOMORROW copyright © 1995 by Michael Marshall Smith. Originally published in Dark Terrors. Reprinted by permission of the author.
GOING UNDER copyright © 1995 by Ramsey Campbell. Originally published in Dark Love. Reprinted by permission of the author.
SURVIVOR copyright © 1995 by Dave Smeds. Originally published in Peter S. Beagle’s Immortal Unicorn. Reprinted by permission of the author.
THE STONES copyright © 1995 Patrick Thompson. Originally published on Time Out Net Books, Issue 2, December 1995. Reprinted by permission of the author.
BACK OF BEYOND copyright © 1995 by Cherry Wilder. Originally published in Strange Fruit: Tales of the Unexpected. Reprinted by permission of the author.
A HUNDRED WICKED LITTLE WITCHES copyright © 1995 by Steve Rasnic Tem. Originally published in 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories. Reprinted by permission of the author.
THE FINGER OF HALUGRA copyright © 1995 by Manly Wade Wellman. Originally published in Deathrealm 23, Spring 1995. Reprinted by permission of the author’s Estate.
THE TODDLER copyright © 1995 by Terry Lamsley. Originally published in Ghosts and Scholars, Issue 20, August 1995. Reprinted by permission of the author.
NOT HERE, NOT NOW copyright © 1995 by Stephen Gallagher. Originally published in Cold Cuts III. Reprinted by permission of the author.
THE BUNGALOW HOUSE copyright © 1995 by Thomas Ligotti. Originally published in The Urbanite No.5. Reprinted by permission of the author.
CRADLE copyright © 1994 by Alan Brennert. Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, January 1995. Reprinted by permission of the author.
THE SIXTH DOG copyright © 1995 by Jane Rice. Originally published in The Sixth Dog. Reprinted by permission of the author.
SCARING THE TRAIN copyright © 1995 by Terry Dowling. Originally published in The Man Who Lost Red. Reprinted by permission of the author.
LA SERENISSIMA copyright © 1995 by David Sutton. Originally published in Beyond No.3, Sep/Oct 1995. Reprinted by permission of the author.
THE BARS ON SATAN’S JAILHOUSE copyright © 1995 by Norman Partridge. Originally published in The Bars on Satan’s Jailhouse. Reprinted by permission of the author.
THE BONE-CARVER’S TALE copyright © 1995 by Jeff VanderMeer. Originally published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, April 1995. Reprinted by permission of the author.
QUEEN OF KNIVES c
opyright © 1995 by Neil Gaiman. Originally published in Tombs. Reprinted by permission of the author.
THE GREY MADONNA copyright © 1995 by Graham Masterton. Originally published in Fear Itself. Reprinted by permission of the author.
THE TRUE HISTORY OF DOCTOR PRETORIUS copyright © 1995 by Paul J. McAuley. Originally published in Interzone 98, August 1995. Reprinted by permission of the author.
LOOP copyright © 1995 by Douglas E. Winter. Originally published in Dark Love. Reprinted by permission of the author.
THE HUNGER AND ECSTASY OF VAMPIRES copyright © 1994, 1995 by Brian Stableford. Originally published in Interzone 91/92, January/February 1995. Reprinted by permission of the author.
LACUNA copyright © 1995 by Nicholas Royle. Originally published in Violent Spectres 3, August 1995. Reprinted by permission of the author.
NECROLOGY: 1995 copyright © 1996 by Stephen Jones and Kim Newman.
USEFUL ADDRESSES copyright © 1996 by Stephen Jones.
This one is for Peter and Mike
– stalwarts of British Fantasy
INTRODUCTION:
HORROR IN 1995
IT WAS A BAD YEAR for publishing: huge rises in paper prices (up more than 60 per cent in 1995) led to increases in the cost of books and magazines, and where cover prices were already high (as in Britain), there was the inevitable cutback in titles published. Increases in costs also meant that the price of mass-market paperback originals began to catch up with hardcovers and trade paperbacks.
The collapse of the Net Book Agreement in Britain (through which publishers prohibited discounting of their titles in bookstores) resulted in short-term chaos among some sections of UK booksellers. It also led to a flurry of price-cutting on bestselling titles, with many publishers, authors and agents warning that the further erosion of profit margins would eventually lead to yet another reduction in mid-list titles and a threat to the livelihood of smaller bookshops.
The once-promising Dell/Abyss horror line all but disappeared in 1995, following the resignation of its editor Jeanne Cavelos. Despite pronouncements to the contrary, the line that established such exciting new talents as Kathe Koja and Poppy Z. Brite will probably be quietly absorbed back into Dell’s mass-market imprint. The untimely death of editor Karl Edward Wagner at the end of 1994 also resulted in the termination of DAW Books’ annual Year’s Best Horror Stories series, which ran for a remarkable twenty-two volumes. The publisher wisely decided not to continue the series under another editor (despite some tactless approaches from members of the small press within mere weeks of Wagner’s passing), but it will still be greatly missed.
However, despite these major upheavals, the overall number of original horror books published in 1995 was up again (continuing the trend set over the past few years), with consistent increases in vampire and young adult volumes and a big jump in gaming and media-related titles.
There were new titles from several of the Big Names of horror in 1995: Rose Madder, about a woman pursued by her abusive psycho cop husband and the magical world she discovers in an old painting, was the latest Stephen King blockbuster, supported by a first printing of 1.5 million copies and a $1 million print and TV advertising campaign in the US. Also in America, Signet started publishing King in Spanish-language editions, beginning with the four novellas first published in Four Past Midnight, and including the TV tie-in, Los Langoliers.
Anne Rice kicked-off a four-month, thirty-city tour for her novel Memmoch the Devil with a six-hour signing and a mock-funeral procession led by a blues and jazz band in her native New Orleans. The fifth and concluding volume in her “Vampire Chronicles” series, it featured the vampire Lestat involved in a battle between the opposing forces of Heaven and Hell. The book’s first printing of 700,000 copies was quickly followed by three more printings totalling more than 200,000.
Instead of a new novel from Clive Barker in 1995, his latest book was Incarnations: Three Plays, which collected Colossus, Frankenstein in Love and The History of the Devil with an introduction and production notes by the author. Barker’s children’s book The Thief of Always was also repackaged with the author’s illustrations replaced by those of Stephen Player.
All That Glitters and Hidden Jewel, the third and fourth respectively in the Gothic “Landry” series by “V.C. Andrews”, were once again probably the work of Andrew Niederman. Dean Koontz’s Intensity was about a young woman trapped by a serial killer, and Ramsey Campbell’s disturbing The One Safe Place involved a family menaced by a group of psycho siblings.
Brian Lumley began filling in the gaps between the second and third books in his popular Necroscope series with the first volume in Necroscope: The Lost Years, in which Harry Keogh searched for his missing family. Dennis Etchison’s California Gothic, also published by DreamHaven Books in a limited edition hardcover of 750 copies illustrated by J.K. Potter, continued the author’s fascination with the darker side of Southern California. Peter James’s Host dealt with the moral implications of combining cryonics with artificial intelligence and was promoted on the Internet. F. Paul Wilson’s latest medical thriller, Implant, appeared under the pseudonym “Colin Andrews” in the UK.
Superstitious was the first adult novel from “R.L. Stine” and featured obsessive behaviour, visceral murders and explicit sex, amply illustrating why his writing is so successful among teenagers. Much better was The Cold One, the first adult novel by Christopher Pike, about possession and ancient folklore. Folklore of a different kind also formed the basis of Tim Powers’s Expiration Date, set in an alternative contemporary Los Angeles where famous ghosts still walked the streets, and Ghostlight by Marion Zimmer Bradley. The late Thomas Tryon’s final novel, Night Music (actually finished by John Cullen and Valerie Martin), was a contemporary reworking of ’The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’ in which a part-time actor’s ambition to become the Greatest Magician in the World resulted in a confrontation with personal darkness.
Richard Matheson’s Now You See It... was a locked room mystery involving a magician and disappearing bodies, and there were also two welcome new collections of Matheson stories, The Incredible Shrinking Man and I Am Legend. Mark Frost’s The Six Messiahs reunited Arthur Conan Doyle and his Sherlock Holmes prototype, secret agent Jack Sparks, in an enjoyable sequel to The List of 7. With an obvious eye on a movie deal, Relic by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child was a rollicking romp about an ancient monster loose in a New York museum.
In Graham Masterton’s Spirit, the ghost of a drowned woman returned for revenge. John Saul’s Black Lightning involved possession by an executed serial killer’s spirit, and Requiem, by Graham Joyce, set in the spirit world of Jerusalem, was the first book in Penguin/Signet’s new Creed horror line. James P. Blaylock’s All the Bells on Earth was about an attempt to escape a Satanic bargain, while Stephen Laws’s Daemonic revealed the diabolical deal made by a reclusive horror film director. A small town cult summoned a demon in The Boiling Pool by Gary Brander, and Michael Scott’s The Hallows was about the Guardians of thirteen ancient talismans who were being murdered by the powers of darkness.
Tanith Lee’s Reigning Cats and Dogs was set in an alternative Dickensian London stalked by ghostly apparitions. The Blue Manor, by Jenny Jones, was an elegant ghost story about a haunted house handed down through four generations of a family’s female line, and Alice Hoffman’s Practical Magic was about a family of witches in contemporary America. In Stitches in Time, by Barbara Michaels, an antique bridal quilt had supernatural powers, and Clare McNally’s Stage Fright was about a theatre company haunted by mysterious deaths.
In deadrush, by Yvonne Navarro, the reanimated dead resurrected others of their kind, while Thomas Monteleone’s The Resurrectionist was about a Presidential candidate who gained the power to raise the dead. Adults began killing all the children in Blood Crazy, by Simon Clark; Christopher Fowler’s Psychoville was a satirical novel of urban horror, about a boy forced to relocate with his family to a suburban new town; and Simon Maginn’s Virgins and Mar
tyrs, a bleak novel about loneliness and obsession, was followed by A Sickness of the Soul from the same author.
As part of the Penguin 60s anniversary, for just 95 cents each American readers could buy the novella Umney’s Last Case (from Nightmares and Dreamscapes) by Stephen King; Blue Rose by Peter Straub; Robertson Davies’s collection of six tales, A Gathering of Ghost Stories; Three Tales of Horror by Edgar Allan Poe, Ambrose Bierce and Robert Louis Stevenson; Young Goodman Brown and Other Stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Oscar Wilde’s The Happy Prince and Other Stories. British readers were offered a different selection for 60 pence apiece, including His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood and Other Stories by Poppy Z. Brite; The Angel and Other Stories by Patrick McGrath; Ivy and Her Nonsense by Jonathan Coe; Five Letters from an Unknown Empire by Alasdair Gray; The Dreaming Child and Other Stories by Isak Dinesen, and The Haunted Dolls’ House and Other Stories by M.R. James and Robert Louis Stevenson. More than twenty million copies of the low-priced books were published worldwide, with individual titles printed only once.
Shaun Hutson continued to please his fans with his latest novel, Lucy’s Child, about a baby in jeopardy. In Guy N. Smith’s The Dark One, babysitting turned into a Satanic experience, and a demonically possessed child was the titular character in Sweet William, by Jessica Palmer. Much better than any of these was The Children’s Hour, by Douglas Clegg, in which children who disappeared from a small town mysteriously reappeared years later.
The Disappeared, by David B. Silva, was about a boy who returned ten years after having vanished, looking no older. In Deadly Friend, by Keith Ferrario, the ghost of dead boy wanted to play, while a youth was haunted by the ghost of a murdered man in Cursed, by John Douglas. The voices of the dead tried to warn a new bride in Shades of Night, by Rick Hautala. Haunted, by Tamara Thorne, described the house in question, and The Basement, by Bari Wood, was haunted by the ghost of a witch. In Noel Hynd’s Cemetery of Angels a family moved close to a haunted Hollywood cemetery, American Civil War ghosts were released in Night Thunder by Ruby Jean Jensen, and Rockabilly Hell, by William Johnstone, featured honky-tonk bars mysteriously reappearing across the American south. Mickee Madden’s Everlastin’ was a romantic ghost story set in Scotland and featured an impressive hologram cover.
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