The Best New Horror 7

by Stephen Jones

  An age-old evil returned to the Emerald Isle in Kenneth C. Flint’s The Darkening Flood, and The Devil’s Piper, by Frances Gordon (aka Bridget Wood) was about a mythical Irish creature awakened by eerie music. Thunder Road, by Chris Curry (aka Tamara Thorne), was based around a spiritual battle in the Mojave Desert, The Wendigo Border, by Catherine Montrose (aka Catherine Cooke), featured Native American demons, and ancient beasts were released in northern Oregon in Roadkill, by Richard Sanford.

  Alan Rodgers’s Bone Music was an apocalyptic horror novel featuring Robert Johnson, about blues singers battling the forces of Hell. In The Macbeth Prophecy, by Anthea Fraser, a twin reawakened ancient forces, a Sacrifice was demanded in the novel by Richard Kinion, and a dead star’s fans brought him back to life through occult rituals in Warren Newton Beath’s Who Killed James Dean?

  In The Wicker Cage, by Kathleen Kinder, a pregnant woman was possessed by the spirit of servant girl, and Frank’s World by George Mangels was about a man’s spirit living on after death. The Janus Mask was the possessed item in Richard A. Knaak’s novel, while it was a child’s doll in Althea, by Abigail McDaniels (aka Dan and Lynda Trent). A haunted house and a possessed woman both featured in The Burning, by Philip Trewinnard, while in Bentley Little’s University, a Californian university was possessed by evil, and Dark Dominion from the same author was set in the wine-growing area of the state, where bodies were found torn apart.

  The Torturer was an extremely graphic novel about a hitman who tortured his victims, written by crime writer Mark Timlin under the alias “Jim Ballantyne”. The Death Prayer, by David Bowker, was a police procedural/occult thriller in which a killer mutilated his victims, and Glittering Savages, by Mark Burnell, was also about the hunt for a sadistic killer. In T.M. Wright’s Earthmun, homicide detective Jack Earthmun (from Strange Seed) encountered a mysterious child-woman, a blind man had psychic visions of murder in Seeing Eye, by Jack Ellis, and a murderer used virtual reality to kill in Death Watch, by Elizabeth Forrest. Sick, by Jay R. Bonansinga, featured an exotic dancer suffering from a growth in her head which turned out to be the seed of her murderous male alter-ego.

  The Darker Passions: Frankenstein and The Darker Passions: The Fall of the House of Usher were more porn masquerading as eroticism, by Amarantha Knight (aka Nancy Kilpatrick). Angels of Mourning was John Pritchard’s sequel to Night Sisters; you could meet Billie Sue Mosiman’s Widow, celebrate Spook Night, by David Robbins, and horror was also an unwelcome visitor to Joe Donnelly’s Havock Junction and Diane Guest’s Shadow Hill.

  Much like their undead protagonists, vampire novels continued to reproduce at an alarming rate during 1995. One of the most inventive was Kim Newman’s The Bloody Red Baron, which saw first publication in America. The follow-up to his hugely successful 1992 book Anno Dracula, this time the vampires of an alternative history were fighting World War I in the air, and the usual supporting characters included plenty of celebrities (both real and fictional).

  Traveling With the Dead, by Barbara Hambly, was a belated sequel to Those Who Hunt the Night (UK: Immortal Blood), featuring the exploits of vampire Don Ysidro and heroine Lydia Asher in the early years of the twentieth century. Although not part of her popular “Blood Opera” sequence, Tanith Lee’s Vivia was a brutal and erotic dark fantasy about the titular female vampire, while The Dark Blood of Poppies, by Freda Warrington, featured vampire ballerina Violette Lenoir in the third of the author’s “Blood” series. Melanie Tem’s Desmodus was a welcome variation on the theme, about a non-human society of matriarchal vampires with bat-like attributes.

  Tom Holland’s The Vampyre: Being the True Pilgrimage of George Gordon, Sixth Lord Byron (US: Lord of the Dead: The Secret History of Lord Byron) postulated that Byron’s memoirs were burned because they revealed he was one of the undead. Vanitas, which was also published by Canada’s Transylvania Press in a handsome 500-copy limited edition hardcover illustrated by Val Lakey Lindahn, was the third in S.P. Somtow’s saga about eternal 12-year-old vampiric rock star Timmy Valentine. Nancy A. Collins’s Midnight Blue: The Sonja Blue Collection was an omnibus volume from White Wolf containing her previous two novels about the punk vampire, Sunglasses After Dark and In the Blood, plus a new novel, Paint It Black (published separately in Britain).

  Rulers of Darkness by Steven Spruill, was a vampire medical thriller in which haematologist Dr Katherine O’Keefe investigated a series of gruesome murders in Washington DC, while in The Winter Man, by Denise Vitola, it was a vampiric forensic haematologist who turned detective. Michael Reaves’s police procedural Night Hunter was about a detective hunting a serial-killer vampire in Los Angeles. The Vampire Legacy: Blood Ties by Karen Taylor was the third in her vampire detective series; Circus of the Damned and The Lunatic Café, both by Laurell K. Hamilton, were the third and fourth volumes in her “Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter” series, while Some Things Come Back, by Robert Morgan (aka C.J. Henderson) was the sixth in the mystery series featuring private investigator Teddy London battling the king of the vampires.

  Christopher Golden’s Angel Souls and Devil Hearts was a sequel to his vampire novel Of Saints and Shadows. The Blood of the Covenant, by Brent Monahan, was a sequel to his The Book of Common Dread, and Children of the Vampire, by Jeanne Kalogridis (aka J.M. Dillard), was the second in the “Diaries of the Family Dracul” series and a sequel to Covenant with the Vampire. Scott Baker’s Ancestral Hungers was a substantially rewritten and expanded version of his 1982 novel Dhampire, about the descendant of both Vlad Tepes and Elizabeth Bathory.

  Christopher Moore’s Bloodsucking Fiends was a humorous vampire novel set in San Francisco, and Human Resources: A Corporate Nightmare, by Floyd Kemske, was a satire about a corporation whose owners feed on ideas as well as blood.

  Although more traditional bloodsuckers turned up in Thirst by Pyotyr Kurtinski and Unquenchable by David Dvorkin, the undead took a romantic turn in Night’s Immortal Touch by Cherlyn Jac, The Vampire Viscount by Karen Harbaugh, and Susan Krinard’s Prince of Dreams. Midnight Surrender, by Nancy Gideon, was the third in the romantic “Midnight” series about vampire Louis Radcliffe, and Death Masque was the third in P.N. Elrod’s romance series featuring vampire Jonathan Barrett. A Slave to His Kiss, by Anastasia Dubois, was an erotic fantasy about a missing twin sister and a vampire.

  In The Werewolf Chronicles, by Traci Briery, a Los Angeles dancer was transformed into a lycanthrope. Henry Garfield’s Moondog was a mystery novel featuring the hunt for a full moon murderer, and Hunted, by William W. Johnstone, was about a 600-year-old werewolf pursued by the government.

  As always, several novelists made promising débuts in 1995: Chico Kidd’s The Printer’s Devil was an original blend of bellringers and sorcery that spanned the centuries. Sherman Alexie’s literary novel, Reservation Blues, was set on a Native American reservation and involved a magic guitar and a deal with the Devil. Darkland, by Sean Thomas Patrick, also involved a Satanic pact, and Renee Guerin’s The Singing Teacher continued the Faustian theme.

  Simon Clark’s first full-length work, Nailed By the Heart, involved a sunken ship and its resurrected crew of killers, while in My Beautiful Friend, by Venero Armanno, a pair of Australian newlyweds were haunted by a dead horror writer in Switzerland. Where Darkness Sleeps, by Brian Rieselman, was about a teenage tearaway who discovered supernatural evil in a small Wisconsin community. A spirit wind in Seattle was the subject of Soul Catcher, by Colin Kersey; Demon Fire, by Gary L. Holleman, was set in Hawaii; and The Changeling Garden, by Winifred Elze, detailed some new environmental horrors.

  Although published as a crime novel, David Bowker’s The Death Prayer concerned the hunt for a brutal killer by a police superintendent in touch with the spirit world, and Murder in Scorpio, by Martha Lawrence, also featured a detective with psychic powers. D, by Marcus Gibson, was published as a thriller but involved a deaf-mute with paranormal powers incarcerated in a mental institution. The Between, by Tananarive Due, featured the unusual combo of a seria
l killer, the walking dead and West African folklore.

  Madeleine’s Ghost, by Robert Girardi, was about a haunted apartment, and Sheila Holligan’s Nightrider featured a woman possessed by an erotic spirit. Michael George Greider’s apocalyptic fantasy Forever Man involved both angels and vampires.

  Perhaps the biggest tie-in phenomenon of 1995 was the huge success of TV’s The X Files. Despite some uneven episodes, and being loosely inspired by the old Kolchak: The Night Stalker series of the 1970s, it suddenly became the show to watch and talk about with its second and third seasons. Charles Grant’s two novelizations, The X Files: Goblin and the much better The X Files: Whirlwind, went through numerous printings in paperback and they were followed by The X Files: Ground Zero, by Kevin J. Anderson, which was an even bigger success thanks to a massive hardcover printing.

  For younger viewers, there was Les Martin’s YA novelizations, The X Files: 1: X Marks the Spot and 2: Darkness Falls. The Truth is Out There: The Official Guide to the X Files was Brian Lowry’s guide to the first two seasons, while Jane Goldman’s The X Files: Book of the Unexplained was a much more tenuous tie-in with the TV series.

  Randall Boyll adapted Universal’s low budget hit, Tales From the Crypt: Demon Knight, and he continued his series of entertaining Darkman novelizations, based on the film series created by Sam Raimi, with volume 4: In the Face of Death. Yvonne Navarro’s Species was based on the SF thriller scripted by Dennis Feldman with creature designs by H.R. Giger, and Elizabeth Hand novelized Terry Gilliam’s nightmarish 12 Monkeys. Predator: Concrete Jungle was a novelization of the movie series and Dark Horse graphic novel by Nathan Archer (aka Lawrence Watt-Evans).

  Nigel Robinson novelized two stories from TV’s The Tomorrow People: The Living Stones and The Ramses Connection (Christopher Lee had turned up in the latter as an immortal Egyptian sorcerer). In Batman: The Ultimate Evil, by Andrew Vachss, the Dark Knight was educated about the horrors of child abuse through the investigations of his alter-ego, Bruce Wayne. The 7th Guest, by Matthew Costello and Craig Shaw Gardner, was based on the popular interactive computer game created by the authors.

  Both Laurell K. Hamilton and Tanya Huff each wrote a Ravenloft novelization, Death of a Darklord and Scholar of Decay respectively, based on TSR’s role-playing game. However, White Wolf’s The World of Darkness led the tie-in field with a glut of book adaptations, including Caravan of Shadows, On a Darkling Plane and Netherworld, all by Richard Lee Byers, the first loosely based on the role-playing game Wrath: The Oblivion and the latter two on the card game, Vampire: The Eternal Struggle.

  House of Secrets by James A. Moore and Kevin Murphy, and Sins of the Fathers by Sam Chupp, were also based on Vampire: The Eternal Struggle and Wraith: The Oblivion, respectively. Robert Weinberg’s Vampire: Blood War and Vampire: Unholy Allies were the first two volumes in his Masquerade of the Red Death trilogy, and Edo van Belkom’s Werewolf: Wyrm Wolf and Stewart von Allmen’s Werewolf: Conspicuous Consumption were both first novels based on the role-playing game Werewolf: The Apocalypse.

  The Silver Crown by William Brisges, and Breathe Deeply by Don Bassingthwaite, were both adapted from White Wolf’s werewolf card game Rage, and Bassingthwaite’s Pomegranites Full and Fine was the first of a series of novels integrating elements from the settings of all The World of Darkness scenarios.

  Erin Kelly edited the anthology The World of Darkness: The Splendour Falls, which featured twenty-two stories based on Changeling: The Dreaming Game, by Philip Nutman, Rick Hautala, Peter Crowther, Nancy Holder, Thomas F. Monteleone and others. Kelly also teamed up with Stewart Wieck to edit The World of Darkness: City of Darkness: Unseen, which included nineteen stories loosely based on the role-playing game. Edward E. Kramer’s Dark Destiny 2: Proprietors of Fate, which featured stories by Poppy Z. Brite, Rex Miller, Basil Copper, S.P. Somtow and Nancy A. Collins, with an introduction by Robert Anton Wilson, was also nominally set in White Wolf’s World of Darkness.

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  Ballantine issued a revised collection of The Dream Cycle of H.P. Lovecraft: Dreams of Terror and Death, which featured twenty-five classic stories by Lovecraft and a new introduction by Neil Gaiman. The Episodes of Vathek, by William Beckford, was an extremely rare reprinting of the 1912 book that contained the suppressed portions of Beckford’s 1787 novel, while Spirite and The Coffee Pot, by Théophile Gautier, included the 1866 novel and 1831 short story of the title, newly translated by Patrick Jenkins.

  Editor Peter G. Beidler’s The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James, was published as part of the “Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism” series and contained the complete short ghost novel plus five original essays that examined the text from Marxist, feminist, psychoanalytic, deconstruction and reader perspectives. The Essential Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: The Definitive Annotated Edition of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Classic Novel also included the complete text of the story, along with reviews, a filmography and an introduction by editor Leonard Wolf.

  It was another banner year for young adult horror fiction, although the sub-genre may be close to reaching saturation point as the two top sellers, “R.L. Stine” and Christopher Pike, attempted to break out into the adult market (with varying results).

  However, that didn’t stop them churning out a whole slew of juvenile books as well. The prolific Stine also (a “house” name for various authors) led the pack as usual with a new trilogy about an evil car: Fear Street: The Cataluna Chronicles contained The Evil Moon, The Dark Street and The Deadly Fire. A young girl encountered ghosts in The Babysitter IV, and The Beast 2 featured a rollercoaster time-machine. Two new volumes in the Fear Street Super Chiller series were Bad Moonlight, about a werewolf in a rock band, and The New Year’s Party, in which a teen ghost was out for revenge. Ghosts of Fear Street: Who’s Been Sleeping in My Grave? was the second volume in a new series aimed at younger audiences, about a substitute teacher who is a ghost. Goosebumps: The Horror at Camp Jellyjam was also aimed at younger readers and issued with a free Decal of Doom. So far there are more than thirty titles in the Goosebumps series and they have sold around an incredible half million copies apiece.

  Christopher Pike’s Remember Me 2: The Return and 3: The Last Story were the latest entries in a series about a teenager who returned from the dead and became an author of young adult fiction. In The Last Vampire 3: Red Dice, vampiric FBI agents confronted DNA-sucking scientists, while The Visitor was about a weird teen from outer space. Pike also began another new series, Spooksville, with four volumes set in a strange town with a doorway into another dimension.

  Henderson Publishing launched a monthly Funfax Horror series with a ring binder containing sections on A-Z of Horror, Shockers, Real-Life Horror, Stickers, Puzzles and Gory Stories, and the warning that it “may offend those of a sensitive nature”. Each novel in the series – Panic Station by Stephen Bowkett, Dream Painter by Paul Kersley, Burning Secret by Sam Godwin, Fear of the Dark by Christopher Carr (aka Laurence Staig), Bad Blood by Peter Kennedy, The Seer’s Stone by Frances Hendry, Eyes of the Skull by Philip Steele, Dangerous Friend by Barbara Topley-Hough, Rope Trick by Ann Ruffell and The Wood by Elaine Sishton – was perforated and could be transferred into the back of the Funfax for easy reading.

  Brad Strickland completed the late John Bellairs’s novel The Doom of the Haunted Opera, which was about an unpublished opera that could raise the dead. In William Sleator’s Dangerous Wishes, a sequel to The Spirit House, a boy travelled to Thailand to appease a vengeful spirit, while another boy encountered a ghost on a cruise ship in Cabin 102 by Sherry Garland. The ghost of a Spanish ancestor was an unexpected house guest in Ghosts in the Family by Marilyn Sachs, and more family phantoms turned up in The Haunting of Holroyd Hill by Brenda Seabrook and The Trespassers by Zilpha Keatley Snyder. Dream Lover, by Marilyn Kaye, was about a long-dead music star who apparently returned to life, and The Drowned, by Elizabeth Levy, dealt with the vengeful spirit of a drowned boy. More ghosts materialized in Party Till You Scream! by G.G. Garth,
The Other Twin by Bruce Richards and The Knight of the Flaming Heart by Michael Carson, while A Fate Totally Worse Than Death, by Paul Fleischman, was a spoof on teenage horror fiction in which a spoiled rich girl believed an exchange student was really a phantom.

  An abused teen with psychic powers was the subject of Midget by Tim Bowler, a psychic teen discovered a cursed music box in Evil in the Attic by Linda Piazza, and another teen with psychic powers battled a surfing witch in Linda Cargill’s The Surfer.

  In The Doom Stone, by Paul Zindel, Stonehenge was the setting for a series of killings by a strange creature, and an archaeological dig uncovered some dark Native American secrets in Victoria Strauss’s Guardian of the Hills. A 14-year-old boy released an ancient horror in Dark Things by Joseph F. Brown, an evil gateway was discovered beneath a school in All Shook Up by Nigel Robinson, and a group of grotesque teen outcasts battled evil in Scorpion Shards by Neal Shusterman. Monsters in the Attic by Dian Curtis Regan was a humorous sequel to Monsters of the Month Club, in which the stuffed toy monsters came to life once again.

  Virtual Destruction, by Nick Baron (aka Scott Ciencin), was about a computer game that had a deadly effect on teens, and in E.M. Goldman’s The Night Room a group of students had their futures revealed in virtual reality. Whispers from the Grave, by Leslie Rule, was a first novel about time travel and a century-old murder, while The 13th Floor, by Sid Fleischman, was another time travel ghost story.

  David Bergantino (aka Bruce Richards) continued his series of YA novels based on the Nightmare on Elm Street character in Freddy Krueger’s Tales of Terror: 2: Fatal Games, 3: Virtual Terror, 4: Twice Burned, 5: Help Wanted and 6: Deadly Disguise.