The Best New Horror 7

by Stephen Jones

  In 1995, the most famous of all genre small press imprints, Arkham House, published Miscellaneous Writings by H.P. Lovecraft, a collection of often obscure fiction, essays and letters edited by S.T. Joshi, and Cthulhu 2000: A Lovecraftian Anthology, edited by Jim Turner, containing eighteen reprints inspired by Lovecraft’s famed Mythos from such authors as F. Paul Wilson, Basil Copper, Poppy Z. Brite, Kim Newman, Gahan Wilson, T.E.D. Klein, Thomas Ligotti, Ramsey Campbell, Harlan Elllison and Roger Zelazny.

  CD Publications presented Dean Koontz’s collection Strange Highways in a signed edition limited to 750 copies, and followed it up with Night Shapes by William F. Nolan, a 500-copy signed and limited edition containing twenty-four stories with an introduction by Peter Straub and an afterword by Robert Bloch.

  From Borderlands Press came the first in a series of books reprinting the scripts of Alan Moore’s Jack the Ripper graphic novel, From Hell, with illustrations by Eddie Campbell and an afterword from Stephen Bissette, plus a beautiful 350-copy signed and slipcased edition of The Horror Writers Association anthology Ghosts, edited by Peter Straub.

  Nancy A. Collins’s Walking Wolf, subtitled A Weird Western, was a short novel featuring a Comanche werewolf and a vampire gunslinger which appeared in a handsome hardcover from Mark Ziesing with cover art by J.K. Potter. Hypatia Press issued Common Threads by Nina Kiriki Hoffman, with an introduction by P.C. Hodgell and illustrated by Alan M. Clark, combining her 1993 début novel The Thread That Binds the Bones with a collection of fourteen short stories under the title A Handful of Twist-Ties. Paul DiFilippo’s The Steampunk Trilogy was a trio of dark Victorian pastiches published in hardcover by Four Walls Eight Windows.

  Silver Salamander’s Darkside Press imprint published Lucy Taylor’s long-awaited début novel The Safety of Unknown Cities as a limited edition hardcover of 400 copies. With an introduction by Edward Bryant and illustrated by Alan M. Clark, it was also available in a $125 deluxe edition. A signed, limited, slipcased edition of Peter Straub’s Shadowland, with an introduction by Ramsey Campbell and an afterword by Thomas Tessier was issued by Gauntlet Publications, who also released a 40th anniversary edition of Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend in a limited boxed edition of 500 copies, with introductions by Dan Simmons and George Clayton Johnson and afterwords by Dennis Etchison and Matheson.

  University Editions published Melvin O. Swasey’s ghost novel Beachland House. W. Paul Ganley continued his programme of reprinting Brian Lumley’s early novels in hardcover with Spawn of the Winds, illustrated by Linda Michaels. Rex Miller’s St. Louis Blues, published by Maclay & Associates, was a very dark crime novel about a female serial killer, and Ed Gorman’s Cages, a collection of twenty-one cross-genre stories, both new and reprint, appeared from Deadline Press in a 500-copy signed and limited hardcover.

  Dark Regions Press published Weird Wild West, a nearly all-original theme anthology edited by Mike Olson in trade paperback format, back-to-back with The Year’s Best Fantastic Fiction, selected from the speciality presses. John and Kim Betancourt’s Wildside Press published two Bradley Denton collections as a set, The Calvin Coolidge Home for Dead Comedians and The Conflagration Artist, with introductions by Howard Waldrop for the former and Steven Gould for the latter. A 500-copy signed and limited hardcover from Arts Nova Press was The Pain Doctors of Suture Self General by Nashville’s seven-member Bovine Smoke Society. It contained a round-robin story set in a horror hospital with colour illustrations by Alan M. Clark, a biography of the artist by Jon Gustafson, photographs by Beth Gwinn and an introduction by F. Paul Wilson.

  Tales from Tartarus, edited by R.B. Russell and Rosalie Parker, was a 250-copy hardcover collection of mostly new “weird tales” by Simon Clark, R.B. Russell, Andy Darlington and others, including a reprint by Ramsey Campbell. The Uncollected William Hope Hodgson: Volume One: Non-Fiction and Beyond the Dawning: The Poems of William Hope Hodgson, both edited by Sam Gafford, appeared in trade paperback format from Hobgoblin Press. Tsathoggua Press’s The Eye Above the Mantel and Other Stories by Frank Belknap Long was a trade paperback collection of four early stories edited by Perry M. Grayson.

  Barbara and Christopher Roden’s Ash-Tree Press had a busy year with reprints of M.R. James’s 1922 volume The Five Jars in hardcover, limited to 300 copies with a new introduction by Rosemary Pardoe; The Alabaster Hand and Other Ghost Stories, the 1949 collection by A.N.L. Munby limited to 250 copies with an introduction by Michael Cox; Intruders: New Weird Tales, which contained twenty-six previously uncollected ghost stories by A.M. Burrage with an introduction by Jack Adrian; They Return at Evening by H.R. Wakefield, first published in 1928 and long out of print, and Nine Ghosts by R.H. Malden.

  Fedogan & Bremer published an attractive hardcover edition of Basil Copper’s The Recollections of Solar Pons, nicely illustrated by Stefanie K. Hawks and featuring a quartet of mystery novellas, including “The Adventure of the Hound of Hell”. Death Stalks the Night by Hugh B. Cave collected seventeen classic stories from the weird-menace “shudder” pulps dating from 1934-40, with an introduction by editor Karl Edward Wagner, and Time Burial contained the fantasy tales of pulp writer Howard Wandrei, the younger brother of Arkham House co-founder Donald, in a handsome hardcover illustrated by the author and edited and introduced by D.H. Olson.

  Terry Dowling’s An Intimate Knowledge of the Night from Australia’s Aphelion Publications collected together thirteen horror stories (including “Scaring the Train”) framed by the author and his (fictional) friend Raymond, a former mental patient, talking on the phone. This collection won Australia’s Aurealis Award for Best Horror Novel of 1995. Mr. Templeton’s Toyshop: Prose Poems and Short Fiction by Thomas Wiloch from Wordcraft of Oregon/Jazz Police Books was a miscellany of forty-five dark pieces, illustrated by the author, while Donald R. Burleson’s Flute Song was a first novel published by Black Mesa Press, about a crashed UFO and a captured extra-terrestrial.

  Alun Books’s Cold Cuts III, the nominally Welsh-based anthology edited by Paul Lewis and Steve Lockley, made a welcome return to form with an insightful introduction by Nicholas Royle and fine contributions from Peter Crowther, Stephen Gallagher, Simon Clark, Samantha Lee and Robert Eastland, amongst others.

  The latest volumes in Chaosium Books’ series of Cthulhu Cycle anthologies included Book of Lod, a collection of eleven of Henry Kuttner’s Lovecraftian stories and one each by Lin Carter and editor Robert M. Price. The Azathoth Cycle, also edited by Price, contained sixteen stories based on Lovecraft’s mad god and arranged in chronological order, while Made in Goatswood, subtitled A Celebration of Ramsey Campbell, was edited by Scott David Aniolowski and along with an excellent new tale by Campbell contained seventeen stories located in the author’s Lovecraftian region of the Severn Valley, including a very funny spoof by Peter Cannon set during a fantasy convention.

  The sixth volume of Wayne Edwards’s annual Palace Corbie from Merrimack Books was another handsome 200 pages-plus trade paperback, featuring twenty-nine stories and poems by Mark McLaughlin, D.F. Lewis, Edward Lee, John Maclay and novel excerpts by Sean Doolittle and Yvonne Navarro. Tom Piccirilli’s Pentacle featured five connected tales about an unnamed necromancer and his demonic familiar in a paperback from Pirate Writings Publishing with an introduction by Jack Cady, and Dark Regions Press published Ken Wisman’s collections Weird Family Tales I and II back-to-back in the same trade paperback, both with introductions by Peter Crowther. Kim Elizabeth’s Netherworld from Ghost Girl Graphix, was a collection of six horror stories and more than twenty poems, while James A. Riley’s Once Upon a Midnight, from Unnameable Press, contained seventy-five poems that commemorated the 150th anniversary of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven”.

  Colorado’s Roadkill Press continued to turn out some nice-looking limited edition chapbooks, including Norman Partridge’s cross-genre western The Bars on Satan’s Jailhouse, illustrated by Melissa Sherman. Spyder from Subterranean Press was a 500-copy signed and limited chapbook of Partridge’s Hollywood horror
story, with a cover by Martin McKenna. Partridge also contributed the introduction to a reprint of Joe R. Lansdale’s My Dead Dog, Bobby, the first in a series of chapbooks from Sacramento’s Cobblestone Books with illustrations by Joe Vigil.

  Out There in the Darkness, also published by Subterranean Press in a 500-copy signed and limited edition, was an original Ed Gorman story about urban violence and nightmare retribution with cover art again by Martin McKenna. From Minneapolis’s DreamHaven Books came Snow, Glass, Apples, a short story reworking of the Cinderella legend by Neil Gaiman, with a cover by Charles Vess. It was “limited” to 5,000 copies, with a percentage of the proceeds being donated to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Lady Stanhope’s Manuscript and Other Supernatural Tales edited by Barbera Roden, was an illustrated anthology of five ghost stories published in chapbook format by Ash-Tree Press.

  Dominion of the Ghosts edited by S.G. Johnson was a shared-world anthology of five Gothic tales about a cursed family, published by Maryland’s Obelesk Books, who also issued Winter of the Soul, a collection of three stories by Gary Bowen, under its Triangle Titles imprint. From Florida’s Necro Publications came Header by Edward Lee, a gross-out novelette about hillbillies, with an introduction by Lucy Taylor. The Free Way by Lisa Morton was the first in a series of signed and limited chapbooks from California’s fool’s press with an introduction by Roberta Lannes and photo illustrations by Rick Pickman. Paper Moon published a 100-copy signed and limited edition of Ancient One by P.D. Cacek, about a fifth-century teddy bear talisman used to battle an ancient monster. Darrell Schweitzer’s Non Compost Mentis was a collection of twenty-five Lovecraftian limericks, perhaps best described as shoggoth doggerel.

  Terry Dowling’s The Man Who Lost Red from Australia’s MirrorDanse Books contained a reprint of the titular novella plus a newstory, “Scaring the Train”. The 500-copy booklet also included an author bibliography, a foreword by Nick Stathopoulos and illustrations by Shaun Ten. Australia’s Bambada Press launched a line of limited edition chapbooks with Francis Payne’s novella Olympia, which won the Aurealis Award for Best Australian Horror Short Story, and it was followed by Bryce Stevens’s Skin Tight, a signed and limited collection of seven gruesome stories illustrated by Kurt Stone.

  Britain’s most successful genre fiction magazine, Interzone, edited by David Pringle, finally won a well-deserved Hugo Award and celebrated its 100th edition in 1995. Special issues included one guest-edited and designed by Charles Platt, and another devoted to mad scientists. Contributors throughout the year included Brian Aldiss, Piers Anthony, Stephen Baxter, Michael Blumlein, Stephen Bowkett, Geoffrey A. Landis, Paul J. McAuley, Ian McDonald, Geoff Ryman and Brian Stableford, along with all the usual news, interviews and reviews.

  Omni couldn’t decide if it wanted to remain a print publication or become a monthly on-line magazine. It ended up on the Internet, with the print edition going to a quarterly schedule and dropping subscriptions. It still managed to included some fine new stories by Ray Bradbury, Kathe Koja and Barry Malzberg, Terry Bisson and Simon Ings, plus interesting non-fiction by Pat Cadigan and even an editorial by the late Philip K. Dick. After only a year, the revived Galaxy Science Fiction also announced that it was moving to an electronic format. After trying unsuccessfully to sell the world’s oldest SF magazine in 1994, TSR officially cancelled Amazing Stories in early May. In 1995 other magazines like Asimov’s Science Fiction and Analog hit their lowest circulations ever, although sales were up for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Realms of Fantasy and Science Fiction Age. Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine published a special Hallowe’en issue of horror stories, and the July 3rd issue of The New Yorker was billed as a special fiction issue and featured “Jim and the Dead Man”, a newly discovered episode from Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, along with other stories by Ian McEwan and Paul Theroux.

  For British fantasy fans there were two new newsstand magazines, Broadsword and Beyond. Beyond showed the most potential, but despite publishing stories by Karl Edward Wagner, Stephen Laws, Ramsey Campbell, Adrian Cole, Brian Stableford, Ian Watson, John Brunner, David Sutton and Simon Clark, plus an interview with Roger Zelazny and regular features by Stephen Gallagher and Kim Newman, the title got off to an unsteady start and needed more sales and better distribution to survive.

  Richard T. Chizmar’s Cemetery Dance managed just one issue in 1995 due to the editor’s illness. It included new fiction by Jack Ketchum, Peter Crowther, Brian Hodge, Al Sarrantonio and interviews with David Morrell, Dan Simmons and Ed Gorman. The second issue of Darrell Schweitzer’s Worlds of Fantasy and Horror was a Charles de Lint special, featuring two stories and an interview, plus other contributions from Lord Dunsany and Keith Roberts and some attractive artwork. The Spring 1995 issue of Canada’s On Spec magazine was themed around horror and dark fantasy, with the usual mix of stories and non-fiction.

  Frederick S. Clarke’s Cinefantastique continued to offer the best in genre movie coverage with several features on Clive Barker’s Lord of Illusions and the Hellraiser and Candyman sequels, Charles Band, Stargate, Judge Dredd, The X Files, Ren & Stimpy and Toy Story. The magazine went over to a monthly schedule in December with a new co-editor, Steve Biodrowski. Publisher Clarke also added another new title to his growing stable of magazines with Visions, which was a short-lived attempt to produce a periodical devoted to fantasy television, video and new media.

  Editor Anthony Timpone’s Fangoria fell just short of celebrating its 150th issue with features on Clive Barker, Richard Matheson, Godzilla and Young Adult Horror books, plus David J. Schow’s excellent “Raving and Drooling” column. The magazine also continued to present its very successful Weekend of Horrors conventions around the United States. Tim and Donna Lucas’s invaluable Video Watchdog managed an impressive five issues as well as a second special edition in 1995, covering forty years of Godzilla, a guide to Edward D. Wood, Jr. on video, William Castle on laserdisc, the art of Buster Keaton and interviews with Oliver Stone, Martine Beswicke, Udo Kier and Italian director Antonio Margheriti, along with news and numerous reviews.

  Despite a continuing fixation with Star Trek, Babylon 5, Doctor Who, Batman, Space Precinct and Red Dwarf, Britain’s monthly Starburst, edited by Stephen Payne, celebrated its 200th issue in style and continued to cover the entire film and TV field, along with regular reviews of books, comics and videos. Its companion magazine Shivers quickly improved under new editor David Miller, with features on Interview With the Vampire, Hellraiser: Bloodline, Species, Donald Pleasence, Peter Cushing and, of course, The X Files.

  However, both Starburst and Shivers had major competition from SFX, a glossy new media magazine subtitled ’Adventures in Science Fiction’. Following a high-profile launch, the monthly journal quickly established itself with an interesting layout, a profusion of news and reviews, plus interviews with Iain M. Banks, Ray Harryhausen, Robert Rankin and Terry Pratchett, amongst others. Also for media fans, Al Shevy’s World of Fandom also had features on movies, comics, art and music, including interviews with Frank Frazetta, Jean Claude Van Damme and scream queen Brinke Stevens.

  The ninth issue of Gauntlet, Barry Hoffman’s magazine “exploring the limits of free expression”, contained the usual eclectic mix of material, including two excellent investigations by associate editor Richard Cusick into a CBS-TV report on the Church of Scientology and why The Comics Journal had a hate campaign against Harlan Ellison. There were also tributes to Robert Bloch by Hoffman and Ray Bradbury.

  For all the latest news and reviews, Charles N. Brown’s Locus and Andrew I. Porter’s Science Fiction Chronicle continued to cover everything anyone needed to know about the SF, fantasy and horror community.

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  Mike Baker’s horror newsletter Afraid and its sister magazine Skull both ceased publication in 1995, and when small press wholesaler Inland Book Company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection it seriously affected the Wildside Press, which put its irregular newszine Horror on hold. After Hours
concluded its run after twenty-five issues with a bumper 100-plus page edition featuring stories by Lawrence Watt-Evans, R. Chetwynd-Hayes, Nancy Holder, D.F. Lewis, Elizabeth Massie and Steve Rasnic Tem. The small press fiction magazine Sirius Visions: A Speculative Fiction Magazine Specializing in the Literature of Hope couldn’t live up to its title and also folded in 1995.

  On a more positive note, The Scream Factory published another excellent issue for Winter 1995/96. Number 16 was a “Winter Chills” special, providing an in-depth look at the Abominable Snowman in fiction and films, an examination of Australian horror, interviews with Michael Shea and Gerald Page, an overview of the Mammoth anthology series, and much more.

  Andy Cox’s The Third Alternative published four more issues as well as a paperback anthology entitled Last Rites & Resurrections, and featured impressive short fiction from the likes of Roger Stone, Conrad Williams, Chris Kenworthy, Joel Lane and Nicholas Royle. As usual, Stuart Hughes produced four issues of Peeping Tom during the year. Despite the magazine’s poor design and layout, this enduring British small press magazine managed to reach volume 20 with the help of such contributors as Stephen Laws, Graham Joyce, Ramsey Campbell, D.F. Lewis, Stephen Gallagher, Brian Lumley, Chris Kenworthy and Nicholas Royle.

  Gordon Linzner’s Space and Time published its 85th and 86th issues as handsome trade paperbacks that included Vampire and Werewolf Quizzes by A.R. Morlan. The 30th issue of Eldritch Tales, edited and published by Crispin Burnham, featured fiction and poetry by Nancy Kilpatrick, Darrell Schweitzer, D.F. Lewis and Richard T. Chizmer, an interview with Ron Dee (aka David Darke), and tributes to Robert Bloch and Peter Cushing.