Batman: Captured by the Engines, Joe R. Lansdale
Grimscribe: His Life and Works, Thomas Ligotti
Darklands, Nicholas Royle (ed.)
Summer of Night, Dan Simmons
Downriver, Iain Sinclair
The Bridge, John Skipp & Craig Spector
Secret Strangers, Thomas Tessier
Dirty Weekend, Helen Zahavi
1992: Whispers in the Dark, Jonathan Aycliffe
Lost Souls, Poppy Z. Brite
Ghostwright, Jonathan Carroll
MetaHorror, Dennis Etchison (ed.)
Foundations of Fear, David G. Hartwell (ed.)
Sineater, Elizabeth Massie
Flicker, Theodore Roszak
1993: Alone With the Horrors, Ramsey Campbell
The Long Lost, Ramsey Campbell
Shadowman, Dennis Etchison
Under the Crust, Terry Lamsley
Created By, Richard Christian Matheson
Crybbe (US: Curfew), Phil Rickman
The Golden, Lucius Shepard
The Throat, Peter Straub
Demons and Shadows, Robert Westall
Random Acts of Senseless Violence, Jack Womack
1994: The Early Fears, Robert Bloch
What’s Wrong With America, Scott Bradfield
From the Teeth of Angels, Jonathan Carroll
What a Carve Up, Jonathan Coe
The Priest, Thomas M. Disch
Spanky, Christopher Fowler
Throat Sprockets, Tim Lucas
The Great Divorce, Valerie Martin
Radon Daughters, Iain Sinclair
Shades of Darkness, Robert Westall
1995: Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem, Peter Ackroyd
Father of Frankenstein, Christopher Bram
The Off Season, Jack Cady
The One Safe Place, Ramsey Campbell
Burning Your Bridges, Angela Carter
Death Stalks the Night, Hugh B. Cave
The Blood Countess, Andrei Codrescu
California Gothic, Dennis Etchison
Psychoville, Christopher Fowler
The Memoirs of Elizabeth Frankenstein, Theodore Roszak
1996: Stiff Lips, Anne Billson
The House on Nazareth Hill (US: Nazareth Hill), Ramsey Campbell
Brand New Cherry Flavor, Todd Crimson
The Tooth Fairy, Graham Joyce
The 37th Mandala, Marc Laidlaw
Conference With the Dead, Terry Lamsley
The Nightmare Factory, Thomas Ligotti
Celestial Dogs, Jay Russell
The Pavilion of Frozen Women, S.P. Somtow
The Hunger and Ecstasy of Vampires, Brian Stableford
The Hellfire Club, Peter Straub
The Pillow Friend, Lisa Tuttle
1997: The Church of Dead Girls, Stephen Dobyns
100 Fiendish Little Frightmares, Dziemianowicz, Weinberg, Greenberg (eds.)
Disturbia, Christopher Fowler
Furnace, Muriel Gray
The Matter of the Heart, Nicholas Royle
Darker Angels, S.P. Somtow
Fog Heart, Thomas Tessier
Revelations (UK: Millennium), Douglas E. Winter (ed.)
Notes on the Contributors
FORREST J ACKERMAN (b. 1917) has inspired several generations of writers and film-makers — from Stephen King to Steven Spielberg. He is the world’s premier fan of science fiction, fantasy and horror and has spent a lifetime building a priceless collection of books, magazines and movie memorabilia which he displays throughout his home, the “Ackermansion” in “Horrorwood, Karloffornia,” and in a newly-created $40 million museum due to open in Berlin in 1995. He won the first Hugo Award, coined the term “sci-fi” and in 1958 created the monster movie magazine field with Famous Monsters of Filmland. The editor of such magazines as Spacemen, Monster World, Monsterland and Monsterama, as well as numerous anthologies and nonfiction volumes, he has known many of the great film stars and technicians personally, been a literary agent for more than forty-five years, and appeared in over thirty-five movies, including Dracula vs. Frankenstein, Amazon Women on the Moon, The Howling and Michael Jackson’s Thriller.
BRIAN W. (WILSON) ALDISS (b. 1925) is one of Britain’s most important and prolific science fiction authors. He was born in East Anglia but now lives in Oxford with his wife Margaret. Aldiss’ first SF story, “Criminal Record” appeared in Science Fantasy (1954) and his first novel, Non-Stop (US: Starship) followed four years later. Writer, editor and critic, Aldiss has produced a rich and varied stream of novels, stories, articles and nonfiction books over the years. His recent work includes Dracula Unbound, the Helliconia trilogy, a revised edition of his landmark history of science fiction, Trillion Year Spree, the acclaimed mainstream novel Forgotten Life, and the autobiographical Bury My Heart at W.H. Smith’s. He has won most of the prizes in the international science fiction field — Hugos, Nebula, and a Campbell Award from the USA, a Jules Verne Award from Sweden, BSFA Awards from Britain, while the Australians voted him quite simply the “World’s Best Contemporary Writer of Science Fiction”. Aldiss’ 1973 time-travel adventure Frankenstein Unbound (filmed in 1990 by Roger Corman) is a tribute to Mary Shelley’s 1818 classic and features the young authoress as a major character; however, he declined to write about the original book for this volume as he firmly considers it science fiction — not a horror novel …
MIKE ASHLEY (b. 1948) was born in Middlesex, England, and now lives in Kent, where by day he is an auditor with the Kent County Council. By night he researches the related fields of science fiction, fantasy and weird fiction and is the author of more than twenty books and over two hundred articles. He has edited such anthologies as Souls in Metal, Weird Legacies, The Best of British SF, Jewels of Wonder, The Mammoth Book of Short Horror Novels, The Magic Mirror: Lost Supernatural Stories by Algernon Blackwood, The Pendragon Chronicles, Robert E. Howard’s World of Heroes and The Camelot Chronicles, while his nonfiction books include the four-volume History of the Science Fiction Magazine, Who’s Who in Horror and Fantasy Fiction, The Illustrated Book of Science Fiction Lists and, as co-editor, Monthly Terrors and Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Weird Fiction Magazines. He has also written a biography of Algernon Blackwood and a book about Hugo Gernsback and the pioneer days of the science fiction magazines.
CLIVE BARKER (b. 1952) was born in Liverpool and, after moving to London in the early 1970s, now lives in Beverly Hills, California. An award-winning short story writer, bestselling novelist, illustrator, playwright, screenwriter and film director, after early success with plays like The History of the Devil, Frankenstein in Love, Colossus and The Secret Life of Cartoons, he made an impressive debut as a horror writer in 1984 with the publication of the first three volumes of Clive Barker’s Books of Blood. A further trio of Books of Blood followed, along with the novels The Damnation Game, Weaveworld, Cabal, The Great and Secret Show, Imajica and Everville. Barker also scripted the movies Underworld (US: Transmutations), Rawhead Rex and Hellraiser (based on his own novella The Hellhound Heart), the latter also marking his successful debut as a director. He repeated the role of writer/director on Nightbreed, and was executive producer on Hellhound: Hellraiser II and Candyman (based on his story “The Forbidden”). His stories and concepts have been widely adapted into comics and graphic novels, and recent film projects have included Lord of Illusions (1995), which he scripted and directed, and an executive producer credit on Gods and Monsters (1998). Barker has won both the British Fantasy Award and the World Fantasy Award.
HILAIRE BELLOC (1870-1953) was a French-born English writer, best known for his poetry, political satires and visionary essays about the Roman Catholic church. A number of his books, such as But Soft We Are Observed! (1928), a satirical suspense novel set in 1979, are borderline science fiction or fantasy; others include Mr. Petre (1925), The Man Who Made Gold (1930) and The Postmaster-General (1932). The piece reprinted in this volume was published anonymously in The Morning Post for September 1
7th, 1908. At the time, Belloc was the literary editor and internal evidence in the review, as well as references in correspondence between Belloc and Algernon Blackwood, strongly suggest that he was the author of the piece.
EDDY C. (CHARLY) BERTIN (b. 1944) was born in Hamburg-Altona, Germany, but at a very early age he moved to Belgium, where he still lives. He started writing horror stories at the age of 13 and began selling fiction to British anthologies and American magazines in 1967. After having unsuccessfully tried to sell his work in Dutch for over 10 years, he finally got his first book published on the strength of his overseas sales. Berlin’s first professional collection, De Achtjaarlijkse God (The Eight-Yearly God) was published in the Netherlands in 1970, and he has subsequently published over thirty books in Holland, Belgium, France, Germany and Poland. More than fifty short stories have been translated into English, including various stories chosen for the Year’s Best Horror and World’s Best SF series. His best-known books (in Dutch) include a massive science fiction trilogy known as Membrane Universe and a dark fantasy novel about Edgar Allan Poe, The Shadow of the Raven. His short horror fiction has been collected in various volumes, among them My Beautiful Darkling and The Most Gruesome Stories of Eddy C. Berlin. He wrote over forty pulp novels (mainstream, western and crime) using various pseudonyms, but since 1986 has concentrated on mainly horror and SF novels for younger readers, including This House Wants Blood, The Ship from the Future, The Planet of the Golden Spiders, Witchcraft at Full Moon, Prisoners of the Video and Midnight Date.
JOHN BLACKBURN (1923-1993) has been described as “today’s master of horror” and “the best British novelist in his field”. Born in Northumberland, Blackburn served in the merchant navy during World War II and prior to becoming a full-time writer he worked as a lorry driver, a teacher in London and Berlin, and the owner of an antiquarian bookshop. His first novel, A Scent of New-Mown Hay (1958), was an instant success, and he followed it with more than thirty books, most of them in the horror genre. Among his best-known titles are A Ring of Roses, Children of the Night, Nothing But the Night (filmed in 1972, starring Christopher Lee and Peter Gushing), Bury Him Darkly, Blow the House Down, For Fear of Little Men, Devil Daddy, Our Lady of Pain and The Cyclops Goblet. Blackburn’s short fiction has appeared in such original anthologies as Cold Fear, The Taste of Fear and The Devil’s Kisses.
ROBERT BLOCH (1917-1994) was born in Chicago and lived in Los Angeles, California, for many years. His interest in horror first blossomed after he was frightened by Lon Chaney’s classic 1925 portrayal of The Phantom of the Opera. A young devotee of the pulp magazine Weird Tales, he began corresponding with author H.P, Lovecraft, who advised him to try his own hand at writing fiction. Bloch’s first published story was “Lilies” (1934) and a year later he made his professional debut with “The Secret of the Tomb”. Quickly establishing himself as a popular and prolific short story writer, Bloch’s early work obviously emulated Lovecraft’s own distinctive style and themes, but by the early 1940s he had developed a unique blend of twisted psychological horror and grim graveyard humour (perhaps best exemplified by one of his most reprinted tales, “Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper”). However, despite having over two dozen novels and hundreds of short stories to his credit, he will always be identified with his 1959 book, Psycho, successfully filmed by Alfred Hitchcock the following year. Bloch often scripted adaptations of his own work, starting with the radio show Stay Tuned for Terror in 1944, and including the television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Thriller, Star Trek, Tales from the Darkside and Monsters, and such movies as Torture Garden, The House That Dripped Blood and Asylum. His recent books include the novels Psycho II, The Night of the Ripper, Lori, Psycho House and The Jekyll Legacy (with Andre Norton), he edited PsychoPaths, and his short fiction has been collected in Fear and Trembling, Midnight Pleasures and the 500,000-word three volume set of The Selected Stories of Robert Bloch. He won the science fiction field’s Hugo Award in 1959 for “The Hell-Bound Train”, was the first recipient of The World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement Awards in 1975, and also received Life Achievement Awards from both The Horror Writers of America and the first World Horror Convention.
SCOTT BRADFIELD (b. 1955) was born in California and divides his time between the American West Coast and London. He received his Ph.D in American Literature from the University of California, where he taught for five years. Bradfield’s stories, essays and reviews have appeared in a wide variety of magazines and anthologies, including Omni, Ambit, The Year’s Best Horror Stories, The Year’s Best Fantasy Stories, Interzone, New Statesman, The Listener, The Evening Standard, Other Edens 2 and The Times Literary Supplement. His short fiction is collected in The Secret Life of Houses and Dream of the Wolf, and his novels include The History of Luminous Motion and Greetings from Earth.
EDWARD BRYANT (b. 1945) was born in White Plains, New York, and grew up on a cattle ranch in Southern Wyoming. He met Harlan Ellison, who assisted his early career, at the Clarion SF Writer’s Workshop in 1968 and 1969, and Bryant sold his first short story, “They Come Only in Dreams” to Adam in 1970. His fiction has appeared in a wide variety of magazines and anthologies, and two stories, “Stone” (1978) and “giANTS” (1979), both won the Nebula Award. Bryant’s collections include Among the Dead and Other Events Leading Up to the Apocalypse, Cinnabar, Wyomming Sun, Particle Theory, one-third of Night Visions 4, and Neon Twilight. He collaborated with Ellison on the short novel Phoenix Without Ashes, edited the original anthology 2076: The American Tricentennial, and has published a short horror novel, Fetish. Bryant currently reviews horror books for Locus and other publications, and he continues to contribute superior short stories to such anthologies as Blood Is Not Enough, Alien Sex and Book of the Dead.
RAMSEY CAMPBELL (b. 1946) has been justly described as “perhaps the finest living exponent of the British weird fiction tradition”, and in 1991 he was voted the Horror Writer’s Horror Writer in the Observer Magazine. A lifelong resident of Liverpool and Merseyside, John Ramsey Campbell sold his first story, “The Church in the High Street”, to August Derleth in 1962. Leaving school that same year, his first collection, The Inhabitant of the Lake and Other Less Welcome Tenants appeared from Derleth’s Arkham House imprint two years later. Campbell worked for the Inland Revenue and later in a library until he became a full-time writer and reviewer in 1973. Although his early fiction was heavily influenced by H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos (yet set in a distinctly British milieu), his subsequent books and stories have revealed him to be a unique voice in horror fiction — whether as an anthologist (Superhorror aka The Far Reaches of Fear, New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, New Terrors, The Gruesome Book, Fine Frights, Best New Horror series, with Stephen Jones), in his collections of short fiction (Demons By Daylight, The Height of the Scream, Dark Companions, Cold Print, Scared Stiff, Dark Feasts, Waking Nightmares), or as a novelist (The Doll Who Ate His Mother, To Wake the Dead (US: The Parasite), The Nameless, The Face That Must Die, Incarnate, Obsession, The Hungry Moon, The Influence, Ancient Images, Needing Ghosts, Midnight Sun, The Count of Eleven, The Long Lost). A multiple winner of both the British Fantasy and World Fantasy Awards, Campbell has also completed several of Robert E. Howard’s stories of Solomon Kane, written the novelizations of The Wolf Man, Bride of Frankenstein and Dracula’s Daughter under the house name “Carl Dreadstone”, and is the author of Claw (US: Night of the Claw) behind the somewhat obvious alias of “Jay Ramsey”. In 1992 he celebrated thirty years of chilling spines, and the bumper collection of his best short fiction, Alone With the Horrors, commemorates the event.
HUGH B. (BARNETT) CAVE (b. 1910) was born in Chester, England, but emigrated to America with his family when he was five. While editing trade journals he sold his first story, “Island Ordeal”, to Brief Stories in 1929. He quickly established himself as an inventive and prolific writer and sold a staggering 800 stories to such pulps as Strange Tales, Weird Tales, Ghost Stories, Black Book Detective Magazine, Thrilling Mysteries
, Spicy Mystery Stories, and the so-called “shudder pulps”, Horror Stories and Terror Tales. Cave left the field for almost three decades, moving to Haiti and later Jamaica, where he established a coffee plantation and wrote two highly-praised travel books, Haiti: Highroad to Adventure and Four Paths to Paradise: A Book About Jamaica, along with a number of mainstream novels. He also contributed fiction regularly to The Saturday Evening Post and other “slick-paper” magazines. In 1977, Karl Edward Wagner’s Carcosa imprint published a hefty volume of Cave’s best horror tales, Murgunstrumm and Others, and he returned to the genre with new stories in Whispers and Fantasy Tales and a string of modern horror novels: Legion of the Dead, The Nebulon Horror, The Evil, Shades of Evil, Disciples of Dread, The Lower Deep, Lucifer’s Eye and Forbidden Passage. He has also written two young adult novels, The Voyage and The Wild One, and a second collection, The Corpse-Maker, was edited by Sheldon Jaffery. Starmont House published a biography by Audrey Parente, titled Pulp Man’s Odyssey: The Hugh B. Cave Story (1988), and in 1991 he received the Life Achievement Award from The Horror Writers of America.
SUZY McKEE CHARNAS (b. 1939) was born in New York City but currently lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she moved with her husband and two step-children in 1969. After working in Nigeria with the Peace Corps from 1961-63, she returned to New York to tour suburban high schools as part of a drug abuse treatment team. Her first novel was published in 1974: Walk to the End of the World, a feminist view of futuristic amazons, it was nominated for the John W. Campbell Award. A sequel, Motherlines, followed four years later. Two vampire stories, “The Ancient Mind at Work” and “Unicorn Tapestry” (winner of the 1980 Nebula Award for best novella) led to her acclaimed novel The Vampire Tapestry. She has followed this with the adult fantasy Dorothea Dreams and the “Sorcery Hall” series of young adult novels, which includes The Bronze King, The Silver Glove and The Golden Thread. In 1990 her offbeat werewolf story, “Boobs”, won science fiction’s Hugo Award.
Horror: The 100 Best Books Page 30
