The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 2003, Volume 14 Read online

  STEPHEN JONES lives in London. He is the winner of three World Fantasy Awards, three Horror Writers Association Bram Stoker Awards and three International Horror Guild Awards as well as being a fourteen-time recipient of the British Fantasy Award and a Hugo Award nominee. A former television producer/director and genre movie 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, Secret City: Strange Tales of London and The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, Dark Terrors, Dark Voices and Fantasy Tales series. He has written Creepshows: The Illustrated Stephen King Movie Guide, The Essential Monster Movie Guide, 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, The Mammoth Book of Dracula, The Mammoth Book of Vampire Stories By Women, Shadows Over Innsmouth, Dancing With the Dark, Dark of the Night, Dark Detectives, White of the Moon, Keep Out the Night, By Moonlight Only, Exorcisms and Ecstasies by Karl Edward Wagner, The Vampire Stories of R. Chetwynd-Hayes, Phantoms and Fiends and Frights and Fancies by R. Chetwynd-Hayes, James Herbert: By Horror Haunted, The Conan Chronicles by Robert E. Howard (two volumes), The Emperor of Dreams: The Lost Worlds of Clark Ashton Smith, Clive Barker’s A–Z of Horror, Clive Barker’s Shadows in Eden, Clive Barker’s The Nightbreed Chronicles and the Hellraiser Chronicles. You can visit his website at www.herebedragons.co.uk/jones

  Also available

  The Mammoth Book of Awesome Comic Fantasy

  The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 14

  The Mammoth Book of Best New Science Fiction 16

  The Mammoth Book of Bridge

  The Mammoth Book of British Kings & Queens

  The Mammoth Book of Celtic Myths and Legends

  The Mammoth Book of Chess

  The Mammoth Book of Comic Crime

  The Mammoth Book of Egyptian Whodunnits

  The Mammoth Book of Elite Forces & SAS

  The Mammoth Book of Endurance & Adventure

  The Mammoth Book of Fighter Pilots

  The Mammoth Book of Future Cops

  The Mammoth Book of Great Detectives

  The Mammoth Book of Haunted House Stories

  The Mammoth Book of Hearts of Oak

  The Mammoth Book of Heroes

  The Mammoth Book of Historical Whodunnits

  The Mammoth Book of How It Happened

  The Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper

  The Mammoth Book of Jokes

  The Mammoth Book of Journalism

  The Mammoth Book of Legal Thrillers

  The Mammoth Book of Literary Anecdotes

  The Mammoth Book of Maneaters

  The Mammoth Book of Men O’ War

  The Mammoth Book of Mountain Disasters

  The Mammoth Book of Murder

  The Mammoth Book of On the Road

  The Mammoth Book of Private Lives

  The Mammoth Book of Pulp Action

  The Mammoth Book of Puzzles

  The Mammoth Book of Roman Whodunnits

  The Mammoth Book of Seriously Comic Fantasy

  The Mammoth Book of Sex, Drugs and Rock ’n’ Roll

  The Mammoth Book of Soldiers at War

  The Mammoth Book of Sword & Honour

  The Mammoth Book of The Science Fiction Century I

  The Mammoth Book of The Edge

  The Mammoth Book of The West

  The Mammoth Book of Travel in Dangerous Places

  The Mammoth Book of True War Stories

  The Mammoth Book of True Crime

  The Mammoth Book of UFOs

  The Mammoth Book of Unsolved Mysteries

  The Mammoth Book of Unsolved Crimes

  The Mammoth Book of Vampire Stories by Women

  The Mammoth Book of War Correspondents

  The Mammoth Book of Women who Kill

  THE

  MAMMOTH BOOK OF

  BEST NEW

  HORROR

  VOLUME FOURTEEN

  Edited and with an Introduction by

  STEPHEN JONES

  ROBINSON

  London

  Constable & Robinson Ltd

  55–56 Russell Square

  London WC1B 4HP

  www.constablerobinson.com

  First published in the UK by Robinson,

  an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd 2003

  Collection and editorial material

  copyright © Stephen Jones 2003

  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 1-84119-794-7

  eISBN 978-1-78033-716-6

  Printed and bound in the EU

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgments

  Introduction: Horror in 2002

  October in the Chair

  NEIL GAIMAN

  Details

  CHINA MIÉVILLE

  The Wretched Thicket of Thorn

  DON TUMASONIS

  The Absolute Last of the Ultra-Spooky,

  Super-Scary Hallowe’en Horror Nights

  DAVID J. SCHOW

  Standard Gauge

  NICHOLAS ROYLE

  Little Dead Girl Singing

  STEPHEN GALLAGHER

  Nesting Instincts

  BRIAN HODGE

  The Two Sams

  GLEN HIRSHBERG

  Hides

  JAY RUSSELL

  The Unbeheld

  RAMSEY CAMPBELL

  Ill Met by Daylight

  BASIL COPPER

  Catskin

  KELLY LINK

  20th Century Ghost

  JOE HILL

  Egyptian Avenue

  KIM NEWMAN

  The Boy Behind the Gate

  JAMES VAN PELT

  Nor the Demons Down Under the Sea

  CAITLÍN R. KIERNAN

  The Coventry Boy

  GRAHAM JOYCE

  The Prospect Cards

  DON TUMASONIS

  The Cage

  JEFF VANDERMEER

  Dr Pretorius and the Lost Temple

  PAUL McAULEY

  Necrology: 2002

  STEPHEN JONES & KIM NEWMAN

  Useful Addresses

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I would like to thank David Barraclough, Kim Newman, Hugh Lamb, Nick Austin, Richard Dalby, Mandy Slater, Andrew I. Porter, Brian Mooney, Douglas E. Winter, Robert T. Garcia, Andy Cox, Rodger Turner and Wayne MacLaurin (sfsite.com), Harris M. Lentz III, Bill Congreve, Gordon Van Gelder, Sara and Randy Broecker, David J. Schow, Robert Morgan, Barbara Roden and David Pringle for all their help and support. Special thanks are also due to Locus, Interzone, Science Fiction Chronicle, Classic Images, Variety and all the other sources that were used for reference in the Introduction and the Necrology.

  INTRODUCTION: HORROR IN 2002 copyright © Stephen Jones 2003.

  OCTOBER IN THE CHAIR copyright © Neil Gaiman 2002. Originally published in Conjun
ctions 39: The New Wave Fabulists. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  DETAILS copyright © China Miéville 2002. Originally published in The Children of Cthulhu: Chilling New Tales Inspired by H.P. Lovecraft. Reprinted by permission of the author and the author’s agent, Mic Cheetham Literary Agency.

  THE WRETCHED THICKET OF THORN copyright © Donald Tumasonis 2002. Originally published in All Hallows 29, February 2002. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  THE ABSOLUTE LAST OF THE ULTRA-SPOOKY, SUPER-SCARY HALLOWE’EN HORROR NIGHTS copyright © David J. Schow 2001. Originally published in The Spook, Issue No.6, January 2002. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  STANDARD GAUGE copyright © Nicholas Royle 2002. Originally published in Thirteen. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  LITTLE DEAD GIRL SINGING copyright © Stephen Gallagher 2002. Originally published in Weird Tales, Issue #327, Spring 2002. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  NESTING INSTINCTS copyright © Brian Hodge 2002. Originally published in Lies & Ugliness. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  THE TWO SAMS copyright © Glen Hirshberg 2002. Originally published in Dark Terrors 6: The Gollancz Book of Horror. Reprinted by permission of the author and the author’s agent, Anderson/Grinberg Literary Management, Inc.

  HIDES copyright © Jay Russell 2002. Originally published in Stranger: Dark Tales of Eerie Encounters. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  THE UNBEHELD copyright © Ramsey Campbell 2002. Originally published in The Spook, July 2002. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  ILL MET BY DAYLIGHT copyright © Basil Copper 2002. Originally published in Cold Hand on My Shoulder. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  CATSKIN copyright © Kelly Link, 2002. Originally published as a limited edition in Catskin: a swaddled zine and McSweeny’s Quarterly, Winter 2002-03. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  20TH CENTURY GHOST copyright © Joe Hill, 2001. Originally published in High Plains Literary Review, Vol. XVII, No.1-3, 2002. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  EGYPTIAN AVENUE copyright © by Kim Newman 2002. Originally published in J.K. Potter’s Embrace the Mutation. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  THE BOY BEHIND THE GATE copyright © James Van Pelt 2002. Originally published in Dark Terrors 6: The Gollancz Book of Horror. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  NOR THE DEMONS DOWN UNDER THE SEA copyright © Caitlín R. Kiernan 2002. Originally published in The Children of Cthulhu: Chilling New Tales Inspired by H.P. Lovecraft. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  THE COVENTRY BOY copyright © Graham Joyce 2002. Originally published in The Third Alternative, Issue 32, Autumn 2002. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  THE PROSPECT CARDS copyright © Donald Tumasonis 2002. Originally published in Dark Terrors 6: The Gollancz Book of Horror. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  THE CAGE copyright © Jeff VanderMeer 2002. Originally published in City of Saints and Madmen. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  DR PRETORIUS AND THE LOST TEMPLE copyright © Paul McAuley 2002. Originally published on SciFiction, September 2002. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  NECROLOGY: 2002 copyright © 2003 by Stephen Jones and Kim Newman 2003.

  USEFUL ADDRESSES copyright © Stephen Jones 2003.

  In loving memory of my father

  ‘Jim’ Jones

  (1914–2003)

  for all his support and encouragement over the years.

  ‘When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.’

  —Samuel Johnson (1709–84)

  INTRODUCTION

  Horror in 2002

  WITH THE CONTINUED SUCCESS of The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter books overwhelming everything else, it comes as no surprise that the number of fantasy books (especially young-adult editions) published in 2002 was up significantly on previous years. Science fiction titles remained roughly constant, while horror was down slightly on the previous year’s high, with vampires and media tie-ins the most popular categories as usual.

  Tor Books remained the biggest publisher of genre material in the United States, closely followed by Penguin Putnam, while HarperCollins led the list of publishers in the UK, with Orion/Gollancz in the runner-up position.

  Media conglomerates Random House, AOL Time Warner and Vivendi Universal all had a less than spectacular year, mostly blamed on a slowing economy.

  In January, California book retailer and publisher Advanced Marketing Services bought independent distributor Publishers’ Group West for $37 million. However, PGW’s sister company, Avalon Publishing Group, which owns Carroll & Graf, Thunder’s Mouth Press and other imprints, was not part of the deal after a separate buy-out by a group of Avalon employees, including PGW CEO Charlie Winton.

  Long-time German genre editor Wolfgang Jeschke left imprint Wilhelm Heyne when the publisher was faced with a loss of $45 million on sales of $165 million. Meanwhile, John Jarrold left Simon & Schuster UK’s Earthlight in August. Jarrold had set up the imprint in 1997.

  According to research in Britain, forty per cent of people no longer read anything at all, with the remainder averaging around just fourteen minutes a day with a book. Meanwhile, in June, a study of library users conducted by Wales University came to the shattering conclusion that children who read scary books are three times more likely to have nightmares.

  In September, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling won a three-year New York court battle against Pennsylvania-born children’s author Nancy Stouffer, who claimed that Rowling had stolen the term “Muggles” from her 1984 book, The Legend of Rah and the Muggles. However, despite a number of similarities between the two books, the court ruled that Stouffer had lied and doctored evidence to support her claims. She was fined $50,000 for a “pattern of intentional bad faith conduct” and ordered to pay a portion of the defendants’ costs.

  An American fan who had been stalking Rowling was deported from Britain in August, and the multi-millionaire author announced that she was expecting her second child in the Spring of 2003.

  She also confirmed that she had plotted the sixth and final seventh novels in the series and, despite rumours she was suffering from writer’s block, that her long-awaited fifth instalment in the Potter saga, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, would be published by Christmas. (It wasn’t.)

  Meanwhile, an American buyer purchased a ninety-three word synopsis of the fifth book at a Sotheby’s auction in London for £28,680 – that was around £20,000 more than the expected selling price and worked out at an incredible £300 a word! The money raised was donated to Book Aid International.

  That was actually a better word-rate than Tom Clancy’s record-breaking $45 million advance for just two books, which New York Magazine estimated to work out at $42,694 per page or a measly $133 per word.

  J.K. Rowling was also the UK’s top female British earner, with estimated receipts of £48 million from books and films – six times more than the income of the Queen of England! This was despite the fact that sales of Harry Potter books by Scholastic in the second quarter of 2002 totalled $25 million – $10 million below company expectations. However, Rowling’s projected sales of roughly $45 million throughout the year accounted for only 2.5 per cent of Scholastic’s total revenue.

  In Stephen King’s From a Buick 8, which had a 1,750,000 first printing in the US, a vintage 1954 car found in police storage possibly held the secret to a gateway to another dimension.

  Although initially rumoured to be written by King under the name “Joyce Reardon, Ph.D”, a character from the tie-in TV miniseries, The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer: My Life at Red Rose was actually written by the author’s friend, mysteries novelist Ridley Pearson.

  King’s Three Complete Novels: Carrie/’Salem’s Lot/The Shining was an instant-remainder omnibus of more than 1,000 pages, and the writer also reiterated to the 27th January Los Angeles Times that he planned to sto
p writing books in the next year or so.

  Clive Barker’s children’s book Abarat involved an epic journey by Candy Quackenbush to the eponymous twenty-five islands, a fantasy world filled with sorcery, mystery and fantastical characters. The first instalment of a proposed four-part “The Books of Abarat”, the volume featured more than 100 full-colour images painted by the author himself. Walt Disney Productions paid nearly $8 million for the film, theme park and multimedia rights to the concept.

  From Dean Koontz, By the Light of the Moon involved an artist and a female comedian caught up in a mad doctor’s bizarre experiments. It had a 525,000 first printing.

  Anne Rice’s Blackwood Farm brought together elements from both her “Vampire Chronicles” and “Mayfair Witches” series. The book, which had a 500,000 first printing, featured the vampiric Quinn Blackwood, haunted by a blood-drinking doppelgänger. His only hope was to travel through time to find the legendary Vampire Lestat.

  PS Publishing became Ramsey Campbell’s British publisher with The Darkest Part of the Woods, the author’s first new supernatural novel in four years, about the evil influence a Severn Valley village exerted over the members of a specific family. Peter Straub contributed the Introduction, and the numbered hardcover was available in a signed edition of 500 copies and a 200-copy slip case printing.

  Written as a diversion while he was working on his Hugo Award-winning American Gods, Neil Gaiman’s dark fantasy for children, Coraline, was a huge critical and commercial success on both sides of the Atlantic. Relating the adventures of the eponymous little girl in a bizarre, nightmarish mirror-world, the UK trade paperback wasn’t nearly as attractive as the slim American hardcover beautifully illustrated by the author’s long-time collaborator, Dave McKean.

  Gaiman’s revisionist fairy tale Snow Glass Apples: A Play for Voices was issued with woodcut illustrations by George Walker and an Introduction by Jack Zipes in a signed, 250-copy limited edition from Biting Dog Press. A lettered edition sold out before publication.

  To celebrate Gaiman’s stint as Guest of Honour at Boskone 39, The NESFA Press published Adventures in the Dream Trade, a collection of his more obscure stories, poems and non-fiction, in a hardcover edition of 2,000 numbered copies, of which 300 were signed by the writer and artist co-guest Stephen Hickman and issued in a slip case. Edited by Tony Lewis and Priscilla Olson, the book also featured an Introduction by John M. Ford.