The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 17 Read online

  STEPHEN JONES lives in London, England. He is the winner of three World Fantasy Awards, four Horror Writers Association Bram Stoker Awards and three International Horror Guild Awards as well as being a sixteen-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, Horror: Another 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, Great Ghost Stories, Tales to Freeze the Blood: More Great Ghost Stories and the 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 Best New Horror series, 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, The Mammoth Book of New Terror, Shadows Over Innsmouth, Weird Shadows Over Innsmouth, Dark Detectives, Dancing with the Dark, Dark of the Night, White of the Moon, Keep Out the Night, By Moonlight Only, Don’t Turn Out the Light, H.P. Lovecraft’s Book of the Supernatural, 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 Complete Chronicles of Conan by Robert E. Howard, The Emperor of Dreams: The Lost Worlds of Clark Ashton Smith, Sea-Kings of Mars and Otherworldly Stories by Leigh Brackett, Clive Barker’s A-Z of Horror, Clive Barker’s Shadows in Eden, Clive Barker’s The Nightbreed Chronicles and the Hellraiser Chronicles. He was a Guest of Honour at the 2002 World Fantasy Convention in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the 2004 World Horror Convention in Phoenix, Arizona. You can visit his web site at www.herebedragons.co.uk/jones

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  Constable & Robinson Ltd

  3 The Lanchesters

  162 Fulham Palace Road

  London W6 9ER

  www.constablerobinson.com

  First published in the UK by Robinson,

  an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd 2006

  Collection and editorial material copyright © Stephen Jones 2006

  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-13: 978-1-84529-315-4

  ISBN-10: 1-84529-315-0

  eISBN-978-1-78033-374-8

  Printed and bound in the EU

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgments

  Introduction: Horror in 2005

  The Decorations

  RAMSEY CAMPBELL

  Black and Green and Gold

  DAVID HERTER

  I Live With You and You Don’t Know it

  CAROL EMSHWILLER

  The Cubist’s Attorney

  PETER ATKINS

  All Fish and Dracula

  LIZ WILLIAMS

  The Ball Room

  CHINA MIÉVILLE, EMMA BIRCHAM and MAX SCHAEFER

  Gulls

  TIM PRATT

  Pinkie

  ELIZABETH MASSIE

  Glyphotech

  MARK SAMUELS

  One of the Hungry Ones

  HOLLY PHILLIPS

  If I Should Wake Before I Die

  BRIAN HODGE

  The Other Family

  ROBERTA LANNES

  The Outermost Borough

  GAHAN WILSON

  American Morons

  GLEN HIRSHBERG

  Where Angels Come In

  ADAM L. G. NEVILL

  Sickhouse Hospitality

  TERRY LAMSLEY

  Best New Horror

  JOE HILL

  La Peau Verte

  CAITLÍN R. KIERNAN

  Time Was

  DAVID MORRELL

  Haeckel’s Tale

  CLIVE BARKER

  The Taint

  BRIAN LUMLEY

  The Winner

  RAMSEY CAMPBELL

  Necrology: 2005

  STEPHEN JONES & KIM NEWMAN

  Useful Addresses

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I would like to thank Kim New
man, David Barraclough, Rodger Turner and Wayne MacLaurin (sfsite.com), Mandy Slater, Hugh Lamb, Pamela Brooks, Brian Mooney, Lisa Morton, Del Howison, Jo Fletcher, Gordon Van Gelder, Douglas E. Winter, Amanda Foubister, Richard Dalby, Peter Crowther, Sean Wallace, Jay Lake and, especially, Pete Duncan and Dorothy Lumley, for all their help and support. Special thanks are also due to Locus, Variety, Ansible, and all the other sources that were used for reference in the Introduction and the Necrology.

  INTRODUCTION: HORROR IN 2005 copyright © Stephen Jones 2006.

  THE DECORATIONS copyright © Ramsey Campbell 2005. Originally published in The Decorations. Reprinted by permission of the author and the author’s agent, John Jarrold Literary Agency.

  BLACK AND GREEN AND GOLD copyright © David Herter 2005. Originally published in PostScripts Number 3, Spring 2005. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  I LIVE WITH YOU AND YOU DON’T KNOW IT copyright © Spilogale, Inc. 2005. Originally published under the title “I Live With You” in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, No. 637, March 2005. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  THE CUBIST’S ATTORNEY copyright © Peter Atkins 2005. Originally published in Darkness Rising. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  ALL FISH AND DRACULA copyright © Liz Williams 2005. Originally published in Realms of Fantasy, Vol. 11, No. 3, February 2005. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  THE BALL ROOM copyright © China Miéville 2005. Originally published in Looking for Jake. Reprinted by permission of the authors.

  GULLS copyright © Tim Pratt 2005. Originally published in TEL: Stories. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  PINKIE copyright © Elizabeth Massie 2005. Originally published in The Little Magenta Book of Mean Stories. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  GLYPHOTECH copyright © Mark Samuels 2005. Originally published in Lost on the Darkside: Voices from the Edge of Horror. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  ONE OF THE HUNGRY ONES copyright © Holly Phillips 2005. Originally published in In the Palace of Repose. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  IF I SHOULD WAKE BEFORE I DIE copyright © Brian Hodge 2005. Originally published in Outsiders: 22 All New Stories from the Edge. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  THE OTHER FAMILY copyright © Roberta Lannes 2005. Originally published in Don’t Turn Out the Light. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  THE OUTERMOST BOROUGH copyright © Gahan Wilson 2005. Originally published in Dark Delicacies. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  AMERICAN MORONS copyright © Glen Hirshberg 2005. Originally published in Darkness Rising. Reprinted by permission of the author and the author’s agents, Anderson Grinberg Literary Management, Inc.

  WHERE ANGELS COME IN copyright © Adam L. G. Nevill 2005. Originally published in Poe’s Progeny: An Anthology of Contemporary Stories Inspired by Classic Dark Fiction. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  SICKHOUSE HOSPITALITY copyright © Terry Lamsley 2005. Originally published in Don’t Turn Out the Light. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  BEST NEW HORROR copyright © Joe Hill 2005. Originally published in PostScripts Number 3, Spring 2005. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  LA PEAU VERTE copyright © Caitlín R. Kiernan 2005. Originally published in To Charles Fort, with Love. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  TIME WAS copyright © David Morrell 2005. Originally published in Taverns of the Dead. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  HAECKEL’S TALE copyright © Clive Barker 2005. Originally published in Dark Delicacies. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  THE TAINT copyright © Brian Lumley 2005. Originally published in Weird Shadows Over Innsmouth. Reprinted by permission of the author and the author’s agent, Dorian Literary Agency.

  THE WINNER copyright © Ramsey Campbell 2005. Originally published in Taverns of the Dead. Reprinted by permission of the author and the author’s agent, John Jarrold Literary Agency.

  NECROLOGY: 2005 copyright © Stephen Jones and Kim Newman 2006.

  USEFUL ADDRESSES copyright © Stephen Jones 2006.

  Congratulations to

  Ramsey Campbell

  and

  Forrest J Ackerman

  on the occasions of their

  60th and 90th birthdays, respectively.

  INTRODUCTION

  Horror in 2005

  IN JANUARY, FORMER Oxford University Press editor Michael Cox reportedly received the largest-ever advance for a British debut novel. After a “frenzied” telephone bidding war, John Murray paid £500,000 for The Meaning of Night, described as a murder-mystery set in Victorian London that took the author thirty years of planning and six months to write.

  The Author’s Guild and three individual writers sued Google in September, seeking damages and an injunction to stop the Internet search-engine’s ambitious plans to digitise all the world’s books and put excerpts up on its “Google Print” database (the name was later changed to the less-inflammatory “Google Book Search”). Authors, publishers and distributors complained when Google said it would go ahead and post extracts unless publishers provided a list of specific titles to be excluded.

  Meanwhile, in the UK, W. H. Smith’s CEO Kate Swann announced that she would “improve efficiency” by levying a system of fines against publishers for late delivery of books. Not surprisingly, the publishers refused to co-operate, claiming that such a system was illegal without their agreement.

  An attempt by UK bookseller Waterstone’s to take over its smaller rival Ottaker’s was delayed in December when the Office of Fair Trading, backed by the Society of Authors, ruled that the £96.4 million deal would have to be examined by the Competition Commission.

  Under an EU ruling, the UK announced that it was introducing artist resale rights, which meant that each and every time a piece of artwork is sold through a gallery or auction house, the creator would receive a droit de suite royalty. Many people disagreed with the ruling, including artists, arguing that the UK has the biggest art resale market in Europe and the new law could ultimately affect sales, with markets eventually moving to the US to circumvent the ruling.

  In Canada, total Halloween sales were projected to be $1.1 billion – up 50 per cent from five years earlier, and for the first time rivalling Christmas as the biggest holiday season for retailers.

  As a result of pre-orders that were “substantially higher than originally anticipated” for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Bloomsbury announced in March that profits would be above industry expectations. Published on July 16th, the sixth adventure of the boy wizard enjoyed first-day sales of almost seven million copies in America and more than two million in Britain.

  In America, where 13.5 million copies of the first edition were printed by Scholastic, sales topped $100 million, which was $17 million more than the combined box-office take of that weekend’s top two movies, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The Wedding Crashers.

  In fact, the book sold twice as many copies – 6,397,000 – in the US in its first two weeks than any other book during a whole year, and author J. K. Rowling was estimated to have earned £1 million per hour in royalties during the first twenty-four hours of the title’s release.

  Rowling was quoted as saying that children should be scared by books so that they can deal with fears in later life. “We need to fear and we need to confront fear in a controlled environment and that’s a very important part of growing up,” explained the author.

  Meanwhile, in the English town of Skellingthorpe, in Lincolnshire, a primary school scrapped its “Harry Potter Day” to coincide with the launch of the book after the headmaster received a letter from the local rector, the Reverend Richard Billinghurst, who warned that the event was “a couple of steps from real evil”.

  In America, freelance writer Anne Hiltner, who unsuccessfully attempted to sue Stephen King fourteen years earlier for stealing her manuscripts, brought a new $500 million lawsuit against
the author, this time claiming to be the inspiration for his character Annie Wilkes in Misery. Maybe Hiltner should have taken a closer look at King’s story “Secret Window, Secret Garden”?

  Meanwhile, King’s short novel The Colorado Kid appeared as part of Dorchester’s “Hard Case Crime” series of pulp books, and a new illustrated edition of ’Salem’s Lot included fifty pages of alternate and deleted scenes, two related short stories, a new Introduction and atmospheric photographs by Jerry N. Uelsmann.

  With an initial print run in the US of 600,000 copies, Dean Koontz’s Forever Odd was a follow up to the author’s 2003 book Odd Thomas, while Velocity was a new serial killer novel from the same author.

  Neil Gaiman’s short novel Anansi Boys was a semi-sequel to his earlier best-seller American Gods and concerned a young boy who discovered that his estranged father was an ancient Spider-God. The book debuted at #1 on both the New York Times and Publishers Weekly best-seller lists.

  The attractive UK hardcover, published under Headline’s Review imprint, was padded out with “exclusive material” that included a deleted scene and notebook extracts with new prefaces by the author, an interview with Gaiman, and often hilarious questions for reading group discussion. A beautifully designed signed and slipcased edition that also included all the extra material was available in the UK for a very reasonable £40.00.

  Gaiman’s earlier books – the novels American Gods, Stardust and Neverwhere, and the collection Smoke and Mirrors – were reissued by Review in handsomely re-designed paperback editions containing the author’s preferred text and exclusive extra material such as interviews, introductions, web links and more reading group questions.

  DreamHaven Books issued a new paperback edition of Now We Are Sick: An Anthology of Nasty Verse edited by Gaiman and Stephen Jones. Re-edited and re-designed, the book featured a cover by Gahan Wilson and interior artwork by Clive Barker and Andrew Smith.

  For Christmas, DreamHaven published Gaiman’s Hugo Award-winning Lovecraft/Holmes story “A Study in Emerald” as a facsimile broadsheet newspaper, illustrated by Jouni Koponen. A 200-copy edition signed by the author was also available.