Best New Horror 27 Read online

  Spectral’s The 2nd Spectral Book of Horror Stories edited with an Introduction by Mark Morris also suffered from poor distribution. It featured nineteen original stories by, amongst others, Paul Finch, Tim Lebbon, Lisa L. Hannett, Adrian Cole, Nicholas Royle, Ian Rogers, Simon Kurt Unsworth, Thana Niveau, Ray Cluley, Gary Fry, Stephen Volk and Robert Shearman.

  Centipede Press produced a beautifully slipcased set of all Karl Edward Wagner’s “Kane, the Mystic Swordsman” books: Bloodstone, Dark Crusade, Darkness Weaves, Death Angel’s Shadow and Night Winds were illustrated, respectively, by Patrick J. Jones, Tom Kidd, Boco, Les Edwards and Grant Griffin. The Night Winds volume additionally included artwork by Stephen E. Fabian and Jim Pitts.

  Limited to 320 signed copies, It Only Comes Out at Night & Other Stories collected more than forty reprint stories by Dennis Etchison, along with an Introduction by S.T. Joshi and story notes by the author. David Ho supplied the illustrations.

  James Herbert’s trilogy The Rats, Lair and Domain were reprinted in hardcover by Centipede, with artwork by Ho and Jason C. Eckhardt, and an Introduction by Stephen Jones. They were limited to 300 signed sets.

  Centipede also issued the first North American edition of David J. Schow’s 1990 novel The Shaft in a 300-copy signed edition, with a Foreword by F. Paul Wilson, an Afterword by the author, and art by David Ho.

  Published as part of Centipede’s ambitious “Masters of the Weird Tales” series edited by Joshi, David Case contained sixteen stories by the titular author, plus a surreal new novella. Ramsey Campbell supplied the Introduction, and there was also an interview with Case by Johnny Mains. The oversized slipcased edition was illustrated by Jason Zerrillo.

  The sixth issue of Centipede’s excellent Weird Fiction Review was a hefty trade paperback featuring, amongst other things, a terrific look at “Spook Show” posters with some great colour illustrations, an interview with veteran horror comics artist L.B. Cole (who died in 1995), S.T. Joshi comparing writers Irvin S. Cobb and Gouverneur Washington, a portfolio of art by Christopher Conn Askew, a look at the photography of William Mortensen, a discussion between Clive Barker and Peter Atkins, and an interview with T.E.D. Klein. There was also fiction and poetry by Richard Gavin, Jonathan Thomas, Michael Aronovitz, Ann K. Schwader, Darrell Schweitzer and many others, along with much more.

  Probably Monsters was a collection of twenty stories (three original) by Ray Cluley from ChiZine Publications, with Story Notes by the author.

  The same Canadian imprint also reissued Gemma Files’ collections Kissing Carrion and The Worm in Every Heart with new material included, and a former film critic thought he saw a long-missing socialite in a silent movie in Files’ novel Experimental Film.

  Edited by Michael Matheson, The Humanity of Monsters from ChiZine featured twenty-six stories by Gemma Files, Neil Gaiman, Joe R. Lansdale and others.

  From Egaeus Press, Soliloquy for Pan was an illustrated compendium of works “in praise, in fear, in awe of the great goat-god Pan”. The anthology featured new stories by, amongst others, Reggie Oliver, John Howard, R.B. Russell, Lynda E. Rucker, D.P. Watt and Mark Valentine, along with archive material from Dion Fortune, Robert Louis Stevenson, Henry Wood Nevinson, A.C. Benson, Lord Dunsany, Robert Frost, Ivar Campbell and Harry Fitzgerald. Limited to only 300 copies, the book sold out in just two weeks and quickly went into a second edition with a different cover image and endpapers.

  Canada’s Undertow Publications published Skein and Bone, a collection of fourteen stories (three original) by V.H. Leslie, along with one of the finest anthologies of the year, Aickman’s Heirs, which was nominally a tribute to the subtle “strange stories” written by the late Robert Aickman (1914-81). In fact, editor Simon Strantzas skilfully compiled a volume of fifteen often remarkable stories showcasing some of the very best talent working in the horror field today, including work by Brian Evenson, Richard Gavin, John Howard, Lynda E. Rucker, John Langan, Helen Marshall, Daniel Mills, Nina Allan, Lisa Tuttle and others.

  Presumably the culmination of Tartarus Press’ ambitious reprint programme of books by Robert Aickman (eight collections of stories and two volumes of autobiography), The Strangers and Other Writings was an impressive compendium of the author’s previously unpublished and uncollected short fiction, nonfiction and poetry, with a Preface by Aickman’s friend and literary executor Heather Smith.

  One of the most important books of the year, it was accompanied by Robert Aickman: Author of Strange Tales, an excellent DVD documentary about the author by R.B. Russell and Rosalie Parker. It featured, amongst others, Jeremy Dyson and Reggie Oliver, and was a perfect primer for anyone interested in Aickman’s complex life and work.

  Orpheus on the Underground and Other Stories from the same imprint was a collection of sixteen typically odd tales (one reprint) by Rhys Hughes, illustrated by Chris Harrendence.

  Michael Reynier’s Horthólary: Tales from Montagascony was limited to 300 copies and included four further stories about investigator extraordinary Professor Summanus Horthólary, while Haunted by Books was a collection of literary-inspired essays by Mark Valentine.

  Also from Tartarus and limited to 300 copies, The Children of the Pool was a welcome reprint of the 1936 collection by Arthur Machen which featured a new Introduction by Mark Valentine.

  As usual edited by Rosalie Parker, the Tartarus anthology Strange Tales V collected seventeen new stories by Steve Rasnic Tem, Andrew Hook, John Howard, Mark Valentine, Tom Johnstone and others.

  Inspired by the work of Arthur Machen, authors John Howard, Mark Valentine and Ron Weighell contributed three excellent novellas and Afterwords to Romances of the White Day from Sarob Press. From the same imprint, In the City of Ghosts collected thirteen haunting tales (two original) by Michael Chislett, and Friends of the Dead contained ten stories (two previously unpublished) and an Introduction by James Doig.

  From Three Hands Press, Penumbrae: An Occult Fiction Anthology edited by Richard Gavin, Patricia Cram and Daniel A. Schulke was an attractive hardcover containing thirteen stories (four reprints) in the “emerging literary form” by, amongst others, Hanns Heinz Ewers, Michael Cisco, Brian Evenson, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Don Webb and all three editors.

  From Dark Renaissance Books, The Sea of Blood collected together twenty-three stories from Reggie Oliver’s six collections, along with three original tales. There was also a signed, deluxe edition available ($125.00).

  Tanith Lee’s A Different City was a new collection of stories from Immanion Press, while the same author’s Dancing Through the Fire: A Collection of Stories in Five Moves appeared from Fantastic Books.

  Tachyon Publications celebrated its 20th Anniversary with The Monstrous edited by Ellen Datlow. Featuring twenty tales (one original) of “the Other gone wrong”, contributors included Peter Straub, Dale Bailey, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Gemma Files, Kim Newman, Brian Hodge, Terry Dowling, Glen Hirshberg, Steve Rasnic Tem and John Langan, amongst others. John Coulthart supplied the interesting interior art.

  Death’s Sweet Echo was a collection of thirteen ghost stories and strange tales (three reprints) by (Len) Maynard and (Mick) Sims. Published in various formats by the Tickety Boo Press imprint Scarier 51, the signed hardcover was limited to just 150 copies.

  The third volume in a series of novellas from Wordcraft, The Girl on the Swing and At Night in Crumbling Voices by Peter Grandbois, featured two stories loosely inspired by the 1950s monster movies The Quatermass Experiment and The Mole People.

  Gods, Memes and Monsters: A 21st Century Bestiary, edited with an Introduction by Heather J. Wood for Stone Skin Press, collected short-short essays/stories by more than sixty authors, including Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Sandra Kasturi, Helen Marshall, Nancy Kilpatrick and Nick Mamatas, amongst others, illustrated by Rachel Kahn.

  From Resurrection House/Underland Press, Will Elliott’s novel The Pilo Traveling Show was a belated sequel to The Pilo Family Circus (2006), while a student discovered a big hole under the football stadium in Da
le Bailey’s The Subterranean Season. Resurrection’s Arche Press imprint produced The End of the End of Everything, which collected nine stories by Bailey.

  Published by Word Horde, Cthulhu Fhtagn! Weird Tales Inspired by H.P. Lovecraft was the third Mythos-related anthology edited by Ross E. Lockhart. It featured nineteen original stories by Ann K. Schwader, W.H. Pugmire, Nathan Carson, Anya Martin, Cody Goodfellow and others.

  Edited by Scott Harrison for Snowbooks, Whispers in the Dark: A Collection of Cthulhu Novellas collected three original novellas set between the 1940s and the present day by Thana Niveau, Johnny Mains and Alison Littlewood.

  Goat Mother and Others from Chaosium collected all nineteen Mythos stories by Pierre V. Comtois, along with an essay and an Introduction by Robert M. Price.

  Edited by James Lowder for the same imprint, Madness on the Orient Express contained sixteen Lovecraftian stories set on the famous locomotive. Contributors included Christopher Golden and Darrell Schweitzer.

  Atomic-Age Cthulhu edited by Owen Glynn Barrass and Brian M. Sammons contained nineteen original Lovecraftian stories set in the 1950s by Cody Goodfellow, Robert M. Price and others.

  Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. edited and introduced Cassilda’s Song: Tales Inspired by Robert W. Chambers’ King in Yellow Mythos for Chaosium. The all-women anthology featured eighteen original stories by Nicole Cushing, Lynda E. Rucker, Helen Marshall, Allyson Bird, Lucy A. Snyder, Anya Martin, Maura McHugh and others.

  From Dark Regions Press, Dreams from the Witch House: Female Voices of Lovecraftian Horror was edited and introduced by Lynne Jamneck and featured twenty stories (three reprints) by Joyce Carol Oates, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Gemma Files, Lois H. Gresh, Nancy Kilpatrick, Storm Constantine and others.

  Produced with money raised from a crowdfunding project, She Walks in Shadows from Canada’s Innsmouth Free Press contained twenty-five Lovecraftian stories plus impressive artwork by women writers and artists. Co-edited with an Introduction by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Paula R. Stiles, contributors included Ann K. Schwader, Angela Slatter, Gemma Files, Mary A. Turzillo, Wendy N. Wagner and others.

  Boasting an Introduction by Ramsey Campbell and published by Horror Australis, the partially crowdfunded Cthulhu: Deep Down Under edited by Steve Proposch, Christopher Sequeira and Bryce Stevens was a handsomely-produced hardcover anthology containing twenty-four Lovecraftian pastiches (six reprints) by such Australian writers as Aaron Sterns, Lucy Sussex, Janeen Webb, Stephen Dedman, Bill Congreve and Robert Hood. Each story in the book was illustrated in full colour by a different artist.

  Also produced with the aid of a crowdfunding campaign and published in trade paperback by Canada’s Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing, nEvermore! Tales of Murder, Mystery & the Macabre, co-edited with an Introduction by Nancy Kilpatrick and Caro Soles, featured twenty-two neo-Gothic stories inspired by the works of Edgar Allan Poe. Although his influence was not always apparent, the anthology wisely stayed away (for the most part) from fiction that was a slavish imitation or sequel to Poe’s own tales. The impressive line-up of contributors included, amongst others, Margaret Atwood, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Lisa Morton, Thomas S. Roche, Nancy Holder, Richard Christian Matheson, Loren Rhodes, Kelley Armstrong, Tanith Lee and David Morrell, while Uwe Sommerlad contributed a “rather scholarly” essay on Poe.

  Kilpatrick also edited and introduced Expiration Date: When Your Time is Up… for the same publisher. The anthology contained twenty-five original stories about death from Kelley Armstrong, Steve Rasnic Tem and Melanie Tem, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Paul Kane, Sephera Giron, Kathryn Ptacek, Nancy Holder, Erin Underwood and others.

  Nicholas Royle’s Nightjar Press published four chapbooks of literary unease: The Harvestman by Alison Moore, The Home by Tom Fletcher, The Woman Who Lived in a Restaurant by Leone Ross and Last Christmas by John D. Rutter, each limited to 200 signed copies.

  These Last Embers by Simon Strantzas was the first volume in Undertow Publications’ attractive chapbook series. It was published in an edition of 200 copies, signed by the author and cover artist Drazen Kozjan.

  Lisa L. Hannett’s story Smoke Billows, Soot Falls was published in a chapbook edition of just 125 signed and numbered copies by Spectral Press.

  Charles Coleman Finlay took over the editorship of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction with the March-April issue from Gordon Van Gelder, who remained as publisher. The digest magazine, founded back in 1949, produced its usual six bi-monthly editions featuring fiction by, amongst others, Dale Bailey, Albert E. Cowdrey, David Gerrold, Rachel Pollack, James Patrick Kelly, Ron Goulart, Paolo Bacigalupi, Dennis Etchison, Elizabeth Bear, Tim Sullivan and Jeffrrey Ford, along with all the usual review and opinion columns by such contributors as Charles De Lint, David J. Skal, Elizabeth Hand, David Langford and Douglas A. Anderson.

  Andy Cox’s bi-monthly Black Static continued to put out six solid issues a year with fiction by Steve Rasnic Tem, Cate Gardner, Gary McMahon, James Van Pelt, John Connolly, Jeffrey Thomas, Stephen Bacon, Andrew Hook, Thana Niveau, Erinn L. Kemper, Simon Bestwick and others. Each edition also featured the regular opinion and review columns by Stephen Volk, Lynda E. Rucker, Tony Lee and Peter Tennant, the latter interviewing Tim Waggoner, Helen Marhsall, Ralph Robert Moore, Ray Cluley, Simon Kurt Unsworth and Nicole Cushing.

  Black Static‘s companion SF/fantasy title, Interzone, also produced six issues, which featured yet another interview with Helen Marshall, along with a guest editorial by Christopher Fowler.

  The two issues of Cemetery Dance included reprint fiction by Stephen King and Norman Partridge; new stories from Gerard Houarner and Keith Minnion; a round-robin interview with Rick Hautala, Ronald Kelly and C. Dean Anderson talking about being published by Zebra Books during the 1980s, and another with Peter Straub, Ramsey Campbell and Robert Weinberg discussing the rise of modern horror fiction in the 1970s. There were also opinion and review columns by Thomas F. Monteleone, Michael Marano, Ellen Datlow, Ed Gorman, Robert Parrish and Mark Sieber, along with numerous Stephen King reviews by Bev Vincent.

  The two issues of Hildy Silverman’s Space and Time: The Magazine of Fantasy, Horror, and Science Fiction contained the usual selection of fiction and poetry, along with interviews with Nancy Kress and Robert J. Sawyer, and some fine artwork from Steven C. Gilberts, Douglas Drapper and Martin Hanford.

  Three years after its previous edition appeared, Allen K’s Inhuman Magazine was back with a sixth issue, published by Centipede Press. The bumper, 200-plus page edition of Allen Koszowski’s fiction magazine contained new stories by J.F. Gonzalez, Justin Gustainis, Tim Curran, David A. Sutton, C.J. Henderson, Weston Ochse, Gene O’Neill, Randall D. Larson, Don D’Ammassa and others, reprints from Jason Van Hollander, Chad Hensley and W.H. Pugmire, Gahan Wilson, Darrell Schweitzer and Michael Bishop, plus plenty of examples of the editor’s own artwork and a portfolio of illustrations inspired by The Thing.

  The seventh issue of Adam Golaski’s paperback magazine New Genre contained five stories plus an essay by the editor.

  The glossy Canadian magazine Rue Morgue featured interviews with, amongst others, Bert I. Gordon, John Carpenter, Clive Barker, Brian Yuzna, Richard Stanley, Jorg Buttgereit, Joe Dante, Dick Miller, Reggie Oliver, Nancy Kilpatrick, Roger Corman, Guillermo del Toro, Thomas Ligotti, and the late Robert Quarry. The Halloween issue looked at the history of the Ouija board, while the November edition celebrated H.P. Lovecraft’s 125th birthday with a discussion about the Old Gentleman of Providence’s enduring influence, conducted by Dejan Ognjanović and featuring commentary by Brian Hodge, Stephen Jones, S.T. Joshi, Thomas Ligotti, Simon Strantzas, Charles Stross and Jason A. Weinstock.

  The newsstand edition of Famous Monsters of Filmland #281 featured a cover painting by Bob Eggleton that pitted Godzilla against Cthulhu. It was to accompany an article by Kelly Dunn that included commentary from Nancy Holder and others.

  The June issue of Classic Images included a profile of Famous Monsters founder Forrest J Ackerma
n by Deborah Painter, and writer Ed Gorman recalled his cousin, Hollywood child actor Bobby Driscoll.

  Having only published two editions in 2014, Video WatcHDog was back after a long hiatus with three further issues that looked at, amongst other things, Dr. Strangelove, The Shining (1980), and various Vincent Price boxed sets.

  For those who liked their movies a little more esoteric, there was Timothy Paxton and Steve Fenton’s monthly Monster! magazine. Amongst the often cluttered contents were fascinating features on Hammer’s Frankenstein and Dracula series; films based on Richard Matheson’s I am Legend; the Dinosaurs Attack! and Mars Attacks! bubble gum cards; an in-depth look at the two versions of Equinox (1967 and 1970), the latter featuring author Fritz Leiber Jr.; Blaxploitation; the Puppet Master franchise, and much more, along with reviews of obscure genre movies from all over the world.

  The May 15 edition of Entertainment Weekly contained an exclusive excerpt from Stephen King’s Finders Keepers, nicely illustrated by Jae Lee and June Chung, while the December 31 issue included a brief excerpt from Justin Cronin’s vampire novel The City of Mirrors.

  Stephen King also asked a possibly rhetorical question in the August 27 issue of The New York Times with an article entitled ‘Can a Novelist Be Too Productive?’.

  For Halloween, The New Yorker published ‘The Scariest Story Ever Told’ by writer and voice actor Colin Nissan. Unfortunately, it wasn’t.

  The monthly issues of Locus included interviews with Lauren Beukes, Robert Jackson Bennett, Garth Nix, Joanne Harris and Elizabeth Hand, along with “Spotlight” columns on Black Coat Press publishers Randy and Jean-Marc Lofficier, Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy publisher Brian Hades, and literary agent Fleetwood Robbins.