Stephen Jones - The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. Volume 23

Datlow’s Blood and Other Cravings was about different kinds of vampirism and featured seventeen (two reprint) mostly horror-lite stories by Reggie Oliver, Steve Duffy, Melanie Tem, Lisa Tuttle, Barbara Roden, Kathe Koja, Steve Rasnic Tem, Carol Emshwiller and Margo Lanagan.

Co-edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, Teeth contained seventeen YA vampire stories by Garth Nix, Kathe Koja, Lucius Shepard and others, along with a poem and the lyrics to a song.

Edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, Down These Mean Streets: All-New Stories of Urban Fantasy collected sixteen tales by Charlaine Harris (whose name was bigger than everybody else’s on the cover), Joe R. Lansdale, Simon R. Green, S. M. Sterling, Carrie Vaughn and others.

Ghosts by Gaslight: Stories of Steampunk and Supernatural Suspense edited by Jack Dann and Nick Gevers brought together seventeen original stories by Lucius Shepard, Robert Silverberg, Garth Nix, Gene Wolfe, Margo Lanagan, Peter S. Beagle, James Morrow, Terry Dowling and others. Unfortunately, most were more steampunk than supernatural.

One of the first titles to be published by the new Jo Fletcher Books imprint from Quercus was A Book of Horrors , edited by Stephen Jones. The original anthology contained fourteen alternating novellas and short stories by Stephen King, Peter Crowther, Angela Slatter, Dennis Etchison, John Adjvide Lindqvist, Ramsey Campbell, Michael Marshall Smith, Elizabeth Hand and others.

To mark the launch of the imprint, JFB also produced a paperback sampler that included contributions from, amongst others, Tom Fletcher, Charlaine Harris and Christopher Golden, Alison Littlewood, Sarah Pinborough, Tom Pollock and Michael Marshall Smith, as well as a useful ring-bound notebook.

Edited by Jonathan Oliver, House of Fear: Nineteen New Stories of Haunted Houses and Spectral Encounters included original fiction by Lisa Tuttle, Terry Lamsley, Robert Shearman, Christopher Fowler, Nicholas Royle, Tim Lebbon, Joe R. Lansdale and others, along with more irritating story introductions by the editor.

There were more ghosts to be found in Haunts: Reliquaries of the Dead edited by Stephen Jones. However, these revenants haunted specific items, locations and people in twenty-four stories (ten original) and a poem by such authors as Ramsey Campbell, Neil Gaiman, M. R. James, Tanith Lee, Richard Matheson, Robert Silverberg and Michael Marshall Smith.

From Virago, Something Was There. Asham Award-Winning Ghost Stories edited by Kate Pullinger featured sixteen stories, including the winner of the 2011 writing award for women and a recently discovered new tale by Daphne du Maurier.

With Vampires, Zombies, Werewolves, and Ghosts: 25 Classic Stories of the Supernatural , editors Barbara H. Solomon and Eileen Panetta covered all their bases with stories by Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, Ramsey Campbell, H. P. Lovecraft and, er. Woody Allen.

Edited by John Skipp, Demons: Encounters with the Devil and His Minions, Fallen Angels, and the Possessed was another catchall anthology of thirty-five stories, two novel excerpts and two essays by Neil Gaiman, Kim Harrison, W. W. Jacobs and others.

The Monster’s Corner edited by Christopher Golden contained nineteen stories (one reprint) told from the monster’s point-of-view by Kelley Armstrong, Michael Marshall Smith, Kevin J. Anderson, Simon R. Green, Sarah Pinborough and others.

In the Shadow of Dracula from IDW Publishing contained twenty-one classic vampire stories from 1816–1914, edited with story introductions by Leslie S. Klinger.

From Skyhorse Publishing, Vintage Vampire Stories edited by Robert Eighteen-Bisang and Richard Dalby included thirteen rare vampire stories, along with two novel excerpts, notes for an early draft of Bram Stoker’s Dracula , and a historical essay.

Mike Ashley edited and introduced Vampires: Classic Tales that included twelve stories, mostly written before Stoker’s novel, but also featuring contributions by Brian Stableford, Nancy Holder and Tanith Lee.

A new edition of The Mammoth Book of Dracula edited by Stephen Jones added a reprint “Sookie Stackhouse” story by Charlaine Harris.

Harris and Toni L. P. Kellner edited Home Improvement: Undead Edition , which contained fourteen stories about horrific house renovations, including a new “Sookie Stackhouse” tale about an old murder and a ghost.

Zombies! Zombies! Zombies! edited with an Introduction by Otto Penzler was a huge anthology about (mostly). zombies. It contained fifty-seven stories by Stephen King, Ramsey Campbell, Robert R. McCammon, Theodore Sturgeon, Henry Kuttner, Manly Wade Wellman, H. P. Lovecraft and others.

Zombiesque , edited with Stephen L. Antczak, James C. Bassett and Martin H. Greenberg, featured sixteen original stories told from the walking dead’s point of view by Nancy Collins, Tim Waggoner, Gregory Nicoll, Nancy Holder, Wendy Webb and others.

Ellen Datlow’s The Best Horror of the Year: Volume Three featured twenty-one stories, Stephen Jones’ The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 22 contained twenty-three, and Paula Guran’s The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror: 2011 Edition collected thirty-one.

The Datlow and Jones volumes overlapped with six stories (by John Langan, Brian Hodge, Norman Partridge, Karina Sumner-Smith, Mark Morris and Christopher Fowler) and one author (Joe R. Lansdale). The Jones and Guran books each contained the same stories by Caitlín R. Kiernan and Partridge, and different stories by Lansdale and Angela Slatter, while the Datlow and Guran anthologies shared just the Partridge story and authors Laird Barron, Stephen Graham Jones and Tanith Lee.

“Lesser Demons” by Norman Partridge was the only story to appear in all three “Year’s Best” horror volumes.

From new print-on-demand imprint Dark Continents Publishing, Quiet Houses was a portmanteau collection of seven haunted house stories by Simon Kurt Unsworth, loosely linked together by paranormal researcher Richard Nakata. The author also helpfully supplied a guide to his inspirations for the buildings concerned.

Paul Kane’s novel Pain Cages from Books of the Dead Press came with an Introduction by Stephen Volk.

We Live Inside You from Swallowdown Press collected nineteen stories by Jeremy Robert Johnson and featured glowing cover quotes from Jack Ketchum, John Skipp, Cody Goodfellow and Chuck Palahniuk.

From Mythos Books, Dreams collected fourteen stories (four original) by Richard A. Lupoff with notes on each by the author.

Florida’s Distillations Press issued These Strange Worlds: Fourteen Dark Tales by Daniel Powell, seven of which were original to the collection, while Eyeballs Growing All Over Me. Again contained twenty-three short short stories by Tony Rauch, available as a trade paperback from Eraserhead Press.

Weird Horror Tales from Cornerstone Books/Airship 27 Productions was a collection of seventeen Lovecraftian horror stories and three poems by Michael Vance, based around the small town of Lights End, Maine. Earl Geier supplied the illustrations.

From Miskatonic River Press, Scott David Aniolowski “selected and edited” the Lovecraftian-themed anthology Horror for the Holidays . Featuring twenty-five stories (three reprints) and a poem based around different holidays during the year, contributors included H. P. Lovecraft, Ramsey Campbell, Thomas Ligotti, Will Marray, Donald R. Burleson, Robert M. Price, W. H. Pugmire, Don Webb, William Meikle and Cody Goodfellow.

Edited by S. T. Joshi for the same PoD imprint, Dissecting Cthulhu: Essays on the Cthulhu Mythos contained twenty-one articles by such well-known Lovecraftians as Richard L. Tierney, Dirk W. Mosig, David E. Schultz, Simon MacCulloch, Robert M. Price, Will Murray and Stefan Dziemianowicz, amongst others.