Christopher Fowler: The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. Volume 10

A female werewolf attempted to control her own destiny in ancient Rome in Alice Borchardt’s historical dark fantasy The Silver Wolf. Borchardt is the sister of Anne Rice, who of course blurbed her sibling’s book.

Shadow of the Beast was a first novel by Margaret L. Carter, about a werewolf roaming the dark streets of a town in Maryland, while Julie Anne Parks’ Storytellers involved a bestselling horror author menaced by a legendary Native American evil. Both books were published by Designlmage Group.

Michael Marano’s ambitious debut novel Dawn Song followed the lives of a gay man in 1990s Boston and a body-hopping succubus from Hell intent on stealing twenty male souls. The city was soon caught up in a supernatural struggle between two of Hell’s demonic rulers against the backdrop of the Gulf War.

Respected short story author Caillm R. Kiernan made her novel debut with the paperback original Silk, about an emotionally disturbed woman named Spyder who invited the members of a struggling rock band into her world of blood rituals and vengeful spirits.

Published in the Do-Not Press’ FrontLines series, Head Injuries by Conrad Williams was about a group of old friends reunited at a British seaside town during the off-season who were forced to confront the ghosts of their past.

A man suffering from a strange neurological disease repaired a sinister house and investigated the chain of deaths surrounding the property in Daniel Hecht’s first novel Skull Session. Elizabeth Cody Kimmel’s debut novel In the Stone Circle was a young adult ghost story set in a haunted house in Wales, while King Rat by China Mieville was described as “urban Gothic” and set in London.

Valley of the Shadow by the brother-and-sister team of Earl Hardy and Naoma Hardy appeared from California’s ReGeJe Press, a modern woman searching for her lost son encountered ancient mythology in Raven Stole the Moon by Garth Stein, and a woman in a failing marriage was possessed by the soul of an exotic dancer in David L. Robbins’ Souls to Keep.

Christa Faust’s first book, Control Freak, was about a female writer researching a true-crime volume based on a grisly sex murder, who became involved in New York’s sadomasochism club scene and developed into a natural dominant. Nalo Hopkinson’s Brown Girl in the Ring won the Warner Aspect First Novel Contest and was set in a 21st century Toronto where Creole magic worked.

Ulysses G. Dietz made his debut with the gay vampire novel Desmond, and Jay Kasker’s Out of the Light involved more romantic vampires.

Movie tie-ins included Blade by Mel Odom, Dark City by Frank Lauria, Fallen by Dewey Gram, Disturbing Behavior by John Whitman, Species II by Yvonne Navarro, and Godzilla by Stephen Molstad.

Scott Ciencin continued his series of Godzilla novels aimed at both the adult and teenage markets with Godzilla vs. the Space Monster, Godzilla at World’s End, and Godzilla vs. the Robot Monster. Gargantua was a novelization of the inferior TV monster movie by Robert K. Andreassi (Keith R. A. DeCandido).

A sequel to the 1941 movie starring Lon Chaney, Jr., Return of the Wolf Man by Jeff Rovin was the first and apparently only volume in a series based on Universal Studios’ classic monster characters.

The X-Files: Fight the Future was the original title of the film by Chris Carter, “adapted” by Elizabeth Hand, and Ellen Steiber continued the series of young adult X-Files novelizations with Hungry Ghosts.

Replacing The X-Files as the hottest TV tie-in property was Buffy the Vampire Slayer with the novels Night of the Living Rerun by Arthur Byron Cover, Return to Chaos by Craig Shaw Gardner, and Blooded and Child of the Hunt, both by Christopher Golden and Nancy Holder. Holder was also responsible for the first book in the spin-off series, The Angel Chronicles, a young adult collection of three stories. Richie Tankersley wrote the second volume.

Once again proving that old vampires never die, Forever Knight: These Our Revels by Anne Hathaway-Nayne was based on the cancelled Canadian series, and actress Lara Parker revived her witch character Angelique from the old TV show Dark Shadows for the origin novel Angelique’s Descent, described as “a tale of erotic love and dark obsessions”.

Based on the graphic book and movie series created by James O’Barr, The Crow: Quoth the Crow by David Bischoff was about a dark fantasy writer forced to confront the evils he created to ultimately save his wife. Poppy Z. Brite’s The Lazarus Heart had less to do with the series and was an original novel about a resurrected New Orleans photographer, framed for the murder of his lover, and the bizarre cast of characters he encountered. Clash by Night by Chet Williamson was another Crow novel and involved the destruction of a day-care centre by an extreme militia group and the ghost of a woman seeking revenge.

Ray Garton found himself reduced to writing the Sabrina, the Teenage Witch TV novelization All That Glitters under his own name, and the busy Nancy Holder also added to the series with Spying Eyes.

From California’s Lucard Publishing, Dracul: An Eternal Love Story by Nancy Kilpatrick was a vampire novel based on a stage musical and came with an optional CD cast recording of the original San Diego performance.

Probably the two most unlikely crossovers of the year were Star Trek the Next Generation/X-Men: Planet X by Jan Michael Friedman, and the graphic novel Tarzan versus Predator: At the Earth’s Core by Walter Simonson and Lee Weeks, in which Edgar Rice Burroughs’ ape man and the alien hunter from the movies battled it out in Pellucidar.

White Wolf’s The World of Darkness series, based on the role-playing games, continued with To Speak in Lifeless Tongues and To Dream of Dreamers Lost by David Niall Wilson, the second and third volumes respectively in “The Grails Covenant” trilogy, and The War in Heaven by Robert Weinberg, the third and final volume in the “Horizon War” trilogy. The Winnowing and Dark Prophecy by Gherbod Fleming were the final two volumes in the vampiric “Trilogy of the Blood Curse”, Dark Kingdoms by Richard Lee Byers was an omnibus of three novels (two previously unpublished), and The Quintessential World of Darkness edited by Stewart Wieck and Anna Branscome contained three novels (one previously unpublished) by William Bridges, Rick Hautala and Edo van Belkom, along with two original stories by Kevin Andrew Murphy and Jody Lynn Nye.

Ravenloft: Shadowborn by William W. Connors and Carrie A. Bebris, and Ravenloft: I, Strahd: The War Against Azalin by P. N. Elrod were both based on the TSR role-playing vampire game.

Gabriel Knight: The Beast Within by Jane Jensen was the second novel based on the Gothic CD-ROM game, written by the game’s creator.

Jonathan Carroll’s Kissing the Beehive involved a bestselling paperback thriller writer who investigated a decades-old murder of a teenage beauty in his home town and encountered his most devoted fan, who called herself Veronica Lake.

Second Coming Attractions , the third novel from David Prill, was a funny and offbeat look at the Christian cinema industry which forced both the characters and reader to question their faith. With a nod to M. R. James and other authors of the supernatural, Andrew Klavan’s The Uncanny involved a Hollywood producer who travelled to Britain to discover a real ghost story.