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

The debut volume from Britain’s Wandering Star imprint was a superbly designed and produced collection, The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane by Robert E. Howard. Profusely illustrated in colour and black and white by Gary Gianni, the slipcased hardcover was published in a signed edition of 1,050 copies, 100 publisher’s copies, and 50 copies bound in goatskin. The book was accompanied by a CD recording of three Solomon Kane poems read by Paul Blake and a portfolio of Gianni’s full-page plates. Bowen Designs Inc. also offered a cold-cast bronze sculpture based on Howard’s sword-wielding puritan, designed by Gianni and sculpted by Randy Bowen.

Gauntlet Press issued a 40th anniversary edition of Ray Bradbury’s classic collection The October Country with the original illustrations and unpublished sketches by Joe Mugnaini, an introduction by Dennis Etchison, an afterword by Robert R. McCammon, and a previously unpublished preface by Bradbury, originally written for the 1955 printing. It was limited to a 500-copy slipcased edition, signed by all the writers.

Also from Gauntlet, Richard Matheson’s 1978 novel What Dreams May Come included a new introduction by the author, an introduction by Matthew R. Bradley, and an afterword by Douglas E. Winter. It was published in a 500-copy signed and slipcased edition, while a deluxe edition contained an additional afterword by Richard Christian Matheson.

The younger Matheson also contributed an afterword to Gauntlet publisher Barry Hoffman’s second novel, Eyes of Prey, a self-published sequel to his dark crime novel Hungry Eyes, in which that book’s female protagonist tracked down a woman with her own murderous agenda.

The cleverly titled Are You Loathsome Tonight? was a new collection of twelve short stories by Poppy Z. Brite, published by Gauntlet. It included an odd introduction by Peter Straub, an afterword by Caitlin R. Kiernan, and several distinctive photo-illustrations by J. K. Potter (including some bizarre portraits of the author). The 2,000-copy limited edition was signed by all the writers.

Cemetery Dance Publications had another busy year with the launch of a new series of hardcover novellas featuring full-colour dustjackets, interior illustrations, full-cloth binding and acid-free paper. Each book was signed by the author in an edition of 450 numbered copies and twenty-six lettered copies (bound in leather and traycased). The first six titles were The Wild by Richard Laymon, Spree by Lucy Taylor, 411 by Ray Garton, Untitled by Jack Ketchum, An Untitled Halloween Classic by William F. Nolan and Lynch by Nancy A. Collins.

Also from CD came Laymon’s The Midnight Tour and a reprint of his 1986 novel, The Beast House, both sequels to The Cellar and the third and second volumes respectively in the “Beast House Chronicles”. Both volumes featured a new introduction and the author’s preferred text, and were available in 400-copy signed and numbered editions and $175 deluxe lettered editions.

The Best of Cemetery Dance edited by Richard Chizmar was a massive retrospective volume, available in both trade and limited hardcover editions, containing sixty stories by such well-known names as Stephen King (with the terrible “Chattery Teeth”), Richard Laymon, Ramsey Campbell, Jack Ketchum, Poppy Z. Brite, Thomas Tessier, Hugh B. Cave, Richard Christian Matheson, Joe R. Lansdale, Nancy Collins, Peter Crowther, Norman Partridge and many others, along with interviews with Dean Koontz and the editor.

With an introduction by Tim Powers, writers such as Poppy Z. Brite, Ramsey Campbell, Douglas Clegg, Peter Crowther, Robert Devereaux, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Nancy Holder, Jack Ketchum, Ed Lee, Elizabeth Massie, Thomas F. Monteleone, Yvonne Navarro, Norman Partridge, Lucy Taylor, Steve Rasnic Tem and Melanie Tem, and F. Paul Wilson were among those who contributed twenty-eight stories (two reprints) based around the tipped-in artwork of Alan M. Clark for Imagination Fully Dilated, co-edited by Clark and Elizabeth Engstrom. Cemetery Dance published a limited edition hardcover, signed by all the contributors, for $75. A deluxe leatherbound and slipcased edition with extra art was also available for $195.

Clark and Engstrom also teamed up for The Alchemy of Love, a collection of eight stories and pieces of art with an introduction by Jack Ketchum, which was released in a signed 500-copy hardcover edition by Oregon’s Triple Tree Publishing.

Like Cemetery Dance Publications, Subterranean Press also launched its own series of short novels in hardcover format with Norman Partridge’s Wildest Dreams. Plainly labelled “A Horror Novel” on the cover, it was a hard-boiled mystery in which psychic hit-man Clay Saunders was hired by tattooed villainess Circe Whistler to kill her father so she could gain control of his infamous Satanic cult in San Francisco. It was followed by Joe R. Lansdale’s The Boar, which was written fifteen years ago (as Git Back, Satan) and had remained previously unpublished. The young adult adventure involved a fifteen-year-old boy’s hunt for a monstrous boar, called Old Satan, in the Texas of the Great Depression. The books were available in, respectively, 500-copy and 750-copy signed and numbered editions and twenty-six lettered copies.

Originally announced as Look Out, He’s Got a Knife! a few years ago, David J. Schow’s collection Crypt Orchids finally appeared as a signed and numbered 500-copy hardcover from Subterranean. With an introduction by Robert Bloch (written in 1992), it was only fitting that several of the eleven stories (three original) and one stage play were inspired by the late author of Psycho. It was also available in a lettered edition.

From Dark Highway Press, Robert Devereaux’s sexually explicit Santa Steps Out: A Fairy Tale for Grown-ups came with forewords by editors David Hartwell and Pat LoBrutto and illustrations by the ubiquitous Alan M. Clark.

Published by Mark V. Ziesing, Black Butterflies: A Flock on the Dark Side was a collection of seventeen horror stories (two original) by John Shirley, with a foreword by Paula Guran and illustrations by John Bergin.

Faces Under Water was the first volume in Tanith Lee’s new dark fantasy series “The Secret Book of Venus”, about a league of murderers in an alternate 18th century Venice, from the Overlook Connection Press. The same publisher issued a trade hardcover of Jack Ketchum’s (Dallas Myr) 1986 novel The Girl Next Door, which retained the 1996 limited edition’s introduction by Stephen King.

Obsidian Books published The Exit at Toledo Blade Boulevard, the first collection from Ketchum, containing twelve stories (six original), along with a memoir about the author’s meeting in the 1980s with Henry Miller and an introduction by Richard Laymon. It was available in a signed and limited edition of 500 copies and 52-copy lettered and leatherbound edition in a matching traycase. Ketchum also contributed the introduction to the novel Shifters by Edward Lee and John Pelan, published by Obsidian in a signed and numbered edition of 375 copies.

Splatter spunk: The Micah Hayes Stories was a collection of five hardcore horror stories by Lee and Pelan, available in a limited trade paperback edition of 550 copies and a lettered hardcover from Sideshow Press.

From Florida’s Necro Publications, Portrait of the Psychopath as a Young Woman by Edward Lee and Elizabeth Steffen concerned an emotionally disturbed advice columnist who attracted the attention of a crazed serial killer. It was available in a signed and limited trade paperback edition of 500 copies, a 150-copy signed hardcover and a deluxe lettered slipcased edition for $150. Also from Necro, Charlee Jacob’s vampire novel This Symbiotic Fascination was available in a 100-copy hardcover edition and a 300-copy trade paperback, both of which were signed and numbered.