Stephen Jones - The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. Volume 13

Manchester’s Savoy Books reprinted Anthony Skene’s (aka George Norman Philips, 1886–1972) incredibly rare 1936 pulp detective novel Monsieur Zenith the Albino as an attractive hardcover with an introduction by Jack Adrian, a foreword by Michael Moorcock, and numerous black and white illustrations and cover reproductions throughout.

From the same publisher, David Britton’s Baptized in the Blood of Millions was the third ‘Lord Horror’ novel with illustrations by the author, set in a bizarre alternate England spanning World War II and featuring the traitorous Lord Haw-Haw, British film star Jessie Matthews and poet Sylvia Plath as characters.

From editor David Sutton’s Shadow Publishing imprint, Phantoms of Venice was a solid anthology often tales (two reprints) by Peter Tremayne, Cherry Wilder, Conrad Williams, Mike Chinn, Tim Lebbon, Brian Stableford and others, including one by the editor himself, set in the ‘Serene Republic’ of dark canals. The hardcover also included an informative foreword by Joel Lane and dust-jacket art by Harry O. Morris.

Produced in conjunction with The British Fantasy Society, Telos Publishing was launched with Urban Gothic: Lacuna and Other Trips edited by David J. Howe, a trade paperback and hardcover anthology based on the disappointing Channel 5 TV series. Along with a very brief introduction by actor Richard O’Brien and interviews with the creators of the show, it included three original tales about London (the first two of them reprints) by Christopher Fowler, Graham Masterton and Simon Clark and a trio of stories by Paul Finch, Steve Lockley and Paul Lewis, and Debbie Bennett based on previously produced scripts by Tom de Ville.

Telos also began publishing a series of original hardcover Doctor Who novellas. The first, Time and Relative by Kim Newman, appeared as a standard hardcover and in a deluxe signed edition featuring a colour frontispiece illustration by Bryan Talbot.

Published in trade paperback by Brooklyn’s Small Beer Press, Stranger Things Happen was the first collection from the talented Kelly Link, containing eleven quirky, spooky and smart stories (two original). Meet Me in the Moon Room from the same imprint contained thirty-three often surreal tales (six original) by Ray Vukcevich.

California’s Dark Regions Press issued the attractive trade paperback collections Strange Mistresses: Tales of Wonder and Romance containing fourteen stories (two original) and thirteen poems by James Dorr with an introduction by Marge Simon; Winter Shadows and Other Tales featuring twenty stories (four original) by Mary Soon Lee, and Salt Water Tears, a collection of ten stories (one original) by Brian Hopkins with an introduction by Gary A. Braunbeck. All three volumes featured cover art by A. B. Word.

Gary Braunbeck’s This Flesh Unknown was an erotic ghost novel from Foggy Windows Books/Chimeras, while D. G. K. Goldberg’s. Doomed to Repeat It, published by The Design Image Group, was about a woman with an abusive ghostly boyfriend.

From Overlook Connection Press, Gary Raisor’s Graven Images appeared in various signed editions with an introduction by Edward Lee, who also somewhat predictably supplied the introduction for Duet for the Devil, a hard-core horror novel by T. Winter-Damon and Randy Chandler about serial slayer The Zodiac Killer. It was published by Florida’s Necro Publications in a signed and numbered edition of 400 trade paperbacks and 100 hardcovers.

Necro’s Bedlam Press imprint, dedicated to bizarre, weird and darkly humorous fiction, was launched with Tangy Bonanza’., a collection of two novellas by Doc Solammen published in a signed and numbered trade paperback edition of 300 copies and a fifty-two-copy signed and lettered hardcover.

Published by Delirium Books, Scott Thomas’s Cobwebs and Whispers collected twenty-six stories (seventeen original) of quiet horror with a foreword by Jeff VanderMeer and an introduction by Michael Pendragon in a signed hardcover edition limited to 250 numbered copies.

Also from Delirium, Greg F. Gifune’s Heretics contained eight short horror stories with an introduction by Brian Hopkins and was limited to just fifty signed and numbered hardcover copies. This also became the first title in Delirium’s new trade paperback line.

From the same publisher and edited by Shane Ryan Staley, The Dead Inn was an anthology of hardcore horror subtitled Gross Oddities, Erotic Perversities & Supernatural Entities. It featured stories by Don D’Ammassa, Charlee Jacob, Steve Beai, Mark McLaughlin, John B. Rosenman, Trey R. Barker, Jeffrey Thomas and others, including the editor. 4x4 contained eight stories by Michael Oliveri, Geoff Cooper, Brian Keene and Michael T. Huyck, Jr., with an afterword in which the authors/collaborators discussed why they write horror.

From Shadowlands Press, Tom Piccirilli’s The Night Class involved a college student who found his life unravelling around him, while Steven R. Cowan’s Gothica: Romance of the Immortals was a time-travel tale from Southern Charm Press involving vampires.

New York’s Soft Skull Press published Nick Mamatas’s novel Northern Gothic, about two serial killers connected over more than a century by the city’s bloody history.

Confessions of a Ghoul and Other Stories from Silver Lake Publishing contained seven stories by M. F. Korn and an introduction by D. F. Lewis. Boasting ‘Six Honorable Mentions’ in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror on the cover, Odd Lot: Stories to Chill the Heart was a collection of nine stories (one original) written and published by self-proclaimed ‘Storyteller of the Heart’ Steve Burt, illustrated by Jessica Hagerman.

The Bubba Chronicles was a collection of eleven stories (including several collaborations) by Selina Rosen from Yard Dog Press. Bubbas of the Apocalypse was a follow-up anthology edited by Rosen containing sixteen stories and three poems set in a zombie-filled post-holocaust future. From the same editor and imprint, Stories That Won’t Make Your Parents Hurl contained fifteen young-adult stories and three poems inspired by the Brothers Grimm.

Edited by Nicola Griffith and Stephen Pagel, Bending the Landscape: Horror was an anthology of eighteen original gay and lesbian horror stories published by Overlook Press.

Published by Chicago’s 11th Hour Productions and Twilight Tales, Blood & Donuts was a 250-copy trade paperback anthology edited by Tina L. Jens and containing eighteen crime/mystery stories (twelve original) by Jody Lynn Nye, Jay Bonansinga, Steve Lockley, Robert Weinberg, Brian Hodge, Yvonne Navarro, Edo van Belkom, Wayne Allen Salle and others.

John B. Ford’s collection of ten stories and four poems, Tales Of Deviltry & Doom, was published by artist Steve Lines’s Rainfall Books in a limited hardcover edition of 250 signed and numbered copies. Dark Shadows on the Moon contained a further thirty-six stories (seven original) by the same writer, published in trade paperback by Hive Press with an introduction by Simon Clark.

Meanwhile, Ford’s own BJM Press issued David Price’s The Evil Eye, Quentin S. Crisp’s The Nightmare Exhibition and Paul Kane’s Alone (in the Dark), each as trade paperback collections with introductions by the publisher.

Dark Whispers by Peter Ebsworth was a collection of ten stories published in trade paperback by Storybook, an imprint of David Searle’s Searle Publishing.

Edited and introduced by Nikolas Schreck for Creation Books, Flowers from Hell: A Satanic Reader featured stories, poetry and novel excerpts about the Devil by Edgar Allan Poe, John Milton, Charles Baudelaire and others.