Stephen Jones - Best New Horror #26

As usual edited by Rosalie Parker, Strange Tales Volume IV from Tartarus Press contained fifteen original stories by, amongst others, Christopher Harman, Rhys Hughes, Rebecca Lloyd, Angela Slatter, Andrew Hook, Richard Hill and John Gaskin. It was limited to 300 copies.

From the same imprint, The Loney was a first novel by Andrew Michael Hurley. A memoir of the 1970s, it was set on the treacherous titular stretch of Cumbrian coastline.

Mercy and Other Stories was a terrific collection of sixteen strange stories (nine original) by British author Rebecca Lloyd, while John Gaskin’s third collection, The Master of the House: Tales of Twilight and Borderlands , contained twelve beautifully written stories (nine original and one extensively re-written) with a Foreword by the author.

The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings , also from Tartarus, collected thirteen magical and macabre stories (eight original) by Angela Slatter, along with an Introduction by Stephen Jones, an Afterword by Lisa L. Hannett, and eighty-six pen-and-ink illustrations by Kathleen Jennings. It was limited to 350 copies.

The second collaborative volume of the year from author Slatter and artist Jennings was Black-Winged Angels , a reprint collection of ten stories with an Introduction by Juliet Marillier. It was published in a signed hardcover edition of 250 copies by Australia’s Ticonderoga Publications.

Written in Darkness was a beautifully produced hardcover from Egaeus Press that collected nine stories (five original) by Mark Samuels, along with an Introduction by Reggie Oliver. It was limited to just 275 copies.

From Robert Morgan’s Sarob Press, Summonings collected ten classically-styled ghost stories by Ron Weighell (three original) in a handsome signed and numbered edition, with impressive dust-jacket and signature page art by Santiago Caruso.

Edited and Introduced by Rosemary Pardoe for the same publisher, The Ghosts & Scholars Book of Shadows Volume 2 featured twelve more sequels or prequels to M.R. James stories by Peter Bell, C.E. Ward, John Howard, Reggie Oliver, Christopher Harman, Derek John, Mark Valentine and others. It was limited to 325 numbered hardcovers.

Published by NonStop Press, The Monkey’s Other Paw: Revived Classic Stories of Dread and the Dead edited by Luis Ortiz contained twelve stories by, amongst others, Barry N. Malzberg, Paul Di Filippo and Damien Broderick, based on other authors’ classic stories, along with a reprint of W.W. Jacobs’ ‘The Monkey’s Paw’.

San Francisco’s Tachyon imprint published two mostly reprint anthologies edited by Ellen Datlow. Nicely illustrated by John Coulthart, Lovecraft’s Monsters was yet another HPL-inspired volume, containing eighteen stories (one original) by Neil Gaiman, Laird Barron, Kim Newman, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Thomas Ligotti, Gemma Files, Karl Edward Wagner, Joe R. Lansdale, John Langan and others, along with a Foreword by Stefan Dziemianowicz and a useful ‘Monster Index’. The Cutting Room: Dark Reflections of the Silver Screen showcased twenty-three movie-themed tales (one original) by, amongst others, Dennis Etchison, F. Paul Wilson, Peter Straub, Ian Watson, Howard Waldrop, David Morrell, Robert Shearman, Nicholas Royle, Garry Kilworth, Douglas E. Winter, Joel Lane, Laird Barron and Kim Newman. Genevieve Valentine supplied the Introduction.

Also from Tachyon, Daryl Gregory’s novel We Are All Completely Fine featured a support group for survivors of horrific encounters who teamed up to battle a new evil.

Edited by S.T. Joshi for Fedogan & Bremer, Searchers After Horror: New Tales of the Weird and Fantastic was loosely themed around “the Weird Place” and featured twenty-one stories by, amongst others, Hannes Bok, Ramsey Campbell, Richard Gavin, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Nancy Kilpatrick, John Shirley, Brian Stableford, Simon Strantzas and Steve Rasnic Tem, along with interior illustrations by Rodger Gerberding.

From the same imprint, Ana Kai Tangata: Tales of the Outer the Other the Damned and the Doomed contained eight mostly long stories of cosmic horror (four reprints) by Scott Nicolay, along with an Introduction by Laird Barron and an Afterword by John Pelan (whose name was misspelled on the Contents page).

The Cosmic Horror and Others was the third collection from JnJ Publications of the work of early H.P. Lovecraft correspondent Richard F. Searight. The trade paperback, limited to just 100 copies, collected four stories and twelve poems, along with an Introduction by the author’s son, Franklyn Searight, and illustrations by Allen Koszowski.

The Spectral Book of Horror Stories was the first volume in a new anthology series from the British small press imprint, edited by Mark Morris. It featured nineteen original stories from Ramsey Campbell, Alison Littlewood, Helen Marshall, Reggie Oliver, Robert Shearman, Michael Marshall Smith, Angela Slatter, Rio Youers, Lisa Tuttle and Stephen Volk, amongst others.

Edited and introduced by Tony Earnshaw with a Foreword by Mark Gatiss, the Spectral Press softcover edition of The Christmas Ghost Stories of Lawrence Gordon Clark collected seven classic M.R. James stories selected by the veteran TV director for filming. The hardcover edition added some interesting photographs and an interview with Clark, while a deluxe signed slipcased edition limited to 50 copies included all the above, plus an additional story by Charles Dickens, an unfilmed treatment by Basil Copper, a play adaptation, biographies of Copper and James by Johnny Mains, and a section of colour photographs.

Ghosteria Volume One: The Stories from Immanion Press was a collection of Tanith Lee’s ghost stories (four original). It was published simultaneously with Ghosteria Volume Two: The Novel: Zircons May Be Mistaken .

Edited by Steve Berman for Prime Books, Handsome Devil contained twenty-five stories (fifteen original) about infernal seduction by Tanith Lee, Pat Cadigan and others, while editor Paula Guran’s Zombies: More Recent Dead collected thirty-three stories and three poems from the last decade by Neil Gaiman, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Mike Carey and others.

The annual Halloween treat from Paul Miller’s Earthling Publishers was The Halloween Children , a collaboration between Brian James Freeman and Norman Prentiss, with art by Glenn Chadbourne. It was available in a hardcover printing of 500 numbered copies and fifteen lettered copies.

From The Alchemy Press, Merry-Go-Round and Other Words collected twenty-two stories (eight original) by veteran Pan and Fontana horror author Bryn Fortey, with an Introduction by Johnny Mains and an Afterword by the author. A sixty-copy signed hardcover edition also included an extra story.

Dean M. Drinkel edited the anthology Kneeling in the Silver Light: Stories from the Great War , which commemorated the centenary of the First World War with twenty-one original stories, plus two reprint poems by Rupert Brooke. Contributors included Bryn Fortey, Christopher Fowler, Mike Chinn, Christine Morgan and Allen Ashley.

The Alchemy Press Book of Urban Mythic 2 , edited by Jan Edwards and Jenny Barber, contained twelve stories (one reprint) by Tanith Lee, Sarah Ash, Chico Kidd, Lou Morgan and others, while The Alchemy Press Book of Pulp Heroes 3 , edited by Mike Chinn, featured the same number of tales (two reprints) from Gary Budgen, Kim Newman, Rod Rees and Tony Richards, amongst others.

Nick Nightmare Investigates collected ten stories (five original) featuring Adrian Cole’s titular supernatural private eye, including a new collaboration with Mike Chinn. Illustrated by Jim Pitts, it was published by The Alchemy Press/Airgedlámh Publications in a hardcover edition of 200 signed and numbered copies.