Stephen (ed.) - The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 18

In December, a number of original Lovecraft letters and manuscripts were auctioned at Sotheby’s. Among the items was an autographed manuscript of “The Shunned House” that sold for $45,000.

Charles Addams: A Cartoonist’s Life was a biography by Linda H. Davis.

From McFarland Publishing, Allen A. Debus’ Dinosaurs in Fantastic Fiction: A Thematic Survey included Forewords by Donald F. Glut and Mark F. Berry.

Published by Greenwood Press/Praeger, Legends of Blood: The Vampire in History and Myth by Wayne Bartlett and Flavia Idriceanu looked at the undead in myths, literature and film.

Don D’Ammassa’s Encyclopedia of Fantasy and Horror Fiction was a guide to the major authors and their works.

Published in a signed edition limited to 500 copies, John Clute’s The Darkening Garden: A Short Lexicon of Horror contained a selection of terms defined for a proposed encyclopaedia on horror fiction, illustrated by thirty artists. The artwork was also available as thirty postcards, limited to 300 sets.

Translated from the Russian by Adam Bromfield and published in a movie tie-in edition, Sergei Lukyanenko’s 1998 novel Night Watch ( Nochnol Dozor ) was the first in a trilogy about the epic battle between the creatures of Light and Dark.

Other tie-in novels of the year included V for Vendetta by Steve Moore, Superman Returns by Marv Wolfman and Snakes on a Plane by Christa Faust.

From BL Publishing/Black Flame, Final Destination 3 was also written by Faust. It was joined by novelisations for Final Destination by Natasha Rhodes and Final Destination 2 by Nancy A. Collins and Rhodes, while the spin-off title Final Destination: Looks Could Kill was written by Collins alone.

Dark Horse Comics’ DH Press launched its paperback series of licensed Universal Monsters novels with Dracula: Asylum by Paul Witcover, Frankenstein: The Shadow of Frankenstein by Stefan Petrucha and Creature from the Black Lagoon: Time’s Black Lagoon by Paul Di Filippo.

Other tie-in books based on older film properties included The Toxic Avenger by Lloyd Kaufman and Adam Jahnke, Jason X: To the Third Power by Nancy Kilpatrick, Friday the 13th: The Jason Strain by the busy Christa Faust, Friday the 13th: Carnival of Maniacs by Stephen Hand, A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Dealers by Jeffrey Thomas, A Nightmare on Elm Street: Perchance to Dream by Natasha Rhodes, Predator: Forever Midnight by John Shirley and Aliens: DNA War by Diane Carey.

Although Buffy the Vampire the Slayer only lived on in TV reruns, the novelisations continued apace with Buffy the Vampire Slayer: After Image by Pierce Askegren, Carnival of Souls by Nancy Holder, Blackout by Keith R. A. deCandido, Portal Through Time by Alice Henderson, Bad Bargain by Diana G. Gallagher and Go Ask Malice , which was told in diary form by Joseph Robert Levy.

The Power of Three may also have reached the end of its television run, but the Halliwell sisters continued their witchy ways in Charmed: As Puck Would Have It by Paul Ruditis and Charmed: Light of the World by Scott Ciencin.

At least Lost: Signs of Life by Frank Thompson was based on a show that was still running, and BBC Books issued new novelisations to tie in to the exploits of David Tennant’s Doctor Who and his companion, Rose. The ghosts from a sunken navy ship flooded London in The Feast of the Drowned by Stephen Cole. A 2,000-year-old statue of Rose led to an adventure in Ancient Rome in Jac Rayner’s The Stone Rose , and the duo searched for a key to eternal life on another planet in The Resurrection Casket by Justin Richards.

The exploits of the tenth Doctor and Rose continued in The Price of Paradise, The Art of Destruction and The Nightmare of Black Island , while the seventh Doctor and Ace were featured in Andrew Cartmel’s Doctor Who: Atom Bomb Blues .

Based on the classic Gothic daytime soap opera, Dark Shadows: The Salem Branch was written by actress Lara Parker.

Games Workshop issued a profit warning following the end of the Lord of the Rings sales boom. Sales for the six months to November 2006 were down by £2.3 million and full year profits were expected to be below forecasts.

World of Darkness: Chicago: Three Shades of Darkness collected three novellas based on White Wolf’s role-playing game, and Nick Kyme’s Necromunda: Back from the Dead was based on another role-playing game.

30 Days of Night: Rumors of the Undead by Steve Niles and Jeff Mariotte was a novel based on the vampire graphic series created by Niles.

John Shirley was busy novelising John Constantine: Hellblazer with War Lord and Subterranean , and he still found time to turn out Batman: Dead White . Alex Irvine took over with Batman: Inferno , while Infinite Crisis by Greg Cox was based on the acclaimed DC Comics graphic serial.

Tim Lebbon’s Hellboy: Unnatural Selection and young adult writer Thomas E. Sniegoski’s Hellboy: The God Machine were both based on the comic series created by Mike Mignola.

Wolverine: Road of Bones was an X-Men spin-off by David Alan Mack, and Durham Red: Black Dawn by Peter J. Evans was based on the vampire character from 2000 AD comic.

Editor Mark Morris asked fifty contributors to write about their favourite horror films in Cinema Macabre , from PS Publishing. The results ranged from Nosferatu (1922) to The Sixth Sense (1999) and included essays by Basil Copper, Stephen Jones, Neil Gaiman, Peter Atkins, Jo Fletcher, Stephen Gallagher, Lisa Turtle, Mark Samuels, Thomas Tessier, Christopher Fowler, Kim Newman, Joel Lane, Simon Pegg, Michael Marshall Smith, Tim Lebbon, Muriel Gray, Peter Crowther, Paul McAuley, Terry Lamsley, Ramsey Campbell, Douglas E. Winter and the editor, along with an Introduction by UK TV personality Jonathan Ross. It was published in an edition of 500 trade hardcovers signed by Morris and a 200-copy slipcased edition signed by all fifty-two contributors.

Although Monsters: A Celebration of the Classics from Universal Studios featured a “Fearword” by Forrest J. Ackerman and contributions from a number of luminaries including John Landis, Stephen Sommers, Gloria Stuart and Ben Chapman, the minimalist text and unimaginative photo layouts didn’t do their subjects justice.

Published by Telos as a hefty trade paperback, Zombiemania: 80 Movies to Die For included in-depth reviews by Dr Arnold T. Blumberg and Andrew Hershberger, along with a brief history of zombie cinema, a title index of more than 500 films, and a Afterword by zombie actor Mark Donovan.

Night Shade Books reissued Andrew Migliore and John Strysik’s wide-ranging 1995 study Lurker in the Lobby: A Guide to the Cinema of H. P. Lovecraft in a handsomely redesigned and updated edition with a Preface by S. T. Joshi.

Andy Murray’s Into the Unknown: The Fantastic Life of Nigel Kneale from Headpress was the first full biography of the British author and screenwriter (who died a few months after it was published).

The Winston Effect: The Art and History of Stan Winston Studio by Jody Duncan was a huge volume from Titan Books detailing the behind-the-scenes secrets of the make-up maestro’s extensive work in the cinema. James Cameron contributed a brief Foreword, and there was also a short notation from the late Fay Wray. Equally hefty was Titan’s Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13 th by Peter M. Bracke, which included everything any fan of Jason Voorhees needed to know about the “slasher” film series.