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

“We got telegrams,” whispered Professor Corri, fingers around Richard’s arm.

Vanessa stood at the altar, red hair pinned up under the veil, in a white dress with a train. Beside her stood a navy officer Fred had never seen before. He couldn’t focus on the groom’s face for the glare of his uniform. He even had the dress-sword on his belt and plumed helmet under his arm.

“How did this happen?” Fred asked, to no one in particular.

“A loose end, long neglected,” whispered Catriona. “Not that it explains anything . . .”

She dabbed a hankie to the corner of her eye.

Fred looked at Richard. The man was crying and Fred had absolutely no idea what he was feeling.

Fred looked at the altar, at the naval chaplain.

“. . . Do you, Alexander Selkirk Coates take this woman, Vanessa, ah, No Surname Given, to be your lawfully wedded wife . . .”

Fred looked up at the vaulted ceiling, gob-smacked.

STEPHEN JONES & KIM NEWMAN

Necrology: 2006

AS ALWAYS, we acknowledge the passing of writers, artists, performers and technicians who, during their lifetimes, made significant contributions to the horror, science fiction and fantasy genres (or left their mark on popular culture and music in other, often fascinating, ways) . . .

AUTHORS/ARTISTS/COMPOSERS

American TV scriptwriter Arthur Browne, Jrdied on January 3rd, aged 82. Although best known for his Western credits, he also wrote episodes of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Incredible Hulk and Planet of the Apes , along with the Elvis Presley movie Clambake .

Playboy cartoonist Eldon Dedini,whose work was set in a world of nymphs and satyrs since the early 1960s, died of oesophageal cancer on January 12th, aged 84. He also worked for Esquire, The New Yorker , Universal Studios and Disney (where his credits include Mickey and the Beanstalk ).

Prolific British children’s book author Jan Mark(Janet Marjorie Brisland) died on January 15th, aged 62. A two-time winner of the Carnegie Medal, her short supernatural stories are collected in Nothing to Be Afraid Of and In Black and White , while her SF titles include The Ennead , its sequel Divide and Rule, Aquarius, They Do Things Differently There, The Sighting and Riding Tycho . In 1993 she edited The Oxford Book of Chldren’s Stories .

British illustrator John Stewartdied of liver failure in London’s St. Thomas Hospital on January 18th. He was in his late fifties and had been ill for some time. During the 1970s and ’80s he contributed to such small press magazines as Whispers and Fantasy Tales , producing a number of portfolios for the former (including one for the special Stephen King issue, inspired by The Gunslinger ) and illustrating Clive Barker’s story “The Forbidden” for the latter (later included in the anthology The Best Horror from Fantasy Tales ). Stewart also illustrated the 1978 Whispers Press edition of Robert Bloch’s Cthulhu Mythos novel Strange Eons , Michael Shea’s 1987 collection Polyphemus for Arkham House, and contributed artwork to many European paperback books, including the 1982 Dutch anthology Shangri-La . More recently, Jerad Walters published an extensive retrospective of Stewart’s art in the hardcover magazine Chimera , from Centipede Press. During the late 1980s to the mid-’90s, he was in a detox programme for drug and alcohol abuse, and it was during this period that a fire in his apartment reportedly destroyed much of his book collection and original artwork.

English-born animator and director Norm McCabedied the same day, aged 94. He began working at Warner Bros, in the mid-1930s, where his credits include a number of Porky Pig and Daffy Duck cartoons. He later contributed to such TV series and specials as The Superman/Aquaman Hour, The Batman/Superman Hour, The Plastic Man Comedy/Adventure Show, The Grinch Grinches the Cat in the Hat, Daffy Duck’s Movie: Fantastic Island, The Duxorcist, The Night of the Living Duck and Daffy Duck’s Quackbusters . McCa-be’s other credits include Fritz the Cat and Transformers: The Movie .

33-year-old American comic book artist Seth Fisherdied on January 30th after falling seven stories from a roof in his adopted homeland of Japan. His credits include DC Comics’ Green Lantern: Willworld , the Eisner Award-nominated Flash: Time Flies, Batman: Snow , and Marvel’s Fantastic Four/Iron Man: Big in Japan .

British crime writer, actor and broadcaster Ernest Dudley(Vivian Ernest Coltman Allen), who created sinister BBC Radio detective “Dr. Morelle” in 1942, died on February 1st, aged 97. The character, inspired by Erich von Stroheim, who Dudley had met in Paris in the 1930s, was originally played by Cecil Parker. The 1949 Hammer film The Case of the Missing Heiress featured Valentine Dyall as Morelle, and Dudley himself portrayed the role in a 1951 film adaptation.

Veteran animator and illustrator Myron Waldmandied of congestive heart failure on February 4th, aged 97. He was the last surviving animator from the Max Fleischer Studios, which he joined in 1930. There he helped develop such characters as Betty Boop (who started out as a dog), Popeye, Superman, Raggedy Ann, Baby Huey, Herman, Little Lulu and Casper the Friendly Ghost. In 1934 he began producing a number of “Color Classics” cartoons in response to Disney’s series of “Silly Symphonies”. He left the company in 1957 and moved to television ( Milton the Monster and Batfink ), before later touring on the lecture circuit.

The body of 76-year-old American TV writer and director Alan Shalleck,who collaborated with co-creator Margaret Rey to bring the Curious George series to the Disney Channel as more than 100 five-minute shorts, was found in Florida on February 7th. Two men were charged with his murder. Shalleck and Rey (who died in 1996) also collaborated on more that two dozen further books about the mischievous monkey after the death of artist H. A. Rey in 1977.

91-year-old Japanese composer Akira Ifukube,best known for his iconic Godzilla theme, died of multiple organ failure in Tokyo on February 8th. He later scored many other films in Toho’s “Godzilla” series, along with such titles as Rodan!, The Mysterians, Battle in Outer Space, Atragon, Dagora the Space Monster, Frankenstein Conquers the World, War of the Gargantuas, Majin (and its sequels), King Kong Escapes and Latitude Zero . He came out of retirement in 1995 to score Godzilla vs. Destroyer , and his theme continued to be heard on the last series entry, Godzilla: Final Wars (2004). Ifukube also came up with Godzilla’s trademark roar by running a resin-coated glove over the strings of a double bass.

British crime writer Michael Gilbertdied the same day, aged 93. Named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America in 1998, his ghost stories appeared in Argosy and The After Midnight Ghost Book .

Peter[Bradford] Benchley,the grandson of humorist Robert Benchley and best-selling author of Jaws , died of complications from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis at his New Jersey home on February 11th, aged 65. Jaws , which has sold more than twenty million copies world-wide since its first publication in 1974, was successfully filmed by Steven Spielberg the following year from a script co-written by Benchley (who also had a cameo). It became the first film to gross more than $100 million and spawned a series of sequels and imitators. Benchley’s other novels, The Deep, The Island and Beast were also filmed, but with less success, while his 1994 novel White Shark , about a Nazi-engineered man/shark hybrid, was made into the 1998 TV movie Creature . Although Benchley’s Jaws did much to demonise sharks, the writer became a passionate conservationist and advocate for the species.