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

World Fantasy Convention 2006, celebrating the “Robert E. Howard Centennial”, was held in Austin, Texas, over November 2nd-5th. Authors Glen Cook, Dave Duncan and “Robin Hobb” (Megan Lindholm) were Guests of Honor. Editor GoH was the legendary Glenn Lord, Artist GoH was John Jude Palencar, and Gary Gianni was billed as Robert E. Howard Artist Guest.

The eleventh International Horror Guild Awards (now apparently referred to as the “Iggys”) were presented on the Thursday evening at World Fantasy, hosted by artist John Picacio.

Chelsea Quinn Yarbro became the first woman honoured with the IHG Living Legend Award, which was presented by Suzy McKee Charnas. Brett Easton Ellis’ Lunar Park won the Novel award, Short Fiction went to “There’s a Hole in the Sky” by Rick Bowes ( SciFiction ), Mid-Length Fiction went to “La Peau Verte” by Caitlín R. Kiernan ( To Charles Fort, with Love ) and Long Fiction was awarded to “Kiss of the Mudman” by Gary Braunbeck ( Home Before Dark ). PS Publishing had a double success when Joe Hill’s 20th Century Ghosts received the award for Collection and Peter Crowther’s PostScripts won for Periodical. Memories by Enki Bilal received the Illustrated Narrative award, Non-Fiction went to editors S. T. Joshi and Stefan Dziemianowicz’s comprehensive three-volume Supernatural Literature of the World: An Encyclopedia , and Clive Barker’s “Exhibition: Visions of Heaven and Hell (and Then Some)” at Los Angeles’ Bert Green Fine Art gallery was the somewhat odd choice for the Art award.

In fact, the 2006 IHG Awards were surrounded by controversy, but we will return to that a little later . . .

Three days later in Austin, Toastmaster Bradley Denton hosted the 2006 World Fantasy Awards presentation following a crowded banquet on the Sunday afternoon. The Special Award, Non-Professional went to David J. Howe and Stephen Walker for their publishing imprint Telos Books, and the Special Award, Professional was somewhat controversially presented to Sean Wallace for Prime Books. James Jean won for Artist, Bruce Holland Rogers’ The Keyhole Opera was awarded Collection, and The Fair Folk edited by Marvin Kaye collected Anthology. George Saunders’ story “CommComm” (from The New Yorker ) collected the award for Short Fiction, Joe Hill rounded out an incredible year when his “Voluntary Committal” won for Novella, and Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore was deemed the winner in the Novel category. Life Achievement Awards were announced for artist Stephen Fabian and writer John Crowley. Only one of the winners was actually present.

More observant readers may have noticed that no anthology winner was listed in the International Horror Guild Awards above. This was not an oversight.

I’ve talked about awards in these pages before, and they continue to be a thorny subject. Although most general readers will be unaware of the situation, in 2006 there was a brief flurry of controversy in the horror field over a decision by the IHG judges to not even nominate the minimum three titles required in the “Anthology” category.

For a year that produced many new and notable anthologies, not to mention the two annual “Year’s Best” horror volumes, it seemed inexplicable to many people working in the genre that the panel of IHG judges were apparently unable to come up with at least three titles first published in the year 2005 worthy of a nomination. Obviously, this did not seem to have been a problem for any other major awards in the field.

As a result, around seventy people (including myself and other previous and multiple IHG winners) put our names to an “Open Letter” to the administrators condemning their decision and pointing out that their failure to acknowledge any anthology titles was not only blinkered, but sent entirely the wrong message to not only readers of the genre, but also to publishers.

The anthologies market is already depressed enough. Why should any publisher support future anthology projects if one of the major awards in the field could not find anything even worthwhile to nominate out of a year’s worth of titles? Arguably, 2005 may not have been the best of years, but it was certainly far from the worst . . .

As we had intended, our open letter stirred up discussion within the field. However, what none of us who put our names to the statement expected was the vehemence that it would provoke.

Within hours of its posting, message boards were buzzing with people discussing the pros and cons of the letter. I soon started receiving e-mails attacking me personally. Over the following weeks I was threatened and insulted, and I know that others received similar treatment.

However, I’m delighted to say that these kinds of bullying tactics ultimately failed. Only one person who signed the letter subsequently asked to have his name removed. Many more contacted us and asked if they could have their names added .

In the end, the IHG judges claimed that they didn’t really consider “reprint” anthologies (an odd statement, given that such information appears nowhere in their rules and, in the past, I have won the IHG Award for this very anthology series). Perhaps even more telling was the excuse by another judge that the panel did not receive enough free copies of anthologies to make an informed decision.

What the IHG judges and administrator had failed to take into account was that it is the job of the panel to track down individual titles and then discuss the subjective merits of those books amongst themselves.

Even more importantly, it is not in the judges’ remit to compare one year’s output of books with that of any earlier years. In this particular case, they should have nominated whichever anthology titles they collectively felt were the best of those published in 2005. If they then decided that none of these titles ultimately deserved the final award, then so be it. But to simply say that not one single book – and the genuine contributions made by the authors, editors and publishers involved – was worth acknowledging not only harmed people’s perception of the genre, but it is also diminished an award that is supposed to be all about recognising “achievement” in the field of horror and dark fantasy.

At the very least, our protest raised some important issues, and I hope that such a decision will not be taken so lightly again.

For me, personally, it was a nasty, spiteful and disheartening time that exposed the dark and malicious underbelly of the genre I love and work in. Am I glad I got involved? Sure. Given the harassment that I had to put up with, would I do it again? You betcha!

The Editor

May, 2007

AL SARRANTONIO

Summer

AL SARRANTONIO IS THE AUTHOR of more than forty books. He is a winner of the Bram Stoker Award and has been a finalist for the World Fantasy Award, the British Fantasy Award, the International Horror Guild Award, the Locus Award and the Private Eye Writers of America Shamus Award.

His novels, spanning the horror, science fiction, fantasy, mystery and Western genres, include Moonbane, Skeletons, House Haunted, The Five Worlds Trilogy, Masters of Mars, West Texas Orangefield and Hallows Eve , the last two part of his Halloween cycle of stories. Hailed as “a master anthologist” by Booklist , he has edited such high-profile volumes as 999: New Stories of Horror and Suspense, Redshift: Extreme Visions of Speculative Fiction and Flights: Extreme Visions of Fantasy .