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

STEPHEN JONESlives in London, England. He is the winner of three World Fantasy Awards, four Horror Writers Association Bram Stoker Awards and three International Horror Guild Awards as well as being a seventeen-time recipient of the British Fantasy Award and a Hugo Award nominee. A former television producer/director and genre movie publicist and consultant (the first three Hellraiser movies, Night Life, Nightbreed, Split Second, Mind Ripper, Last Gasp etc.), he is the co-editor of Horror: 100 Best Books, Horror: Another 100 Best Books, The Best Horror from Fantasy Tales, Gaslight & Ghosts, Now We Are Sick, H. P. Lovecraft’s Book of Horror, The Anthology of Fantasy & the Supernatural, Secret City: Strange Tales of London, Great Ghost Stories, Tales to Freeze the Blood: More Great Ghost Stories and the Dark Terrors, Dark Voices and Fantasy Tales series. He has written Stardust: The Visual Companion, Creepshows: The Illustrated Stephen King Movie Guide, The Essential Monster Movie Guide, The Illustrated Vampire Movie Guide, The Illustrated Dinosaur Movie Guide, The Illustrated Frankenstein Movie Guide and The Illustrated Werewolf Movie Guide , and compiled The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror series, The Mammoth Book of Terror, The Mammoth Book of Vampires, The Mammoth Book of Zombies, The Mammoth Book of Werewolves, The Mammoth Book of Frankenstein, The Mammoth Book of Dracula, The Mammoth Book of Vampire Stories By Women, The Mammoth Book of New Terror, The Mammoth Book of Monsters, Shadows Over Innsmouth, Weird Shadows Over Innsmouth, Dark Detectives, Dancing with the Dark, Dark of the Night, White of the Moon, Keep Out the Night, By Moonlight Only, Don’t Turn Out the Light, H. P. Lovecraft’s Book of the Supernatural, Travellers in Darkness, Summer Chills, Exorcisms and Ecstasies by Karl Edward Wagner, The Vampire Stories of R. Chetwynd-Hayes, Phantoms and Fiends and Frights and Fancies by R. Chetwynd-Hayes, James Herbert: By Horror Haunted, The Complete Chronicles of Conan by Robert E. Howard, The Emperor of Dreams: The Lost Worlds of Clark Ashton Smith, Sea-Kings of Mars and Otherworldly Stories by Leigh Brackett, The Mark of the Beast and Other Fantastical Tales by Rudyard Kipling, Clive Barker’s A–Z of Horror, Clive Barker’s Shadows in Eden, Clive Barker’s The Nightbreed Chronicles and the Hellraiser Chronicles . He was a Guest of Honour at the 2002 World Fantasy Convention in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the 2004 World Horror Convention in Phoenix, Arizona. You can visit his web site at www.herebedragons.co.uk/jones

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Constable & Robinson Ltd

3 The Lanchesters

162 Fulham Palace Road

London W6 9ER

www.constablerobinson.com

First published in the UK by Robinson, an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd 2007

Collection and editorial material copyright © Stephen Jones 2007

All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library.

ISBN-13: 978-1-84529-481-6

eBook ISBN: 978-1-78033-277-2

Printed and bound in the EU

13579 10 8642

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Horror in 2006

Summer

AL SARRANTONIO

Digging Deep

RAMSEY CAMPBELL

The Night Watch

JOHN GORDON

The Luxury of Harm

CHRISTOPHER FOWLER

Sentinels

MARK SAMUELS

The Saffron Gatherers

ELIZABETH HAND

What Nature Abhors

MARK MORRIS

The Last Reel

LYNDA E. RUCKER

The American Dead

JAY LAKE

Between the Cold Moon and the Earth

PETER ATKINS

Sob in the Silence

GENE WOLFE

Continuity Error

NICHOLAS ROYLE

Dr Prida’s Dream-Plagued Patient

MICHAEL BISHOP

The Ones We Leave Behind

MARK CHADBOURN

Mine

JOEL LANE

Obsequy

DAVID J. SCHOW

Thrown

DON TUMASONIS

Houses Under the Sea

CAITLÍN R. KIERNAN

They

DAVID MORRELL

The Clockwork Horror

F. GWYNPLAINE MacINTYRE

Making Cabinets

RICHARD CHRISTIAN MATHESON

Pol Pot’s Beautiful Daughter (Fantasy)

GEOFF RYMAN

Devil’s Smile

GLEN HIRSHBERG

The Man Who Got Off the Ghost Train

KIM NEWMAN

Necrology: 2006

STEPHEN JONES & KIM NEWMAN

Useful Addresses

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank David Barraclough, Kim Newman, Michael Marshall Smith, Sara and Randy Broecker, Val and Les Edwards, Max Burnell, Rodger Turner and Wayne MacLaurin ( www.sfsite.com ), Gordon Van Gelder, Peter Crowther, Mandy Slater, Pamela Brooks, Hugh Lamb, Claudia Dyer, Tim Lucas, Brian Mooney, Violet Jones, Amanda Foubister, Christopher Wicking and, especially, Pete Duncan and Dorothy Lumley for all their help and support. Special thanks are also due to Locus, Variety, Ansible and all the other sources that were used for reference in the Introduction and the Necrology.