The Best New Horror 7
Available in:
- eBook
- Paperback
- Hardcover
- Book info
- Sample
- Media
- Author updates
- Lists
Synopsis
The Best New Horror has established itself as the world's premier annual, showcasing the talents of the very best writers working in the horror and dark fantasy field today. In this latest volume, the multi-award winning editor has once again chosen more than twenty terrifying tales of supernatural fear and psychological dread by some of the most acclaimed authors working in the genre. Along with the most comprehensive review of the year and a fascinating necrology, this is the book no horror fan can afford to miss.
Release date: January 31, 2014
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Print pages: 160
* BingeBooks earns revenue from qualifying purchases as an Amazon Associate as well as from other retail partners.
Reader buzz
Please log in to recommend or discuss...
Author updates
Close
The Best New Horror 7
Stephen Jones
I would like to thank Ramsey Campbell, Kim Newman, Stefan Dziemianowicz, Gordon Van Gelder, Nicholas Royle, Sara Broecker, David A. Drake, Steve Proposch, Ellen Datlow, David Pringle, Stuart Hughes, Peter Crowther and, especially, Mandy Slater for their continued help and support. Special thanks are also due to Locus, Science Fiction Chronicle, Variety, Screen International and all the other sources that were used for reference in the Introduction and the Necrology.
INTRODUCTION: HORROR IN 1995 copyright © 1996 by Stephen Jones.
TIRKILUK copyright © 1995 by Ian R. MacLeod. Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, February 1995. Reprinted by permission of the author.
THE MOST BORING WOMAN IN THE WORLD copyright © 1995 by Christopher Fowler. Originally published in Flesh Wounds. Reprinted by permission of the author.
EXTINCTIONS IN PARADISE copyright © 1995 by Brian Hodge. Originally published in Werewolves. Reprinted by permission of the author.
FOOD MAN copyright © 1994 by Lisa Tuttle. Originally published in Crank!, Issue No.4, Fall 1994. Reprinted by permission of the author.
MORE TOMORROW copyright © 1995 by Michael Marshall Smith. Originally published in Dark Terrors. Reprinted by permission of the author.
GOING UNDER copyright © 1995 by Ramsey Campbell. Originally published in Dark Love. Reprinted by permission of the author.
SURVIVOR copyright © 1995 by Dave Smeds. Originally published in Peter S. Beagle’s Immortal Unicorn. Reprinted by permission of the author.
THE STONES copyright © 1995 Patrick Thompson. Originally published on Time Out Net Books, Issue 2, December 1995. Reprinted by permission of the author.
BACK OF BEYOND copyright © 1995 by Cherry Wilder. Originally published in Strange Fruit: Tales of the Unexpected. Reprinted by permission of the author.
A HUNDRED WICKED LITTLE WITCHES copyright © 1995 by Steve Rasnic Tem. Originally published in 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories. Reprinted by permission of the author.
THE FINGER OF HALUGRA copyright © 1995 by Manly Wade Wellman. Originally published in Deathrealm 23, Spring 1995. Reprinted by permission of the author’s Estate.
THE TODDLER copyright © 1995 by Terry Lamsley. Originally published in Ghosts and Scholars, Issue 20, August 1995. Reprinted by permission of the author.
NOT HERE, NOT NOW copyright © 1995 by Stephen Gallagher. Originally published in Cold Cuts III. Reprinted by permission of the author.
THE BUNGALOW HOUSE copyright © 1995 by Thomas Ligotti. Originally published in The Urbanite No.5. Reprinted by permission of the author.
CRADLE copyright © 1994 by Alan Brennert. Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, January 1995. Reprinted by permission of the author.
THE SIXTH DOG copyright © 1995 by Jane Rice. Originally published in The Sixth Dog. Reprinted by permission of the author.
SCARING THE TRAIN copyright © 1995 by Terry Dowling. Originally published in The Man Who Lost Red. Reprinted by permission of the author.
LA SERENISSIMA copyright © 1995 by David Sutton. Originally published in Beyond No.3, Sep/Oct 1995. Reprinted by permission of the author.
THE BARS ON SATAN’S JAILHOUSE copyright © 1995 by Norman Partridge. Originally published in The Bars on Satan’s Jailhouse. Reprinted by permission of the author.
THE BONE-CARVER’S TALE copyright © 1995 by Jeff VanderMeer. Originally published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, April 1995. Reprinted by permission of the author.
QUEEN OF KNIVES copyright © 1995 by Neil Gaiman. Originally published in Tombs. Reprinted by permission of the author.
THE GREY MADONNA copyright © 1995 by Graham Masterton. Originally published in Fear Itself. Reprinted by permission of the author.
THE TRUE HISTORY OF DOCTOR PRETORIUS copyright © 1995 by Paul J. McAuley. Originally published in Interzone 98, August 1995. Reprinted by permission of the author.
LOOP copyright © 1995 by Douglas E. Winter. Originally published in Dark Love. Reprinted by permission of the author.
THE HUNGER AND ECSTASY OF VAMPIRES copyright © 1994, 1995 by Brian Stableford. Originally published in Interzone 91/92, January/February 1995. Reprinted by permission of the author.
LACUNA copyright © 1995 by Nicholas Royle. Originally published in Violent Spectres 3, August 1995. Reprinted by permission of the author.
NECROLOGY: 1995 copyright © 1996 by Stephen Jones and Kim Newman.
USEFUL ADDRESSES copyright © 1996 by Stephen Jones.
IT WAS A BAD YEAR for publishing: huge rises in paper prices (up more than 60 per cent in 1995) led to increases in the cost of books and magazines, and where cover prices were already high (as in Britain), there was the inevitable cutback in titles published. Increases in costs also meant that the price of mass-market paperback originals began to catch up with hardcovers and trade paperbacks.
The collapse of the Net Book Agreement in Britain (through which publishers prohibited discounting of their titles in bookstores) resulted in short-term chaos among some sections of UK booksellers. It also led to a flurry of price-cutting on bestselling titles, with many publishers, authors and agents warning that the further erosion of profit margins would eventually lead to yet another reduction in mid-list titles and a threat to the livelihood of smaller bookshops.
The once-promising Dell/Abyss horror line all but disappeared in 1995, following the resignation of its editor Jeanne Cavelos. Despite pronouncements to the contrary, the line that established such exciting new talents as Kathe Koja and Poppy Z. Brite will probably be quietly absorbed back into Dell’s mass-market imprint. The untimely death of editor Karl Edward Wagner at the end of 1994 also resulted in the termination of DAW Books’ annual Year’s Best Horror Stories series, which ran for a remarkable twenty-two volumes. The publisher wisely decided not to continue the series under another editor (despite some tactless approaches from members of the small press within mere weeks of Wagner’s passing), but it will still be greatly missed.
However, despite these major upheavals, the overall number of original horror books published in 1995 was up again (continuing the trend set over the past few years), with consistent increases in vampire and young adult volumes and a big jump in gaming and media-related titles.
There were new titles from several of the Big Names of horror in 1995: Rose Madder, about a woman pursued by her abusive psycho cop husband and the magical world she discovers in an old painting, was the latest Stephen King blockbuster, supported by a first printing of 1.5 million copies and a $1 million print and TV advertising campaign in the US. Also in America, Signet started publishing King in Spanish-language editions, beginning with the four novellas first published in Four Past Midnight, and including the TV tie-in, Los Langoliers.
Anne Rice kicked-off a four-month, thirty-city tour for her novel Memmoch the Devil with a six-hour signing and a mock-funeral procession led by a blues and jazz band in her native New Orleans. The fifth and concluding volume in her “Vampire Chronicles” series, it featured the vampire Lestat involved in a battle between the opposing forces of Heaven and Hell. The book’s first printing of 700,000 copies was quickly followed by three more printings totalling more than 200,000.
Instead of a new novel from Clive Barker in 1995, his latest book was Incarnations: Three Plays, which collected Colossus, Frankenstein in Love and The History of the Devil with an introduction and production notes by the author. Barker’s children’s book The Thief of Always was also repackaged with the author’s illustrations replaced by those of Stephen Player.
All That Glitters and Hidden Jewel, the third and fourth respectively in the Gothic “Landry” series by “V.C. Andrews”, were once again probably the work of Andrew Niederman. Dean Koontz’s Intensity was about a young woman trapped by a serial killer, and Ramsey Campbell’s disturbing The One Safe Place involved a family menaced by a group of psycho siblings.
Brian Lumley began filling in the gaps between the second and third books in his popular Necroscope series with the first volume in Necroscope: The Lost Years, in which Harry Keogh searched for his missing family. Dennis Etchison’s California Gothic, also published by DreamHaven Books in a limited edition hardcover of 750 copies illustrated by J.K. Potter, continued the author’s fascination with the darker side of Southern California. Peter James’s Host dealt with the moral implications of combining cryonics with artificial intelligence and was promoted on the Internet. F. Paul Wilson’s latest medical thriller, Implant, appeared under the pseudonym “Colin Andrews” in the UK.
Superstitious was the first adult novel from “R.L. Stine” and featured obsessive behaviour, visceral murders and explicit sex, amply illustrating why his writing is so successful among teenagers. Much better was The Cold One, the first adult novel by Christopher Pike, about possession and ancient folklore. Folklore of a different kind also formed the basis of Tim Powers’s Expiration Date, set in an alternative contemporary Los Angeles where famous ghosts still walked the streets, and Ghostlight by Marion Zimmer Bradley. The late Thomas Tryon’s final novel, Night Music (actually finished by John Cullen and Valerie Martin), was a contemporary reworking of ’The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’ in which a part-time actor’s ambition to become the Greatest Magician in the World resulted in a confrontation with personal darkness.
Richard Matheson’s Now You See It... was a locked room mystery involving a magician and disappearing bodies, and there were also two welcome new collections of Matheson stories, The Incredible Shrinking Man and I Am Legend. Mark Frost’s The Six Messiahs reunited Arthur Conan Doyle and his Sherlock Holmes prototype, secret agent Jack Sparks, in an enjoyable sequel to The List of 7. With an obvious eye on a movie deal, Relic by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child was a rollicking romp about an ancient monster loose in a New York museum.
In Graham Masterton’s Spirit, the ghost of a drowned woman returned for revenge. John Saul’s Black Lightning involved possession by an executed serial killer’s spirit, and Requiem, by Graham Joyce, set in the spirit world of Jerusalem, was the first book in Penguin/Signet’s new Creed horror line. James P. Blaylock’s All the Bells on Earth was about an attempt to escape a Satanic bargain, while Stephen Laws’s Daemonic revealed the diabolical deal made by a reclusive horror film director. A small town cult summoned a demon in The Boiling Pool by Gary Brander, and Michael Scott’s The Hallows was about the Guardians of thirteen ancient talismans who were being murdered by the powers of darkness.
Tanith Lee’s Reigning Cats and Dogs was set in an alternative Dickensian London stalked by ghostly apparitions. The Blue Manor, by Jenny Jones, was an elegant ghost story about a haunted house handed down through four generations of a family’s female line, and Alice Hoffman’s Practical Magic was about a family of witches in contemporary America. In Stitches in Time, by Barbara Michaels, an antique bridal quilt had supernatural powers, and Clare McNally’s Stage Fright was about a theatre company haunted by mysterious deaths.
In deadrush, by Yvonne Navarro, the reanimated dead resurrected others of their kind, while Thomas Monteleone’s The Resurrectionist was about a Presidential candidate who gained the power to raise the dead. Adults began killing all the children in Blood Crazy, by Simon Clark; Christopher Fowler’s Psychoville was a satirical novel of urban horror, about a boy forced to relocate with his family to a suburban new town; and Simon Maginn’s Virgins and Martyrs, a bleak novel about loneliness and obsession, was followed by A Sickness of the Soul from the same author.
As part of the Penguin 60s anniversary, for just 95 cents each American readers could buy the novella Umney’s Last Case (from Nightmares and Dreamscapes) by Stephen King; Blue Rose by Peter Straub; Robertson Davies’s collection of six tales, A Gathering of Ghost Stories; Three Tales of Horror by Edgar Allan Poe, Ambrose Bierce and Robert Louis Stevenson; Young Goodman Brown and Other Stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Oscar Wilde’s The Happy Prince and Other Stories. British readers were offered a different selection for 60 pence apiece, including His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood and Other Stories by Poppy Z. Brite; The Angel and Other Stories by Patrick McGrath; Ivy and Her Nonsense by Jonathan Coe; Five Letters from an Unknown Empire by Alasdair Gray; The Dreaming Child and Other Stories by Isak Dinesen, and The Haunted Dolls’ House and Other Stories by M.R. James and Robert Louis Stevenson. More than twenty million copies of the low-priced books were published worldwide, with individual titles printed only once.
Shaun Hutson continued to please his fans with his latest novel, Lucy’s Child, about a baby in jeopardy. In Guy N. Smith’s The Dark One, babysitting turned into a Satanic experience, and a demonically possessed child was the titular character in Sweet William, by Jessica Palmer. Much better than any of these was The Children’s Hour, by Douglas Clegg, in which children who disappeared from a small town mysteriously reappeared years later.
The Disappeared, by David B. Silva, was about a boy who returned ten years after having vanished, looking no older. In Deadly Friend, by Keith Ferrario, the ghost of dead boy wanted to play, while a youth was haunted by the ghost of a murdered man in Cursed, by John Douglas. The voices of the dead tried to warn a new bride in Shades of Night, by Rick Hautala. Haunted, by Tamara Thorne, described the house in question, and The Basement, by Bari Wood, was haunted by the ghost of a witch. In Noel Hynd’s Cemetery of Angels a family moved close to a haunted Hollywood cemetery, American Civil War ghosts were released in Night Thunder by Ruby Jean Jensen, and Rockabilly Hell, by William Johnstone, featured honky-tonk bars mysteriously reappearing across the American south. Mickee Madden’s Everlastin’ was a romantic ghost story set in Scotland and featured an impressive hologram cover.
An age-old evil returned to the Emerald Isle in Kenneth C. Flint’s The Darkening Flood, and The Devil’s Piper, by Frances Gordon (aka Bridget Wood) was about a mythical Irish creature awakened by eerie music. Thunder Road, by Chris Curry (aka Tamara Thorne), was based around a spiritual battle in the Mojave Desert, The Wendigo Border, by Catherine Montrose (aka Catherine Cooke), featured Native American demons, and ancient beasts were released in northern Oregon in Roadkill, by Richard Sanford.
Alan Rodgers’s Bone Music was an apocalyptic horror novel featuring Robert Johnson, about blues singers battling the forces of Hell. In The Macbeth Prophecy, by Anthea Fraser, a twin reawakened ancient forces, a Sacrifice was demanded in the novel by Richard Kinion, and a dead star’s fans brought him back to life through occult rituals in Warren Newton Beath’s Who Killed James Dean?
In The Wicker Cage, by Kathleen Kinder, a pregnant woman was possessed by the spirit of servant girl, and Frank’s World by George Mangels was about a man’s spirit living on after death. The Janus Mask was the possessed item in Richard A. Knaak’s novel, while it was a child’s doll in Althea, by Abigail McDaniels (aka Dan and Lynda Trent). A haunted house and a possessed woman both featured in The Burning, by Philip Trewinnard, while in Bentley Little’s University, a Californian university was possessed by evil, and Dark Dominion from the same author was set in the wine-growing area of the state, where bodies were found torn apart.
The Torturer was an extremely graphic novel about a hitman who tortured his victims, written by crime writer Mark Timlin under the alias “Jim Ballantyne”. The Death Prayer, by David Bowker, was a police procedural/occult thriller in which a killer mutilated his victims, and Glittering Savages, by Mark Burnell, was also about the hunt for a sadistic killer. In T.M. Wright’s Earthmun, homicide detective Jack Earthmun (from Strange Seed) encountered a mysterious child-woman, a blind man had psychic visions of murder in Seeing Eye, by Jack Ellis, and a murderer used virtual reality to kill in Death Watch, by Elizabeth Forrest. Sick, by Jay R. Bonansinga, featured an exotic dancer suffering from a growth in her head which turned out to be the seed of her murderous male alter-ego.
The Darker Passions: Frankenstein and The Darker Passions: The Fall of the House of Usher were more porn masquerading as eroticism, by Amarantha Knight (aka Nancy Kilpatrick). Angels of Mourning was John Pritchard’s sequel to Night Sisters; you could meet Billie Sue Mosiman’s Widow, celebrate Spook Night, by David Robbins, and horror was also an unwelcome visitor to Joe Donnelly’s Havock Junction and Diane Guest’s Shadow Hill.
Much like their undead protagonists, vampire novels continued to reproduce at an alarming rate during 1995. One of the most inventive was Kim Newman’s The Bloody Red Baron, which saw first publication in America. The follow-up to his hugely successful 1992 book Anno Dracula, this time the vampires of an alternative history were fighting World War I in the air, and the usual supporting characters included plenty of celebrities (both real and fictional).
Traveling With the Dead, by Barbara Hambly, was a belated sequel to Those Who Hunt the Night (UK: Immortal Blood), featuring the exploits of vampire Don Ysidro and heroine Lydia Asher in the early years of the twentieth century. Although not part of her popular “Blood Opera” sequence, Tanith Lee’s Vivia was a brutal and erotic dark fantasy about the titular female vampire, while The Dark Blood of Poppies, by Freda Warrington, featured vampire ballerina Violette Lenoir in the third of the author’s “Blood” series. Melanie Tem’s Desmodus was a welcome variation on the theme, about a non-human society of matriarchal vampires with bat-like attributes.
Tom Holland’s The Vampyre: Being the True Pilgrimage of George Gordon, Sixth Lord Byron (US: Lord of the Dead: The Secret History of Lord Byron) postulated that Byron’s memoirs were burned because they revealed he was one of the undead. Vanitas, which was also published by Canada’s Transylvania Press in a handsome 500-copy limited edition hardcover illustrated by Val Lakey Lindahn, was the third in S.P. Somtow’s saga about eternal 12-year-old vampiric rock star Timmy Valentine. Nancy A. Collins’s Midnight Blue: The Sonja Blue Collection was an omnibus volume from White Wolf containing her previous two novels about the punk vampire, Sunglasses After Dark and In the Blood, plus a new novel, Paint It Black (published separately in Britain).
Rulers of Darkness by Steven Spruill, was a vampire medical thriller in which haematologist Dr Katherine O’Keefe investigated a series of gruesome murders in Washington DC, while in The Winter Man, by Denise Vitola, it was a vampiric forensic haematologist who turned detective. Michael Reaves’s police procedural Night Hunter was about a detective hunting a serial-killer vampire in Los Angeles. The Vampire Legacy: Blood Ties by Karen Taylor was the third in her vampire detective series; Circus of the Damned and The Lunatic Café, both by Laurell K. Hamilton, were the third and fourth volumes in her “Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter” series, while Some Things Come Back, by Robert Morgan (aka C.J. Henderson) was the sixth in the mystery series featuring private investigator Teddy London battling the king of the vampires.
Christopher Golden’s Angel Souls and Devil Hearts was a sequel to his vampire novel Of Saints and Shadows. The Blood of the Covenant, by Brent Monahan, was a sequel to his The Book of Common Dread, and Children of the Vampire, by Jeanne Kalogridis (aka J.M. Dillard), was the second in the “Diaries of the Family Dracul” series and a sequel to Covenant with the Vampire. Scott Baker’s Ancestral Hungers was a substantially rewritten and expanded version of his 1982 novel Dhampire, about the descendant of both Vlad Tepes and Elizabeth Bathory.
Christopher Moore’s Bloodsucking Fiends was a humorous vampire novel set in San Francisco, and Human Resources: A Corporate Nightmare, by Floyd Kemske, was a satire about a corporation whose owners feed on ideas as well as blood.
Although more traditional bloodsuckers turned up in Thirst by Pyotyr Kurtinski and Unquenchable by David Dvorkin, the undead took a romantic turn in Night’s Immortal Touch by Cherlyn Jac, The Vampire Viscount by Karen Harbaugh, and Susan Krinard’s Prince of Dreams. Midnight Surrender, by Nancy Gideon, was the third in the romantic “Midnight” series about vampire Louis Radcliffe, and Death Masque was the third in P.N. Elrod’s romance series featuring vampire Jonathan Barrett. A Slave to His Kiss, by Anastasia Dubois, was an erotic fantasy about a missing twin sister and a vampire.
In The Werewolf Chronicles, by Traci Briery, a Los Angeles dancer was transformed into a lycanthrope. Henry Garfield’s Moondog was a mystery novel featuring the hunt for a full moon murderer, and Hunted, by William W. Johnstone, was about a 600-year-old werewolf pursued by the government.
As always, several novelists made promising débuts in 1995: Chico Kidd’s The Printer’s Devil was an original blend of bellringers and sorcery that spanned the centuries. Sherman Alexie’s literary novel, Reservation Blues, was set on a Native American reservation and involved a magic guitar and a deal with the Devil. Darkland, by Sean Thomas Patrick, also involved a Satanic pact, and Renee Guerin’s The Singing Teacher continued the Faustian theme.
Simon Clark’s first full-length work, Nailed By the Heart, involved a sunken ship and its resurrected crew of killers, while in My Beautiful Friend, by Venero Armanno, a pair of Australian newlyweds were haunted by a dead horror writer in Switzerland. Where Darkness Sleeps, by Brian Rieselman, was about a teenage tearaway who discovered supernatural evil in a small Wisconsin community. A spirit wind in Seattle was the subject of Soul Catcher, by Colin Kersey; Demon Fire, by Gary L. Holleman, was set in Hawaii; and The Changeling Garden, by Winifred Elze, detailed some new environmental horrors.
Although published as a crime novel, David Bowker’s The Death Prayer concerned the hunt for a brutal killer by a police superintendent in touch with the spirit world, and Murder in Scorpio, by Martha Lawrence, also featured a detective with psychic powers. D, by Marcus Gibson, was published as a thriller but involved a deaf-mute with paranormal powers incarcerated in a mental institution. The Between, by Tananarive Due, featured the unusual combo of a serial killer, the walking dead and West African folklore.
Madeleine’s Ghost, by Robert Girardi, was about a haunted apartment, and Sheila Holligan’s Nightrider featured a woman possessed by an erotic spirit. Michael George Greider’s apocalyptic fantasy Forever Man involved both angels and vampires.
Perhaps the biggest tie-in phenomenon of 1995 was the huge success of TV’s The X Files. Despite some uneven episodes, and being loosely inspired by the old Kolchak: The Night Stalker series of the 1970s, it suddenly became the show to watch and talk about with its second and third seasons. Charles Grant’s two novelizations, The X Files: Goblin and the much better The X Files: Whirlwind, went through numerous printings in paperback and they were followed by The X Files: Ground Zero, by Kevin J. Anderson, which was an even bigger success thanks to a massive hardcover printing.
For younger viewers, there was Les Martin’s YA novelizations, The X Files: 1: X Marks the Spot and 2: Darkness Falls. The Truth is Out There: The Official Guide to the X Files was Brian Lowry’s guide to the first two seasons, while Jane Goldman’s The X Files: Book of the Unexplained was a much more tenuous tie-in with the TV series.
Randall Boyll adapted Universal’s low budget hit, Tales From the Crypt: Demon Knight, and he continued his series of entertaining Darkman novelizations, based on the film series created by Sam Raimi, with volume 4: In the Face of Death. Yvonne Navarro’s Species was based on the SF thriller scripted by Dennis Feldman with creature designs by H.R. Giger, and Elizabeth Hand novelized Terry Gilliam’s nightmarish 12 Monkeys. Predator: Concrete Jungle was a novelization of the movie series and Dark Horse graphic novel by Nathan Archer (aka Lawrence Watt-Evans).
Nigel Robinson novelized two stories from TV’s The Tomorrow People: The Living Stones and The Ramses Connection (Christopher Lee had turned up in the latter as an immortal Egyptian sorcerer). In Batman: The Ultimate Evil, by Andrew Vachss, the Dark Knight was educated about the horrors of child abuse through the investigations of his alter-ego, Bruce Wayne. The 7th Guest, by Matthew Costello and Craig Shaw Gardner, was based on the popular interactive computer game created by the authors.
Both Laurell K. Hamilton and Tanya Huff each wrote a Ravenloft novelization, Death of a Darklord and Scholar of Decay respectively, based on TSR’s role-playing game. However, White Wolf’s The World of Darkness led the tie-in field with a glut of book adaptations, including Caravan of Shadows, On a Darkling Plane and Netherworld, all by Richard Lee Byers, the first loosely based on the role-playing game Wrath: The Oblivion and the latter two on the card game, Vampire: The Eternal Struggle.
House of Secrets by James A. Moore and Kevin Murphy, and Sins of the Fathers by Sam Chupp, were also based on Vampire: The Eternal Struggle and Wraith: The Oblivion, respectively. Robert Weinberg’s Vampire: Blood War and Vampire: Unholy Allies were the first two volumes in his Masquerade of the Red Death trilogy, and Edo van Belkom’s Werewolf: Wyrm Wolf and Stewart von Allmen’s Werewolf: Conspicuous Consumption were both first novels based on the role-playing game Werewolf: The Apocalypse.
The Silver Crown by William Brisges, and Breathe Deeply by Don Bassingthwaite, were both adapted from White Wolf’s werewolf card game Rage, and Bassingthwaite’s Pomegranites Full and Fine was the first of a series of novels integrating elements from the settings of all The World of Darkness scenarios.
Erin Kelly edited the anthology The World of Darkness: The Splendour Falls, which featured twenty-two stories based on Changeling: The Dreaming Game, by Philip Nutman, Rick Hautala, Peter Crowther, Nancy Holder, Thomas F. Monteleone and others. Kelly also teamed up with Stewart Wieck to edit The World of Darkness: City of Darkness: Unseen, which included nineteen stories loosely based on the role-playing game. Edward E. Kramer’s Dark Destiny 2: Proprietors of Fate, which featured stories by Poppy Z. Brite, Rex Miller, Basil Copper, S.P. Somtow and Nancy A. Collins, with an introduction by Robert Anton Wilson, was also nominally set in White Wolf’s World of Darkness.
* * *
Ballantine issued a revised collection of The Dream Cycle of H.P. Lovecraft: Dreams of Terror and Death, which featured twenty-five classic stories by Lovecraft and a new introduction by Neil Gaiman. The Episodes of Vathek, by William Beckford, was an extremely rare reprinting of the 1912 book that contained the suppressed portions of Beckford’s 1787 novel, while Spirite and The Coffee Pot, by Théophile Gautier, included the 1866 novel and 1831 short story of the title, newly translated by Patrick Jenkins.
Editor Peter G. Beidler’s The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James, was published as part of the “Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism” series and contained the complete short ghost novel plus five original essays that examined the text from Marxist, feminist, psychoanalytic, deconstruction and reader perspectives. The Essential Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: The Definitive Annotated Edition of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Classic Novel also included the complete text of the story, along with reviews, a filmography and an introduction by editor Leonard Wolf.
It was another banner year for young adult horror fiction, although the sub-genre may be close to reaching saturation point as the two top sellers, “R.L. Stine” and Christopher Pike, attempted to break out into the adult market (with varying results).
However, that didn’t stop them churning out a whole slew of juvenile books as well. The prolific Stine also (a “house” name for various authors) led the pack as usual with a new trilogy about an evil car: Fear Street: The Cataluna Chronicles contained The Evil Moon, The Dark Street and The Deadly Fire. A young girl encountered ghosts in The Babysitter IV, and The Beast 2 featured a rollercoaster time-machine. Two new volumes in the Fear Street Super Chiller series were Bad Moonlight, about a werewolf in a rock band, and The New Year’s Party, in which a teen ghost was out for revenge. Ghosts of Fear Street: Who’s Been Sleeping in My Grave? was the second volume in a new series aimed at younger audiences, about a substitute teacher who is a ghost. Goosebumps: The Horror at Camp Jellyjam was also aimed at younger readers and issued with a free Decal of Doom. So far there are more than thirty titles in the Goosebumps series and they have sold around an incredible half million copies apiece.
Christopher Pike’s Remember Me 2: The Return and 3: The Last Story
INTRODUCTION: HORROR IN 1995 copyright © 1996 by Stephen Jones.
TIRKILUK copyright © 1995 by Ian R. MacLeod. Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, February 1995. Reprinted by permission of the author.
THE MOST BORING WOMAN IN THE WORLD copyright © 1995 by Christopher Fowler. Originally published in Flesh Wounds. Reprinted by permission of the author.
EXTINCTIONS IN PARADISE copyright © 1995 by Brian Hodge. Originally published in Werewolves. Reprinted by permission of the author.
FOOD MAN copyright © 1994 by Lisa Tuttle. Originally published in Crank!, Issue No.4, Fall 1994. Reprinted by permission of the author.
MORE TOMORROW copyright © 1995 by Michael Marshall Smith. Originally published in Dark Terrors. Reprinted by permission of the author.
GOING UNDER copyright © 1995 by Ramsey Campbell. Originally published in Dark Love. Reprinted by permission of the author.
SURVIVOR copyright © 1995 by Dave Smeds. Originally published in Peter S. Beagle’s Immortal Unicorn. Reprinted by permission of the author.
THE STONES copyright © 1995 Patrick Thompson. Originally published on Time Out Net Books, Issue 2, December 1995. Reprinted by permission of the author.
BACK OF BEYOND copyright © 1995 by Cherry Wilder. Originally published in Strange Fruit: Tales of the Unexpected. Reprinted by permission of the author.
A HUNDRED WICKED LITTLE WITCHES copyright © 1995 by Steve Rasnic Tem. Originally published in 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories. Reprinted by permission of the author.
THE FINGER OF HALUGRA copyright © 1995 by Manly Wade Wellman. Originally published in Deathrealm 23, Spring 1995. Reprinted by permission of the author’s Estate.
THE TODDLER copyright © 1995 by Terry Lamsley. Originally published in Ghosts and Scholars, Issue 20, August 1995. Reprinted by permission of the author.
NOT HERE, NOT NOW copyright © 1995 by Stephen Gallagher. Originally published in Cold Cuts III. Reprinted by permission of the author.
THE BUNGALOW HOUSE copyright © 1995 by Thomas Ligotti. Originally published in The Urbanite No.5. Reprinted by permission of the author.
CRADLE copyright © 1994 by Alan Brennert. Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, January 1995. Reprinted by permission of the author.
THE SIXTH DOG copyright © 1995 by Jane Rice. Originally published in The Sixth Dog. Reprinted by permission of the author.
SCARING THE TRAIN copyright © 1995 by Terry Dowling. Originally published in The Man Who Lost Red. Reprinted by permission of the author.
LA SERENISSIMA copyright © 1995 by David Sutton. Originally published in Beyond No.3, Sep/Oct 1995. Reprinted by permission of the author.
THE BARS ON SATAN’S JAILHOUSE copyright © 1995 by Norman Partridge. Originally published in The Bars on Satan’s Jailhouse. Reprinted by permission of the author.
THE BONE-CARVER’S TALE copyright © 1995 by Jeff VanderMeer. Originally published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, April 1995. Reprinted by permission of the author.
QUEEN OF KNIVES copyright © 1995 by Neil Gaiman. Originally published in Tombs. Reprinted by permission of the author.
THE GREY MADONNA copyright © 1995 by Graham Masterton. Originally published in Fear Itself. Reprinted by permission of the author.
THE TRUE HISTORY OF DOCTOR PRETORIUS copyright © 1995 by Paul J. McAuley. Originally published in Interzone 98, August 1995. Reprinted by permission of the author.
LOOP copyright © 1995 by Douglas E. Winter. Originally published in Dark Love. Reprinted by permission of the author.
THE HUNGER AND ECSTASY OF VAMPIRES copyright © 1994, 1995 by Brian Stableford. Originally published in Interzone 91/92, January/February 1995. Reprinted by permission of the author.
LACUNA copyright © 1995 by Nicholas Royle. Originally published in Violent Spectres 3, August 1995. Reprinted by permission of the author.
NECROLOGY: 1995 copyright © 1996 by Stephen Jones and Kim Newman.
USEFUL ADDRESSES copyright © 1996 by Stephen Jones.
IT WAS A BAD YEAR for publishing: huge rises in paper prices (up more than 60 per cent in 1995) led to increases in the cost of books and magazines, and where cover prices were already high (as in Britain), there was the inevitable cutback in titles published. Increases in costs also meant that the price of mass-market paperback originals began to catch up with hardcovers and trade paperbacks.
The collapse of the Net Book Agreement in Britain (through which publishers prohibited discounting of their titles in bookstores) resulted in short-term chaos among some sections of UK booksellers. It also led to a flurry of price-cutting on bestselling titles, with many publishers, authors and agents warning that the further erosion of profit margins would eventually lead to yet another reduction in mid-list titles and a threat to the livelihood of smaller bookshops.
The once-promising Dell/Abyss horror line all but disappeared in 1995, following the resignation of its editor Jeanne Cavelos. Despite pronouncements to the contrary, the line that established such exciting new talents as Kathe Koja and Poppy Z. Brite will probably be quietly absorbed back into Dell’s mass-market imprint. The untimely death of editor Karl Edward Wagner at the end of 1994 also resulted in the termination of DAW Books’ annual Year’s Best Horror Stories series, which ran for a remarkable twenty-two volumes. The publisher wisely decided not to continue the series under another editor (despite some tactless approaches from members of the small press within mere weeks of Wagner’s passing), but it will still be greatly missed.
However, despite these major upheavals, the overall number of original horror books published in 1995 was up again (continuing the trend set over the past few years), with consistent increases in vampire and young adult volumes and a big jump in gaming and media-related titles.
There were new titles from several of the Big Names of horror in 1995: Rose Madder, about a woman pursued by her abusive psycho cop husband and the magical world she discovers in an old painting, was the latest Stephen King blockbuster, supported by a first printing of 1.5 million copies and a $1 million print and TV advertising campaign in the US. Also in America, Signet started publishing King in Spanish-language editions, beginning with the four novellas first published in Four Past Midnight, and including the TV tie-in, Los Langoliers.
Anne Rice kicked-off a four-month, thirty-city tour for her novel Memmoch the Devil with a six-hour signing and a mock-funeral procession led by a blues and jazz band in her native New Orleans. The fifth and concluding volume in her “Vampire Chronicles” series, it featured the vampire Lestat involved in a battle between the opposing forces of Heaven and Hell. The book’s first printing of 700,000 copies was quickly followed by three more printings totalling more than 200,000.
Instead of a new novel from Clive Barker in 1995, his latest book was Incarnations: Three Plays, which collected Colossus, Frankenstein in Love and The History of the Devil with an introduction and production notes by the author. Barker’s children’s book The Thief of Always was also repackaged with the author’s illustrations replaced by those of Stephen Player.
All That Glitters and Hidden Jewel, the third and fourth respectively in the Gothic “Landry” series by “V.C. Andrews”, were once again probably the work of Andrew Niederman. Dean Koontz’s Intensity was about a young woman trapped by a serial killer, and Ramsey Campbell’s disturbing The One Safe Place involved a family menaced by a group of psycho siblings.
Brian Lumley began filling in the gaps between the second and third books in his popular Necroscope series with the first volume in Necroscope: The Lost Years, in which Harry Keogh searched for his missing family. Dennis Etchison’s California Gothic, also published by DreamHaven Books in a limited edition hardcover of 750 copies illustrated by J.K. Potter, continued the author’s fascination with the darker side of Southern California. Peter James’s Host dealt with the moral implications of combining cryonics with artificial intelligence and was promoted on the Internet. F. Paul Wilson’s latest medical thriller, Implant, appeared under the pseudonym “Colin Andrews” in the UK.
Superstitious was the first adult novel from “R.L. Stine” and featured obsessive behaviour, visceral murders and explicit sex, amply illustrating why his writing is so successful among teenagers. Much better was The Cold One, the first adult novel by Christopher Pike, about possession and ancient folklore. Folklore of a different kind also formed the basis of Tim Powers’s Expiration Date, set in an alternative contemporary Los Angeles where famous ghosts still walked the streets, and Ghostlight by Marion Zimmer Bradley. The late Thomas Tryon’s final novel, Night Music (actually finished by John Cullen and Valerie Martin), was a contemporary reworking of ’The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’ in which a part-time actor’s ambition to become the Greatest Magician in the World resulted in a confrontation with personal darkness.
Richard Matheson’s Now You See It... was a locked room mystery involving a magician and disappearing bodies, and there were also two welcome new collections of Matheson stories, The Incredible Shrinking Man and I Am Legend. Mark Frost’s The Six Messiahs reunited Arthur Conan Doyle and his Sherlock Holmes prototype, secret agent Jack Sparks, in an enjoyable sequel to The List of 7. With an obvious eye on a movie deal, Relic by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child was a rollicking romp about an ancient monster loose in a New York museum.
In Graham Masterton’s Spirit, the ghost of a drowned woman returned for revenge. John Saul’s Black Lightning involved possession by an executed serial killer’s spirit, and Requiem, by Graham Joyce, set in the spirit world of Jerusalem, was the first book in Penguin/Signet’s new Creed horror line. James P. Blaylock’s All the Bells on Earth was about an attempt to escape a Satanic bargain, while Stephen Laws’s Daemonic revealed the diabolical deal made by a reclusive horror film director. A small town cult summoned a demon in The Boiling Pool by Gary Brander, and Michael Scott’s The Hallows was about the Guardians of thirteen ancient talismans who were being murdered by the powers of darkness.
Tanith Lee’s Reigning Cats and Dogs was set in an alternative Dickensian London stalked by ghostly apparitions. The Blue Manor, by Jenny Jones, was an elegant ghost story about a haunted house handed down through four generations of a family’s female line, and Alice Hoffman’s Practical Magic was about a family of witches in contemporary America. In Stitches in Time, by Barbara Michaels, an antique bridal quilt had supernatural powers, and Clare McNally’s Stage Fright was about a theatre company haunted by mysterious deaths.
In deadrush, by Yvonne Navarro, the reanimated dead resurrected others of their kind, while Thomas Monteleone’s The Resurrectionist was about a Presidential candidate who gained the power to raise the dead. Adults began killing all the children in Blood Crazy, by Simon Clark; Christopher Fowler’s Psychoville was a satirical novel of urban horror, about a boy forced to relocate with his family to a suburban new town; and Simon Maginn’s Virgins and Martyrs, a bleak novel about loneliness and obsession, was followed by A Sickness of the Soul from the same author.
As part of the Penguin 60s anniversary, for just 95 cents each American readers could buy the novella Umney’s Last Case (from Nightmares and Dreamscapes) by Stephen King; Blue Rose by Peter Straub; Robertson Davies’s collection of six tales, A Gathering of Ghost Stories; Three Tales of Horror by Edgar Allan Poe, Ambrose Bierce and Robert Louis Stevenson; Young Goodman Brown and Other Stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Oscar Wilde’s The Happy Prince and Other Stories. British readers were offered a different selection for 60 pence apiece, including His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood and Other Stories by Poppy Z. Brite; The Angel and Other Stories by Patrick McGrath; Ivy and Her Nonsense by Jonathan Coe; Five Letters from an Unknown Empire by Alasdair Gray; The Dreaming Child and Other Stories by Isak Dinesen, and The Haunted Dolls’ House and Other Stories by M.R. James and Robert Louis Stevenson. More than twenty million copies of the low-priced books were published worldwide, with individual titles printed only once.
Shaun Hutson continued to please his fans with his latest novel, Lucy’s Child, about a baby in jeopardy. In Guy N. Smith’s The Dark One, babysitting turned into a Satanic experience, and a demonically possessed child was the titular character in Sweet William, by Jessica Palmer. Much better than any of these was The Children’s Hour, by Douglas Clegg, in which children who disappeared from a small town mysteriously reappeared years later.
The Disappeared, by David B. Silva, was about a boy who returned ten years after having vanished, looking no older. In Deadly Friend, by Keith Ferrario, the ghost of dead boy wanted to play, while a youth was haunted by the ghost of a murdered man in Cursed, by John Douglas. The voices of the dead tried to warn a new bride in Shades of Night, by Rick Hautala. Haunted, by Tamara Thorne, described the house in question, and The Basement, by Bari Wood, was haunted by the ghost of a witch. In Noel Hynd’s Cemetery of Angels a family moved close to a haunted Hollywood cemetery, American Civil War ghosts were released in Night Thunder by Ruby Jean Jensen, and Rockabilly Hell, by William Johnstone, featured honky-tonk bars mysteriously reappearing across the American south. Mickee Madden’s Everlastin’ was a romantic ghost story set in Scotland and featured an impressive hologram cover.
An age-old evil returned to the Emerald Isle in Kenneth C. Flint’s The Darkening Flood, and The Devil’s Piper, by Frances Gordon (aka Bridget Wood) was about a mythical Irish creature awakened by eerie music. Thunder Road, by Chris Curry (aka Tamara Thorne), was based around a spiritual battle in the Mojave Desert, The Wendigo Border, by Catherine Montrose (aka Catherine Cooke), featured Native American demons, and ancient beasts were released in northern Oregon in Roadkill, by Richard Sanford.
Alan Rodgers’s Bone Music was an apocalyptic horror novel featuring Robert Johnson, about blues singers battling the forces of Hell. In The Macbeth Prophecy, by Anthea Fraser, a twin reawakened ancient forces, a Sacrifice was demanded in the novel by Richard Kinion, and a dead star’s fans brought him back to life through occult rituals in Warren Newton Beath’s Who Killed James Dean?
In The Wicker Cage, by Kathleen Kinder, a pregnant woman was possessed by the spirit of servant girl, and Frank’s World by George Mangels was about a man’s spirit living on after death. The Janus Mask was the possessed item in Richard A. Knaak’s novel, while it was a child’s doll in Althea, by Abigail McDaniels (aka Dan and Lynda Trent). A haunted house and a possessed woman both featured in The Burning, by Philip Trewinnard, while in Bentley Little’s University, a Californian university was possessed by evil, and Dark Dominion from the same author was set in the wine-growing area of the state, where bodies were found torn apart.
The Torturer was an extremely graphic novel about a hitman who tortured his victims, written by crime writer Mark Timlin under the alias “Jim Ballantyne”. The Death Prayer, by David Bowker, was a police procedural/occult thriller in which a killer mutilated his victims, and Glittering Savages, by Mark Burnell, was also about the hunt for a sadistic killer. In T.M. Wright’s Earthmun, homicide detective Jack Earthmun (from Strange Seed) encountered a mysterious child-woman, a blind man had psychic visions of murder in Seeing Eye, by Jack Ellis, and a murderer used virtual reality to kill in Death Watch, by Elizabeth Forrest. Sick, by Jay R. Bonansinga, featured an exotic dancer suffering from a growth in her head which turned out to be the seed of her murderous male alter-ego.
The Darker Passions: Frankenstein and The Darker Passions: The Fall of the House of Usher were more porn masquerading as eroticism, by Amarantha Knight (aka Nancy Kilpatrick). Angels of Mourning was John Pritchard’s sequel to Night Sisters; you could meet Billie Sue Mosiman’s Widow, celebrate Spook Night, by David Robbins, and horror was also an unwelcome visitor to Joe Donnelly’s Havock Junction and Diane Guest’s Shadow Hill.
Much like their undead protagonists, vampire novels continued to reproduce at an alarming rate during 1995. One of the most inventive was Kim Newman’s The Bloody Red Baron, which saw first publication in America. The follow-up to his hugely successful 1992 book Anno Dracula, this time the vampires of an alternative history were fighting World War I in the air, and the usual supporting characters included plenty of celebrities (both real and fictional).
Traveling With the Dead, by Barbara Hambly, was a belated sequel to Those Who Hunt the Night (UK: Immortal Blood), featuring the exploits of vampire Don Ysidro and heroine Lydia Asher in the early years of the twentieth century. Although not part of her popular “Blood Opera” sequence, Tanith Lee’s Vivia was a brutal and erotic dark fantasy about the titular female vampire, while The Dark Blood of Poppies, by Freda Warrington, featured vampire ballerina Violette Lenoir in the third of the author’s “Blood” series. Melanie Tem’s Desmodus was a welcome variation on the theme, about a non-human society of matriarchal vampires with bat-like attributes.
Tom Holland’s The Vampyre: Being the True Pilgrimage of George Gordon, Sixth Lord Byron (US: Lord of the Dead: The Secret History of Lord Byron) postulated that Byron’s memoirs were burned because they revealed he was one of the undead. Vanitas, which was also published by Canada’s Transylvania Press in a handsome 500-copy limited edition hardcover illustrated by Val Lakey Lindahn, was the third in S.P. Somtow’s saga about eternal 12-year-old vampiric rock star Timmy Valentine. Nancy A. Collins’s Midnight Blue: The Sonja Blue Collection was an omnibus volume from White Wolf containing her previous two novels about the punk vampire, Sunglasses After Dark and In the Blood, plus a new novel, Paint It Black (published separately in Britain).
Rulers of Darkness by Steven Spruill, was a vampire medical thriller in which haematologist Dr Katherine O’Keefe investigated a series of gruesome murders in Washington DC, while in The Winter Man, by Denise Vitola, it was a vampiric forensic haematologist who turned detective. Michael Reaves’s police procedural Night Hunter was about a detective hunting a serial-killer vampire in Los Angeles. The Vampire Legacy: Blood Ties by Karen Taylor was the third in her vampire detective series; Circus of the Damned and The Lunatic Café, both by Laurell K. Hamilton, were the third and fourth volumes in her “Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter” series, while Some Things Come Back, by Robert Morgan (aka C.J. Henderson) was the sixth in the mystery series featuring private investigator Teddy London battling the king of the vampires.
Christopher Golden’s Angel Souls and Devil Hearts was a sequel to his vampire novel Of Saints and Shadows. The Blood of the Covenant, by Brent Monahan, was a sequel to his The Book of Common Dread, and Children of the Vampire, by Jeanne Kalogridis (aka J.M. Dillard), was the second in the “Diaries of the Family Dracul” series and a sequel to Covenant with the Vampire. Scott Baker’s Ancestral Hungers was a substantially rewritten and expanded version of his 1982 novel Dhampire, about the descendant of both Vlad Tepes and Elizabeth Bathory.
Christopher Moore’s Bloodsucking Fiends was a humorous vampire novel set in San Francisco, and Human Resources: A Corporate Nightmare, by Floyd Kemske, was a satire about a corporation whose owners feed on ideas as well as blood.
Although more traditional bloodsuckers turned up in Thirst by Pyotyr Kurtinski and Unquenchable by David Dvorkin, the undead took a romantic turn in Night’s Immortal Touch by Cherlyn Jac, The Vampire Viscount by Karen Harbaugh, and Susan Krinard’s Prince of Dreams. Midnight Surrender, by Nancy Gideon, was the third in the romantic “Midnight” series about vampire Louis Radcliffe, and Death Masque was the third in P.N. Elrod’s romance series featuring vampire Jonathan Barrett. A Slave to His Kiss, by Anastasia Dubois, was an erotic fantasy about a missing twin sister and a vampire.
In The Werewolf Chronicles, by Traci Briery, a Los Angeles dancer was transformed into a lycanthrope. Henry Garfield’s Moondog was a mystery novel featuring the hunt for a full moon murderer, and Hunted, by William W. Johnstone, was about a 600-year-old werewolf pursued by the government.
As always, several novelists made promising débuts in 1995: Chico Kidd’s The Printer’s Devil was an original blend of bellringers and sorcery that spanned the centuries. Sherman Alexie’s literary novel, Reservation Blues, was set on a Native American reservation and involved a magic guitar and a deal with the Devil. Darkland, by Sean Thomas Patrick, also involved a Satanic pact, and Renee Guerin’s The Singing Teacher continued the Faustian theme.
Simon Clark’s first full-length work, Nailed By the Heart, involved a sunken ship and its resurrected crew of killers, while in My Beautiful Friend, by Venero Armanno, a pair of Australian newlyweds were haunted by a dead horror writer in Switzerland. Where Darkness Sleeps, by Brian Rieselman, was about a teenage tearaway who discovered supernatural evil in a small Wisconsin community. A spirit wind in Seattle was the subject of Soul Catcher, by Colin Kersey; Demon Fire, by Gary L. Holleman, was set in Hawaii; and The Changeling Garden, by Winifred Elze, detailed some new environmental horrors.
Although published as a crime novel, David Bowker’s The Death Prayer concerned the hunt for a brutal killer by a police superintendent in touch with the spirit world, and Murder in Scorpio, by Martha Lawrence, also featured a detective with psychic powers. D, by Marcus Gibson, was published as a thriller but involved a deaf-mute with paranormal powers incarcerated in a mental institution. The Between, by Tananarive Due, featured the unusual combo of a serial killer, the walking dead and West African folklore.
Madeleine’s Ghost, by Robert Girardi, was about a haunted apartment, and Sheila Holligan’s Nightrider featured a woman possessed by an erotic spirit. Michael George Greider’s apocalyptic fantasy Forever Man involved both angels and vampires.
Perhaps the biggest tie-in phenomenon of 1995 was the huge success of TV’s The X Files. Despite some uneven episodes, and being loosely inspired by the old Kolchak: The Night Stalker series of the 1970s, it suddenly became the show to watch and talk about with its second and third seasons. Charles Grant’s two novelizations, The X Files: Goblin and the much better The X Files: Whirlwind, went through numerous printings in paperback and they were followed by The X Files: Ground Zero, by Kevin J. Anderson, which was an even bigger success thanks to a massive hardcover printing.
For younger viewers, there was Les Martin’s YA novelizations, The X Files: 1: X Marks the Spot and 2: Darkness Falls. The Truth is Out There: The Official Guide to the X Files was Brian Lowry’s guide to the first two seasons, while Jane Goldman’s The X Files: Book of the Unexplained was a much more tenuous tie-in with the TV series.
Randall Boyll adapted Universal’s low budget hit, Tales From the Crypt: Demon Knight, and he continued his series of entertaining Darkman novelizations, based on the film series created by Sam Raimi, with volume 4: In the Face of Death. Yvonne Navarro’s Species was based on the SF thriller scripted by Dennis Feldman with creature designs by H.R. Giger, and Elizabeth Hand novelized Terry Gilliam’s nightmarish 12 Monkeys. Predator: Concrete Jungle was a novelization of the movie series and Dark Horse graphic novel by Nathan Archer (aka Lawrence Watt-Evans).
Nigel Robinson novelized two stories from TV’s The Tomorrow People: The Living Stones and The Ramses Connection (Christopher Lee had turned up in the latter as an immortal Egyptian sorcerer). In Batman: The Ultimate Evil, by Andrew Vachss, the Dark Knight was educated about the horrors of child abuse through the investigations of his alter-ego, Bruce Wayne. The 7th Guest, by Matthew Costello and Craig Shaw Gardner, was based on the popular interactive computer game created by the authors.
Both Laurell K. Hamilton and Tanya Huff each wrote a Ravenloft novelization, Death of a Darklord and Scholar of Decay respectively, based on TSR’s role-playing game. However, White Wolf’s The World of Darkness led the tie-in field with a glut of book adaptations, including Caravan of Shadows, On a Darkling Plane and Netherworld, all by Richard Lee Byers, the first loosely based on the role-playing game Wrath: The Oblivion and the latter two on the card game, Vampire: The Eternal Struggle.
House of Secrets by James A. Moore and Kevin Murphy, and Sins of the Fathers by Sam Chupp, were also based on Vampire: The Eternal Struggle and Wraith: The Oblivion, respectively. Robert Weinberg’s Vampire: Blood War and Vampire: Unholy Allies were the first two volumes in his Masquerade of the Red Death trilogy, and Edo van Belkom’s Werewolf: Wyrm Wolf and Stewart von Allmen’s Werewolf: Conspicuous Consumption were both first novels based on the role-playing game Werewolf: The Apocalypse.
The Silver Crown by William Brisges, and Breathe Deeply by Don Bassingthwaite, were both adapted from White Wolf’s werewolf card game Rage, and Bassingthwaite’s Pomegranites Full and Fine was the first of a series of novels integrating elements from the settings of all The World of Darkness scenarios.
Erin Kelly edited the anthology The World of Darkness: The Splendour Falls, which featured twenty-two stories based on Changeling: The Dreaming Game, by Philip Nutman, Rick Hautala, Peter Crowther, Nancy Holder, Thomas F. Monteleone and others. Kelly also teamed up with Stewart Wieck to edit The World of Darkness: City of Darkness: Unseen, which included nineteen stories loosely based on the role-playing game. Edward E. Kramer’s Dark Destiny 2: Proprietors of Fate, which featured stories by Poppy Z. Brite, Rex Miller, Basil Copper, S.P. Somtow and Nancy A. Collins, with an introduction by Robert Anton Wilson, was also nominally set in White Wolf’s World of Darkness.
* * *
Ballantine issued a revised collection of The Dream Cycle of H.P. Lovecraft: Dreams of Terror and Death, which featured twenty-five classic stories by Lovecraft and a new introduction by Neil Gaiman. The Episodes of Vathek, by William Beckford, was an extremely rare reprinting of the 1912 book that contained the suppressed portions of Beckford’s 1787 novel, while Spirite and The Coffee Pot, by Théophile Gautier, included the 1866 novel and 1831 short story of the title, newly translated by Patrick Jenkins.
Editor Peter G. Beidler’s The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James, was published as part of the “Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism” series and contained the complete short ghost novel plus five original essays that examined the text from Marxist, feminist, psychoanalytic, deconstruction and reader perspectives. The Essential Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: The Definitive Annotated Edition of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Classic Novel also included the complete text of the story, along with reviews, a filmography and an introduction by editor Leonard Wolf.
It was another banner year for young adult horror fiction, although the sub-genre may be close to reaching saturation point as the two top sellers, “R.L. Stine” and Christopher Pike, attempted to break out into the adult market (with varying results).
However, that didn’t stop them churning out a whole slew of juvenile books as well. The prolific Stine also (a “house” name for various authors) led the pack as usual with a new trilogy about an evil car: Fear Street: The Cataluna Chronicles contained The Evil Moon, The Dark Street and The Deadly Fire. A young girl encountered ghosts in The Babysitter IV, and The Beast 2 featured a rollercoaster time-machine. Two new volumes in the Fear Street Super Chiller series were Bad Moonlight, about a werewolf in a rock band, and The New Year’s Party, in which a teen ghost was out for revenge. Ghosts of Fear Street: Who’s Been Sleeping in My Grave? was the second volume in a new series aimed at younger audiences, about a substitute teacher who is a ghost. Goosebumps: The Horror at Camp Jellyjam was also aimed at younger readers and issued with a free Decal of Doom. So far there are more than thirty titles in the Goosebumps series and they have sold around an incredible half million copies apiece.
Christopher Pike’s Remember Me 2: The Return and 3: The Last Story
We hope you are enjoying the book so far. To continue reading...
Copyright © 2024 All Rights Reserved
