The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. Fifth Annual Collection

Summation 1991: Horror Ellen Datlow

More than any specific event in 1991, the continuing recession proved to have the most impact on publishing. In what has long been held to be a recession-proof industry, the effects were finally being felt both in magazines and books. Despite this, the American SF, fantasy, and horror book publishers seemed to hold their own, with remarkably few changes; this was not so for the nongenre publishers.

A year after the takeover of MCA (including Putnam, Berkley and Ace books) by the Japanese electronics conglomerate Matsushita there have been no perceptible editorial effects.

Harcourt Brace Jovanovich accepted a takeover bid from General Cinema Corp., the fourth largest theater operator in the U.S., after rejecting an earlier smaller offer to bondholders.

Farrar, Straus & Giroux cut its staff by sixteen people, including Linda Healey, the editor brought in four years ago to develop journalistic nonfiction books for the company. Healey has since joined Pantheon, which has been restarted by Andre Schiffrin as a nonprofit foundation.

The hardcover William Morrow SF, fantasy and horror program edited by David Hartwell and the Avon paperback line edited by John Douglas were combined into one line under the new palindromic imprint of AvoNova with John Douglas as editor. The new Avon-driven hardcover list will appear in the fall of 1992. Avon will do all editorial, advertising and promotional work. They will coordinate with the Morrow production staff; the Morrow sales staff will handle the books. It will have a Morrow imprint; Avon will pay a distribution fee; Carolyn Reidy, President and Publisher of Avon Books and a supporter of SF and fantasy at Avon, left the company late in 1991 to become President and Publisher of the Simon & Schuster Trade Publishing Division. Howard Kaminsky, Chief Executive Officer of the Hearst Trade Books Group is temporarily filling in until someone is appointed to replace Reidy.

On the magazine end, Aboriginal SF pulled back to quarterly publication with the final 1991 issue, and has applied for nonprofit status.

General Media, the parent corporation of Omni, laid off one hundred twenty employees throughout the corporation in October and moved most of the operations of Omni down to Greensboro, NC, with the exception of the fiction department and two senior editors of other departments.

Davis Publications sold Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Analog, Science Fiction and Fact and Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine to Bantam Doubleday Dell in early January 1992 The four magazines will be added to the Dell Magazines Group, which publishes crossword, horoscope and word game magazines. It was announced that no changes were contemplated in the editorial staff or direction of the four magazines, which will continue to operate out of their own headquarters for at least a year.

On March 1, 1991, Kristine Kathryn Rusch became the sixth editor of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in its forty-two-year history. Retiring editor Edward L. Ferman remains publisher and art director of the respected monthly digest. In early January 1992 Rusch announced that she was giving up her editorial duties at Pulphouse, although she will remain on the Board of Directors and keep an advisory role. Most of her editorial duties have been taken over by Mark Budz.

Pulphouse: The Magazine, originally announced as a weekly, cut back to a biweekly schedule after only four issues because of the following factors: readers complained that they didn’t have time to read a weekly and were worried about the costly subscription price of $95 a year; writers complained that a week on the newsstand would not give enough exposure to their stories; booksellers complained that there wasn’t enough time to sell a weekly magazine because most customers only visit a bookstore once a month. The fifth, sixth and seventh issues came out biweekly; as of the eighth issue, the magazine will be issued monthly. On October 21, 1991, Pulphouse became a corporation, with stock, a Board of Directors and a business foundation.

British book and magazine publishing fared far worse than American, being the center of seven major upheavals in and out of the field, some of which were the result of financial problems. Since Robert Maxwell’s mysterious death on November 5, 1991, his empire has been in chaos—Macdonald was forced to file for the UK equivalent of bankruptcy protection and was bought by Time Warner, Inc., in February 1992. Meanwhile, Macmillan executives in the U.S. assert that Macmillan Publishing Corp. (U.S.) will not be sold; it is not currently liable for MCC debts.

Reader’s Digest UK fired eighty of its full-time staff and thirty part-timers; David & Charles, a Reader’s Digest subsidiary, announced cuts of nearly 20 percent, with eighteen employees leaving now and sixteen projected losses through attrition.

Hodder cut 120 of its 640-member staff, while HarperCollins let go sixty, Ladybird cut fifty-four, Random Century cut sixty-six and Faber cut fourteen. Deutsch dismissed its entire sales force; for nonfinancial reasons (at least not directly) all but one member of the editorial staff of The Women’s Press resigned, including SF editor Sarah Lefanu. Rumors held that the departures were the result of an “internal putsch,” and that The Women’s Press may now turn to a more mainstream brand of feminism. Soon after, in a surprise move, Kathy Gale, Pan Books’ editorial director of specialist fiction, revealed she was leaving the mass market imprint to become publishing director of The Women’s Press. She is corunning the company with plans to expand, develop and redirect the list.

Anthony Cheetham, fired late in 1991 as head of Random Century, has formed Orion Books and bought Weidenfeld & Nicolson and its subsidiaries, Dent and the paperback division of Everyman Library. Deborah Beale, who built the Legend imprint at Century, has joined him as publishing director. She will build a new SF imprint, Millennium, in hardcover, trade paperback and mass market. John Jarrold has left Orbit (MacDonald) to replace Beale at Legend. Malcolm Edwards has been made managing director in charge of fiction for HarperCollins trade division and Jane Johnson has been promoted to editorial director in charge of SF, fantasy and horror.

Fear magazine, Britain’s only slick horror movie/short fiction magazine, started a companion all-fiction magazine, FTighteners, edited by Oliver Frey. The first issue was published on June 27 and unfortunately, within a week had been pulled from the shelves by many booksellers because of a Graham Masterton story “Eric the Pie,” which had a particularly disgusting scene in it. After complaints, the retailers removed all copies of the issue and destroyed most of the 45,000-copy print run. The magazine published three issues—I only saw the first and the fiction was pretty dreadful. Partly as a result of the financial loss incurred by the destruction of the print run, Newsfield Publications, publishers of both Fear and Frighteners, has gone into liquidation, the mid-September business failure occurred less than a week after John Gilbert resigned his post as editor of Fear. Fears publication was suspended after thirty-three issues. The magazine attempted to combine literature and film in equal proportion but later issues were pushed more toward gore by the publisher to increase sales. The fiction was inconsistent throughout, but the magazine was an interesting and useful addition to the horror field. John Gilbert, who owns the title (having leased it to Newsfield), is looking for a publisher to start it up again.

Argus Specialist Publications cancelled Skeleton Crew only nine months after it was launched as a rival to Fear. The magazine never really recovered from the sacking of its original editor after the first two issues.

More on censorship: on August 31, police seized more than four thousand comics from Manchester, England, publisher Savoy Books. The comics, issue #5 of Lord Horror, were considered obscene. In addition, Savoy has been found guilty of publishing an obscene book, the novel version of Lord Horror by David Britton. The book and comic is a fictional depiction of the life of the World War II traitor known as “Lord Haw Haw. ” The decision was made by Manchester Magistrates Court; Savoy plans to appeal. A Canadian subscriber to the American magazine Iniquities had the first issue of his subscription seized by Customs as a prohibited item. The offending story dealt with necrophilia. The subscriber planned to challenge the decision but had little hope for a reversal. In July, the Japanese translator of Salman Rushdie’s novels was slain by an Iranian attacker and Rushdie’s Italian translator survived a similar attack. Although there was an announcement that a consortium of American book publishers would together publish a paperback edition of The Satanic Verses, as of the end of February 1992, the group could not come to an agreement to do so.

In other news, a flap developed in Great Britain over the recent best-selling novels of the late V. C. Andrews. Barry Winkelman, managing director of her former publisher, HarperCollins, wrote an open letter to the trade saying the most recent book, Dawn, published by Simon & Schuster, was not written by Virginia Andrews but by Andrew Neiderman. The book’s cover describes it as “the new Virginia Andrews,” but a letter inside from the Andrews family notes that her estate has been working with a “carefully selected writer to expand upon her genius.” Simon and Schuster offered a money-back guarantee.

The first World Horror Convention, held in Nashville, TN, Feb. 28-March 3, barely managed to cover costs with only 300 attendees. Writer Guest of Honor was Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, who replaced Clive Barker when he cancelled due to work commitments. Artist Guest of Honor was Jill Bauman. Robert Bloch was honored as Grand Master.

The 1990 Bram Stoker Awards banquet and weekend took place in Redondo Beach, CA, June 21-23. The award winners were: Novel, Mine by Robert R. McCammon (Pocket); First novel, The Revelation by Bentley Little (St. Martin’s); Novelette, “Stephen” by Elizabeth Massie (Borderlands); Short Story, “The Calling” by David B. Silva (Borderlands); Collection, Four Past Midnight by Stephen King (Viking); Nonfiction, Dark Dreamers: Conversations with the Masters of Horror by Stanley Wiater (Avon); Lifetime achievement award, Hugh B. Cave and Richard Matheson.

The Readercon Small Press Awards were announced in Worcester, MA, at Readercon 4, July 13: Novel, Red Spider, White Web by Misha (Morrigan); Magazine Fiction, journal Wired, Mark V. Ziesing and Andy Watson, eds.; Magazine Nonfiction, The New York Review of Science Fiction, David Hartwell, et al., eds.; Magazine Design, Journal Wired, Andy Watson, design; Collection, The Brains of Rats by Michael Blumlein (Scream/Press); Anthology, When the Black Lotus Blooms, Elizabeth Saunders, ed. (Unnameable Press); Value in Book-craft, Slow Dancing Through Time, by Gardner Dozois et al. (Ursus/Ziesing); Short work, “Entropy’s Bed at Midnight,” by Dan Simmons (Lord John Press); Reprint, The Atrocity Exhibition, by J. G. Ballard (Re/Search); Nonfiction, Across the Wounded Galaxies, by Larry McCaffery (U. of Illinois Press); Jacket Illustration, H. R. Giger’s Biomechanics, H. R. Giger, illustrator (Morpheus International); Interior Illustrations, H. R. Giger s Biomechanics, H. R. Giger, illustrator (Morpheus International).

As in past years, my 1991 novel reading has been peripatetic. The following is a completely biased view of what I’ve found interesting. I’m particularly delighted to note all the excellent and promising first novels. I’ve covered few strictly genre titles, as I assume readers will already be aware of them:

Bones by Joyce Thompson (Morrow) is a psychological horror novel about secrets and child abuse. Freddy, a divorced mother, supports two children as a police artist and struggles to be a good and understanding mother. Then her alcoholic father is brutally murdered, his brain stolen and the killer begins a reign of terror on Freddy and her children. Freddy receives pieces of a “novel” which slowly reveal the motivation, if not the identity, of the killer. Although a red herring is introduced in the middle of the novel, and Thompson occasionally gets lost in details, Bones is a frightening and fascinating story, intelligently and gracefully written.

Stone City by Mitchell Smith (Signet) is a harrowing suspense novel about a former history professor sent to prison for hit-and-run manslaughter who is coerced, both by the administration and by the leader of the “lifers” (prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment), into investigating two murders in the prison. This novel is far more than just a suspense or a mystery; this is an epic about an average Joe caught in a squeeze who must learn to abide by rules “inside,” which are often the antithesis of those in the outside world. It's also a study of prison life that made me rethink the entire prison system. Although lengthy and occasionally overwritten, it’s the first book in quite a while that made me want to know what would happen after the book ended. With more promotion than it received, it might have made the best-seller lists. Highly recommended.

Eyes of Prey by John Sandford (Putnam) is the third in a series about Lucas Davenport, serial killer expert extraordinaire, whose home base is Minneapolis. This was better than the last novel (Shadow Prey) but not as good as the first (Rules of Prey). The best thing about these books is Davenport, a three-dimensional, soul-searching character. A woman is murdered by a “troll” at the behest of her drugged-out doctor husband who is called Dr. Death by his colleagues because of his obsession with the subject. Some nice twists.

Sliver by Ira Levin (Bantam), while not of the caliber of Rosemary’s Baby or A Kiss Before Dying, is better than I expected, considering his more recent attempts at horror/thrillers such as the male wish-fulfillment fantasy The Stepford Wives and the predictable The Boys from Brazil. Sliver is creepy. A rich nut has bought the building he lives in and wires it for sight and sound so he can spy on his neighbors—and manipulate their lives. Levin’s writing here is too elliptical; possibly trying to speed up the story, he sacrifices coherence. And the climax is pretty unbelievable.

Chicago Loop by Paul Theroux (Random House) is (like the following novel, Frisk) what Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho should have been. A successful businessman, husband and father, living in a Chicago suburb goes nuts. He’s already verging on crazy at the start of the novel: he’s a compulsive liar, he plays weird sex games with his wife once a month, and he lives a secret life, placing personal ads to meet women. He becomes progressively stranger, murdering (almost unconsciously) a woman he picks up through an ad, then spends the rest of the novel trying to make amends, ultimately attempting to be her and get murdered himself. This strange, fast-moving novel by the author of The Mosquito Coast and other mainstream books is a fascinating descent into madness.

Frisk by Dennis Cooper (Grove Weidenfeld) opens with thirteen-year-old Dennis observing a series of photographs that seem to show a boy being mutilated. From that moment on, Dennis is obsessed with young male bodies and longs to discover their innermost workings. He either daydreams or actually does—lure, torture and murder young men. Erotic, terrifying, and horrifying. Experimental in style, it’s a difficult book to read or to actually enjoy, but definitely worth a look.

Physical Culture by Hillary Johnson (Poseidon, 1989) is a short first novel about a middle-aged accountant in a suburban mattress factory who leads the secret life of a masochist. He is unable to experience “normal” desire throughout his life. Lovely, subtle in its buildup into strangeness, it makes an interesting companion to the Cooper and Theroux.

The Fear in Yesterday’s Rings by George C. Chesbro (Mysterious Press) is an excellent addition to the Mongo series. The protagonist is a dwarf who started out in a circus and became a professor and expert in criminology. His former boss has lost the circus and is a broken man. Mongo tries to get it back for him, running into opposition from the current owners. Werewolf murders in the Plains states bring Mongo's expertise into play. A work of science fiction as well as horror, it’s thoroughly satisfying.

The Cipher by Kathe Koja (Dell Abyss) is the novel that launched this new horror line. The novel is a wondrous SF/horror journey into the unknown. A black hole is discovered in a storage room of an apartment building by Nicholas Reid and his sometimes girlfriend, Nakota. Nakota is one of the most interesting characters I've encountered in horror fiction. She is hateful—cold, heartless, selfish and vicious—but in a believable way; I was almost cheering by the time she got her just desserts. Nicholas is a poor jerk, poet/video store employee, who basically gets in over his head. Koja’s style, always interesting in her short fiction, is occasionally opaque, but she is spectacularly in control here. Once you get hooked by her prose you’ll be more than willing to trust her to take you on a fine ride. Constantly surprising. Without a doubt one of the best first horror novels of the year. Highly recommended.

Prodigal by Melanie Tem (Abyss) is another good first novel, this one about family relationships and how they shift as children reach puberty and/or when trauma is experienced by a family. Ethan Brill, eldest of the Brill family’s seven children, has disappeared and is feared dead. Before his disappearance he was stealing, lying, taking drugs. . . . The story is told from the point of view of the second oldest sister, Lucy, who is on the verge of puberty. It begins so meticulously to depict the pain and resentment of a surviving child that at first I feared Tem wouldn’t be able to pull it off, but the slow buildup works beautifully. Highly recommended.

Tunnelvision by R. Patrick Gates (Abyss). Good characterizations put this serial killer/police procedural a step above the rest. Ivy Delacroix is a bright, friendless young kid brought up by his widowed mother. He meets and befriends a lonely old woman. Bill Gage is a cop haunted by his past. And Wilbur Clayton is the end result of an abused childhood.

Down By the River by Monte Schulz (Viking) is about the repercussions to a small California town where a sixteen-year-old girl is allegedly raped by hoboes in a railyard. The police chief, a refugee from the big city, is unable to prevent a vigilante party from taking action against the transients. An old man is killed, others are wounded and one man escapes. Soon after, it’s apparent that the teenage accusers are being stalked and brutally murdered, seemingly for revenge. Published out of genre, Down By the River is far more than a serial killer novel—it is an intricate portrait of American small town life. This first novel, rich in detail and characterization, glaringly points out the difference in the quality of the prose of most horror writers as compared to that of more literary writers.

The Man Upstairs by T. L. Parkinson (Dutton) is also an impressive horror novel debut. Recently divorced Michael West moves into a small San Francisco apartment building. Soon afterward, a new neighbor moves in upstairs: a charming, handsome and self-possessed plastic surgeon named Paul Marks. Michael becomes obsessed with Paul’s sex life and his own mirror image, withdrawing more and more from the world. A young boy is found dead, a young woman is murdered, and Michael finds himself becoming confused about what is real and what is not. A profoundly disturbing novel about psychosexual obsession, control and loss of self.

Madlands by K. W. Jeter (St. Martin’s) is a hard-edged SF novel with horrific elements. It’s about an imaginary place called the Madlands—a kind of consensual reality Los Angeles, derived from archival material left after a disaster that has destroyed the real L.A. (if there is such a thing). If people stay too long they lose their pattern discrimination and their human forms are altered in disgusting and grotesque ways—breaking down into earlier life forms. Enjoyable and very Philip K. Dickian.

Sarah Canary by Karen Joy Fowler (Henry Holt) is a crossover novel by a writer of science fiction and fantasy short stories. It’s disturbing in the way real-life American racism against the Chinese (and anybody else who is different) in the 1870s is horrific. It’s an evocative, picaresque, thought-provoking and historical novel about a young Chinese timber worker who discovers a mysterious Caucasian woman in the forest. He fears she is a ghost lover meant to haunt him, and as other men and women come into contact with Sarah Canary (as he names her) she becomes whatever symbol of womanhood they wish to see. This brilliant first novel has a marvelously fantastic feel to it, along the lines of Peter Carey’s lllywacker. It opens with one mystery and ends with another. British critic John Clute calls it the “best first contact novel ever written,” which is an interesting interpretation. Highly recommended for lovers of the fantastic and good literature.

Gojiro by Mark Jacobson (Atlantic Monthly) is also not horror, despite Gojiro being the infamous movie monster Godzilla. On a remote island populated mostly by lizards, the effects of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki are felt—a monitor lizard becomes huge and smart and is immediately alienated from his fellows. A young boy in Hiroshima falls into a coma. Somehow Gojiro’s cries of loneliness are telepathically “heard,” and the boy recovers and travels two thousand miles to join his new-found friend. The novel is about their adventures on the road to Hollywood. A charming, hip, satirical science fiction debut.

Palindrome by Stuart Woods (HarperCollins) is a dark suspense novel that opens powerfully—a beautiful photographer, Liz Barwick, is admitted to a hospital after her doped-up football player husband nearly beats her to death. She divorces him and flees to an idyllic island paradise off the Georgia coast to heal her physical and psychic wounds. There she meets and becomes friends with the owners, including mysterious twin brothers who have not spoken to each other in twenty years. Various threads of the plot converge as her vengeance-bound ex-husband tracks her down and her involvement with one of the twins becomes increasingly strange. A good read despite some believability problems.

Damage by Josephine Hart (Knopf). This debut novel was published to justifiable critical acclaim. In a style as spare and cool as his emotional life, a man tells the story of his own destruction. This novel is a deeply moving, frightening psychological drama of obsession in which the refrain is “Damaged people are dangerous. They know they can survive.” For once, the jacket blurbs do a book justice: “A passionate, elegant, ruthless story.” I was so caught up in it, I almost missed my subway stop. Read it! One of the best novels of the year published outside the genre.

The Weekend: A Novel of Revenge by Helen Zahavi (Donald I. Fine). This first novel opens with “This is the story of Bella, who woke up one morning and realised she’d had enough,” enough of being tormented by lowlife men in Brighton, where she’s gone after leaving London and her former life as a prostitute. This is a literate Ms. 45, a simply told tale of less than 200 pages that packs a wallop, particularly the last chapter, which universalizes in a surprisingly believable way the most extreme form of conflict between men and women. This might appeal to women more than men, but who knows? It does have a sense of poetic justice for both sexes.

Wilderness by Dennis Danvers (Poseidon) is a fast-paced first novel about Alice White, a woman who has avoided intimacy her entire life of thirty-plus years in order to protect her secret: she is a werewolf. This is not a horror novel, despite its subject matter. It deals with trust, relationships between exes [sic], the relationship between humankind and animals and the accommodations necessary between our wild and domestic natures.

St. Peters Wolf by Michael Cadnum (Carroll & Graf) is another werewolf novel, with themes, psychology and occasionally even scenes similar to those of Wilderness. Yet it is quite a different reading experience. I suspect how the reader reacts to these two novels is dependent on which is read first. I read St. Peters Wolf second and was disappointed. It’s denser and it’s beautifully written, but the author’s love affair with words sometimes gets in the way of the story. The book feels repetitious and there are too many minor characters who have no impact on the story. Also these werewolves seem more and more indestructible and even mystical, losing credence. A sharper focus would have helped.

Sleepwalker by Michael Cadnum (St. Martin’s) came out several months before St. Peters Wolf. Although the supernatural plays a large role here, the novel shares more with Cadnum’s debut novel, Nightlight, in its poetic spareness. Archeologists unearth a twelve-hundred-year-old bog man at a site in York who appears to have been murdered. Two archeologists, former colleagues years before, are brought together, their personal problems and secrets intersecting. The site, rumored to be haunted, becomes more and more dangerous as trivial incidents like tools moving around escalate to unexplained “accidents,” and the bog man himself seems to be more mobile than he should be. A good read.

Outside the Dog Museum by Jonathan Carroll (MacDonald-UK/Doubleday) is another magical mystery tour by the author of Land of Laughs, Sleeping in Flame and other novels. This one concerns an arrogant genius architect named Harry Radcliffe, who, straight out of a nervous breakdown, is commissioned by the Sultan of Saru to build a museum to honor dogs. Radcliffe is not a nice guy but he seems to have been touched by a higher force to experience and possibly create great things. Carroll is an amazing writer, able to create perfect vignettes and stories within stories, but his plotting is occasionally weak. Although Outside the Dog Museum is absorbing throughout and the reader hopes Carroll can pull it all together at the end, I found myself thinking about the book afterward and wondering what happened. The book is about creativity, responsibility, God, mysticism, and fate. Despite the serious themes and minor flaws, it is quite a lot of fun to read.

The Drowners by Garry Kilworth (Methuen) is a YA ghost story set in Hampshire, England, on a flood plain. John Timbrel is MasterDrowner for his community—the person who maps out the necessarily exact science of opening and closing the locks for irrigation. One wrong decision means fields and crops are ruined for the season. Against this background a drama is played out between a rich, greedy landowner, his murderous hired hand and Tom Timbrel, the master’s apprentice/son. An atmospheric and effective slice of English regional life.

Honour Thy Father by Lesley Glaister (Atheneum). The author won the Somerset Maugham Award for this first novel. It’s a disturbing novel about four aged sisters trapped for decades in the Fens of England by an autocratic and psychotic father obsessed with keeping them pure. The vision is very dark, and the play between past and present is well done, but perhaps too literary for some horror fans.

Don’t Say a Word by Andrew Klavan (Pocket) is an intricately plotted psychological suspense novel. Klavan is the author of last year’s excellent The Scarred Man, written under his Keith Peterson pseudonym. Klavan has the ability to draw the reader into his world immediately, no matter how unpleasant his characters.

Nathan Conrad, dubbed “psychiatrist of the damned,” is persuaded to take on one more hard-luck case: that of an angelic-looking young woman who has been accused of slicing a man to shreds and then lapsing into catatonia. Meanwhile, Conrad s idyllic personal life is about to be ruptured by two brutal opportunists. An Edgar nominee and a definite page-turner.

The New Neighbor by Ray Garton (Charnel House) is an erotic horror novel with illustrations by J. K. Potter. The new neighbor, a beautiful young woman (’natch) is a succubus who seduces anyone she can. There’s a lot of masturbation and hot sex in this fairly standard story, but it’s a fast, entertaining read. The book looks great—the cover is elegant, the interiors sexy and disturbing. Primarily for collectors of Potter and Garton.

Tender Loving Rage by Alfred Bester (Tafford) is a mainstream suspense novel, never before published, by the late Alfred Bester, author of the classic science fiction novels The Demolished Man and The Stars My Destination. The time is 1959, the place New York City, where two men fall in love with model Julene Krebs, who displays a completely different personality with each of them. All three characters are haunted by past secrets. On Fire Island just before a hurricane, Julene’s past catches up with her and her two lovers. It’s a strange, anachronistic little novel with noirish dialogue, Fitzgeraldian characters, wild parties and orgies, talk of discos and Bella Abzug. Despite the weird sense of displacement (I don’t know when Bester actually wrote it) it’s an interesting thriller.

The M.D.: A Horror Story by Thomas M. Disch (Knopf) is a horror/science fiction novel of power and corruption. The first section of the novel is a joy, with its depiction of what initially seems to be a typical midwestern childhood and the miseries of attending Catholic school. Young Billy Michaels, growing up in Minneapolis in the early seventies, sees a vision of Santa Claus one Christmas.

The vision claims Santa Claus is only one of his many guises and that he is actually Mercury, the pagan God of science and medicine—in this story, an evil god. Billy is tempted by this god to use his brother's homemade caduceus, the winged serpentine emblem of the healer's art. However, as in many fairy and folktales, its use always backfires.

There is a large gap in time from when young Billy tries to do good with the caduceus, always failing, to the middle-aged William, the M.D. of the title, who ultimately becomes a monster, consciously doing evil. Who or what is Mercury really? The devil? But could there be a devil without a positive counterpart? If this god is actually Mercury, then why is he evil? And why don’t the other gods in the pantheon make an appearance? Several characters have strong religious beliefs but none of these beliefs seem to have any connection or effect on the Mercury character. Despite these unanswered questions, The M.D. is elegantly written, ambitious and absorbing.

Time’s Arrow by Martin Amis (Harmony) is a virtuoso performance, a story told backward from a man’s death to his birth. The narrator, a doppelganger imprisoned within Dr. Friendly’s body, is a separate consciousness that shares but has no influence on the doctor’s life—an innocent. Through the doppelganger’s perceptions, the reader sees history in a completely different light and begins (unlike the doppelganger) to understand the monstrousness of Dr. Friendly. The resulting novel is thoroughly cerebral rather than emotionally engaging.

Wetbones by John Shirley (Mark V. Ziesing) begins with all the energy, solid characterizations and action that a reader expects of John Shirley. The novel seems at first to be a hard-headed look at Hollywood, but it quickly becomes a cautionary tale about the dangers of any kind of addiction. A weird guy lures young girls away from home and psychically feeds off them until they’re used up; a respected Hollywood couple own a ranch that is the nexus of all kinds of perversion and corruption; a recovered alcoholic combs L.A. for his runaway daughter; and two men go after the grail of fame and fortune in the Hollywood film industry. In general, a good combination of street life and splatter that certainly goes over the top in violence. For me, the grisliness became a bit numbing and I felt there was too much explanation of the supernatural elements. Don’t even ask what “wet-bones” are—you don’t want to know. ... A good read, and a beautifully designed package by Arnie Fenner.

Bones of Coral by James W. Hall (Knopf) is an intricate mystery that opens with a Miami paramedic responding to a suicide call and discovering the father he hasn’t seen in twenty years. The novel focuses on Key West and illegal chemical dumping, and the underside of the high-tech society we embrace. There’s a refreshing relationship in which male and female are equal in age and status. (If anything, the woman, a famous soap opera actress, has the edge.) A great read.

Other novels published in 1991 were The Wild by Whitley Strieber (Tor), The Bridge by John Skipp and Craig Spector (Bantam); Unearthed by Ashley McConnell (Diamond); The Fire Within by Graham Watkins (Berkley); Lizzie Borden by Elizabeth Engstrom (Tor); Dracula Unbound by Brian W. Aldiss (HarperCollins); Lot Lizards by Ray Garton (Mark V. Ziesing); Bad Dreams by Kim Newman (Simon & Schuster-UK); Ghosts of Wind and Shadow by Charles de Lint (Axolotl/ Pulphouse); Steam by Jay B. Laws (Alyson); Fetish a short novel by Edward Bryant (Axolotl/Pulphouse); The Fetch by Robert Holdstock (Orbit); Through a Lens Darkly by James Cohen (Donald I. Fine); The Headsman by James Neal Harvey (Donald I. Fine); Revealing Angel by Julia Maclean (St. Martin’s); The Walled Orchard by Tom Holt (St. Martin’s); Midnight Sun by Ramsey Campbell (Tor); Nothing Human by Ronald Munson (Pocket); The Burning by Graham Masterton (Tor); The Kinder Garden by Frederick Taylor (Carroll & Graf); Peter Doyle by John Vernon (Random House); The Choiring of the Trees by Donald Harrington (HBJ); Maus II by Art Spiegelman (Pantheon); Flicker by Theodore Roszak (Summit); Phantom by Susan Kay (Delacorte); Boy’s Life by Robert R. McCammon (Pocket); A Dangerous Woman by Mary McGarry Morris (Viking); Doctor Sleep by Madison Smartt Bell (HBJ); Something Stirs by Charles L. Grant (Tor); Imajica by Clive Barker (HarperCollins); The Goldbug Variations by Richard Powers (Morrow); Murther and Walking Spirits by Robertson Davies (Viking); Hangman by Christopher A. Bohjalian (Carroll & Graf); The Host by Peter R. Emshwiller (Bantam); The Women of Whitechapel and Jack the Ripper by Paul West (Random House); Summer of Night by Dan Simmons (Putnam); Needful Things by Stephen King (Viking); Nightlife by Brian Hodge (Abyss); and Mastery by Kelley Wilde (Abyss).

Anthologies:

In 1991, as in the past four years, original anthologies provided the most consistently well-written and interesting short horror. There were almost thirty anthologies published that were dominated by horror material, plus many anthologies and collections that contained at least some horror.

However, the abundance of original anthologies does not mean that everything is great in the field. Most of these anthologies were commissioned a few years ago, when economic conditions were more favorable and horror as a genre was at its peak. If these anthologies do well, we’ll see more, otherwise, not. In no particular order:

Obsessions edited by Gary Raisor (Dark Harvest) is a good collection of wide-ranging obsessions. What stands out about this anthology is that the reader hardly ever remains aware of the theme until she finishes a story—the best way for a “theme” anthology to read. In other words, you’re not looking for the theme because the stories are so effective. The standouts are by C. J. Henderson, Charles L. Grant, A1 Sarrantonio, A. R. Morlan, and Dan Simmons.

Hotter Blood edited by Jeff Gelb and Michael Garrett (Pocket Books) contains all original stories, and is a considerable improvement in quality over Hot Blood. There’s more variety, fewer “woman as castrator” or “woman as victim” stories. Could it simply be due to the inclusion of more female contributors? Or is it because the first volume was slammed by some critics for using too many stories with women in stereotypical horror roles? In any case, there are very good stories here by Gary Brandner, Stephen Gallagher, Kiel Stuart, Karl Edward Wagner, and Grant Morrison.

Psycho-Paths edited by Robert Bloch (Tor) is disappointing. Too many psychos meeting other psychos. The best stories are by Dennis Etchison, Gahan Wilson, Steve Rasnic Tem, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Michael Berry, Brad Linaweaver, and Susan Shwartz.

Cold Blood: New Tales of Mystery and Horror edited by Richard T. Chizmar (Mark V. Ziesing) is another disappointment, considering it comes from the editor of the World Fantasy Award-winning small press magazine Cemetery Dance. None of the contributors are at their best, although F. Paul Wilson’s contribution is very good. Few of the stories pack the punch they should and very few follow through on good ideas.

Under the Fang edited by Robert R. McCammon (Pocket). The first official Horror Writers of America-sponsored anthology does not show off the membership to best advantage. The idea, a shared-world vampire anthology set at a time after vampires have taken over, is not a bad one. Unfortunately, the contributors don’t go far enough off the main track and there’s little depth to most of the stories. There are some interesting visuals by Nancy A. Collins, an amusing collaboration by Yarbro and Charnas placing their famous vampires in the same century, and a good Thomas F. Monteleone story, but the book is not the showcase it should have been.

Newer York edited by Lawrence Watt-Evans (Roc) is not marketed as a horror anthology, but considering how most outsiders feel about New York, it shouldn’t be surprising that there are a number of stories here that verge on the horrific. The best include those by Robert Frazier, Eric Blackburn, Martha Soukup, Laurence M. Janifer, Robert}. Howe, and a collaboration between Warren Murphy and Molly Cochran.

Dead End: City Limits: An Anthology of Urban Fear edited by Paul F. Olson and David B. Silva (St. Martin’s), while consistently entertaining, is not as good as their first collaboration, Post Mortem. The standouts are by Steve Rasnic Tem, Poppy Z. Brite, Thomas F. Monteleone, and Charles L. Grant.

Dark Voices 3 edited by David Sutton and Stephen Jones (Pan) is disappointing on the whole, with four reprints (one of which appeared in last year’s Years Best) out of fourteen stories. Several had predictable third-rate “Twilight Zone” TV plots. The few standouts were by Kathe Koja, Lene Kaaberol, Stephen Laws, and Brian Lumley.

Cafe Purgatorium: Three Novels of Horror and the Fantastic by Dana M. Anderson, Charles de Lint, and Ray Garton (Tor) is in fact three novellas. One, “Dr. Krusadian’s Method,” is a reprint from the 1990 Ray Garton collection, Methods of Madness. Dana M. Anderson is a newcomer who contributes the interesting title novella about a haunted speakeasy. And “Death Leaves an Echo,” Charles de Lint’s ghost story, rounds out the lovely package. Powerful work by all three writers.

Embracing the Dark edited by Eric Garber (Alyson Publications) contains original and reprint gay and lesbian vampire stories. The best are reprints by Kij Johnson, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, and Peter Robins and the original vignette from Jewelle Gomez’s “Gilda” series. The editor’s introduction claims he wants to “reject the cliches and invert the metaphors” of heterosexual horror fiction, and further accuses the standard horror novel of glorifying heterosexuality and conversely “punish[ing] any deviation from this heterosexual norm.” This condemns a whole genre by its lowest levels of writing. So it is with great irony that I found many of the stories in the volume (at least those by men) basically idealized gay pornography, “gigantic manhood” and all. Too many of the stories are driven by the facts of the characters’ sexuality at the expense of plot or atmosphere, a disaster in the horror or suspense genres. Also, the explicitness sometimes works against a story’s effectiveness by undercutting the atmosphere of horror. In contrast, Edward Bryant’s classic “Dancing Chickens” (not included in the anthology), which contains a sympathetic gay protagonist, juxtaposes an external horror against the personal horror of his protagonist’s life, and it knocks most of the stories in this anthology out of the water.

The Bradbury Chronicles: Stories in Honor of Ray Bradbury edited by William F. Nolan and Martin H. Greenberg (Roc). Many of these stories are lovely homages to early Bradbury—and quite faithful to the originals. And therein lies the rub—they are enjoyable as nostalgia pieces but there’s not enough originality, although Chad Oliver, Charles L. Grant and F. Paul Wilson make gallant attempts to transcend the theme. It’s bad enough when beginning writers are persuaded to “sharecrop” in an established writer’s universe, but here is an example of established writers being persuaded to lend their formidable talents to what is essentially a rehashing of another’s worldview. Their time and energy would be better spent writing their own material—writing their best and showing how they were influenced as writers, not as imitators of Bradbury.

Tales of the Wandering Jew edited by Brian M. Stableford (Dedalus). Stableford does a good job with a difficult subject. The Wandering Jew of legend is intrinsically an anti-Semitic creation of Christians. The legend goes that a shoemaker taunted or threw something at Jesus while he was walking to his crucifixion and that Jesus cursed the man to live until the second coming. Both the traditional and new stories here could be construed as anti-Semitic in their assumption that the Wandering Jew deserves punishment for his nonbelief, and many of the stories have the wanderer convert to Christianity during his wanderings. The best stories focus on the repercussions of unwanted immortality rather than the religious aspects of the legend. Includes good pieces by Steve Rasnic Tem, Ian McDonald, Robert Irwin, and Geoffrey Farrington.

Cold Shocks edited by Tim Sullivan (Avon) is a satisfying follow-up to Tropical Chills, with excellent stories by A. R. Morlan, S. P. Somtow, Graham Masterton, Michael Armstrong and Edward Bryant and very good stories by the rest.

The Ultimate Werewolf edited by Byron Preiss (Dell) is something I expected to dislike, not believing there could be enough different takes on the theme to keep a reader’s interest. I was pleasantly surprised. Beginning with a classic reprint by Harlan Ellison, this anthology of mostly originals finds enough variations on the werewolf theme to keep everyone happy. The best were by Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Craig Shaw Gardner, Mel Gilden, Nancy A. Collins, Pat Murphy and a collaboration by A. C. Crispin and Kathleen O’Malley.

The Ultimate Dracula and The Ultimate Frankenstein edited by Byron Preiss (Dell). Unfortunately, the negatives I expected from The Ultimate Werewolf did show up in these two. The more specific a theme, the more difficult it is to put together interesting stories that play against that theme. For example, the best story in the Frankenstein book (which, as is customary, mistakes the creature for its creator) is by S. P. Somtow, who does not use the traditional characters at all but creates his own erotic nightmare from his imagination and the exoticism of Thailand, his homeland. The Dracula stories would be better if they weren’t about Dracula but about vampires in general. There’s only so much you can do with the “Father of Darkness” as the actual character. Boring, for the most part, with notable exceptions by Dan Simmons, Brad Strickland, Steve Rasnic Tem and Melanie Tem, W. R. Philbrick, John Lutz, and Kristine Kathryn Rusch.

Nightmares on Elm Street: Freddy Kruegers Seven Sweetest Dreams edited by Martin H. Greenberg (St. Martin’s) also suffers from too specific a theme. The contributors—talented writers such as Nancy A. Collins, Brian Hodge, Bentley Little and Philip Nutman—bring what they can to a thankless task. Only for diehard Freddy fans.

Chilled to the Bone edited by Robert T. Garcia (Mayfair Games) is an anthology that has the exact opposite problem. It is based on the idea (I hesitate to call it a theme) that there are bad things out there—demons and vampires and werewolves and other beasties. And there’s a secret society that’s been fighting these bad things for centuries. Unfortunately, few of the stories reflect this “theme,” loose as it is. Apparently, all the stories have to have a note or message that says “beware” of something or someone. That’s the extent of their connection. Contributions by some usually excellent writers are especially disappointing. A mess.

Final Shadows edited by Charles L. Grant (Doubleday Foundation) is the concluding volume (double-sized) of the World Fantasy Award-winning anthology series. A mixed-bag ranging from the powerful to the adequate, the best stories are by Brian Lumley (originally published in Dark Voices 3 in the UK), Michael Bishop, Jack Cady, Melanie Tem, Stephen Gallagher, Dennis Etchison, Tanith Lee, and the novelette by David Morrell. Oddly, there are no introductions or biographical notes. The cover art gets my nomination for the ugliest of the year.

Borderlands 2 edited by Thomas Monteleone (Borderlands Press/Avon) is disappointing after last year’s volume, which produced two of the best stories of the year. Not enough ambition and too much heavy-handedness, but some good, edgy stories by Charles L. Grant, James S. Dorr, Philip Nutman, David B. Silva and Brian Hodge.

Vampires edited by Jane Yolen and Martin H. Greenberg (HarperCollins) is aimed at the young adult audience and as such, is entertaining but not all that horrific. There’s one lovely story by Mary Frances Zambreno and a quite moving piece by Mary K. Whittington.

Night Visions 9 (Dark Harvest). Thomas Tessier shines with a novella. In contrast, James Kisner’s and Rick Hautala’s work in this volume pales beside it. Hautala’s work is bloody and vicious but lacks scope and resonance. A disappointing volume in this series.

Thirteen edited by T. Pines (Scholastic) is an all-original YA anthology with some scary stuff by various writers known for their young adult fiction.

The New Gothic edited by Bradford Morrow and Patrick McGrath (Random House) is a beautiful-looking volume with originals and reprints, which tries to separate itself from the horror field by an heroic attempt at obfuscation in the introduction. This is yet another marketing attempt to separate literary writing from popular writing. No go, guys. Peter Straub’s early fiction (and some of his current) is firmly based in horror and fantasy (although the excerpt in The New Gothic isn’t). Joyce Carol Oates has written mainstream, fantasy, science fiction and horror at various times, and certainly McGrath himself veers back and forth between the realistic and the fantastic. The stories in the anthology vary from the bloodless (in the figurative sense) and boring to the quite bloody (literally) and creepy. The best of the originals are by Janice Galloway, Scott Bradfield, Patrick McGrath, and Bradford Morrow.

Masques IV edited by J. N. Williamson (Maclay) is another mixed quality bag. The weakness of this series has always been that the editor crams in too many very short stories, which usually work on only one superficial level, rather than going for fewer but longer and more ambitious works. Despite this, almost half of the twenty-six stories are very good, including those by Ed Gorman, James Kisner, Graham Masterton, David T. Connolly, Darrell Schweitzer, Ray Russell, Kathryn Ptacek, Lois Tilton, Mort Castle, Rick Hautala, and Dan Simmons.

Pulphouse: The Hardback Magazine Issue #10 is a special holiday issue with an especially good horror story by Nina Kiriki Hoffman. #11, the speculative fiction issue, had good horror fiction by Steve Rasnic Tem, Stephanie Perry, and Resa Nelson.

A Whisper of Blood edited by Ellen Datlow (Morrow/Berkley) is a follow-up to the vampirism anthology Blood is Not Enough. All are original stories, with the exception of three; the anthology attempts to push the limits of vampires and the idea of vampirism to the max. Stories by Pat Cadigan, K. W. Jeter, Karl Edward Wagner, David J. Schow, Kathe Koja, Suzy McKee Charnas and others.

Darklands edited by Nicholas Royle (Egerton Press) was published in a limited edition of 500 copies in Great Britain. There may be a trade edition eventually. Good stories by Stephen Gallagher, Julie Akhurst, Philip Nutman, Brian Howell and Joel Lane.

Copper Star: An Anthology of Southwestern Fantasy, Horror and Science Fiction edited by Bruce D. Arthurs (1991 World Fantasy Convention) is a beautifully produced limited edition hardcover of sixteen stories with illustrations. The book was produced specially for members of the 1991 World Fantasy Convention and has excellent stories by Mike Newland, Edward Bryant, Melanie Tem, Norman Partridge and Jeannette M. Hopper.

Raw Head, Bloody Bones: African-American Tales of the Supernatural selected by Mary E. Lyons (Scribners) is a collection of ethnic folktales. The introduction explains something about the oral tradition of these tales, evolving from stories of lions in Africa to rabbits in America. The tales cover hags (witches), sea serpents, zombies and other supernatural beings. This is charming but not very frightening. It’s perfect for young adults around a campfire during a starless night.

Fires of the Past edited by Anne Devereaux Jordan (St. Martin’s) is mostly science fiction but has some horrific material by Edward Bryant Jane Yolen and Kit Reed.

Monkey Brain Sushi: New Tastes in Japanese Fiction edited by Alfred Birnbaum (Kodansha) can only marginally be considered fantasy or horror—a cartoon strip, an S&M story. There is some very weird stuff (including “TV People,” by Huraki Murakami, which appeared in last year’s volume of The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror). What’s most interesting to me is how close in flavor it is to the type of hip American fiction being published today—even the S&M.

Tales of the Outre: Writings Celebrating the Centenary of H. P. Lovecraft (Unspeakable Tomes, 1990) is an original anthology of spoof Lovecraft stories, all written under pseudonyms [not seen].

The following original or mostly original anthologies cross genres and also contain some horror: Dark Crimes edited by Ed Gorman (Carroll & Graf)—story by Ed Gorman; Winters Tales: New Series 7 edited by Robin Baird-Smith (St. Martin’s)—stories by Tom Wakefield, Patrick McGrath, Tony Peake, and A. L. Barker; Revenge edited by Kate Saunders (Faber & Faber)—stories by Lisa St. Aubin de Teran and Kate Saunders; Full Spectrum 3 edited by Lou Aronica, Amy Stout and Betsy Mitchell (Doubleday Foundation)—stories by Marcos Donnelly and R. V. Branham; Writers of the Future Volume VII edited by Algis Budrys (Bridge)—story by Barry H. Reynolds; The Fantastic Adventures of Robin Hood edited by Martin H. Greenberg (Signet)—stories by Steven Rasnic Tem and Nancy A. Collins; Sword and Sorceresses VIII edited by Marion Zimmer Bradley (DAW)—stories by Deborah Burros, Jennifer Roberson, Eluki bes Shahar and Jere Dunham; New Worlds 1 edited by David Garnett (Gollancz)—story by Brian W. Aldiss; A Hammock Beneath the Mangoes edited by Thomas Colchie (Dutton)—stories by Moacyr Scliar and Guillarmo Cabrero Infante; Subtropical Speculations edited by Rick Wilber and Richard Mathews (Pineapple Press)—story by Joe Taylor; Invitation to Murder edited by Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg (Dark Harvest)—stories by Gary Brandner, Billie Sue Mosiman, Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Andrew Vachss; Unmapped Territories: New Womens Fiction from Japan edited and translated by Yukiko Tanaka (Women in Translation); Horse Fantastic edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Rosalind M. Greenberg (DAW)— story by Jennifer Roberson; There Wont Be War edited by Harry Harrison and Bruce McAllister (Tor)—stories by Jack McDevitt, Nancy A. Collins and Gregory Frost; When the Music’s Over edited by Lewis Shiner (Bantam Spectra); The Fifth Book of After Midnight Stories edited by Amy Myers (Robert Hale-UK); Tales of Magic Realism by Women: Dreams in a Minor Key edited by Susanna J. Sturgis (The Crossing Press)—story by Stephanie T. Hoppe; Catfantastic II edited by Andre Norton and Martin H. Greenberg (DAW)—story by Elizabeth Moon; A Woman’s Eye edited by Sara Paretsky (Delacorte)—story by Nancy Pickard.

Anthologies containing mostly reprinted material included I Shudder at Your Touch (with four originals, including one by Patrick McGrath) edited by Michele Slung (Roc); The Mammoth Book of Terror edited by Stephen Jones (Carroll & Graf); Hollywood Ghosts edited by Frank D. McSherry, Jr., Charles G. Waugh and Martin H. Greenberg (Rutledge Hill Press); Civil War Ghosts edited by Martin Harry Greenberg, Frank McSherry, Jr., and Charles G. Waugh (August House); The Horror Hall of Fame edited by Robert Silverberg and Martin H. Greenberg (Carroll & Graf); Sacred Visions (with three original stories—an especially good one by Gene Wolfe), edited by Andrew M. Greeley and Michael Cassutt (Tor);

Scarlet Letters: Tales of Adultery from Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine edited by Eleanor Sullivan (Carroll & Graf)—including stories by Ruth Rendell, Andrew Klavan and Lawrence Block; Fifty Years of the Best from Ellery Queen edited by Eleanor Sullivan (Carroll & Graf); The Best ofPulphouse: The Hardback Magazine edited by Kristine Kathryn Rusch (St. Martin’s); The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories 2 edited by Richard Dalby with a preface by Christopher Lee (Carroll & Graf)—including stories by Dickens, Stoker, Wharton, Mary Wilkins, Kingsley Amis and many other, less familiar names; Arabian Nights adapted from Richard F. Burton’s unexpurgated translation by Jack Zipes (Signet); Echoes of Valor III edited by Karl Edward Wagner (Tor); Masters of Darkness III edited by Dennis Etchison (Tor); Classic Tales of Horror and the Supernatural edited by Bill Pro-nzini, Barry Malzberg and Martin H. Greenberg (Morrow/Quill); Crime Classics: The Mystery Story from Poe to the Present edited by Rex Burns and Mary Rose Sullivan (Viking)—including stories by Chesterton, Hammett, Sayers, Woolrich, Faulkner, Borges and McBain; Back from the Dead edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Charles G. Waugh (DAW); Best New Horror 2 edited by Stephen Jones and Ramsey Campbell (Carroll & Graf); Alpha Gallery: Selections from the Fantastic Small Press (write Michael A. Arnzen, Director, SPWAO Publications Dispersal, 1700 Constitution #D-24, Pueblo, CO 81001); Dark Crimes: Great Noir Fiction from the 40 s to the 90 s edited by Ed Gorman, includes two originals (Carroll & Graf)—and stories by Edward Bryant, Evan Hunter, Lawrence Block, Karl Edward Wagner and Andrew Vachss; New Stories from the Twilight Zone edited by Martin H. Greenberg (Avon)—includes the classics “Nightcrawlers,” “Shatterday,” “Dead Run,” and “The Last Defender of Camelot”; The Literary Ghost: Great Contemporary Ghost Stories edited by Larry Dark (Atlantic Monthly)—a terrific lineup including stories by A. S. Byatt, Patrick McGrath, Anne Sexton, Fay Weldon and Paul Bowles; The Literary Dog: Great American Dog Stories edited by Jeanne Schinto {Atlantic Monthly 1990, but missed last year)—includes stories by Donald Barthelme, Ann Beattie, Michael Bishop, T. Coraghessan Boyle and Doris Lessing; The Years Best Horror Stories XIX edited by Karl Edward Wagner (DAW); Spells of Enchantment: The Wondrous Fairy Tales of Western Culture edited by Jack Zipes (Viking)—a gorgeous package of over 800 pages, including literary fairy tales for adults by everyone from Hans Christian Andersen and Hermann Hesse to Jane Yolen and Stanislaw Lem. Wonderful illustrations; Victorian Ghost Stories: An Oxford Anthology selected by Michael Cox and R. A. Gilbert (Oxford University Press); Die Monster Die!: The World’s Worst Horror Fiction edited by Micki Villa—24 stories from horror comics of the ’40s and ’50s (Malibu Graphics); Haunting Christmas Tales no editor, YA, which include stories by Garry Kilworth and Joan Aiken (Scholastic-UK); Crime for Christmas edited by Richard Dalby (O’Mara-UK); Tales of Witchcraft edited by Richard Da by (O’Mara-UK); The Virago Book of Ghost Stories: The Twentieth Century Vol. 2 edited by Richard Dalby (Virago-UK); The Man in Black: Macabre Stories from Fear on Four anonymous (BBC Books-UK); A Book of Dreams edited by Trevor Jones and George P. Townsend—stories from Dream and New Moon magazines (Weller-UK); Spooky Sea Stories edited by Charles G. Waugh Martin H. Greenberg and Frank D. McSherry (Yankee Books); The Virago Book of Fairy Tales edited by Angela Carter (Virago-UK); Short Sharp Shocks edited by Julian Lloyd Webber (Weidenfeld & Nicolson-UK); The Walker Book of Ghost Stories edited by Susan Hill (Walker-UK)—YA stories, some original, and illos. by Hill; Gaslit Nightmares 2 edited by Hugh Lamb—ghost/horror stories from the Victorian and Edwardian periods (Futura-UK); Strange Tales from the Strand edited by Jack Adrian—29 ghost/supernatural stories from the past 100 years of Strand Magazine (Oxford-UK).

A number of notable collections included horror or crossover material: The Ends of the Earth by Lucius Shepard, lavishly illustrated by J. K. Potter (Arkham House). Shepard's second collection includes fantasy such as “The Scalehunter’s Beautiful Daughter,” horror such as “The Exercise of Faith,” and crossover such as “Life of Buddha.”

Arkham House also produced Michael Swanwick’s first collection, Gravity’s Angels, including his first sale, “The Feast of St. Janis” up through “Snow Angels,” published in 1989. It’s a rich mixture of science fiction and fantasy with a dollop of horror. Interior illustrations by Janet Aulisio with cover art by Picasso.

New Life for the Dead, the first collection of stories by Alan Rodgers, was published by Wildside Press. It includes his Bram Stoker award-winning debut story, “The Boy Who Came Back From the Dead,” along with other reprints of prose and poetry. The book contains one original story and a few original poems.

Another production of Wildside Press appearing late in 1991 was the first major collection by Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Courting Disasters and other Strange Affinities. More than sixty stories are reprinted along with one original.

Beyond the Curve, Kobo Abe's first collection in English (Kodansha), is a fascinating mixture of short fiction by the author of The Woman of the Dunes. The stories (some, never before published in English) are weird, surreal and often verge on the horrific.

Sexpunks and Savage Sagas by Richard Sutphen (Spine-Tingling Press) is a self-published triumph of packaging and marketing over content (although I have no idea if the book actually sold). The author is an “occultist” who has decided to turn his attention to horror. I don’t think this guy has ever read horror fiction; he seems not to have a clue that he’s using every cliche in the book.

Blood by Janice Galloway (Random House) is a mixed bag of weirdness, possibly more literary than horror readers would like. Many of the stories were first published in British and Scottish magazines. Some very dark pieces, including the remarkable “Blood.”

Thomas Ligotti’s second collection, Grimscribe: His Lives and Works (Carroll & Graf) is being marketed by the publisher as a novel. Now this is a writer who should have been included in The New Gothic, if gothic is of a certain baroque style (which is one way I would describe it). Several original stories.

J. G. Ballard’s War Fever (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) came out in the U.S. just as we were going to war with Iraq. The cover jacket includes a photograph of a man who looks like (but isn’t) Sadam Hussein. What does this bizarre coincidence mean? Absolutely nothing except that Ballard has always had the knack of plugging into the political sensibilities of his times. Is there any honest-to-goodness horror in this collection? Probably not. But anyone who calls him or herself a lover of horror has a responsibility to be aware of new work by Ballard, who wrote the great “autoerotic” novel, Crash, and the infamous story “Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan” way before Reagan's administration was thought to have done the same to our country.

The prolific Joyce Carol Oates’s new collection, Heat (Dutton) is a dark one, with some stories more overt in their horror than others.

Waking Nightmares, Ramsey Campbell’s newest collection (Tor), covers the years 1974 to 1989 and includes material taken for The Years Best Fantasy and Horror series.

Carol Emshwiller’s World Fantasy Award-winning collection The Start of the End of It All (Mercury House). Emshwiller has crossed between the mainstream and fantasy fields for many years and is finally receiving the recognition her writing deserves. A different version of this collection was published in the UK by the Women’s Press with very little distribution. Terrific weird stuff.

The Copper Peacock and other stories by Ruth Rendell (Mysterious Press) shows off the talent of this British master of psychological suspense with nine stories; one especially chilling story, “Mother’s Help,” is an original.

Author’s Choice Monthly: #17, Alan Brennert’s Ma Qui and Other Phantoms; #18, Joe R. Lansdale’s Stories by Mama Lansdales Youngest Boy; #22, Charles de Lint’s Hedgework and Guessery; #24, J. N. Williamson’s The Naked Flesh of Feeling (Pulphouse).

And collections not seen: Seven Strange and Ghostly Tales by Brian Jacques— YA (Hutchinson-UK); The Dark Entry and Other Tales by Kelvin I. Jones (Sir Hugo Books-UK); On Meeting Witches at Wells by Judith Gorog—YA (Putnam/ Philomel); Tales, Weird and Whimsical by T. M. Lally (Merlin-UK); The Best Supernatural Stories of John Buchan by John Buchan (Robert Hale-UK); The Unsettled Dust by Robert Aickman (Mandarin); The Mary Shelley Reader includes two novels, seven stories, essays, reviews and letters; The Frankenstein text is the rare 1818 first edition, not the heavily revised 1831 which is the source of most reprints (Oxford University Press); Ravenscarne and Other Ghost Stories by Mary Williams (Piatkus-UK); The Collected Short Stories of Roald Dahl (Michael Jo-seph-UK).

In contrast to the anthology market, the professional magazine market languished. Small-press horror magazines proliferate, but there continue to be very few professional magazine markets for horror. The following is a sampling of the best professional, semiprofessional and small-press magazines:

Weird Tales usually looks good; the spring issue illustrated by Gahan Wilson was particularly interesting. Good stories and poetry by Jessica Amanda Sal-monson, Robert Bloch and Henry Kuttner, Ramsey Campbell, Juleen Bran-tingham, William F. Nolan, Jason van Hollander and Thomas Ligotti. The editors are George H. Scithers and Darrell Schweitzer.

Iniquities, while nicely designed, is still not on a regular schedule and is still inconsistent in its fiction choices. The editorials are a bit too informal for a slick magazine; however, Iniquities always has interesting art, including pieces by J. K.

Potter, Alan Clark and Allen K. in recent issues. And there were good stories by Ramsey Campbell, Elizabeth Massie, Steve Rasnic Tem, Wayne Allen Sallee and H. Andrew Lynch and Nina Kiriki Hoffman. The editors are Buddy Martinez and J. F. Gonzales.

The now-defunct Fear Magazine published good horror stories by Mike O’Driscoll, John Pritchard, Jeff Vandermeer, Rick Cadger, David Duggins, Huw Collingbourne, Malcolm Twigg, Robert Neilson and Andrew J. Wilson.

Fantasy Tales, as far as I can tell, only came out with one issue, in the spring. The cover by J. K. Potter was striking, but the fiction was disappointing, despite stories by Thomas Ligotti, Neil Gaiman and William F. Nolan (all three reprints). The editors are Stephen Jones and David Sutton.

Pulphouse, the Weekly Magazine quickly became simply Pulphouse the Magazine. Unfortunately it hasn’t yet found its feet, although there was a wise change in cover design after a few issues that used authors’ photographs. So far the fiction has been inconsistent in quality, but there was some good horror by Mark Budz, Patricia B. Cirone, David J. Schow, Bradley Denton and Steve Perry. The editor is Dean Wesley Smith.

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, which had a change of editors in March, published excellent horror stories by Wendy Counsil, Kathe Koja, Michael Lee, Bradley Denton, Elizabeth Engstrom, Terry Bisson, Sally Caves, David Hoing, Katharine Eliska Kimbriel, Lois Tilton, Lynn S. Hightower, Esther Friesner, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Sheri S. Tepper, Mike Resnick, Henry Slesar and Marc Laidlaw. The editor was Ed Ferman and is now Kristine Kathryn Rusch.

Isaac Asimovs Science Fiction Magazine published notable horror by Ian R. MacLeod, Kathleen J. Alcala, Pat Murphy, Jonathan Lethem, Don Webb, Keith Roberts, Alexander Jablokov, Lawrence Person, Greg Egan, Walter Jon Williams, Leonard Carpenter, Richard Paul Russo, Connie Willis, S. N. Dyer, Paul Wit-cover, Peni R. Griffin and Tanith Lee. The editor is Gardner Dozois.

Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine published horrific stories by Marion M. Markham, Robert William Klein, John Paxton Sheriff, Gloria Erickson, Peter Sellers, K. D. Wentworth, James S. Dorr, Tony Richards, Simon P. McCaffery and William Beechcroff. The editor is Cathleen Jordan.

Ellery Queens Mystery Magazine published horrific fiction by Virginia Layef-sky, Sharon Pisacreta, Richard Patrick Gibbons, Joe Gores, Henry Slesar, Clark Howard, Peter Lovesey and James Powell. For many years the editor was Eleanor Sullivan. She died of cancer in 1991. The new editor is Janet Hutchings.

Omni published horrific material by Jack Cady, Robert Frazier, J. G. Ballard, Barry N. Malzberg, Michael Bishop and J. R. Dunn. Fiction editor is myself (Ellen Datlow).

Interzone published horror by Chris Beckett, Sylvia M. Siddall, Greg Egan, Garry Kilworth, Diane Mapes, Nicola Griffith, Martha A. Hood, Frances Amery, David Langford, Ian R. MacLeod and Alan Heaven. The editor is David Pringle.

New Mystery is a slick new magazine that published its first two issues in 1991. Despite the self-congratulatory tone of the first issue, the fiction is quite impressive with excellent new stories from the likes of Lawrence Block, Ruth Rendell, Steve Rasnic Tem, Atoda Takashi, Ardath Mayhar, James S. Dorr, Shizuko Natsuki and Leslie Alan Horvitz. There’s a freshness to the stories that the old warhorses Hitchcock and Ellery Queen often lack. It should give the two pulps a run for their money. The editor is Charles Raisch.

And the following is a sampling of the best small-press magazines specializing in horror:

Noctulpa became a digest-sized annual and this seems to have been the right decision. Noctulpa #5, called Guignoir and Other Furies is impressive, with all the fiction worth reading and effective illustrations by Peter H. Gilmore throughout. Look for stories by Lucy Taylor, Norman Partridge, Nancy Holder, Tia Travis and Scott H. Urban. The magazine is edited by George Hatch.

Cemetery Dance, edited by Richard T. Chizmar, is still the small-press magazine to watch since The Horror Show died. Good covers (although the spring cover resembles Jill Bauman s cover for an Alan Ryan novel several years ago) and some good fiction by Joseph Coulson and William Relling, Jr., Melanie Tem, Graham Masterton, Steve Rasnic Tem, Ramsey Campbell, G. Kyle White, Steven Spruill, S. K. Epperson, Bentley Little, Gene Michael Higney, Bill Pronzini, Tom Elliott' Nancy Holder, John Shirley and Wayne Allen Sallee.

After Hours, edited by William G. Raley, redesigned its ninth issue, eliminating story illustrations, which allows slightly more room for text. There was excellent fiction in issues 9-11 by Steve Rasnic Tem, Molly Brown, Robert Grey, Cecily Nabors, Steve Antezak, T. G. Som, Suzi K. West, Eric Del Carlo, Warren Brown, John Dowling and Gorman Bechard.

Deathrealm, edited by Mark Rainey, always has good interior art. I felt the fiction was weak this year although there were good stories by Barb Hendee and Jeff Vandermeer. #15 changed from digest-size to large format.

Not One of Us, edited by John Benson, changed to a new computer with issue #7; this makes the type much more legible. This small-sized magazine usually has readable fiction and some good art. In 1991 there was good horror fiction by Gary A. Braunbeck, Mark McLaughlin and Steve Vernon, and good art by Ray Bashom, John Borkowski and Bucky Montgomery.

Prisoners of the Night, an adult vampire magazine edited by Alayne Gelfand, had a cover (on #5) that looked like it belonged on a coloring book. Good fiction (surprising in light of the art) by Robert Grey, Wendy Rathbone and Taerie Bryant.

2AM edited by Gretta M. Anderson continues to look good, with a clean, legible design. The fiction is always literate if not necessarily frightening. Seems to go more for the repellent factor than fear or horror. Relling’s column continues to enlighten, entertain and offend. Good fiction by Brian Skinner, Jessica Amanda Salmonson, Earl Murphy and John Coyne.

Grue edited by Peggy Nadramia also continues to look good, with a fall 1991 cover by Rick Lieder. Excellent fiction and poetry by Norman Partridge, Lisa Lepovetsky, Darrell Schweitzer, and Robert Frazier appeared in issues #13 and #14, the latter a poetry supplement.

Tekeli-li! Journal of Terror (since shortened to Tek!) is a new fiction and nonfiction magazine edited by Jon B. Cooke. It makes a serious attempt at reviewing horror. Two overlapping film articles by the same contributor should have been combined and I think the piece on American Psycho misses the boat, but on the whole it’s a good start. Legible type and good-looking art. Good fiction by James Thompson and Douglas Clegg.

Nyctalops, edited by Harry O. Morris, is apparently the last issue of the magazine after a hiatus of seven years. Morris is known for his dark fantasy/horror art, particularly in the small press (although he’s beginning to do book covers. I believe he’s the cover artist of Ron Dee’s Dusk and the reprint of Michael McDowell’s Toplin (both Abyss), the latter of which is illustrated throughout. So it shouldn’t be surprising that Nyctalops features terrific art by T. M. Caldwell, J. K. Potter, H. E. Fassl and Morris himself. Serious articles and reviews, good fiction and poetry by Thomas Ligotti, Jessica Amanda Salmonson and Kevin Knapp. The letters are quite old, some dating from seven years ago, and probably should have been tossed. But altogether, a lovely package.

Weirdbook, a World Fantasy Award winner, is a Lovecraftian/weird tales magazine that has been lovingly edited by W. Paul Ganley for many years. While much of the material is not to my taste, I thought there were good poems by Joseph Payne Brennan and Ace G. Pilkington and good stories by Jessica Amanda Salmonson and Brian McNaughton.

Tales of the Unanticipated edited by Eric M. Heideman is published every eight months. There was good fiction in issue #8 by Kij Johnson, Martha A. Hood and Jamil Nasir.

Other magazines in and out of the field that published good horror stories or poems were: Aboriginal SF; Amazing Stories; Haunts; The Nation; Figment; The Sterling Web; Starshore; The New Yorker; N.Y. Press; Aurealis; BBR; Glamour; Argonaut; Dark Horizons; Eldritch Tales; Outlaw Bikers Tattoo Review; Xenophi-lia; Twisted; Midnight Zoo; A Magazine of American Culture; Dreams & Nightmares; Skeleton Crew. Authors included Sandra Paradise, A. J. Austin, K. D. Wentworth, Bruce Boston and Robert Frazier, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Norman Partridge, Jessica Amanda Salmonson, Tom Elliott, Regina deCormier-Sheker-jian, Don Webb, Michelle Marr, Octavio Ramos, Jr., Charles Sheffield, Jessica Greenbaum, Ian Frazier, Mike Romath, E. R. Van Helden, Stephen Dedman, Diana Reed, Tod Mecklem, Joyce Carol Oates, George W. Smythe, Peter Relton, Gary A. Braunbeck, Michael Arnzen, Carl Buchanan, Miroslaw Lipinski, Janet Gluckman, Ken Wisman, R. H. W. Dillard, Michael Arnzen, Lawrence Schimel and Nicholas Royle.

Many small-press magazines appear irregularly and are only available through subscription. Here are addresses and prices for some of the better ones. Only U.S. subscription prices are listed. For overseas information, query the publication. I m including publications unavailable on U.S. newsstands. Noctulpa, which comes out each spring, can be ordered from 140 Dickie Avenue, Staten Island, NY 10314. Query for information and price; Cemetery Dance, P.O. Box 858, Edge-wood, MD 21040, $15 for a one-year subscription (quarterly); After Hours, P.O. Box 538, Sunset Beach, CA 90742-0538, $14/one-year subscription (quarterly); Deathrealm, 3223-F Regents Park, Greensboro, NC 27405, $15 payable to Mark Rainey for a one-year subscription (quarterly); Not One of Us, 44 Shady Lane, Storrs, CT 06268, $10.50 payable to John Benson for a three-issue subscription; Prisoners of the Night, MKSHEF Enterprises, P.O. Box 368, Poway, CA 920740368, $12 (one issue, 102 pages); 2AM, P.O. Box 6754, Rockford, IL 611251754, $19 payable to Gretta M. Anderson, publisher, for a one-year subscription (quarterly); Grue, Hell’s Kitchen Productions, Inc., P.O. Box 370, Times Square Station, New York, NY 10108-0370, $13 payable to Hell’s Kitchen Production, Inc. for a three-issue, one-year subscription; Tek! Journal of Terror, do Jon B. Cooke, 106 Hanover Avenue, Pawtucket, RI 02861, $20 payable to Montilla Publications for a one-year subscription (quarterly); Haunts, P.O. Box 3342, Providence, RI 02906-0742, $13 for a one-year subscription (quarterly); Weirdbook, W. Paul Ganley, Publisher, Box 149, Buffalo, NY 14226-0149, 7 issues for $25 (no regular schedule, $7.15 per issue); Midnight Zoo, 544 Ygnacio Valley Road, #13, P.O. Box 8040, Walnut Creek, CA 94596, $37 for a one-year subscription (seven issues), California residents add 8.25% sales tax; Tales of the Unanticipated, P.O. Box 8036, Lake Street Station, Minneapolis, MN 55408, $10 payable to the Minnesota SF Society, for a three-issue subscription; Eldritch Tales, Crispin Burnham, Eldritch Tales, 1051 Wellington Road, Lawrence, KS 66049, $24 payable to Crispin Burnham for four issues (irregular); Dreams & Nightmares (poetry), David C. Kopaska-Merkel, 1300 Kicker Road, Tuscaloosa AL 35404, $5 for a one-year subscription (quarterly).

For more information on the horror/dark fantasy field subscribe to: Locus and Science Fiction Chronicle, the oldest and best newsmagazines covering science fiction (primarily), fantasy and horror. They each periodically cover books published, market reports for the U.S. and Great Britain, domestic and foreign publishing news, and convention reports and listings. Ordering information for each are in the acknowledgments at the front of this book. Charles L. Brown is publisher and editor of Locus and Andrew I. Porter is editor and publisher of Science Fiction Chronicle.

Necrofile: The Review of Horror Fiction, edited by Stefan Dziemianowicz, S. T. Joshi and Michael A. Morrison is published quarterly by Necronomicon Press. This is the first nonacademic publication in recent years (that I’m aware of) to have made a serious effort to deal exclusively with the written horror field in critical terms. The first issue, 28 pages in newsletter format, contains two essays on horror Ramsey Campbell (who will have a regular column) writes about his negative personal experiences with copy editors and Thomas Ligotti attempts a definition of weird fiction.” There’s also a serious, unhysterical review of American Psycho putting it into the context of a piece of literature (failure or not) and a piece of horror fiction; a review of Thomas M. Disch’s The M.D.; and an overall look at the first eight titles from the Dell/Abyss horror line. #2 reviews Clive Barkers Shadows in Eden, recent Ramsey Campbell works, Brian Stableford, Michael Cadnum, and Fred Chappell among others. Professional and readable. (Necronomicon Press, 101 Lockwood St., West Warwick, RI 02893. Individual issues are $2.50; a four-issue subscription is $10.00. The magazine will appear in January, April, July and October.)

The Scream Factory edited by Peter Enfantino is trying to be the professional news magazine of the horror field but so far is only partially successful. #7 covers the 1980s in horror. There are numerous lists, some illuminating and fun, others boring. Is it really necessary to list every horror novel published in the U.S. in the 1980s? The “biggest yawns of the ’80s” was interesting, as were some of the commentary on trends, hot new writers, and so forth. Usually the only fiction in The Scream Factory is the awful Wyrmwood series. Someone please kill it. #6 (to backtrack) is an all-fiction issue of the magazine—the best of the batch is the subtle and moving Douglas Clegg story. The magazine always looks good, with a readable design but the art in #6 is heavy-handed, occasionally even giving away the plot of a story. (The Scream Factory, 4884 Pepperwood Way, San Jose, CA 95124. $20 payable to Peter Enfantino for four issues.)

Crime Beat: Newsmagazine of Crime, edited by T. E. D. Klein (former editor of Twilight Zone Magazine), fills an obvious niche for true crime addicts. This stylish-looking oversized magazine has illustrations by some former TZ artists and articles ranging from America’s ten most dangerous streets, couples who kill and the story of a Jeffrey Dahmer survivor. The tough-talking style is perfect for the crime buff Found on newsstands (for subscription information, call 800-877-5303).

Carnage Flail #2, edited by David Griffin. I gave this magazine’s debut issue in 1989 a glowing review. The delayed second issue appeared in 1991 and although it looks as good as the first, there are some marked differences in content. The editorial and criticism are self-indulgent and occasionally arrogant. Griffin takes up six pages to excoriate Harlan Ellison’s piece on fans, “Xenogenesis,” and spends another six pages trashing Kathe Koja s writing in general and specifically her first novel, The Cipher. Also included is a thin interview with prominent film critic Pauline Kael that gives no insight into her taste or her writing. An experimental piece of fiction, a poem and a interesting piece by Jessica Amanda Salmonson on anthologies round out the issue. The editor needs to rethink his tone and get back on track {Carnage Hall Magazine, P.O. Box 7, Esopus, NY 12429, $4.50 payable to David Griffin, for one copy. Published irregularly).

Scavengers Newsletter, published by Janet Fox, is a monthly containing market reports, minireviews of small-press magazines, advice and letter columns. This booklet-sized 28-page magazine is invaluable for beginning writers of science fiction, fantasy or horror ($11.50/year payable to Janet Fox, 519 Ellinwood, Osage City, KS 66523).

Gila Queens Guide to Markets, edited by Kathryn Ptacek, is another monthly devoted to giving up-to-date publishing and marketing information in various genres. Magazine-sized, 24 pages ($20/year payable to the Gila Queen s Guide to Markets or Kathryn Ptacek, P.O. Box 97, Newtown, NJ 07860).

The New York Review of Science Fiction, published monthly by Dragon Press, edited by David G. Hartwell et al., makes a diligent effort to be a serious critical magazine covering science fiction, horror and fantasy. It features thought-provoking reviews, interesting but sometimes opaque articles, and best of all (for me), “Read this” sidebars—what individual writers are reading. ($25/year, $33 1st class, payable to Dragon Press, P.O. Box 78, Pleasantville, NY 10570.)

Science Fiction Eye, published and edited by Stephen P. Brown, is the most provocative and invigorating nonfiction genre-oriented magazine around. Still on an irregular schedule, the most recent issue has Bruce Sterling covering a computer game-designing conference; Richard Kadrey covering out-of-the-way music; Ta-kayuki Tatsumi, Norio Itoh and Mari Kotani writing about various science fiction topics from a Japanese point of view; and plenty of reviews, letters, and so forth (Science Fiction Eye, P.O. Box 18539, Asheville, NC 28814. Three issues lone year] $10 U.S.; $15 overseas.)

Fangoria, edited by Tony Timpone, is the queen of the gore magazines, now hvelve years old, identifiable by its gaudy, gory covers and gaudy, disgusting interiors reveling in all those gooey special effects. I love reading this on the subway. Although the magazine has always provided more coverage of the horror in film than the horror in print, in the last year it has published interesting reviews and serious articles. One issue concentrated on women in horror from “lady splatterpunks” (those who act in the movies) to those who write and edit horror fiction. Can be found on newsstands.

Gauntlet #2 Exploring the Limits of Free Expression, is an annual published and edited by Barry Hoffman. Volume 2 is much better than the first in scope and in addressing both sides of controversial issues. But a lot of the material is dated by the time each Gauntlet appears, which is a problem for any annual series. Some critics claim Gauntlet preaches to the converted. I disagree, feeling that the intention is not to preach but to inform those interested and concerned with censorship. Also, Gauntlet might provide the impetus to confront and fight censorship to those who are unaware of the problem. The fiction Gauntlet publishes rarely works for me. It generally seems heavy-handed and preachy The “Wizard of Oz” story by William Relling, Jr., was supposedly dropped from Borderlands by Avon for reasons of censorship; however, the issue seems to be one of copyright or trademark infringement, and while there’s some discussion of this, there’s not enough. The legalities may be unpleasant but these laws protect the creators of various characters. It would behoove authors to be aware that these same laws could equally protect their own writing in the future. Get your targets straight (and work to change the law if you don’t like it). Gauntlet is published each March; $8.95/year, $15/2 years payable to Gauntlet, Inc. Dept. 91 309 Powell Road, Springfield, PA 19064. ’

Psychotronic (video magazine) primarily covers horror videos and horror personalities but also contains interviews and complete filmographies of favorite horror actors, directors and producers; book and music reviews. It contains a wealth of information for the true grade b-z horror fan. A six-issue subscription to this quarterly costs $20, payable to publisher/editor Michael J. Weldon 151 First Avenue Dept PV, New York, NY 10003. ’

Mystery Scene, published by Martin H. Greenberg and edited by Ed Gorman covers the mystery and horror genres with articles and autobiographical columns by writers news items, reviews, columns and so forth. Published bimonthly, it’s a good place to get a feel for what’s happening in these two genres. My only complaint is that there is too much overlapping and not enough variety in the book reviews. Sometimes one book is reviewed two or three times in one issue. Subscription costs $35 for seven issues, Mystery Enterprises, 3840 Clark Road SE Cedar Rapids, IA 52403. ’

The small specialty press continues to be active, often publishing a limited signed edition for collectors along with a trade edition of a book.

Roadkill Press published reasonably priced limited-edition paperbacks of Joe Lansdale’s “On the Far Side of the Cadillac Desert with Dead Folks”; Melanie Tem’s chilling original story “Daddy’s Side”; Simon Hawke’s novel excerpt, “The 9 Lives of Catseye Gomez”; two Roadkill doubles including one with original stories by Wil McCarthy and Gregory R. Hyde, and a second with original stories by Ann K. Schwader and Lucy Taylor; “The Tortuga Hills Gang’s Last Ride: The True Story,” an original by Nancy A. Collins; a collection of three guest-of-honor speeches by Dan Simmons entitled Going After the Rubber Chicken and “Distress Call,” by Connie Willis (write Little Bookshop of Horrors, 10380 Ralston Road, Arvada, CO 80004 for information);

Ferdogan & Bremer announced The Black Death, an occult thriller by Basil Copper with illustrations and jacket art by Stefanie K. Hawks (700 Washington Avenue SE, Suite 50, Minneapolis, MN 55414);

Scream/Press published the long-awaited limited Books of Blood VI by Clive Barker, illustrations by Harry O. Morris;

its sister imprint Dream/Press published an omnibus edition of Richard Matheson’s two novels of love and fantasy, Somewhere in Time and What Dreams May Come (write P.O. Box 481146, Los Angeles, CA 90048 for information);

Charnel House published Ray Garton’s The New Neighbor: A Novel of Erotic Horror with illustrations by J. K. Potter (Charnel House, P.O. Box 633, Lynbrook, NY 11563);

Donald M. Grant published Stephen King’s The Dark Tower III: The Wastelands with illustrations by Ned Dameron and an artist’s portfolio of the twelve color illustrations from the book Mrs. God by Peter Straub, beautifully illustrated by Rick Berry in a slightly longer (and reportedly the preferred) version of the story than that which appeared in Straub’s collection Houses Without Doors, Edward McCrorie’s new translation of The Aeneid of Virgil with art by Luis Ferreira and The Face in the Abyss by A. Merritt, illustrations by Ned Dameron (Donald M. Grant, Publisher, Inc., P.O. Box 187, Hampton Falls, NH 03844 for information);

Borderlands Press published Borderlands 2 edited by Thomas F. Monteleone, Under the Fang edited by Robert R. McCammon, Joe R. Lansdale’s novel The Magic Wagon with illustrations by Mark Nelson and cover by Jill Bauman, No Doors, No Windows, a collection of dark suspense by Harlan Ellison and Gauntlet 2 edited by Barry Hoffman (for information write: Borderlands Press, P.O. Box 32333, Baltimore, MD 21208);

Wildside Press published Alan Rodgers’s first collection, New Life for the Dead and Nina Kiriki Hoffman’s second collection, Courting Disasters. In addition, the press published Rescue Run by Anne McCaffrey, Pink Elephants by Mike Resnick, Sir Harold and the Gnome King by L. Sprague de Camp, The Armageddon Box by Robert Weinberg, and The Black Lodge by Robert Weinberg. The White Mists of Power by Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Letters to the Alien Publisher, anonymous, were published by First Books. (For information on all these titles write: The Wildside Press, 37 Fillmore Street, Newark, NJ 07105.)

Dark Harvest published the original anthology Obsessions edited by Gary Raisor, the first hardcover edition of Robert R. McCammon’s novel They Thirst, two new novels by F. Paul Wilson: Reprisal (the third novel in the series started with The Keep) and Sibs, Night Visions 9 with stories by Thomas Tessier, James Kisner and Rick Hautala, and the “shared crime” anthology Invitation to Murder edited by Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg (Dark Harvest, P.O. Box 941, Arlington Heights, IL 60006);

Mark V. Ziesing Books published Ray Garton’s novel Lot Lizards, Wetbones, a novel by John Shirley, Cold Blood, edited by Richard Chizmar, and The Hereafter Gang by Neal Barrett, Jr. (Mark V. Ziesing, P.O. Box 76, Shingletown, CA 96088);

Ultramarine Press published a limited edition of Thomas M. Disch’s novel The M.D. : A Horror Story, in addition to up-to-date author checklists for Thomas M. Disch, Kim Stanley Robinson, Lucius Shepard, Roger Zelazny, Dean R. Koontz and K. W. Jeter, and the Science Fiction and Fantasy paperback first edition: a complete list of all of them (1943-1973, 151 pages) (Ultramarine Publishing Company, Inc., P.O. Box 303, Hastings-on-Hud-son, NY 10706);

Underwood-Miller published several titles in 1991, including the long awaited Clive Barkers Shadows in Eden edited by Stephen Jones and illustrated by Clive Barker, Ecce and Old Earth by Jack Vance, Bernie Wrightson: A Look Back with commentary by Christopher Zavisa and an introduction by Harlan Ellison, The Complete Masters of Darkness edited by Dennis Etchison, Horror-story Volume Three—The Collectors Edition edited by Karl Edward Wagner, Selections from the Exegesis by Philip K. Dick edited by Laurence Sutin, The Selected Letters of Philip K. Dick-1974 introduction by William Gibson, and Computer: Bit Slices from a Life by Herbert R.J. Grosch. (Underwood-Miller, Inc., 708 Westover Drive, Lancaster, PA 17601);

Tartarus Press published chapters 5 and 6 of Arthur Machen’s The Secret Glory, previously unpublished, and a two-volume trade paperback, Machenalia: Critical Essays on the Work of Arthur Machen (Tartarus Press, 51 De Montford Road, Lewes, E. Sussex, BN7 1SS, UK);

Necronomicon Press brought out 21 Letters of Ambrose Bierce, In Search of Lovecraft by J. Vernon Shea—six essays on Lovecraft, 13 poems and two stories, The H. P. Lovecraft Memorial Plaque, Witches of the Mind: A Critical Study of Fritz Leiber by Bruce Byfield, The Centennial Conference Proceedings edited by S. T. Joshi, H. P. Lovecraft Letters to Henry Kuttner by David E. Schultz and S. T. Joshi (Necronomicon Press, 101 Lockwood St., West Warwick, RI 02893);

WSFA Press published their annual Disclave guest of honor collection, this one called The Edges of Things, thirteen stories by Lewis Shiner, two of them original (WSFA Press, P.O. Box 19951, Baltimore, MD 21211-0951);

Chris Drumm Books published Steve Rasnic Tem’s Celestial Inventory, a horror novella (Chris Drumm Books, P.O. Box 445, Polk City, IA 50226);

Haunted Library published Absences: Charlie Goode s Ghosts, a collection of five original stories by Tem about a psychic sleuth (Rosemary Pardoe, Flat One, 36 Hamilton St., Hoole, Chester, England, CH2 3JQ);

Starmont published The Shining Reader, edited by Anthony Magistrale, The Devil’s Notebook by Clark Ashton Smith (Starmont House, P.O. Box 851, Mercer Island, WA 98040);

Broken Mirrors Press published Welcome to Reality: The Nightmares of Philip K. Dick edited by Uwe Anton, Captain Jack Zodiac, a novel by Michael Kandel, and Lafferty in Orbit, a collection (Broken Mirrors Press, Box 473, Cambridge, MA 02238);

Tafford published Alfred Bester’s psychological thriller Tender Loving Rage (Tafford Publishing, P.O. Box 271804, Houston, TX 77277);

and Borgo Press published Jerzy Kozinski: The Literature of Violation by Welch D. Everman (Borgo Press, P.O. Box 2845, San Bernadino, CA 92406).

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson, in four parts. Adapted by Steve Niles and illustrations by Elman Brown (Eclipse). The classic vampire novel, lovingly adapted here, maintains the feel of the original.

M by Fritz Lang, illustrations by Jon J. Muth (Arcane/Eclipse) continuing from last year. Wonderfully evocative and true to the film, which starred Peter Lorre.

Cages by Dave McKean (Tundra) numbers 1-4 (of the projected ten) are interestingly mysterious. The gorgeous covers are more in the McKean style than are the black-and-white interiors, which disappointed me. Seems to be about art and the creative process, but it’s not at all clear where it’s going.

Hellraiser 3 (Epic) contains three hellraiser stories inspired by Clive Barker’s movies. Only the third, “Songs of Metal and Flesh,” comes close to capturing the feel of the movies in its perversity, viciousness and graphic depiction of mutilation as prescribed by the Cenobites. Several different artists contribute work—the best is by Bill Sienkewicz—not really part of the stories but grace notes between them. Other artists included are Ted McKeever, A. C. Farley, Scott Hampton and Kevin O’Neill.

Violent Cases by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean (Tundra) is the color version of this terrific graphic novel, previously only published in England. A new introduction is provided by Gaiman.

Clive Barkers “Son of Celluloid” adapted by Steve Niles and illustrated by Les Edwards (Eclipse) is a very effective rendition of the Barker story about a haunted movie theater in which the “ghost” is the cancer of a dead criminal.

Clive Barkers “Revelations” adapted by Steve Niles and illustrated by Lionel Talaro (Eclipse) is another good-looking Barker adaptation. A murderous couple are forced to reenact the last night of their relationship in the presence of a narrowminded evangelist and his unhappy wife.

Clive Barkers “The Yattering and Jack” adapted by Steve Niles and illustrated by John Bolton (Eclipse) is the best of all the graphic novelizations I’ve seen of Barker’s work. It combines nastiness with charm and playfulness in both the text and illustrations. Hardcover as well as soft. Highly recommended.

Taboo 5 edited by Stephen R. Bissette (SpiderBaby Graphix and Tundra). This impressive new addition to the series is more consistent in quality and sophistication than the first four issues although there are a couple (Jeff Jones’s for one) that are just too obscure or simply don’t work.

The S. Clay Wilson piece is quite odd—the introduction, by Bissette, explains that Wilson received a commission to illustrate a letter from a dead man and that the resulting piece was so disgusting no one but Taboo would publish it. Furthermore, Wilson is quoted as saying it was “the most odious, satanic, twisted commision [sic] I’ve ever done. ” It is unclear from his statement and from Bissette’s introduction discussing the “homophobic nausea that informs every panel” who are the homophobes here: the artist who created the work or the person who commissioned it. The work is a very negative visual depiction of what is essentially a love letter. While the letter’s text may not reflect many people’s sexual tastes, it is neither violent nor homophobic (unless Bissette refers to how the person who commissioned the work wanted it interpreted) and is certainly less repulsive to me as a woman than is most of the woman-hating swill Wilson usually creates. All in all, very strange.

This issue of Taboo includes chapter four of From Hell (see the following) by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell. Taboo Especial, also out in 1991, is a big disappointment except for the back and front covers by J. K. Potter. Most of the pieces are too obvious.

From Hell: Being a Melodrama in Sixteen Parts by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell (Mad Love/Tundra) is the compilation of the prologue and first two parts of the series that has been appearing regularly in Taboo. Brilliant dissection of Victorian England, using the Jack the Ripper mystery as the focal point. One of the most interesting graphic novels available today. With an appendix by Moore, which distinguishes between fact and fancy and clarifies certain points. Highly recommended.

The Tundra sketchbook series is a good idea that can only be as successful as the various sketchbooks of each individual artist:

#1 Melting Pot by Eric Talbot and Kevin Eastman is pretentious, heavyhanded, male adolescent fantasy and not very interesting. #2 Fetal Brain Tango by John T. Totleben. An interesting artist experimenting stylistically from the naturalistic to expressionistic. Top notch. #4 The Rick Bryant Sketchbook has some nice material, mostly portraits but nothing really exciting, with no commentary at all. In contrast, #5 Sketchbook by Charles Vess is astonishing. Vess is best-known to fantasy and horror readers as co-winner of last year’s World Fantasy Award with Neil Gaiman for their graphic novel “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” from the Sandman series. What really makes this sketchbook special are the notes wherein Vess discusses what he was aiming for, and articulates for the reader the process of creation from idea to finished color work. Bravo. #6 Screaming Masks Sketchbook and Companion Volume by Rick McCollum and Bill Anderson is very comic-booky in feel and neither illuminating or ambitious in scope. #7 Vanitas Paintings Drawings and Ideas by Jon J. Muth shows a fine artist at work, experimenting with his medium. Thought-provoking. Magnificent. [Sketchbook #3 not seen.]

Pish, Posh, Said Hieronymus Bosch by Nancy Willard and The Dillons (HBJ), is a sumptuous feast for the eyes by Leo and Diane Dillon, two of the best artists the fantasy and science fiction field has ever had. Their son Lee also participates, having created the gorgeous gilt frame that appears throughout the book. An oddly good-natured piece of work considering the seriousness of the art on which it’s based. In Bosch’s original paintings the creatures/machines were used for torture, yet all the horror is leached from his art in this interpretation. Still, the book is quite beautiful.

Nancy Grossman (Hillwood Art Museum). I was forced to buy this oversized trade paperback when I saw it displayed in B. Dalton’s window. The front and back covers are filled by two heads in what look like black bondage masks. Grossman, who first exhibited her leather-covered sculpture heads in 1969, insists that she wasn’t even aware of the bondage scene when she conceived of these, but rather was inspired by Frankenstein and the equestrian tack with which she grew up. The book shows her illustrations and paintings as well as the evolution of her sculpting, and indeed she started with leather riding materials formed into intricate tortured-looking monster shapes. Her method of creating the masks is described— she first sculpts raw wood heads, paints or covers them with a red under-mask before dark leather skins are permanently affixed. Fascinating.

Torment in Art: Pain, Violence and Martyrdom by Lionello Puppi (Rizzoli) is a deeply disturbing coffee-table book whose avowed intention is “to give a fully documented account of the complex mechanisms that governed the workings of public executions and of the impact this obsessive and dazzling public spectacle might have had. ...” The paintings, drawings and etchings have been chosen from the twelfth through nineteenth centuries—a time when public execution in Europe was an event that brought the populace together to view torture and executions as entertainment. The book connects individual paintings to specific, documented executions the artist might have witnessed, to explain the accuracy of the artist’s depiction of a particular torture or method of execution. This is death as public spectacle. The book does not try to explain why executions evolved into a private affair and why, with the advent of the guillotine, torture gave way to a quick death for criminals, away from the deliberate infliction of pain. And it never does explain, to my satisfaction, how torture provided a cartharsis for the populace of those times. (The book makes reference to Michel Foucault’s book Discipline and Punishment: The Birth of the Prison for some possible answers.) For anyone interested in the origin of splatter—here it is. Not cheap at $75, but thought-provoking and lavishly illustrated.

Tales of Edgar Allan Poe illustrated by Barry Moser (Books of Wonder/Morrow) is notable for the color illustrations by Moser, who has done marvelous black-and-white work for Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, The Wizard of Oz (with Nancy Reagan as the wicked witch), Moby Dick, The Scarlet Letter, and many other classics. While I personally prefer his black-and-white etchings, his eighteen watercolors for the Poe are beautiful and powerful. A perfect gift book.

Nuclear Enchantment: Photographs by Patrick Nagatani with an essay by Eugenia Parry Janis (University of New Mexico Press). Nagatani is a Japanese-American born in Chicago thirteen days after Hiroshima, where he had relatives. In 1987 he was drawn to New Mexico, as the nexus of the birth of the nuclear age. His photographic constructions often juxtapose high-tech and Native-American imagery of the area and his work is drenched with unnatural colors, reminiscent of Sandy Skoaglund’s green radioactive cats. On the cover you’ve got a green sky, nuclear workers in protective gear, and bats flying right at you. Satire, fantasy, horror all mix in this SF apocalyptic art.

H. R. Gigers Necronomicon (Morpheus International) is the first hardcover and first U. S. edition of this oversized art book. It opens with an essay on the fantastique in art by Clive Barker, and continues with commentary by Giger on his childhood and the various real-life influences on his visionary art (much of it inspired by his nightmares and dreams). Photographs of Giger, from childhood to adulthood with his family and friends, sketches and full-page color paintings of projects including those for Jodorowsky’s ill-fated production of the film Dune and album cover art for Emerson, Lake and Palmer’s Brain Salad Surgery. His art is erotic and horrific, as shown by the sets he designed for Alien. As beautiful and creepy as last year’s Biomechanics.

Mary Ellen Mark 25 Years, edited by Marianne Fulton (Bulfinch Press/Little Brown), is a retrospective of her strongest images, including many that are quite justly famous. Included in the book are mostly unpublished photographs of Indian circuses. All the work is black-and-white; Mark was inspired by the black-and-white work of Robert Frank, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Marion Post Wolcott and W. Eugene Smith. She works best in this medium. Many of her photographs have been about people on the fringes of society—inmates of mental institutions (her Ward 81 series), her prostitutes in Falkland Road: Prostitutes of Bombay (which took ten years to obtain financial backing and access to the women), the dying in Calcutta and runaways in Seattle. Powerful photo essays. One hundred thirty tritone illustrations.

Ralph Eugene Meatyard: An American Visionary (Rizzoli) who died in 1972 of cancer, was a photographic contemporary of Minor White and Paul Strand. He moved in a completely different direction from their sharp, “realistic” type of photography. Perhaps because the manipulation of photographic object into phantasms was not then in vogue, his work is rarely mentioned in historical surveys. Meatyard’s best work deals with death and decay; his photographs show children in ghostlike poses, in grotesque masks. His final series, “The Family Album of Lucybelle Crater” taken from 1969-1971 pair Meatyard’s wife, Made-lyn, who appears in each picture, with one of his friends or family members. The two figures are set in informal but staid poses in a suburban setting and each figure wears a mask. Madelyn s mask depicts an old woman with exaggerated, oversized, sad features the Lucybelle Crater of the title (the name is taken from a Flannery O’Connor story). Worth a look.

Twin Palm Publishers-Twelvetrees Press publishes some wonderfully strange art books. A selection of some of the books they’ve published in the last few years:

Sleeping Beauty: A History of Memorial Photography in America by Stanley B. Burns, M.D. Between 1830 and 1940 it was not uncommon for people to have postmortem photographs taken of their loved ones. In many of the photos the dead look as if they’re merely sleeping, in others there’s no effort to disguise blood coming from the nose or mouth, or rashes from whatever disease caused a child’s death. Seventy-six color plates. Dr. Burns is an opthalmic surgeon and photographic historian and archivist. He owns 100,000 vintage prints. Twenty thousand of these are early medical photographs from 1839-1920 and make up the largest collection of its kind in the world. Some of these appear in the 1987 book, Masterpieces of Medical Photography: Selections from the Bums Archive edited by Joel-Peter Witkin. They include tintypes, daguerreotypes and photographs of wounded Civil War veterans. Both an historical document of medicine and an indictment of war. Not pretty.

In the book Gods of Earth and Heaven (also by Joel-Peter Witkin) cadavers, transsexuals and animals are carefully arranged to create a mythology from Witkin’s own mind. Second printing. The out-of-print photography book Joel-Peter Witkin, which I’ve seen selling for $200, may be reprinted soon. (Twin Palms Publishers, 2400 North Lake Avenue, Altadena, CA 91001).

Bernie Wrightson: A Look Back edited by Christopher Zavisa (Underwood-Miller) is a lovingly executed retrospective of the comic book artist who created Swamp Thing. I first saw Wrightson’s work several years ago in a Northampton, Massachusetts, bookstore (coincidentally, the gallery that represents Barry Moser’s work is also in Northampton). It was his 1977 black-and-white illustrated version of the great Mary Shelley novel Frankenstein. I was struck by the fine detail of his drawings. I knew nothing about the artist, but later learned that he was a contemporary artist. Bernie Wrightson: A Look Back showcases, along with Wrightson’s illustrations for Frankenstein (with sketches, copious notes and alternate versions of scenes), his early work, his experiments in style, technique, and medium—in actuality, his evolution as a multifaceted artist. The book is a hefty 360 pages, lavishly illustrated. Highly recommended.

Autonomedia publishes (sometimes in conjunction with Semiotext(e)) well-produced attractive paperbacks on a variety of arcane topics, ranging from a reprint of Hakim Bey’s book of rants, T.A.Z. The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism, to Horsexe, a study of the phenomenon of transsexuality by Catherine Millot. Horsexe includes some Freudian and semiotic gobbledygook (skip the equations), but it’s a fascinating topic and a fascinating essay. Historically there have always been groups that denied their birth gender (in fact, there have been religious cults—the Skoptzy sect of early twentieth-century Russia—that regularly castrated the men, but I don’t buy the premise that they wanted to be female, rather that they wanted to keep themselves pure and away from the female) but it wasn’t until relatively recently that transsexuality could become a physical reality through science and technology. Some women consider male-to-female transsexuality as just another patriarchal ruse to denigrate women. What frightens and frustrates most women about the male-to-female transsexual is that it seems to reinforce sexual stereotypes “with a view to maintaining women in the conventional, subordinate role from which they were on the point of freeing themselves . . . they gauge femininity in terms of conformity of roles.”

Hannibal Lecter, My Father by Kathy Acker (Semiotext(e)—Native Agents Series) is a collection of several short pieces by Acker and an interview with her by Sylvere Lotringer about her life and art. Included is her first piece, written when she was twenty-one. (I call them “pieces” because although mostly fictional they aren’t what one would call stories.) Also included is the play Birth of the Poet performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music Next Wave Festival in 1985.

Holy Horrors: An Illustrated History of Religious Murder and Madness by James A. Haught (Prometheus, 1990) is an invaluable complement to Torment in Art. It’s difficult, in light of the evidence in Holy Horrors, to counter the author’s argument that religious faith keeps “groups apart, alienated in hostile camps” and that “religious tribalism sets the stage for bloodshed. Without it, young people might adapt to changing times, intermarry and forget historic wounds. But religion enforces separation. ...” Holy Horrors uses some of the same illustrations as Torment in Art but puts them into a very different context—torture used in a religious fervor against heretics and infidels, indeed, against anyone with whom the majority religion didn’t agree. Haught covers everything from human sacrifice to the massacres of the Crusades, the Sepoy Mutiny, the Nazi Holocaust and the insanity of Jonestown.

Bloodlust: Conversations with Real Vampires by Carol Page (HarperCollins). One s first reaction to the title is, what a great idea! The conversations are with people who think they are vampires—they suck or drink blood regularly. Some of them feel the blood keeps them younger-looking but, as the author points out, the majority use blood drinking as a power trip—the persuasion of a “donor” is paramount to the satisfaction. None take it from those unwilling to supply it and no one is hurt physically. Nothing supernatural here. Unfortunately, the people interviewed are basically sad misfits and/or completely nuts but their stories are not very interesting.

Female Perversions: The Temptations of Madame Bovary by Louise J. Kaplan (Doubleday/Anchor). Traditionally, sexual perversion has been considered an exclusively male realm. In the definition most often used by psychoanalysts, “what distinguishes perversion is its quality of desperation and fixity ... a person . . . has no other choices . . . would otherwise be overwhelmed by anxieties or depression or psychosis. Kaplan s thesis is that perversions . . . are as much pathologies of gender role identity as they are pathologies of sexuality ...” and that “these stereotypes are central aspects to perverse strategy.” Dr. Kaplan tries to show how certain behaviors of females, including kleptomania, self-mutilation (delicate cutting) trichotillomania a mania for hair-plucking and anorexia are indeed perversions by her definition. She uses Flaubert’s Madame Bovary for examples because on every page . . . there is a fetish of one sort or another. ” A fascinating, thought-provoking book. ’

Broken Mirrors, Broken Minds: The Dark Dreams of Dario Argento by Maitland McDonaugh (Sun Tavern Fields-UK) is the first English language book on the Italian master of baroque grand guignol horror films such as Suspiria and Four Flies on Grey Velvet. Although a serious critical study, it’s accessible for those not well-versed in Argento’s oeuvre. It made me, whose seen only two of his films, want to see the others. Expensive ($30) but good-looking hardcover with stills from the films, ads and lobby cards.

Shock Xpress: The Essential Guide to Exploitation Cinema edited by Stefan Jaworzyn (Titan Books-UK) is a compilation of six years’ worth of old and new material from the British magazine. Includes an illuminating interview with the British censor, an interview with John Waters, and an interesting historical piece about freaks in the cinema starting with Browning’s Freaks in 1932 (not shown in Great Britain until 1963). Entertaining. They take their schlock very seriously.

Prism of the Night: A Biography of Anne Rice by Katherine M. Ramsland (Dutton) is a must for her fans. A moving portrait of Rice’s life and how it relates to her several writing personas using interviews with her friends and family. Included is her relationship with her husband, poet Stan Rice, and the terrible tragedy of their young daughter s leukemia. Ramsland is sensitive to the subject and provides a good overall view of Rice’s life and works.

The Thrill of Fear by Walter Kendrick (Grove Weidenfeld) is an erudite, exasperating and often self-contradictory look at the evolution of horrific fiction (Kendrick generally means film, even when he uses the word “fiction,” causing much confusion), which is certain to infuriate most horror fans and other supporters. First, Kendrick holds a very narrow view of what he defines as horror—strictly fiction/film meant to convey chills—and that’s it. Not discomfort, eeriness or a subtly creeping fear. Kendrick is so patronizing toward the subject, one wonders why he’s even interested in writing about it. Furthermore, at whom is the book aimed? Some quotes from the book: “. . . the effects it aims at, no matter how skillfully they are handled, remain physical: cold sweat on the brow, upstanding hairs on the nape of the neck. ...” “The entire nineteenth century failed to produce a single first-rate novelist who specialized in chills; the best the twentieth century can do in that line is Stephen King” (ignoring Peter Straub and Shirley Jackson among others). “The ingrained conservatism of scary entertainment, its characteristic habit of telling the same old story, using devices that were hackneyed 200 years ago, no doubt owes something to its confinement to a cultural ghetto.” Aside from the fact that he might be talking about any bad fiction, horror or otherwise, he’s wrong in his perception that horror fiction was always ghettoized.^ Only with the enormous popularity of Stephen King has horror become a genre. Before that, horror novels such as The Turn of the Screw, Dracula, We Have Always Lived in the Castle and other novels of quality were not forced into such rigid classifications.

More: “For two centuries, horrid short stories have been one-note compositions, reducible to a gimmick apiece. Their length, of course, compels simplification, along with a narrow focus of emotional appeal . . . they seldom try anything radically new. ...” Where has Kendrick been the last twenty years? Has he read any Shirley Jackson, Dennis Etchison, Karl Edward Wagner, Peter Straub or Joyce Carol Oates?

An awful lot of irrelevancies (his survey of theatre in the nineteenth century) and contradictions. He calls Poe and Hawthorne “two of the nation’s finest writers,” then pretty much trashes Poe and goes on to assert I m paraphrasing here that Poe’s unreliable narrators, who can call into question the nature of reality or of human knowledge, are an unintentional narrative device by Poe because he [Poe] obviously believes in rationality, proven by his detective M. Dupin stories. Hasn’t Kendrick ever heard of using different narrative devices for different stories?

This is not to say he doesn’t have some interesting points. He does. For example, he says “The effects of death are horrific, but immortality redeems them. We have forgotten the second half but preserved the first.” For the most part, though, this book is a lot of glib nonsense.

Other nonfiction titles of note: A Youth in Babylon: Confessions of a 1 rash-Film Movie King by David F. Friedman (Prometheus); The Charm of Evil: The Life and Films of Terrence Fisher by Wheeler Dixon (McFarland); The Cosmical Horror of H. P. Lovecraft: A Pictorial Anthology (Glittering Images-Italy [215] 374-7477 for information on ordering); Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Horror: 1990 by Charles N. Brown and William G. Contento (Locus Press); The Trial ofGilles de Rais by George Bataille (Amok—first English translation of 1965 French); So You Want to Make Movies by Sidney Pink (Pineapple Press); Science Fiction Stars and Horror Heroes by Tom Weaver (McFarland); The Modem Horror Film: 50 Contemporary Classics from “The Curse of Frankenstein” to “The Lair of the White Worm” by John McCarty (Citadel); Beauty and the Beast: Visions and Revisions of an Old Tale by Betsy Hearne (University of Chicago); The Annotated She: H. Rider Haggard’s Victorian Romance, introduction and notes by Norman Ether-ington (Indiana University Press); Haunting the House of Fiction: Feminist Perspectives on Ghost Stories by American Woman edited by Lynette Carpenter and Wendy K. Kolmar (University of Tennessee); The Shape Under the Sheet: The Complete Stephen King Encyclopedia by Stephen Spignesi (Popular Culture Ink); Horror Comics: The Illustrated History by Mike Benton (Taylor Publishing); How to Write Tales of Horror, Fantasy, & Science Fiction edited by J. N. Williamson (Writer’s Digest Books); True Stories from the Great Ghost Hunter by Elliott O’Donnell (Avery); Phantom of the Opera by Philip J. Riley, includes script facsimile, complete pressbook, Lon Chaney’s notes, art department sketches, and a reconstruction of the five versions of the 1925 production (Samuel French Trade); The Nightmare Considered: Critical Essays on Nuclear War Literature edited by Nancy Anisfield (Bowling Green State University Popular Press); Mad Doctors, Monsters and Mummies!: Lobby Card Posters from Hollywood Horrors and Things, Its and Aliens! Lobby Card Posters from Sci-Fi Shockers! by Denis Gifford are large format poster books (Green Wood-UK); Boris Karloff by Scott Allen Nollen (McFarland); An Epicure in the Terrible: A Centennial Anthology of Essays in Honor of H. P. Lovecraft by David E. Schultz and S. T. Joshi (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press); Night Stalking: A 20th Anniversary Kolchak Companion by Mark Dawidziak (Image Publishing); H. R. Giger Art by H. R. Giger—art book/autobiography (Taschen-Germany); Edgar Allen Poe: Mournful and Never-Ending Remembrance by Kenneth Silverman (HarperCollins); Hoffman’s Guide to SF, Horror and Fantasy Movies 1991-1992 (Corgi); Images of Fear: How Horror Stories Helped Shape Modern Culture (1818-1918) (McFarland); The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari: Texts, Contexts, Histories edited by Mike Budd (Rutgers University Press); Invasion of the Body Snatchers edited by A1 LaValley— script of classic film plus reviews, essays, and commentary (Rutgers University Press); The Dark Shadows Companion: 25th Anniversary Collection by Kathryn Leigh Scott (Pomegranate Press); Wandering Ghost: The Odyssey of Lafcadio Hearn (Knopf); How to Write Horror Fiction by William F. Nolan (Writer’s Digest); Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets by David Simon (Houghton Mifflin); The Stephen King Story: A Literary Profile by George Beahm (Andrews & McMeel).

Words Without Pictures: A Collection of Short Stories from Some of the Most Popular Graphic Novelists of the Past Decade (Arcane/Eclipse trade paperback). It isn’t clear which, if any, of the stories are originals but the package, with amusing caricatures of each artist by John Bolton, is an impressive piece of work.

Jabberwocky: A Pop-Up Rhyme from Through the Looking Glass (Viking) by Nick Bantock, the creator of There Was an Old Lady, is charming but slight. Much better, by the same author/artist, is the best-selling Griffin & Sabine (Chronicle) mentioned in Terri Windling’s Introduction.

The Year in Darkness Wall Calendar—1991 by Bucky Montgomery. Illustrations and one-page stories by small-press contributors Bentley Little, John Borkow-ski, Alfred Klosterman, Allen Koszowski, Janet Fox, John Rosenman and others. A good deal for the money. The 1992 calendar includes work by Jessica Amanda Salmonson, Mark Rainey, John Borkowski, Allen Koszowski and others. The cost is $12.88 for a copy signed by all contributors, $8.88 unsigned, from Montgomery Publishing Agency and Studio, Inc., 692 Calero Avenue, San Jose, CA 95123.

G. Michael Dobbs and Stephen R. Bissette’s The Year in Fear Calendar, Sixteen Month Calendar Portfolio—1992 (Tundra). Oversized and impressively grisly art, most painted exclusively for the calendar, with interesting horror tidbits throughout. Can be ordered through Tundra Publishing, Ltd., 320 Riverside Drive, Northampton, MA 01060 for $14.95 + $4 shipping and 5% sales tax for MA residents.

Scary Stories: More Tales to Chill Your Bones. Collected from folklore and retold by Alvin Schwartz. Drawings by Stephen Gammell (Harper Trophy). Young adult stories, only adequately told, are not the attraction of this book (except perhaps for the few young adults who have not yet heard these urban/suburban legends). The art, though, is something else. Keep a lookout for Gammell’s black-and-white drawings, which are funny and horrific. I’d like to see them illustrating something a bit more original.

Now We Are Sick edited by Neil Gaiman and Stephen Jones (Dreamhaven Books) is the long-awaited sicko poetry anthology for kids with weird taste and their elders. The silver-on-black embossed cover by Clive Barker and interiors by Andrew Smith look elegant. Most of the poems, reprint and original, are quite a lot of fun and some of the originals are very good, particularly those by Neil Gaiman and Steve Jones, Richard Hill, Kim Newman, Galad Elflandsson, Colin Greenland and Storm Constantine. A lovely package.

Pandemonium: Further Explorations into the Worlds of Clive Barker conceived and edited by Michael Brown (Eclipse) makes an interesting companion volume to last year’s Clive Barker Illustrator. Impressive essays by Barker on his own work, and others by Gary Hoppenstand and Douglas E. Winter; interviews with the cenobites and with friends who worked with Barker in the Dog Theatre company. Sometimes it’s a bit hagiographic but for the most part there’s genuinely insightful analyses of his work. Includes Barker-designed theater posters, photos and artwork and a complete unpublished play.

Clive Barkers Shadows in Eden edited by Stephen Jones (Underwood-Miller) would have had a far greater impact if it had been published when scheduled in 1989. Now it has competition—the two Eclipse volumes on Barker. There’s some overlap in Shadows and Pandemonium, but Shadows is the more elegantly designed and better-looking of the two books (also pricier), with very funny and gruesome color-illustrated endpapers by Barker (a psychoanalyst would have a field day) and wonderful spot illustrations throughout by the author/artist. A conversation with J. G. Ballard I’ve never seen before, numerous quotes from magazine and news articles (some judicious pruning of overlapping material would have been useful) are scattered throughout the book. More than 450 pages with a full-color, six-page insert of photographs.

The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs! by A. Wolf, as told to Jon Scieszka and illustrated by Lane Smith (Viking Kestral-1989) is a very clever children’s book amusingly told and beautifully illustrated. Smith has solo books out, including the following one. Highly recommended for those who like variations on fairy tales and for anyone who enjoys good children’s illustration work.

Glasses Who Needs ’Em? by Lane Smith (Viking) is an illustrated book about a young boy who is told by his mad optometrist that he needs glasses. The boy thinks that only dorks wear glasses, but the good doctor proves otherwise in an amusing series of examples of who wears glasses.

A Witch by August Strindberg, translated by Mary Sandbach, (The Lapis Press) is the first English translation of this oddity by the Swedish playwright best-known for his bleak mysogynist plays Dance of Death and Miss ]ulie. Set in the period of history when witches were still “tested” and burned, this novella is about Tekla, a spoiled young woman desperate to rise above her station in life. Her shallowness, frustration, and envy congeal into active malice when she accuses a rich young woman who befriended her of witchcraft. The book itself is striking, with images of hellfire on the back and front covers. There are portraits of Strindberg and his daughter, and rare paintings by the author as illustrations. (The Lapis Press, 589 North Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291 for information).

The Castle of Argol by Julien Gracq, translated by Louise Varese, is also from The Lapis Press. Written in 1938, the author considered his first novel a “demoniac version” of the Grail legend. It tells of a quest for the essential that ends with the embrace of fatality and dissolution. Illustrations in color and black-and-white. (Not seen.)

Visions from the Twilight Zone by Arlen Schumer (Chronicle) is an homage to Rod Serling and his surrealistic creation, The Twilight Zone. Using actual images and words from the show, which ran from 1959—1964, Schumer lovingly recreates (as much as possible in two dimensions) the feel of the series. In addition, there are essays on the show and its impact on a generation of television viewers by Carol Serling, film critic Jonathan Hoberman, TZ producer Buck Houghton and Serling himself. A must for admirers.

A Social History of the American Alligator by Vaughn L. Glasgow (St. Martin’s) is lavishly and amusingly illustrated. The natural history can be found in other books but the societal ramifications and accompanying illustrations are what make this book shine—for instance, a rundown of various Louisiana mascot gators’ life histories. However, there are some minor annoyances that are very distracting from the text such as the use of “sic” every time some historical reference uses the word crocodile instead of alligator. A footnote would have been quite sufficient and less distracting. There are some odd errors peppering the section on popular culture: Captain Hook lost his hand to the croc, not his whole arm; V, A. C.

Crispin’s novelization of the TV series is mentioned but the series itself is not. The mentions of movies with alligators in them are, mostly, a stretch and superficial— Glasgow doesn’t even summarize the plots so why bother mentioning the films at all? Despite these minor flaws, the book is fun reading and terrific to look at.

The Carroll & Graf Colin Wilson series: paperback editions of nonfiction crime detection books previously published only in hardcover and only in Great Britain, including A Criminal History of Mankind, The Mammoth Books of True Crime 1 & 2 and The Mammoth Book of the Supernatural.

Written in Blood: Detectives & Detection by Colin Wilson (Warner) is the first of three paperback volumes appearing for the first time in the U.S. This volume is an historic overview of the evolution of criminal detection, including the use of the microscope, the first informer, the use of forensic evidence and so forth. Fascinating book, which reads like a novel (I’ve been warned that Wilson is sometimes inaccurate, so beware).

Spring-Heeled Jack by Philip Pullman (Knopf) is described by Locus as “an extremely bizarre young adult combination of prose and cartoon, illustrated by David Mostyn, creating a superhero out of the 19th-century legend of the superhuman Spring-Heeled Jack—with Mack the Knife as the villain. Peculiar but fascinating.” Sounds good to me.

Meat: A Natural Symbol by Nick Fiddes (Routledge) is a fascinating albeit biased study of humankind’s relationship to “meat. ” The book started as a doctoral thesis presuming that the primary cultural importance of meat is founded on its vividly representing to us the domination we have sought over nature. It’s quite readable, but only because of out-of-context interviews with unknown parties on their thoughts about meat-or-vegetable eating. For all the reader knows, Fiddes might have interviewed his own family. Some interesting points: According to Fiddes’s sources, cannibalism has never been documented as a regular practice in any society but the accusation of it has always been used by one group in order to prove moral superiority over another. Excluded witnesses are missionaries and explorers (fairly or not) who have a vested interest in portraying the accused as in need of being “civilized.” Pets are a “gray” area—they are given semihuman status—and Fiddes makes the intriguing point that we don’t have canned mouse for cats to eat but rather, chicken, tuna, liver and so forth. An infuriating book if you’re a meat eater and proud of it (as I am), but interesting.

The Faber Book of Madness edited by Roy Porter (Faber and Faber) is a nice large (over 500 pages) oddity through which to browse. An anthology mixing fact and fiction, serious and amusing, including writings by the mentally disturbed themselves, exploring consciousness in all its extremes and society’s responses to the problems of psychic disorder. Includes quotations from the novels of Virginia Woolf, the plays of Shakespeare, treatises of Nietzsche and essays about asylum life.

Angry Woman, edited by Andrea Juno and V. Vale (Re/Search) is an important and fascinating document of some of the contemporary political artists who are putting themselves on the line (sometimes physically) in order to change society. Interviews with performance artists Karen Finley, Carolee Schneemann and Dia-manda Galas, writers Kathy Acker and Bell Books and poets Lydia Lunch and Wanda Coleman. This oversized book is about how men and women respond to female bodies; it’s about political, economic and sexual power. A must for anyone interested in political art and sexual politics.

Witnesses from the Grave: The Stories Bones Tell by Christopher Joyce and Eric Stover (Little, Brown), ostensibly a profile of Clyde Snow, a prominent forensic anthropologist often called on by the police to identify victims of violent accidents or crime by their skeletal remains. But the book is actually much more than that. Although it begins with a brief history of forensics (overlapping somewhat with the Colin Wilson books) and a brief biography of Snow, a colorful Texan, those first chapters are only preparation for the good part—stories of how Snow and his colleagues used forensic anthropology to identify a mysterious outlaw whose mummified body ended up in a carnival; aircrash victims and some of John Wayne Gacy’s victims; the alleged remains of Josef Mengele in Brazil; and opening mass graves in Argentina to help identify “the disappeared” of the late 1970s to help discourage human rights abuses. The best parts of the book read like detective stories, the step-by-step meticulous process of comparing skeleton and skull remains of the dead to antemortem x-rays and medical histories.

Permanent Londoners by Judi Culbertson and Tom Randall (Chelsea Green Press) details the lives and deaths of the rich and famous—and where they’re buried (not seen).

Great White Shark: the Definitive Look at the Most Terrifying Creature of the Ocean by Richard Ellis and John E. McCosker with original photographs by A1 Giddings and others (HarperCollins) is for anyone with an interest, fear, or obsession with the great white shark. It’s a thorough and attractive combination of scientific information and popular lore on sharks, which covers everything from their taxonomy to man’s hunt of them. There’s a section covering reports of shark attacks in great detail, and one on the “Jaws” phenomenon, that is, the enormous popularity and aftermath of the film cycle. Copious paintings and photographs, and fascinating tidbits of information—the whale shark, which eats plankton, is actually the largest but the great white is the largest that attacks large prey. A $50 hardcover edition, which is worth every penny for shark aficionados.

The World of Charles Addams (Knopf) is a marvelous retrospective of the cartoonist’s work from his first cartoon for The New Yorker at 20 years old to those appearing in 1990, after his death. His macabre sense of humor is evident throughout this coffee-table book. It’s obvious that some of the actual cartoons were used as inspiration for the hit movie The Addams Family. The movie has most certainly brought renewed interest in Addams’s work, perhaps seducing a new generation to look for and appreciate his cartoons. If you’re a horror fan or reader and are not familiar with his work, shame on you.

More Haunted Houses by Joan Bingham and Dolores Riccio (Pocket Books) is the second guidebook to haunted houses, schooners, forts, cemeteries, and the like. (The authors, by the way, never claim to have seen a ghost themselves.) Well written and well researched, this looks like a fun book to take on a tour. Recommended.