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

Summation 1992: Horror

Nineteen ninety-two will be remembered in the horror field as the Year of the Vampire. The latest volume in Anne Rice’s vampire chronicles, The Tale of the Body Thief, made the national best-seller lists, and Francis Ford Coppola’s film version of Bram Stoker’s Dracula dominated the media for months, pre- and postrelease, even though the film itself failed to perform up to expectations (despite its operatic beauty). These two major works were just the most visible in yet another apparent resurgence of popularity for the vampire. Vampires and vampirism have continually retained a hold on the imaginations of readers and film-goers (particularly since Anne Rice’s The Vampire Lestat), but 1992 seems to be a peak as anthologies, novels, short stories, movies, and related nonfiction books combined to reach a new high.

For me, though, the most exciting event of the year in horror was the Academy Awards’ honoring Jonathan Demme’s film of Thomas Harris’s psychological horror novel The Silence of the Lambs with five Oscars: Screenplay, Actor and Actress, Direction and Best Picture. Another SF/horror film, Terminator 2: Judgment Day deservedly dominated the technical awards.

The first U.S. trade paperback edition of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses was published by “The Consortium, Inc.,” an anonymous collection of publishers, with the support of writers and rights groups. It appeared March 25, in a reported print run of 100,000, to initially lackluster sales. In the meantime, negotiations between British and Iranian officials about lifting the fatwa (death sentence) against Rushdie failed to make progress in May. Despite this, Rushdie made unannounced public appearances in Spain, and Boulder, Colorado.

And in the final year of the Bush administration, censorship got in its last licks, with the ban of certain “offensive” trading cards. In April, before Eclipse even issued their True Crime trading cards, The New York Post screamed “Pols Vow Crackdown on Cards of Killers” and ran a photograph of the mother of a murdered young woman under blow-ups of the Charles Manson, Richard Speck, and Jeffrey Dahmer trading cards. By June, Nassau County, New York, banned the sale of the cards to children under seventeen and legislatures around the United States were trying to do the same.

Former President Bush’s opinion to the contrary, the recession was still in full swing, causing a major upheaval at Bantam where new president and publisher Irwyn Applebaum cut the mass market list from thirty to twenty titles, cut the hardcover list by a third, streamlined the company by combining hardcover, trade paperback, and mass market responsibilities, and laid off between forty and fifty full-time and contract employees. This transpired only months after Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine (now called Asimov’s Science Fiction), Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, Ellery Queens Mystery Magazine, and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, their inventory, plus subsidiary rights in published stories, were sold by Davis Publications to Dell Magazines, part of the Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group. The new publisher is Christopher Haas-Heye, president and publisher of Dell Magazines.

Pulphouse Publishing virtually collapsed, at least temporarily, as a major player in the fields of science fiction, fantasy, and horror by the end of 1992 with the departure of crucial members of the editorial and production staff for different parts of the country. Production has slowed to near-zero until a new crew is trained. Pulphouse magazine, which skipped its December issue, will continue to be published under the editorship of Jonathan Bond. All book production has been put on hold, with about ten short story paperbacks plus three Axolotl Press novellas planned for 1993. Pulphouse has also dropped production work for other publishers. Only time will tell whether or not the corporation will return to its former prominence.

The Abyss horror line edited by Jeanne Cavelos for Dell Books published its first hardcover in October under the Delacorte/Abyss imprint. It was Lost Souls, a first novel by Poppy Z. Brite about vampires.

Weird Tales decided to drop its oversize-digest format for a more conventional 8!/2-by-ll size and return to saddle-stitched covers. The new format will be much cheaper to produce and is preferred by advertisers and distributors; Space and Time, the long-standing small-press fiction magazine edited by Gordon Linzner, has been sold to Jonathan Post’s Emerald City Publishing. Linzner continues as editor, and the magazine, which publishes fantasy, science fiction, and horror, will maintain its twice-yearly schedule but switch to a 96-page perfect-bound format; John Pelan, founder and former publisher of Axolotl Press has announced the founding of a new company, Silver Salamander Press, issuing limited editions in variant states, following “the same editorial direction that made the first several Axolotl titles so successful.” Pelan plans to release “no more than three or four titles per year.”

Publishers Weekly ran a half-page ad from Zebra Books on June 15, announcing the withdrawal of two horror novels by a pseudonymous writing team, explaining that sections of each novel were found to be plagiarized from Dean R. Koontz’s 1983 novel Phantoms. Koontz took legal action after a fan alerted him to the copying in a letter giving specific instances of plagiarism and similarities to his novel. The ad was part of a legal settlement.

British news:

The various publishing imprints once owned by Robert Maxwell’s Macdonald Group have been absorbed into Warner/Little Brown with Macdonald and Scribner’s to become Little, Brown; Sphere and Futura will become part of the new Warner imprint. A few imprints will remain unchanged, including Orbit, the SF/ fantasy list. Victor Gollancz, Ltd., at one time the leading British SF publisher as well as a publisher of quality fiction, has been sold for the second time in three years, this time to British publisher Cassell. The acquisition means Gollancz will become an imprint, ending its distinguished sixty-three-year history as a separate company; the new British SF line, Millennium, part of Anthony Cheetham’s Orion group, launched its first list in September 1992 with simultaneous hardcovers and trade paperbacks of three American science fiction and fantasy titles. Cheetham also bought Chapmans, a general hardcover trade publisher started three years ago by Ian Chapman, former head of Collins. Chapmans publishes about forty trade books per year, and some will feed the Orion mass market line launched in July 1993. Fantasy Tales, the twice-yearly paperback anthology, is negotiating with a new distributor. In light of possible changes in format, price, and frequency, the eighth issue has been delayed. Savoy Books has had partial success in its appeal against the 1989 seizure and destruction order against the novel Lord Horror by David Britton and the comic Meng & Ecker. In a Manchester court ruling July 30, 1992, the novel was declared not obscene, reversing the order for the book's burning; however, the ruling against the comic stood.

The British Fantasy Awards were announced in Birmingham, England, over the weekend of October 2-4, 1992, at FantasyCon XVII. Jonathan Carroll's novel Outside the Dog Museum won the August Derleth Award. The other awards were: Anthology/Collection: Darklands, Nicholas Royle, ed; Short Fiction: “The Dark Lands,” Michael Marshall Smith; Artist: Jim Pitts; Small Press: Peeping Tom. The Icarus Award for best newcomer went to Melanie Tem, and a special award went to Andrew I. Porter. The awards are voted on by the British Fantasy Society.

The Second Annual World Horror Convention was held in Nashville, Tennessee, the weekend of March 5-8. Approximately five hundred fans, writers, artists, editors, and other professionals attended the event. Brian Lumley was Master of Ceremonies, Richard Matheson was Writer Guest of Honor, Richard Christian Matheson was Media Guest of Honor, and Harry O. Morris was Artist Guest of Honor. Stephen King (who did not attend) was named Grandmaster.

The Bram Stoker Awards, given by the Horror Writers of America at a banquet in New York, June 20, 1992, were received by Robert R. McCammon for his novel Boy’s Life (Pocket Books); Kathe Koja and Melanie Tem for their first novels, The Cipher and Prodigal (both Dell/Abyss) respectively; David Morrell for his novelette “The Beautiful Uncut Hair of Graves” (Final Shadows); Nancy Holder for her short story “Lady Madonna” (Obsessions); Dan Simmons for his collection Prayers to Broken Stones (Dark Harvest); Stephen Jones for his nonfiction book Shadows in Eden (Underwood-Miller); and Gahan Wilson for life achievement.

Winners of the Readercon Small Press Awards for 1991 were: Novel: no award; Collection: Wormwood by Terry Dowling (Aphelion Press); Anthology: Tales of the Wandering Jew edited by Brian Stableford (Dedalus); Fiction Magazine: no award; Nonfiction Magazine: Science Fiction Eye edited by Stephen Brown; Nonfiction Book: The Science Fantasy Publishers by Jack L. Chalker and Mark Owings (Mirage Press); Cover Illustration: Alicia Austin, The Edges of Things (WSFA Press); Interior Illustration: no award; Value in Bookcraft: The New Neighbor by Ray Garton (Charnel House). Judges were Arnie Fenner, Donald Keller, Stephen Pasechnick, Stuart Schiff, Carter Scholz, and Michael Walsh.

In horror more than in any other literary field, specialty presses have taken an active role in publishing and have become important sources of good reading material. In order to avoid repetition in this summation, I have done the following: If a book published by a specialty press is mentioned under a specific category (such as anthology or collection) it will not be repeated in the section on “specialty presses. ”

Following is a biased and eclectic sampling of novels I have read and enjoyed during the year. I’m afraid I found many of the genre horror novels I read dull and unchallenging, so the majority of what follows, although containing horrific elements, would not necessarily be considered horror. However, I suspect readers will enjoy some of them as much as I did:

In the Blood by Nancy A. Collins (Roc) is the follow-up to the Bram Stoker Award-winning Sunglasses After Dark. Sonja Blue, the unique living vampire from Collins’s first novel, vengefully tracks down Morgan, the Lord Vampire who raped and “created” her when she was a teenager. Collins skillfully integrates creatures from myth, legend, and fairy tale to populate this page-turner (for example, one character employs an ogre as bodyguard). Not only does this novel stand on its own, but I feel it’s better than the first because Collins has gained more control over her craft.

Beauty by Brian D’Amato (Delacorte) is an amazing first novel about an artist who pioneers a way to remold faces with artificial skin. Unorthodox and untried medical procedures and an obsession with physical beauty move this novel into the realm of horror. The first-person voice of the narrator is reminiscent of that in Scott Spencer’s excellent first novel Endless Love, in which everything the guy says sounds perfectly logical and rational—until you think about it. The downward slide of the protagonist is inevitable. Well-written, sharply satiric, funny and horrific, Beauty deserves bestsellerdom. Highly recommended.

The Shrine at Altamira by John L’Heureux (Viking) is another novel concerned with obsession and its consequences. Maria Corazon Alvarez wants desperately to escape the ghetto and to do so marries a sweet Anglo named Russell Whitaker. What ensues is believable (in fact, the focal point of the story is taken from horrific real-life events) and ultimately quite moving. The major problem is that Maria comes across as selfish, shallow, and crass—which may not be the author’s intention.

Flying in Place by Susan Palwick (Tor) is an excellent first novel about how a young girl, Emma, learns to cope with and overcome an abusive childhood with the help of her sister’s ghost. Palwick manages, with grace, the dual feat of creating art out of an inherently depressing fictional situation and of writing from the point of view of an adult looking back on childhood, with remarkably little feeling of intrusion. Highly recommended.

Bad Brains by Kathe Koja (Dell/Abyss) is the second novel by the co-winner of the Bram Stoker Award for first novel. The opening pages, about a young man who hits his head in a freak accident and ends up in the hospital, are terrifying. Like the male protagonist of The Cipher, Austin is more acted upon than actor in his own life. He is a blocked artist, depressed over his recent divorce and still in love with his ex-wife. An absence within him invites a terrible presence into his damaged brain. The novel is about art and creativity and taking responsibility for one’s own life. Readers tend to love Koja’s writing or hate it. I happen to think she’s terrific.

Wallflower by William Bayer (Jove) is a meticulously written psycho-killer thriller by the author of Blindside and Switch. The unusual structure makes for a more interesting novel. Detective Janek, infamous for his success in solving the bizarre “Switch” case, knows the victim of what seems like a random murder in Central Park. This killing is initially linked to the “happy family” killings, in which the victims, all members of supposedly happy families, have had their throats slit and their bodies mutilated. Halfway through the novel, Janek seems to have solved the crime. Then, the real fun begins. The story is retold from another person’s point of view, someone intimately involved in the murders. Finally, the two tellings converge. Janek behaves believably and responds realistically to the violence around him. As a thriller, love story, and search for self, this fine novel succeeds on all fronts.

After Silence by Jonathan Carroll (Macdonald, U.K.) is perhaps Carroll’s most successful novel so far. Max Fischer, a popular cartoonist, is missing only one thing from his life—a great love. He finds it, along with a built-in family, when he meets Lily Aaron and her son, Lincoln. Carroll’s writing is more controlled than in the past but just as quirky, imaginative, and riveting as in any of his other work. The novel is full of stories within stories but the main theme is how secrets, even with good intentions, can destroy. After Silence is a compulsively readable tragedy. Highly recommended. (I’ve only read the British edition, which differs slightly from the forthcoming U.S. edition.)

Whisper by Carolyn Doty (Scribner’s) was something I initially put down after about twenty pages because I didn’t like the opening situation or the characters. But because a friend recommended it, I was determined to give the book a second chance. I found myself sucked into Dorothea’s (the object of desire) strange stories, as is Ben Hastings, and was compelled to read on. A successful young businessman becomes obsessively involved with a mysterious older woman who may or may not be his dying father’s mistress. The strange subtle sinister texture, as well as references to The Turn of the Screw, give Whisper the feel of a Victorian ghost story, suggesting that evil and psychological corruption lurk on the edges.

The Hangmans Beautiful Daughter by Sharyn McCrumb (Scribner’s) is even better than her first Appalachian mystery, If Ever I Return Pretty Peggy-O, and this one has supernatural aspects to it. Laura Bruce, pregnant wife of the town minister (who is serving in the Persian Gulf) is called by the sheriff to give comfort to the survivors of a scene of inexplicable carnage at the Underhill house. What happened there and why is only one strand in this rich novel that transcends its genre. The sheriff, dispatcher, and deputy return from the earlier novel. McCrumb has great respect and love for her characters, even the most marginal ones, and seems to know the region and understand its sensibilities. A beautiful, evocative, moving mystery. The supernatural elements (second sight and ghosts) are seamlessly integrated into the story and the lives of her characters. Highly recommended.

Her Monster by Jeff Collignon (Soho Press) is a marvelous retelling of Beauty and the Beast, in which Edward, the protagonist, is indeed a monster—at least physically. He is born horribly deformed, is hated by his father (who tries to kill him), and is then hidden away in the mountains by his mother, the only person who knows of his existence. Edward publishes Conan-like adventure novels quite successfully under a pseudonym and has never spoken to a woman other than his mother until Kat, a young orange-haired punkette, comes to stay with her uncle, who dates Edward’s mother. It is the kind of novel wherein the reader wants everything to work out, knowing it can’t possibly, given the nature of society and people. Her Monster may not end happily, but is very satisfying. Highly recommended.

Tribes by Alexander Stuart (Doubleday) is a short, searing novel about contemporary England—an England of skinheads, racism, and soccer riots. Nick Burns, a young film producer, is both attracted and repelled by the violence he witnesses around him. He and his partner are procuring film rights to a futuristic play about warring soccer gangs called Tribes. Nick’s life is about to undergo a major upheaval as a result of two actions: his increasing involvement with his employee, Jemima, and her daughter; and his spur-of-the-moment decision to hire Neck, a young thug hanging around the set of his current production. The book is about violence, aggression, dominance, tenderness, and love. It’s also about the ease with which a seemingly peaceful group of people can suddenly divide into warring groups. Stuart keeps fine control over his writing, veering at will from sexual to violent intensity. This novel is a powerful follow-up to The War Zone, Stuart’s controversial first novel, which won the prestigious Whitbread Prize in England and was subsequently stripped of the prize when one of the judges objected to the book’s treatment of incest. (The War Zone, published in the United States by Doubleday in 1989, is a terrifying novel about a family on the verge of disintegration.) Although neither novel is within the horror genre, both will appeal to readers who enjoyed Ian McEwan’s and Iain Banks’s early novels. Highly recommended.

The Secret History by Donna Tartt (Knopf), a first novel, is a heady, slightly twisted trip into existential Hell with six college students. The small, select group studies Greek with a dapper, brilliant, fatherly figure. Four of the impressionable students immerse themselves in Greek thought, culture, and religion—which leads them to a deadly experiment. The consequences of this naive act on all members of the group are devastating. The story unfolds from the point of view of Richard, the outsider, who joins the close-knit group of four boys and one girl (twin to one of the boys) late. It is Richard who reveals, from the opening, one small bit of what has transpired. Richard (and author Tartt) manage to tantalize the reader through 500-plus pages of sly obliqueness, carefully crafted characterizations, and secret histories. A brilliant first novel. Highly recommended.

The Course of the Heart (Gollancz, U.K.) by M. John Harrison is a novel based on Harrison’s story “The Great God Pan” (reprinted in The Years Best Fantasy and Horror: Second Annual Collection). It too emanates from a secret ritual enacted by credulous college students and their mentor, but The Course of the Heart goes in an utterly different direction from The Secret History. The four main characters of Harrison’s novel are so guilt-ridden that they can’t remember what it is that they’ve done, but spend the next twenty years trying to escape its consequences. The narrator hides out in his successful life—happy with career, wife, and child. Yaxley, the mentor, slips into perversion, magic, and despair. And Pam Stuyvesant and Lucas Medlar, both of whom see visions, marry. During their marriage they attempt to comfort each other by reading the mysterious autobiography of the travel writer Michael Ashman, who writes of a country called the Coeur that only exists under the most special conditions, and is a place of visionary splendor where anything is possible. While Tartt’s novel is concerned with earthly issues and tangible consequences, Harrison’s is more intent on mining the unconscious, the intangible, the mystical. Less accessible than the Tartt but very much worth the effort, The Course of the Heart is a visionary and brilliant combination of horror and fantasy. Highly recommended.

Ghostwright by Michael Cadnum (Carroll & Graf) is a satisfying psychological suspense novel by the author of Nightlight, Sleepwalker, and St. Peters Wolf. Taut and lean, yet with the poetic language of St. Peters Wolf, Ghostwright displays Cadnum’s most fascinating characters. Hamilton Speke, a songwriter and playwright considered “brilliant and a genius” by his contemporaries, is successful, charming, and seems completely in control of his life, as he lives idyllically on his estate with Maria, his wife of a few months. One day his old friend Timothy Asquith reappears after ten years, accusing Speke of stealing his ideas, his talent, his very life—and Asquith demands it all back, in spades. Cadnum walks a tightrope with this chilling novel that moves with the unpredictability of charming, deadly insanity. Highly recommended.

Breaking the Fall by Michael Cadnum (Viking) is a short YA novel about Stanley, a teenager at a crossroads. His friend Jared entices him into “playing the game,” a dangerous nighttime quest that terrifies him yet makes him feel alive while everything else in his life seems out of control and deadening. There are no traditional horror elements present, but the momentum and edginess built into the fast-moving story might interest readers of horror, and certainly will interest Cadnum fans.

Lost Souls by Poppy Z. Brite (Delacorte/Abyss) deservedly attracted a lot of attention as one of the best first novels of the year. Brite tells the story of an adolescent vampire named Nothing in rich, evocative prose that alone makes the book worth reading.

The Werewolf of Paris by Guy Endore (Citadel) was first published in 1933, and was later the first book ever published by Pocket Books. It still reads well today and this new edition, which features an introduction by Robert Bloch, is well worth finding.

Other notable novels published in 1992 were Borderland by S. K. Epperson (Donald I. Fine); Less than Human by Gary Raisor (Diamond); Death’s Door by John Wolfe and Ron Wooley (Abyss); The Serpent’s Kiss by Daniel Ransom (Dell); Homecoming by Matthew J. Costello (Berkley); Liquid Diet by William Tedford (Diamond); Seven Kinds of Death by Kate Wilhelm (St. Martin’s); Chiller by Randall Boyll (Jove); Reprisal by F. Paul Wilson (Jove); The Stake by Richard Laymon (St. Martin’s); Master of Lies by Graham Masterton (Tor); Practical Demonkeeping by Christopher Moore (St. Martin’s); The Holy Terror by Wayne Allen Sallee (Ziesing); Gerald’s Game by Stephen King (Viking); Dark Chant in a Crimson Key by George C. Chesbro (Warner/Mysterious Press); Wolf Flow by K. W. Jeter (St. Martin’s); Burying the Shadow by Storm Constantine (Headline, U.K.); Child of the Light by Janet Gluckman and George Guthridge (St. Martin’s); Dark Channel by Ray Garton (Bantam Falcon); Belladonna by Michael Stewart (HarperCollins); Red Bride by Christopher Fowler (Little Brown, U.K.); Anno Dracula by Kim Newman (S&S, U.K.); Fantastique by Marvin Kaye (St. Martin’s); Valentine by S. P. Somtow (Tor); Dr. Guillotine by Herbert Lorn (Sinclaire-Stevenson, U.K.); Transition of Titus Crow by Brian Lumley, with illustrations by Judith Holman (W. Paul Ganley); Gone by Kit Craig (Little, Brown); Dolores Claiborne by Stephen King (Viking); Homme Fatale by Paul Mayersberg (St. Martin’s); Incident at Potter’s Bridge by Joe Monninger (Donald I. Fine); The Werewolves of London by Brian Stableford (Carroll & Graf); The Cry from Street to Street by Hilary Bailey (Constable, U.K.); Photographing Fairies by Steve Szilagyi (Ballantine); Wilding by Melanie Tem (Abyss); The Thief of Always by Clive Barker (HarperCollins); Lost Futures by Lisa Tuttle (Abyss); Dark Journey by A. R. Morlan (Bantam); Anthony Shriek by Jessica Amanda Salmonson (Abyss); Dark Dance by Tanith Lee (Abyss); Snake Eyes by Rosamond Smith (Dutton); Mamas Boy by Charles King (Pocket); Silent Witness by Charles Wilson (Carroll & Graf); Grace Point by Anne D. LeClaire (Viking); In the Heart of the Valley of Love by Cynthia Kadohata (Viking); Kissing the Gunners Daughter by Ruth Rendell (Mysterious); Body of Truth by David Lindsay (Doubleday); A Dangerous Energy by John Whitbourn (Gollancz, U.K.); Gone South by Robert R. McCammon (Pocket); Sin Eater by Elizabeth Massie (Pan, U.K.); Lost Boys by Orson Scott Card (HarperCollins); Unholy Fire by Whitley Strieber (Dutton); Leviathan by Paul Auster (Viking); The Blood of the Lamb by Thomas F. Monteleone (Tor); The Count of Eleven by Ramsey Campbell (Tor); The Ice-House by Minette Walters (St. Martin’s); and Drowning in Fire by Thom Metzger (Signet).

Anthologies:

The original anthology market continues to hold steady with more in print in 1992 than in the previous year. Anthologies from the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia added to the number. (To purchase foreign anthologies, try mailorder catalogs or query publisher for U.S. prices plus shipping costs.) The best horror continues to be published in anthologies rather than in magazines, but I’ll get into that a bit more later. In no particular order:

Dark at Heart edited by Karen Lansdale and Joe R. Lansdale (Dark Harvest) is exactly what it claims to be: “All new tales of dark suspense.” Some are horrific, some are meant to be but don’t quite work. This is a satisfying anthology with excellent stories by Norman Partridge, Steve Rasnic Tem, Thomas Sullivan, Stephen Gallagher, Ed Gorman, Chet Williamson, Ronald Kelly, David J. Schow, and David Morrell. Highly recommended. The hardcover, with a jacket by Peter Scanlon, is available in a trade edition at $21.95, and a 400-copy signed, limited edition at $45 plus $2 postage. (Dark Harvest, P.O. Box 941, Arlington Heights, IL 60006.)

Shock Rock edited by Jeff Gelb (Pocket). If one were judging rock ’n’ roll short horror fiction solely by this anthology, one would have to conclude that there’s nothing original to be said about the subject. Deals with the devil seem to dominate. There are a few good solid horror stories in here, by Stephen King, Richard Christian Matheson, and Thomas Tessier, but not enough of them, and none of them terribly original.

In Dreams edited by Paul J. McAuley and Kim Newman (Gollancz, U.K.) is a welcome antidote to the above. The editors have taken what might appear to be a peculiar idea, “the celebration of the seven-inch single in SF and horror,” and put together an enjoyable crossover anthology with contributions from both sides of the Atlantic. My favorite horror or borderline-horror stories were those by Alastair Reynolds, Christopher Fowler, Mark Timlin, and Graham Joyce, although the entire 447-page book was quite enjoyable. Unfortunately, it has not been reprinted by an American publisher, although book dealers such as Mark Ziesing or Dream-Haven might have copies of it. Highly recommended.

The Dedalus Book of Femmes Fatales, edited by Brian Stableford (Dedalus) is, like last year’s “wandering Jew” anthology, a combination of classic reprints and originals. Included are stories and poems by Keats, Baudelaire, Poe, Swinburne, and Vernon Lee as well as a contemporary reprint by Thomas Ligotti and excellent new stories by Storm Constantine, Brian Stableford, Ian McDonald, and Steve Rasnic Tem. A nice mix. This one is not available in the United States either except perhaps from the book dealers mentioned above. Highly recommended.

The Weerde Book 1, devised by Neil Gaiman, Mary Gentle, and Roz Kaveney (Roc, U.K.), is a British anthology I was prepared to dislike because of my bias against “shared world” anthologies. I was pleasantly surprised. The premise is that an ancient race of shape-shifting predators lives among humans. The writers have been given enough leeway (and, I presume, encouragement) to pursue utterly different paths in writing about these creatures, with excellent results from Roz Kaveney, Paul Cornell, Christopher Amies, Josephine Saxton, Michael Fearn, Storm Constantine, and Liz Holliday. Highly recommended.

Souls in Pawn, edited by George Hatch (Noctulpa #6), is not quite up to last year’s Guignoir but there are good stories in it by Adam Meyer, Norman Partridge, and Carrie Richerson, and good illustrations by Nicholas Searcy. Recommended.

Dracula: Prince of Darkness, edited by Martin H. Greenberg (DAW), contains literate but lackluster stories with minimal resonance. Few of the stories get beyond cliche or delve into the ramifications of vampirism or the effect of the vampiric lifestyle on the vampire itself. The most ambitious story is by Brian Hodge, though the cop-out ending leaves its promise unfulfilled.

Abortion Stories: Fiction on Fire, edited by Rick Lawler (MinRef Press), boasts a provocative title that promises more than it delivers. What surprises most about this anthology is how unimaginative the stories are. The editor might as well have gone for the jugular, as the subject itself is inherently so controversial. The best stories are those that have the least to do directly with abortion, e.g., L. Crittenden’s boringly titled “GP Venture,” about extracting embryos for later adoption. Excellent stories about abortion have been published elsewhere in the past couple of years, such as Poppy Z. Brite’s “The Ash of Memory, the Dust of Desire” and “The Murderer Chooses Sterility,” by Bradley Denton.

MetaHorror, edited by Dennis Etchison (Dell Abyss), is a thick anthology of original horror fiction. While on the whole it doesn’t seem quite as sharp as its predecessor, Cutting Edge (one of the major horror anthologies of the 1980s), it is still a remarkable achievement with a line-up of some of the best writers in and out of the field. Every story is first-rate; three are reprinted in this volume and all of them are well worth reading. Highly recommended. A hardcover deluxe, slipcased edition is available, designed, and illustrated by Thomas Canty. Limited to 1000 numbered copies signed by Etchison, Canty, and the contributing authors (all but Joyce Carol Oates). $100 plus $2 shipping. The art, atypical Canty, consists of photo collages in black and white, effective and horrific (Donald M. Grant, Publishers, Inc., P.O. Box 187, Hampton Falls, NH 03844).

Borderlands 3, edited by Thomas F. Monteleone (Borderlands Press), is the third installment of this ambitious anthology series. The stories in this volume are more consistently successful than those in Borderlands. Monteleone has set himself what is probably an impossible task, aiming to take readers to the “cutting edge” and over. Building an anthology series around such a vague premise seems doomed to disappoint, given the scarcity of writers who ever come close to the “cutting edge.” Despite this caveat there is excellent fiction by Poppy Z. Brite, Thomas Tessier, John Maclay, Ed Gorman, Michael Cassutt, Kathe Koja, and Steve Rasnic Tem. Highly recommended. The hardcover anthology is available in a trade edition for $20, and a slipcased, signed (by all but Avram Davidson) limited edition of 750 copies for $65, both with a dust jacket by Rick Lieder. Highly recommended (Borderlands Press, P.O. Box 32333, Baltimore, MD 21208).

Narrow Houses, edited by Peter Crowther (Little Brown, U.K.), is an excellent original anthology with “superstition” as its nicely broad theme. There’s a good mix of British and American writers, and the stories are consistently interesting and varied. Most of them made my recommended list, and two are reprinted in this volume: those by Nicholas Royle and Stephen Gallagher. Highly recommended. Touch Wood: Narrow Houses Volume Two is scheduled for 1993.

Psychos: An Anthology of Psychological Horror in Verse, edited by Michael A. Arnzen (Mastication Publications), is consistently interesting with fine poetry by Steve Rasnic Tem, Don Webb, Robert Frazier, and Thomas Wiloch and good illustrations by Renate Muller. The only flaw is an unnecessary “final note” from the editor. $6 ppd: Michael A. Arnzen, c/o Mastication Publications, P.O. Box 3712, Moscow, ID 83843-1916.

Still Dead: Book of the Dead II, edited by John Skipp and Craig Spector (Bantam Falcon), is more consistent in quality than their first volume of flesh-eating zombie stories. I would have liked to see a few more “zombie as metaphor” stories but there’s an excellent contribution by Poppy Z. Brite (reprinted here), and many others made my recommended list. Unfortunately, the introduction suffers from the self-congratulatory tone of the editors. Recommended. Mark Ziesing published a beautiful hardcover of the anthology, with full-color cover and interiors by Rick Berry, for $29.95 for a trade edition, $85 for a signed, slipcased edition. All books are plus $2 postage (Mark V. Ziesing Books, Box 76, Shingletown, CA 96088).

Freak Show, edited by F. Paul Wilson (Pocket), is the second Horror Writers of America shared-world anthology and must be judged two ways. As an episodic novel it works, and Wilson has done an admirable job integrating the pieces. Yet despite the overall quality of the writing, the book—as a showcase for members of the HWA—is an ill-conceived disaster, muting the writers’ individuality. Why doesn’t the HWA propose a non-theme anthology to show off the many diverse voices of its membership instead of continuing to produce these stifling wastes of talent? A limited hardcover edition of Freak Show was published by Borderlands Press with cover and interiors by Phil Parks, slipcased and signed by contributors and limited to 750 copies. $75. This is a beautifully produced book, much more attractive than the paperback.

Grails: Quests, Visitations, and Other Occurrences, edited by Richard Gilliam, Martin H. Greenberg, and Edward E. Kramer (Unnameable Press), was given out free to the membership at the World Fantasy Convention in Pine Mountain, Georgia. It’s a very large anthology that stays a little too close to the Arthurian motifs of the “grail” theme for my taste. The most interesting stories are those that branch out into the “other occurrences” of the subtitle. There are some good dark pieces, but the book is weighted more toward fantasy. Unnumbered copies are available for general sale and a mass-market edition is forthcoming. Write to Unnameable Press for information: P.O. Box 11689, Atlanta, GA 30355-1689.

Midnight Graffiti, edited by Jessica Horsting and James Van Hise (Warner), is an anthology consisting half of reprints from the magazine and half of original stories. Midnight Graffiti, the anthology, is a spotlight for the magazine’s flaws. Very few of the stories disturb in more than a superficial way, and the satires usually lack grace and subtlety. Despite this there’s a terrific original by Neil Gaiman (reprinted here) and a very good original by John Shirley. There are multiple factual errors and misstatements on the book cover and in the blurbs, and there seem to be a lot of typos in the book itself. How about some truth in advertising from blurb writers?

Northern Frights, edited by Don Hutchison (Mosaic Press), is a solid dark fantasy anthology from Canada. It’s the first volume in a projected series “inspired by the unique geography of the Canadian imaginative landscape.” This nice-looking hardcover features reprints by Robert Bloch, Charles de Lint, and Terence Green, originals by Steve Rasnic Tem, Garfield Reeves-Stevens, Lucy Taylor, and others. There is good writing here with a few stand-outs, but the illustrations routinely give away too much of each story.

Intimate Armageddons, edited by Bill Congreve (FIP), is an Australian horror anthology with impressive stories by Robert Hood and Terry Dowling, the most recognizable of the contributors. The anthology is, on the whole, quite literate while not breaking new ground in style or content, and it unwisely includes an overly long reprint by the editor. Fire Island Press Associates, P.O. Box 1946, Wollingbong NSW 2500, Australia. Write for information.

SPWAO Showcase 8—All Aboard! edited by Mike Olson (Small Press Writers and Artists Organization) is disappointing, with even those writers who have broken into professional markets contributing less than their best work. ($8.95 including postage to Michael A. Arnzen, Director, SPWAO Publication Dispersal, 1700 Constitution #D-24, Pueblo, CO 81001.)

Bizarre Sex and Other Crimes of Passion, edited by Stanislas Tal (TAL Publications), is an anthology of erotic horror with good work by John Edward Ames, Lucy Taylor, and Wayne Allen Sallee, so-so works by others ($9.50 plus $1.50 shipping to TAL Publications, P.O. Box 1837, Leesburg, VA 22075).

Red Stains A Lexicon of Lesions: Bible of Blood, edited by Jack Hunter (Creation Press), is a strange, repellent anthology from England. The plots are minimal, the descriptions disgusting, but structurally there’s some interesting experimentation within the stories. The only contributors with whom I’m familiar are Ramsey Campbell (whose reprint is by far the best piece in the book) and D. F. Lewis (£5.95 to Creation Press, 83 Clerkenwell Road, London EC1 U.K.)

Dark Voices 4 edited by David Sutton and Stephen Jones (Pan). Even though this series is never as interesting or scary as I’d like, there are always a few standout stories in each volume. This year they were by Christopher Fowler and Graham Masterton, both reprinted here.

Temps, devised by Alex Stewart and Neil Gaiman (Roc, U.K.) and Eurotemps (Roc, U.K.)—a pair of British shared-world anthologies several cuts above their American counterparts. The hook is that the Department of Paranormal Resources keeps their “talents” on tap as temporary workers as the need arises. Clever, sometimes horrific stories. Very enjoyable, particularly Eurotemps, with excellent stories by Jenny Jones, Storm Constantine, and Roz Kaveney.

Darklands 2, edited by Nicholas Royle (Egerton Press), is the second volume of the British dark fantasy/horror anthology series. It is a solid follow-up to last year’s volume. Most of the writers are unfamiliar to me, but all the stories are good. (£4.99 to Egerton Press, 5 Windsor Court, Avenue Road, London N15 5JQ, U.K.)

Lovers and Other Monsters, selected by Marvin Kaye (GuildAmerica Books), features stories on the “darker and supernatural aspects of love.” A handful of original works by Steve Rasnic Tem and various unknowns includes some good pieces. Among the reprints are stories by Gorky, Lovecraft, Sturgeon, Bradbury, de Balzac, Poe, Rosetti, and Hammett. A nice package created for and available only through the Literary Guild.

Cat Crimes II and III edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Ed Gorman (Donald I. Fine): Volume II has fine stories with horrific overtones by Richard Laymon and Sharyn McCrumb, a charming fantasy by Charlotte MacLeod and some real dogs (if you’ll excuse the expression). Not as much for horror readers as for cat fanciers. Volume III is the best and the darkest of the series so far, with more variety than usual and several hard-hitting stories, including a nasty by Barbara and Max Allan Collins.

New Crimes 3 edited by Maxim Jakubowski (Carroll & Graf) came out in 1992 despite the 1991 copyright. Generally, this series isn’t dark enough to call horror, but there are invariably a few horrific stories in each volume. Volume 3 had excellent contributions by Norman Partridge and Steve Rasnic Tem.

Constable New Crimes 1, edited by Maxim Jakubowski, seems to be the same series as the above but now is being published in the U.K. by Constable instead of Robinson—hence the numerical confusion. This volume of dark suspense opens with a powerful story by Mark Timlin, a writer with whom I’m familiar only through his stand-out story in In Dreams. Although there are a few weak contributions, on the whole the anthology is very readable, with excellent stories by Wayne Allen Sallee, H. R. F. Keating, and Ed Gorman.

Short Circuits: Thirteen Shocking Stories by Outstanding Writers for Young Adults edited by Donald R. Gallo (Delacorte). In his introduction Gallo strangely admits to hating being scared and that he avoids frightening stories and movies. So why a horror anthology? Gallo has previously edited three mainstream young adult anthologies, and I presume his publisher, perceiving the popularity of horror, requested the book. The criteria for Gallo’s choices were that each contributor “write a story that focused on a teenage character and that was creepy, scary, weird, horrifying, or shocking in some way.” There’s some creepiness and a lot of weirdness but no shocks or horror. Even so, almost half, particularly those by Robert Westall, Vivien Alcock, and Joan Aiken are good, interesting fantasies.

Writers of the Future Volume VIII, edited by Dave Wolverton (Bridge), is generally considered a science fiction showcase for new writers, but VIII had more horror than usual. There were good stories with horrific overtones by Sam Wilson, Maria C. Plieger, Bronwyn Elko, Stephen Woodworth, and Astrid Julian.

Sisters in Crime 5, edited by Marilyn Wallace (Berkley), doesn’t have any actual horror, but it does contain two very dark, effective stories by Joyce Carol Oates and Susan Taylor Chehak.

Aladdin: Master of the Lamp, edited by Mike Resnick and Martin H. Greenberg (DAW), has no actual horror but includes two excellent dark pieces by Pat Cadigan and Barry N. Malzberg.

The Magic of Christmas: Holiday Stories of Fantasy and Science Fiction, edited by John Silbersack and Christopher Schelling (Roc), is entertaining although there is only one horror story and one sweet ghost story.

The following original or mostly original anthologies cross genres and contain some horror: Sword and Sorceresses IX, edited by Marion Zimmer Bradley (DAW)— stories by Bruce Arthurs, Mary Frey, and David Smeds; Dragon Fantastic, edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Rosalind M. Greenberg (DAW); After the King, edited by Martin H. Greenberg (Tor), published stories in honor of J. R. R. Tolkien, with two, by Peter S. Beagle and Stephen Donaldson, veering toward the horrific; Universe 2, edited by Robert Silverberg and Karen Haber (Bantam)—Kathe Koja; Villains!, edited by Neil Gaiman and Mary Gable (Roc, U.K.)—Graham Higgins and Charles Stross; New Worlds 2, edited by David Garnett (Gollancz)—Simon Ings.

The following anthologies used mostly reprint material. Not all of them have been seen by me personally, particularly some of the British ones:

Kingpins: Tales from Inside the Mob, edited by Cynthia Manson and Charles Ardai (Carroll & Graf), reprints stories from Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine and includes stories by Stephen King, Andrew Vachss, Brian Garfield, Raymond Chandler, and Keith Peterson; Women of Mystery: Stories from Ellery Queens Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine edited by Cynthia Manson (Carroll & Graf); Fifty Best Mysteries, edited by Eleanor Sullivan (Carroll & Graf); The Best of the Rest 1990, edited by Stephen Pasechnick and Brian Youmans (Edgewood Press—a 1992 book despite the ’91 copyright); Modem Ghost Stories by Eminent Women Writers, edited by Richard Dalby (Carroll & Graf), includes stories by A. S. Byatt, Penelope Lively, Jean Rhys, Ruth Rendell, Antonia Fraser, Edith Wharton, Joan Aiken, and other, lesser-known writers; A Taste for Blood: Fifteen Great Vampire Tales, edited by Martin H. Greenberg, Robert Weinberg, and Stefan R. Dziemianowicz (Dorset), includes stories by Clive Barker, Robert Bloch, Tanith Lee, Dan Simmons, and H. P. Lovecraft; Weird Vampire Tales: 30 Blood-chilling Stories from the Weird Fiction Pulps, edited by Robert Weinberg, Stefan R. Dziemianowicz, and Martin H. Greenberg (Gra-mercy), includes stories by Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, C. L. Moore, Lester del Rey, A. E. van Vogt, Robert Bloch, William Tenn, and Charles Beaumont; Foundations of Fear, edited by David G. Hartwell (Tor), the monumental companion volume to the award-winning historical survey, The Dark Descent, reprints novellas by Daphne Du Maurier, John W. Campbell, Jr., Clive Barker, Richard Matheson and the first full-length publication of Scott Baker’s “The Lurking Duck”; Dark Crimes 2: Modern Masters ofNoir, edited by Ed Gorman (Carroll & Graf), includes stories ranging from 1950 to 1992 by David Morrell, Lawrence Block, Marcia Muller, Joe R. Lansdale, and John Shirley (and glaringly omits Ruth Rendell and Patricia Highsmith); Future Crime: An Anthology on the Shape of Crime to Come, edited by Cynthia Manson and Charles Ardai (Donald I. Fine), reprints stories from Ellery Queen’s and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazines, as well as from Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine and Analog Science Fiction / Science Fact Magazine. It has original stories by C. J. Cherryh, Alan Dean Foster and George Alec Effinger—but nothing dark enough to call horror; The Mammoth Book of Vampires, edited by Stephen Jones (Carroll & Graf), had a few originals, the exceptional novella “Red Reign,” by Kim Newman, and two good ones by Steve Rasnic Tem and Graham Masterton. The reprints included stories by Clive Barker, Brian Lumley, Richard Christian Matheson, David J. Schow, Melanie Tem, Howard Waldrop, and Nancy Holder; The Years 25 Finest Crime and Mystery Stories: First Annual Edition, edited by the staff of Mystery Scene (Carroll & Graf), reprints stories from 1989 and 1990, including those by Sue Grafton, Ruth Rendell, Andrew Vachss, Joe R. Lansdale, Faye Kellerman, and Charlotte MacLeod; Best New Horror 3, edited by Stephen Jones and Ramsey Campbell (Carroll & Graf); The Years Best Horror XX edited by Karl Edward Wagner (DAW); Great American Ghost Stories, edited by Frank D. McSherry, Jr., Charles G. Waugh, and Martin H. Greenberg (Rutledge Hill Press); Strange Tales of Mystery and the Paranormal, edited by Cecilia Heathwood (Excaliber Press, U.K.), a collection of thirty-one occult stories and essays, originally published in the magazine Ireland's Eye; Fairy Tales and Fables from Weimar Days, edited by Jack Zipes (University Press of New England—according to Locus published in 1989)—twenty-seven fairy tales translated from the German by Zipes with a lengthy critical and historical introduction; The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales edited by Chris Baldick (Oxford University Press, U.K.), an anthology of thirty-seven Gothic short stories dating from the eighteenth century to the present including contributors as diverse as H. P. Love-craft, Patrick McGrath, Eudora Welty, Jorge Luis Borges, Joyce Carol Oates, and Ray Russell; The Second Dedalus Book of Decadence: The Black Feast edited by Brian M. Stableford (Dedalus, U.K.); The Little Book of Horrors: Tiny Tales of Terror, edited by Sebastian Wolfe (Barricade), an anthology of seventy short-short horror stories, poems, and cartoons; Best of the Midwest’s Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror, edited by Brian Smart (ESA Books), an anthology of twenty-one stories that originally appeared in small press magazines—1991; Forbidden Journeys: Fairy Tales and Fantasies by Victorian Women Writers edited by Nina Auerbach and U. C. Knoepflmacher (University of Chicago Press), an anthology of eleven nineteenth-century fantasy stories by women writers with introduction and commentary by the editors; Great Ghost Stories edited by John Grafton (Dover), an anthology of ten classic ghost stories with an introduction by the editor; Chilling Christmas Tales, ed. Anonymous (Scholastic, U.K.), an original anthology of ten young-adult horror stories, including pieces by Joan Aiken and Garry Kilworth; Great Irish Stories of the Supernatural, edited by Peter Haining (Souvenir Press, U.K.), twenty-eight Irish supernatural stories; Murder on the Menu : Cordon Bleu Stories of Crime and Mystery edited by Peter Haining (Carroll & Graf), stories by P. D. James, Ruth Rendell, Michael Gilbert, Patricia Highsmith, and Roald Dahl; Reel Terror edited by Sebastian Wolfe (Carroll & Graf), an entertaining collection of stories that inspired some of the great horror films. The book includes Richard Matheson’s “Duel,” which, as a film, was Steven Spielberg’s directorial debut; “Spurs,” a story by the now-obscure Tod Robbins that strongly influenced Tod Browning’s great film Freaks (it’s interesting to compare the two versions—Browning’s goes much further and is far more shocking than the original story). Also included are stories by Angela Carter (“The Company of Wolves”), John Cheever (“The Swimmer”), Philip K. Dick (“We Can Remember It for You Wholesale,” on which Total Recall was based), George Langelaan (“The Fly”), and Robert Bloch (“Psycho”) among others; Tales of the Lovecraft Mythos, edited by Robert M. Price with an amusing cover by Gahan Wilson (Fedogan and Bremer); The Puffin Book of Ghosts and Ghouls, edited by Gene Kemp (Viking, U.K.); Quick Chills II, a hardcover anthology edited by Robert Morrish and Peter Enfantino (Deadline Press), the best horror stories from the small press published during 1990 and 1991. The book includes excellent fiction by Nancy A. Collins, Adam-Troy Castro, Norman Partridge, Susan M. Watkins, and Nancy Holder, among others. Limited to 575 signed, numbered copies. $45 (Deadline Press, 4884 Pepperwood Way, San Jose, CA 95124); and The Definitive Best of The Horror Show, edited by David B. Silva with a cover by Harry O. Morris (CD Publications). $25 for the trade edition.

As usual, few large publishing houses seem to be willing to take chances on single living-author collections, preferring those authors whose work is in the public domain, with specialty presses continuing to take up the slack.

The following single author collections contain horror or crossover material:

St. Martin’s Press published Geodesic Dreams by Gardner Dozois, which despite being mostly science fiction is certainly dark enough to be enjoyed by horror aficionados. Ironic, moving, and literate, Dozois’ work should be read and savored. He has been one of the major short story writers in fantastic fiction. Another important collection from St. Martin’s is Kate Wilhelm’s And the Angels Sing. Wilhelm’s well-crafted stories are often moving and magical. She writes subtly about relationships and how technology affects us personally for better or worse.

The Overlook Press published Tanith Lee’s The Book of the Dead: The Secret Books of Paradys III, a collection of eight very dark fantasies. Historical fantasy at its best, with a disquieting blend of sexuality and horror.

HarperCollins-U.K. brought out Lisa Tuttle’s Memories of the Body: Tales of Desire and Transformations, which includes her recent sexual-political stories “The Wound,” “Husbands,” and “Memories of the Body.” Tuttle does “alien sex,” that is, the opposite sex as “other,” well, if not better than almost anyone else around. Angry, sharp, stylish stories. Available in the United States from Severn House, 475 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10017.

Grove Weidenfeld published Dennis Cooper’s Wrong, his darkly original collection of short stories about gay life in the fast lane. (See his novel Frisk from last year.) Although they are more vignettes than actual stories, and there is nothing supernatural or overtly horrific in them, nonetheless, Cooper’s short works will startle, disturb, and perhaps horrify.

Nightmare Flower, Elizabeth Engstrom’s first collection, includes several original stories, most in her trademark baroque style. It was published by Tor.

The Burning Baby and Other Ghosts by John Gordon was published by Walker-U.K. for young adults. Too old-fashioned for my taste; the stories seem a bit pallid.

I much prefer Robert Westall’s and Joan Aiken’s young adult ghost stories.

Honeymoon with Death by Bridget Penney was published by Polygon in Scotland. A mainstream collection with dark, edgy material that might interest readers of Mary Gaitskill, although not as consistently violent and flaky.

Bantam published The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm, translated and with an introduction by Jack Zipes. This trade paperback includes eight stories not in the 1987 hardcover edition.

Carroll & Graf published The Collected Ghost Stories of E. F. Benson, edited by Richard Dalby, claiming that this is the first time the stories have been “reprinted in one volume, bringing together material that has not been available for over forty years.”

Mercury House brought out a beautifully illustrated edition of I. U. Tarchetti’s Fantastic Tales, translated from the Italian by Lawrence Venuti. Written in the nineteenth century, Tarchetti’s eerie and macabre stories were the first Italian Gothic tales. This is their first publication in English.

Ecco Press published a new collection by Joyce Carol Oates, Where Is Here?, including stories from such diverse venues as Omni, Self, Triquarterly, Yale Review, Seventeen, and Savvy.

CALYX Books published Kathleen Alcala’s collection Mrs. Vargas and the Dead Naturalist. It has original fantasy stories with occasional horrific elements and reprints from Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Black Ice, The Seattle Review, and other magazines and anthologies.

Jack Cady’s The Sons of Noah & Other Stories came out from Broken Moon Press. These are mostly reprints by an underrated crossover writer who started in the mainstream with quirky novels like The Man Who Could Make Things Vanish, The Well, and McDowell’s Ghost but only began attracting attention in the horror field with his short fiction, specifically his powerful Vietnam novella “By Reason of Darkness,” published in Douglas E. Winter’s anthology Prime Evil. Since then his short fiction has been published in Omni, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Final Shadows, and Glimmer Train. $13.95 from Broken Moon Press, P.O. Box 24585, Seattle, WA 98124-0585.

Cemetery Dance’s first foray into book publishing is Ed Gorman’s cross-genre collection Prisoners and Other Stories. These stories, mostly reprints, give the reader a good overview of Gorman’s style and range. $20.95 plus $1.05 shipping and handling. Trade hardcover. CD Publications, P.O. Box 18433, Edgewood, MD 21237.

In conjunction with Pat Cadigan’s guest of honor appearance at Disclave in 1992, WSFA Press published a collection of four of her stories, Home by the Sea, illustrated by David R. Works, in a 500-copy edition signed and numbered in slipcase. $49.95 plus $3 shipping. WSFA Press, Box 19951, Baltimore, MD 21211-0951. Abeautiful piece of bookcraft as well as good fiction.

In honor of Jane Yolen’s guest of honor appearance at Boskone in 1992, the NESFA Press published Storyteller, a collection of nineteen stories, six poems, and one nonfiction piece, with interior illustrations by Merle Insinga in a 1000-copy numbered edition, the first 200 signed and slipcased. $32 to NESFA Press, P.O. Box G, MIT Branch Post Office, Cambridge, MA 02139.

Broken Mirrors Press collected eighteen vintage R. A. Lafferty stories in Lafferty in Orbit, which contains all of the stories by this odd fantasist that appeared in the Orbit anthology series. Very little of it qualifies as horror, but it’s definitely of interest. $13.95 + $1 postage from Broken Mirrors Press, P.O. Box 473, Cambridge, MA 02238.

Donald M. Grant, Publisher, Inc., brought out a handsome 500-copy limited edition of William Hope Hodgson’s uncollected short fiction entitled The Haunted Pampero with illustrations by Arthur E. Moore. $30 plus $2 shipping.

Norman Partridge’s 30,000-word debut collection, Mr. Fox and Other Feral Tales, was published by Roadkill Press. It contains mostly original material from this up-and-coming writer and is illustrated by Alan M. Clark with an introduction by Edward Bryant. The signed paperback, limited to 500 copies, can be ordered for $8 plus $1 shipping.

Roadkill Press also brought out Edward Bryant’s collection Darker Passions, with an introduction by Dan Simmons and illustrations by Melissa Sherman. It has two reprints and an original, “Human Remains” (reprinted here). The signed paperback, limited to 500 copies, costs $6 plus $1 shipping. (Little Bookshop of Horrors, 10380 Ralston Road, Arvada, CO 80004.)

Mindwarps is John Maclay’s second collection and contains twenty-three stories, three of them originals. It comes as a signed hardcover and can be ordered for $9.95 plus $1 shipping through Maclay & Associates Publishers, P.O. Box 16253, Baltimore, MD 21210.

Horror’s Head Press published Chronicles of the Mutant Rain Forest by Robert Frazier and Bruce Boston with Potter-influenced illustrations by Frazier and an introduction by Lucius Shepard. Many of the poems, about an imaginary rain forest in which dreams are manifest and strange things happen, have been published before. $8.95 to Horror’s Head Press, 140 Dickie Avenue, Staten Island, NY 10314.

Iron Tears collects stories by R. A. Lafferty from 1973-1988. The paperback, with an introduction by Michael Swanwick, costs $10 plus $1.50 postage from Edgewood Press, P.O. Box 264, Cambridge, MA 02238.

Neal Barrett, Jr.’s Slightly Off Center is introduced by Joe R. Lansdale and is published by Swan Press. Barrett writes weird stuff, very American and only rarely horrific, but his characterizations alone make his work worth reading. A few original stories are included in this paperback. $9.50 to Swan Press, P.O. Box 90006, Austin, TX 78709.

Satanskin by James Havoc was published by England’s Creation Press. While they are consistently disgusting, I’m not sure I’d describe these “stories” with their minimal plots as horror. They don’t frighten or disturb—except in their appalling misuse of the English language. The writer attempts to go beyond the Marquis de Sade in his exotic depiction of violent eroticism. Energetic but barely readable for any but the most tolerant of “experimental” prose combined with gross descriptions of the corruption of flesh.

Anamnesis Press published a collection by Keith Allen Daniels called What Rough Book: Dark Poems and Light. Limited to 1000 trade paperback copies at $12.95 (Anamnesis Press, P.O. Box 1351, Clute, TX 77531).

Necronomicon Press published Steve Rasnic Tem’s wonderful Lovecraffian triptych, Decoded Mirrors, illustrated by Eckhardt, for $4.95; Brian Stableford’s story, “The Innsmouth Heritage,” which extends the concepts of H. P. Lovecraft’s supernatural horror fiction “into the brave new world of contemporary scientific rationalism,” also illustrated by Jason Eckhardt for $4.50; and Scott Edelman’s collection of two original horror stories, Suicide Art, illustrated by Robert H. Knox, for $4.50. The press also published The Brain in the Jar and Others: Collected Stories and Poems by Richard F. Searight, reprinting five macabre stories and twelve poems for $5.95. All the above are paperback, and can be ordered from Necronomicon Press, 101 Lockwood St., West Warwick, RI 02893.

TAL Publications published Edward Lees Quest for Sex, Truth, and Reality by Edward Lee. These three tales of erotic horror have cover art by Rick Lieder, interior art by Gene Gryniewicz, and an introduction by Jack Ketchum; and Unnatural Acts, three powerful raw stories of erotic horror by the impressive Lucy Taylor, with an introduction by Edward Lee and art by Kim Colson; $5.95 plus $1 shipping payable to TAL Publications. Address is under “Anthologies. ”

Jessica Amanda Salmonson’s Sorceries and Sorrows (Early Poems) appeared as Drumm Booklet #42 and includes a bibliography of Salmonson’s work. $3.75 to Chris Drumm, P.O. Box 445, Polk City, IA 50226. Another Salmonson book is the lovingly designed and produced hardcover containing short stories, vignettes, and parables, The Goddess Under Siege, illustrated by Jules Remedios Faye from Street of Crocodiles. (Price not available.)

Talisman published t. winter-damon’s “visionary texts and collages,” L’Heure D’Hallucinations in an attractive paperback edition well worth the $5.95 price. Subconscious surreal images; winter-damon’s work is better in these small exquisite doses than in his full-blown texts. Talisman, Box 321, Beech Grove, IN 46107.

Jazz Police Books, the new imprint of Wordcraft of Oregon, plans to publish speculative poetry books and chapbooks. Its first publication is House on Fire: The Poetry and Collage of David Memmott. Memmott is consistently interesting as an artist and poet, and this book includes a Rhysling Award-winning poem. $9 paperback, $20 hardcover to Wordcraft of Oregon, P.O. Box 3235, La Grande, OR 97850.

The following collections I have not seen: Robert Hale-U.K. brought out Creeping Fingers and Other Stories of the Occult, a collection of fifteen original supernatural and ghost stories by Mary Williams, and Charles Dickens Christmas Ghost Stories edited by Peter Haining; Macmillan-U.K. published Robert Westall’s YA collection Fearful Lovers and Other Stories; Alfred A. Knopf published The Girl with the Green Ear, a collection by Margaret Mahy of nine young-adult fantasy stories previously published in various British Mahy collections. The Horror of the Heights and Other Tales of Suspense by Arthur Conan Doyle was published by Chronicle Books; The Chilling Hour: Tales of the Real and Unreal, a young adult collection of eight horror and dark fantasies by Collin McDonald, was published by Penguin/ Cobblehill; and Penguin/Signet published Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland and Selected Stories, consisting of twenty stories, including macabre and ghostly tales; Vintage published Edgar Allan Poe’s Selected Tales, seventeen stories plus the novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, with an introduction by Diane Johnson; Viking-U.K. published Robert Westall’s collection of two supernatural YA novellas, The Stones ofMuncaster Cathedral; The Uncollected Stories of Mary Wilkins Freeman, edited by Mary R. Reichardt, was published by the University Press of Mississippi, collecting twenty of the author’s uncollected stories; The Ghost Story Society-U.K. published Out of the Past: The Indiana Ghost Stories of Anna Nicholas, a collection of three ghost stories edited and introduced by Jessica Amanda Salmonson (no price available); The Haunted Library-U.K. published Alan W. Lear’s collection of four original ghost stories, Spirits of Another Sort for £2.50.

The magazine field continues to be in terrible shape. The problem is not a lack of magazines—I read issues of more than forty different magazines during 1992, several of them new—but the questionable quality of most of them. Only a handful consistently published readable fiction and provided adequate design (by which I mean readable type, not necessarily beautiful design elements). Since the advent of desk-top publishing, just about anyone can produce a magazine. Unfortunately, too many people with lots of ambition and good intentions—but no experience and little talent—are doing so. This is the reason why most of the horror stories chosen for The Years Best Fantasy and Horror come from anthologies.

No matter what the pay rate, or how slick a magazine looks, it cannot be considered professional unless it keeps to a regular schedule. Under this criterion the only professional horror magazine is Weird Tales. Midnight Graffiti’s sole 1992 issue was a year late when it came out in December and Iniquities didn’t publish in 1992 at all, although a new issue is scheduled for the first half of 1993. And only a few other magazines seem to be able to stay on any kind of a regular schedule. The following is a sampling of the best professional, semiprofessional, and small-press magazines that publish at least some horror fiction:

Weird Tales publishes fantasy and dark fantasy but rarely out-and-out horror stories. The best stories in 1992 were those by Ramsey Campbell, Tanith Lee, Robert J. Howe, and S. P. Somtow. The editor is Darrell Schweitzer. Schweitzer and George Scithers (who is now publisher) won last year’s World Fantasy Award in the Special Award-Professional category for their work on the magazine.

Amazing Stories rarely publishes horror intentionally, but occasionally a story or two will verge on the horrific. Good work in 1992 by Tony Daniel, Ian McDowell, Barry N. Malzberg and Jack Dann, Susan Wade, and William F. Wu. The editor is Kim Mohan.

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction began publishing increasingly interesting horror fiction toward the end of Ed Ferman’s editorship. The trend continues under Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Excellent horror by Nancy Farmer, Edward Bryant, Victor Koman, Rick Bowes, Algis Budrys, Carrie Richerson, Joyce Thompson, Marc Laidlaw, Joe Haldeman, Ian Watson, Rick Wilber, and Kit Reed.

Asimovs Science Fiction concentrates more on science fiction and fantasy but published good horrific fiction and poetry by W. M. Shockley, Paul Hellweg, R. Garcia y Robertson, Maureen F. McHugh, Ace G. Pilkington, Jamil Nasir, Diane Mapes, Esther M. Friesner, John Kessel, and Melanie Tem. The editor is Gardner Dozois.

Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine seems to be moving toward somewhat darker suspense stories that occasionally verge on the horrific. Good stories by David Braley, P. K. Schossau, Dan Crawford, Ashley Curtis, Frank Michaels, Esther J. Holt, Maggie Wagner-Hankins, and Don Marshall. The editor is Cathleen Jordan.

Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine also seems edgier. It had good fiction by Martin Naparsteck, June Thomson, Jiro Agawa, Jo Bannister, Joyce Carol Oates, Betty Rowlands, David C. Hall, David Dean, Peter Lovesey, Deanne Jordan, William Beechcroft, Bill Pronzini, and Donald Olson. The editor is Janet Hutchings.

Interzone, Great Britain’s premier science fiction magazine, also published good horror fiction by Nicholas Royle, Stuart Palmer, Stephen Blanchard, Stephen Baxter, M. John Harrison, David Garnett, Diane Mapes, Ian R. MacLeod, Brian Aldiss, T. J. MacGregor, and Elizabeth Hand. Interzone is edited by David Pringle.

New Mystery, edited by Charles Raisch, put out two issues in 1992, one on the cusp of 1991-2 and covered by me last year. The third issue, published on the cusp of 1992-3, had a good story by Lisa Cantrell and useful reviews of several crossover titles. The full-color covers are attractive. It remains to be seen if this newest and slickest entry into the mystery/suspense field can keep on schedule.

Midnight Graffiti #7, edited by Jessica Horsting, was finally published late in 1992. It looks as good as ever and there’s some good—and bad—fiction. The general look at what’s going on in horror discovers it is rife with factual errors, misspellings, and confusions. Jeanne Cavelos, editor of the Abyss line, is interviewed, and throughout the interview her name is misspelled.

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

Cemetery Dance’s editor, Richard Chizmar, deservedly won the 1992 World Fantasy Award for Special Award: Non-Professional. This quarterly is now the most regular and consistently readable of the small-press magazines, though I don’t feel the cartoony covers or the interior art do the magazine justice. Thomas Monte-leone’s column is often provocative, sometimes annoying, but always entertaining, and the reviews are usually informative. The fall issue had an especially good column by Charles L. Grant. While not always outstanding, the fiction is generally literate. This is the small-press magazine to watch. The magazine published excellent fiction by Norman Partridge, Brian Hodge, Gary A. Braunbeck, C. S. Fuqua, Pamela J. Jessen, Stephen King, and Adam Corbin Fusco. $15 for a one-year subscription (4 issues) payable to CD Publications and mailed to Cemetery Dance, P.O. Box 18433, Baltimore, MD 21237.

The Urbanite: A Journal of City Fiction and Poetry is a new entry edited by Mark McLaughlin. It’s attractive and had very good fiction in this second issue, subtitled The Party Issue—with slumber parties, book parties, cocktail parties, dinner parties. Good use of theme. It would be nice if author biographies were included in the future. $5 for a single issue, $13.50 for a three-issue subscription payable to Mark McLaughlin, P.O. Box 4737, Davenport, IA 52808 (IA residents add 6% tax). Irregular publication schedule.

Grue only published one issue in 1992, but #14 looks good, with professionallooking typesetting, an effective cover by Rick Lieder, and unusually high-quality interior art for the small press. Excellent stories by Melanie Tem and D. R. McBride. The editor is Peggy Nadramia. $4.50 for the current issue, or a three-issue subscription is $13 payable to Hell’s Kitchen Productions, Inc., P.O. Box 370, Times Square Station, New York, NY 10108-0370.

Deathrealm has survived its close brush with the recession and been given a new lease on life by TAL Publications. Stanislaus Tal is now publisher, and Mark Rainey remains as editor. The large-format magazine had good covers and interior art by Jason van Hollander, Harry Fassl, Timothy Patrick Butler, Alan Clark, Jeffrey Osier, and Phillip Reynolds, and very good fiction and poetry by Brad Cahoon, Kristopher Kane, Chad Hensley, Dan Crawford, Lisa Wimberger, and Jessica Amanda Salmonson. $4.95 per single copy, one year (4 issues) $15.95 payable to TAL Productions, P.O. Box 1837-Dept S, Leesburg, VA 22075.

Crypt of Cthulhu, edited by Robert M. Price, is a must for those with an interest in Lovecraft and his mythos. Scholarly essays and reviews of related material: #80 has Price doing Derrida, getting into the spirit of deconstruction, and in #82 Donald R. Burleson deconstructs the name “Lovecraft” (now this is four pages of silliness, but he seems to be serious). Good fiction by Mark Rainey. Crypt of Cthulhu no longer accepts subscriptions. Instead, request that Necronomicon Press place you on their mailing list. Crypt appears three times a year, each new issue to be announced in the thrice-yearly catalog. Necronomicon Press, 101 Lockwood Street, West Warwick, RI 02893.

After Hours, edited by William G. Raley, has stayed on its quarterly schedule for the last couple of years, and in addition to providing book reviews and interesting interviews with editors, writers, and artists of the pro and small press, has become a consistent forum for literate horror fiction. Good stories by S. R. Gannon, Rebecca Lyons, Benjamin Gleisser, Suzi K. West, Ty Drago, and Stephen M. Rainey. $4 per issue, $14 annual subscription payable to After Hours, P.O. Box 538, Sunset Beach, CA 90742-0538.

2am, edited by Gretta M. Anderson, is now perfect-bound. It looks increasingly good, with clean and readable type. The fiction in 1992 struck me as too soft for a horror magazine but there were effective stories by Ronald Kelly and Linda Lee Mayfair. Single copies $4.95 plus $1 postage and handling. To subscribe, send $19 for four issues payable to Gretta M. Anderson, 2am Magazine, P.O. Box 6754, Rockford, IL 61125-1754.

The Tome, edited by David Niall Wilson, began to use full-color covers in 1992. The paper went from good heavy stock in spring to pulp in the summer, but the art and the fiction improved. There was good fiction and poetry by James S. Dorr, Brian Hopkins, Gary Braunbeck, and Elizabeth Massie. This semi-annual publication can be ordered for $3.95 per single issue, $12 for a year payable to Grub St. Publications, 454 Munden Avenue, Norfolk, VA 23505.

Eldritch Tales is edited by Crispin Burnham. The two issues published during 1992 had very good stories and poems by Kathryn Ptacek, Denise Dumars, Bentley Little, Judith R. Behunin, and John F. D. Taff. It’s a nice-looking magazine and was effectively illustrated by Augie Weidermann, Ron Leming, and Harry O. Morris. $6 per copy plus $1 postage and handling or $20 for four issues plus $4 postage and handling payable to Crispin Burnham, Eldritch Tales, 1051 Wellington Road, Lawrence, KS 66049.

Sequitur: A Journal of Consequences, a quarterly edited by Rachel Drummond, made an auspicious August debut with an interview with artist Harry O. Morris and portfolio of his work, an article on true life weirdness by Ed Bryant, and a historical view of the devil by Anya Martin. This attractive, brown type on cream, perfect-bound digest-sized magazine is very promising, although the nonfiction was more interesting than the fiction, and the brown and cream colors don’t do justice to Morris’s art.

Sequitur has not yet kept to its proposed quarterly schedule, but Drummond hopes to get on track with the June 1993 issue. $3.50 for a single issue, $12 for a year payable to R&D Publishing, P.O. Box 480146, Denver, CO 80248-0146.

Fantasy Macabre, published by Richard H. Fawcett and edited by Jessica Amanda Salmonson, always provides an excellent combination of the classic and contemporary weird tale. Good stories by D. F. Lewis, Amy Nelson, Ruth Berman, and Miroslaw Lipinski. $4.50 single copy, $12 for a three-issue subscription payable to Richard H. Fawcett, 61 Teecomwas Drive, Uncasville, CT 06382. Fantasy & Terror is also edited by Salmonson and is attractively designed. Number 13 collects morbid poems by Harriet Beecher Stowe and others, famous in their time but virtually unknown today. $3.50 single copy, $12 (4 issues), same address as above.

Palace Corbie, edited by Wayne Edwards, is a nicely produced perfect-bound digest with a good mixture of poetry and prose, containing some good stories, most cross-genre rather than strictly horror. The best were by Sean Doolittle, James S. Dorr, and Michael A. Arnzen. The artwork throughout is by Eugene R. Gryniewicz and is often attractive. Keep an eye on this magazine. $6.95 single copy, $11 for two issues payable to Palace Corbie, Merrimack Books, P.O. Box 158, Lynn, IN 47355-0158.

Expressions of Dread, edited by Spencer Lamm, is a new slick fiction and nonfiction annual. The first issue is fifty pages and features a four-color cover illustration by Joe Coleman and color and black-and-white art inside. The nonfiction is more interesting than the fiction with several interviews, including one with the chief medical examiner of New York City, one with Wayne Allen Sallee, another with Philip Nutman, and more. There is also an essay on the tradition of graphic violence in horror fiction. This promising magazine has a third issue (100 pages) scheduled for spring 1993 but no price set. Write for information to Expressions of Dread, 300 Mercer Street, Suite 17-B, New York, NY 10003.

The Stake: Humor & Horror for a Dying Planet #2, edited by Bill Meyers, is a new quarterly satirical magazine that has some amusing items in it, including “The First Days of Christ the Umpire” (a parody of the weird novel The Last Days of Christ the Vampire) and “The Snopeses Go Camping.” ($12 for the next four issues to III Publishing, P.O. Box 170363, San Francisco, CA 94117-0363.)

Other magazines that rarely publish horror but did contain good horror fiction during 1992 were Playboy, Omni, Pulphouse, Aboriginal SF, Glimmer Train, Space & Time, Back Brain Recluse, Aurealis (Australia), Jabberwocky, Story, Eidolon, Raritan, Event, Gauntlet, Fiction International, Conjunctions, New Pathways (now defunct), Strange Plasma, CWM, On Spec, Celestial Shadows, and Tales of the Unanticipated.

And good horror stories and poetry also appeared occasionally in Midnight Zoo, Ghosts & Scholars, Weirdbook, The Silver Web, Terror Australis (now defunct), Forbidden Lines, Elegia, The Magazine of Speculative Poetry, Fantasy Tales 4, Mean Lizards, Prisoners of the Night, Aberations, Vlad the lmpaler, Premonitions, Dreams & Nightmares, Weirdbook, Doppelganger, Bizarre Bazaar, Chills, Thin Ice, Haunts, and Dementia 13.

Another source for short horror fiction is the single story chapbook published by various specialty presses. Usually published in a signed and limited paperback edition with cover and interior illustrations, these are often good buys, although the reprints might appeal more to collectors than to the general fiction reader. Some of the more interesting ones follow:

Elizabeth Massie’s Bram Stoker Award-winning novelette “Stephen” has an introduction by Brian Hodge with cover/interior art by Keith Minnion. $5.95 plus $1 shipping from TAL Publications (see address under “Collections”); Wayne Allen Sallee’s original story “For You, the Living” with cover/interior art by Alan M. Clark is $6 plus $1 shipping; Melanie and Steve Rasnic Tem’s original story “Beautiful Strangers” illustrated by Melissa Sherman is $5 plus $1 shipping; Joe R. Lansdale’s reprint “Steppin’ Out, Summer, ’68” with cover/interiors by Mark A. Nelson is $7 plus $1 shipping; Nancy Holder’s original story “Cannibal Dwight’s Special Purpose,” with cover/interiors by Melissa Sherman is $5 plus $1 shipping; and Robert Zasuly’s “Kill Shot” and Pamela J. Jessen’s “Cuttings,” two originals in one volume illustrated by Melissa Sherman, is $5 plus $1 shipping—all payable to Little Bookshop of Horrors (address under “Collections”); Joe R. Lansdale’s “God of the Razor” features an introduction by Lansdale and artwork by eight artists, including S. Clay Wilson, Michael Zulli, Stephen Bissette, Mark Nelson and others. $15 postpaid, and Nancy A. Collins’ original Sonja Blue novella, “Cold Turkey,” which features an introduction by Joe R. Lansdale and art by Mark Masztal, is $13 postpaid—both payable to Thomas Crouss, Crossroads Press, P.O. Box 10433, Holyoke, MAO 10412033. Wayne Edwards’s “Mr. Oblivious,” with artwork by Eugene Gryniewicz, is $3 from Merrimack Books. P.O. Box 158, Lynn, IN 47355-0158. The British Fantasy Society published Mark Morris’s original short story “Birthday” as Booklet Number 19, in honor of the Fantasycon XVII. $3 to Peter Coleborn, 46 Oxford St., Acocks Green, Birmingham, B27 6DT, U.K.

Pulphouse’s Short Story paperbacks, before being put on hold after number 60, published horror reprints such as Pat Cadigan’s “My Brother’s Keeper,” Robert Bloch’s “The Skull of the Marquis de Sade,” Nancy Holder’s “The Ghosts of Tivoli,” Joe R. Lansdale’s “Tight Little Stitches in a Dead Man’s Back,” and “The Bingo Man” by Joyce Carol Oates. $1.95 each. And also published, under the Axolotl imprint, Nina Kirki Hoffman’s novella “Unmasking,” $10 for trade paperback to Pulphouse Publishing, P.O. Box 1227, Eugene, OR 97440.

Other horrific works published by various specialty presses were:

Donald M. Grant, Publisher, Inc.: Double Memory: Art and Collaborations— paintings and sketches by Rick Berry and Phil Hale, friends and collaborators for twelve years, inspiring and influencing each other’s art. They seem influenced, too, by Francis Bacon and Marshall Arisman. The book itself is a magnificent work of art, produced on high-quality paper and well designed. With cryptic quotations, dark, lush paintings done solo and collaboratively, this is a book to linger and dream over. Berry is best-known for his illustrations for the Donald M. Grant edition of Peter Straub’s Mrs. God; Hale is best-known for his work on the Donald M. Grant edition of Stephen King’s Drawing of the Three. Trade edition: $34.95. The deluxe, slipcased edition is signed and numbered with an extra signature containing four custom duotones and a signed and numbered lithograph from an edition of eight. $100 plus $2 shipping; The Waste Lands Portfolio illustrated by Ned Dameron has twelve full-color illustrations for Stephen King’s The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands. Available in a trade edition for $20 plus $2 shipping or an artist-signed and numbered edition limited to 2000, which includes a print of the painting used as the endpaper for the book as well as the jacket design on cover stock ($30 plus $2 shipping). For address, see under “Anthologies.”

Mark V. Ziesing: Wayne Allen Sallee’s impressive first novel, The Holy Terror, with a dark noir-ish cover by Lainey Koepke in two editions: a trade edition for $29.95 and a slipcased 250-copy limited edition for $65; and Richard Laymon’s short novel of psychic suspense, Alarms, with cover by Lainey Koepke in a $24 trade edition and $60 signed and slipcased edition. All of Ziesing’s books are meticulously designed by Arnie Fenner. For address, see under “Anthologies.” Underwood-Miller: Virgil Finlay’s Strange Science is a great-looking book with quality reproductions of Finlay’s detailed black-and-white illustrations of aliens and monsters originally drawn for the pulps. The book has a foreword by Robert Bloch and an introduction by Harlan Ellison. Hardcover $24.95. Paperback $14.95 plus $2 shipping. PA residents add 6% sales tax. (Underwood-Miller, 708 Westover Drive, Lancaster, PA 17601).

Lord John Press: Children of the Night by Dan Simmons is available in a limited signed edition of 900 numbered copies, slipcased, for $125; 250 deluxe copies, leather, slipcased, for $250; and 26 lettered copies, full leather, $500. And also by Dan Simmons, Summer Sketches-. Simmons’s notes and sketches of his travels have brought such diverse places as Calcutta, Gettysburg, and Romania to vivid life. This book is a fascinating look at semiraw material transmuted and integrated by the author into his fiction, available in a trade edition of 2000 copies for $25; a limited signed edition of 750 numbered copies for $100; 200 deluxe copies, one-fourth leather-bound for $250; and 26 lettered copies, full leather-bound for $500 (Lord John Press, 19073 Los Alimos Street, Northridge, CA 91326).

Borderlands Press: A 500-copy limited edition (sold out) of Captured by the Engines by Joe R. Lansdale with cover by Alan M. Clark and interior illustrations by Mark Nelson, signed by the author and artists. $3 shipping and handling per title. See address under “Anthologies.”

Pulphouse/Axolotl: Nancy Springer’s horror novella “Damnbanna” in three editions: $10 for the 525-copy trade paperback, $35 for the 300-copy hardcover edition, and $60 for a 75-copy leather-bound edition. All states are signed by the author. (Pulphouse Publishing, Box 1227, Eugene, OR 97440.)

Necronomicon Press: An Index to the Fiction and Poetry ofH. P. Lovecraft by S. T. Joshi is an index of proper names used by Lovecraft in his fiction and poetry. $5.95; The Battle That Ended the CenturylCollapsing the Cosmoses (sic) by H. P. Lovecraft and Robert H. Barlow—two short-story collaborations. $2.50; The Lady of Frozen Death and Other Weird Tales by Leonard Cline—a collection of five stories that appeared originally under the pseudonym Alan Forsyth. $6.50; H. P. Lovecraft Letters to Richard F. Searight, edited by David E. Schultz, S. T. Joshi, and Franklyn Searight. $9.95; On Lovecraft and Life by Robert H. Barlow. $3.95; Autobiographical Writings by H. P. Lovecraft. $4.95; Demons of the Sea by William Hope Hodgson, edited by Sam Gafford, reprints ten stories and an essay. $8.95; H. P. Lovecraft: Letters to Henry Kuttner, edited by David E. Schulz and S. T. Joshi. $5.95. Address under “Collections.”

Maclay & Associates: Ray Russell’s (the author of Sardonicus) new horror novel Absolute Power is in an attractive 500-copy signed, boxed limited edition. $49. Find address under “Collections.”

Charnel House: Last Call, by Tim Powers, adds a poem and is a slightly different textual version than the trade edition from William Morrow, beautifully illustrated by Peter Richardson with slipcase art by J. K. Potter. Signed and numbered boxed edition of 350 copies for $150 (Charnel House, Box 633, Lynbrook, NY 11563).

Dark Harvest: In 1992, Dark Harvest moved away from horror toward dark suspense, publishing Thomas Tessier’s Secret Strangers in a trade edition at $21.95; F. Paul Wilson’s Nightworld, the third book of the follow-up trilogy to The Keep. $21.95; a first novel, Frost of Heaven, by Junius Podrug. $19.95; and Lawrence Block’s first Matthew Scudder novel (in hardcover for the first time), The Sins of the Fathers, with an introduction by Stephen King. $19.95. See address under “Anthologies.”

Wildside Press: Reprinted Alan Rodgers’ novel Night in a 250-copy limited, signed, and numbered hardcover edition. $35 (Wildside Press, 37 Fillmore Street' Newark, NJ 07105). ’

Fedogan & Bremer: Published Basil Copper’s novel The Black Death with cover and illustrations by Stefanie K. Hawks in a hardcover trade edition, $32 plus $1.50 postage. Payable to Fedogan & Bremer, 700 Washington Ave., SE, Suite 50, Minneapolis, MN 55417. ’

W. Paul Ganley: Publisher: Published Iced on Aran & Other Dream Quests by Brian Lumley, a collection of five stories with art by Stephen E. Fabian in a hardcover trade edition for $25 plus $1.50 to W. Paul Ganley: Publisher P O Box 149, Buffalo NY 14226-0149. ’

Certain nonfiction magazines provide news and a much needed critical eye. I've included ordering information for those difficult to find at newsstands. For overseas prices, query first.

That old standby Fangoria, edited by Tony Timpone, now has, along with its usual blood and guts, a lively regular column by David J. Schow and perceptive reviews of some of the more interesting books of fiction and nonfiction related to horror. The September issue was devoted to vampires, covering Coppola’s Dracula in detail in addition to critic Linda Marotta providing an analysis of her ten favorite vampire novels; the November issue had an interview with Candace Hilligas, star of the classic horror film (recently reissued) Carnival of Souls. Fangoria also published a special Dracula: The Complete Vampire issue including material on the making of the Coppola movie, the history of Dracula movies, books about Dracula, and upcoming vampire movie releases. The special also ran an interview with Christopher Lee, had an article about Dracula in comics and the by now standard article on the real Dracula. It s an impressive issue with contributions by Linda Marotta, David J. Skal, and Raymond McNally.

Cinefantastique, published and edited by Frederick S. Clarke, is bimonthly and more upscale than Fangoria. The February issue’s cover story was The Silence of the Lambs, with detailed articles by Dan Persons on the acting, screenwriting, directing, and producing of the Academy Award-winner. The articles are good, particularly those on production design, for which Kristi Zea and her crew conceptualized variations of some of the most powerful scenes, including “the shot from hell” (as it was called by the crew) in which the police officer’s corpse is flayed and lashed to Lecter’s cage. Zea admits to being heavily influenced by Francis Bacon’s paintings, and one can clearly see this in the sketches. There’s also a piece on moth-wrangling. Cinefantastique is an excellent magazine for readers serious about their cinema. Highly recommended.

Psychotronic Video is an invaluable source of material on horror videos, nonfiction books, and personalities. Issues in 1992 interviewed actors Timothy Farrell and Brad Dourif, and Zalman King, producer of 9Vi Weeks and Wild Orchid. Highly recommended. A six-issue subscription to this quarterly costs $20, payable to pub-lisher/editor Michael J. Weldon, 3309 Route 97, Narrowsburg, NY 12764.

Filmfax: The Magazine of Unusual Film & Television brings out lots of interesting articles on horror films in its bimonthly issues. Some of 1992’s highlights included a piece on the Tod Browning movie The Unknown, an interview with Paul Naschy (star of Curse of the Devil and lots of other films), and an excerpt from David J. Skal’s forthcoming cultural history of horror, The Monster Show. $25 (six issues) from Filmfax, P.O. Box 1900, Evanston, IL 60204.

Reflex (now Nerve) was primarily a music magazine, but also covered other types of “alternative” entertainment. Last year there were articles on Philip K. Dick’s novels, Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean’s graphic novel collaborations, interviews with Anne Rice (illustrations by J. K. Potter) and Brian Eno (illustrations by Dave McKean), a piece of fiction by David J. Schow, and book reviews of oddball titles. Legs McNeil has just taken over the editorship from Lou Stathis and, judging from the first issue (which doesn’t acknowledge its predecessor), I’m afraid the intelligence and multimedia mix that made Reflex so interesting and entertaining is gone.

Afraid: The Newsletter for the Horror Professional is back, now edited by Mike Baker. The first five issues in its new incarnation were informative, with articles and columns by Gary Brandner, Brian Hodge, and a good article by J. F. Gonzales about semi-pro magazines. However, #6 was disappointing, as the newsletters demeanor began to veer toward the less professional and became more petulant. A professional newsletter is no place for bashing writers by name. And what’s the point of reviewing Stephen King’s novels? How about giving lesser known writers the exposure? One year subscription (12 issues) $25. Checks payable to Afraid, 857 N. Oxford Avenue #4, Los Angeles, CA 90029.

Nexus is a good new newsmagazine out of the U.K. edited by Paul Brazier. It runs some fiction, lots of mini-reviews, and a roundup of news in the field of SF with crossover into fantasy and horror. The magazine is meant to appear quarterly, but so far it’s been late and I’ve only seen the first two issues. Potential U.S. subscribers might want to hold off a while to make sure it stays afloat, although you can probably buy a back issue to check it out. Subscriptions are $25 payable to SF Nexus Subscriptions, P.O. Box 1123, Brighton, BN1 6EX, U.K.

Gila Queens Guide to Markets edited by Kathryn Ptacek is a 24-page monthly devoted to giving up-to-date publishing and marketing information in various genres. ($20/year payable to the Gila Queens Guide to Markets or Kathryn Ptacek, P.O. Box 97, Newton, NJ 07860.) Highly recommended.

Mystery Scene, published by Martin H. Greenberg and Ed Gorman and edited by Joe Gorman, which has gone back to pulp format with #35, seems to have made horror a low priority, and has shifted to four regular book columnists instead of using free-lancers (which might be good, as there was so much overlap in the past). The magazine will now appear every seven weeks. Subscriptions are $35 for seven issues from Mystery Scene, P.O. Box 669, Cedar Rapids, IA 52406-0669.

The New York Review of Science Fiction, published monthly by Dragon Press and edited by David G. Hartwell et al., publishes articles and reviews on horror, as well as science fiction and fantasy. It’s intelligent, literate, and only occasionally opaque. Dragon Press, P.O. Box 78, Pleasantville, NY 10570. $2.50 per copy. Annual subscriptions: In U.S., $25; $29 Canada; $33 First Class. Highly recommended.

Scarlet Street: The Magazine of Mystery and Horror, edited by Richard Valley, is an attractive and entertaining magazine specializing in old movies. It also carries appropriate book reviews. Issue #8 covered vampire movies. Subscriptions are $18 (4 issues) from R.H. Enterprises, P.O. Box 604, Glen Rock, NJ 07452.

The Scream Factory, a quarterly edited by Peter Enfantino, published an especially fun issue #10 featuring “the worst horror in the world”: the worst horror novels of all time, the worst horror on TV, the fifty worst monster movies—you get the idea. Comprehensive and incisive with an amusing cover illustration by Allen Koszowski. The magazine made good use of contributors such as Stefan Dziemianowicz, Bob Morrish, Peter Enfantino, and William Schoell among others. Schoell’s informative “Hidden Horrors” column delved into old pulps, bad novels, and Lovecraft, but I don’t see how the horror is “hidden.” Morrish’s welcome new column “What Ever Happened to?” discusses the work of writers who have seemingly disappeared from the field after an early important appearance or those who have not received the attention they deserve. Jere Cunningham is the focus of the first installment, Jack Cady of the second. To subscribe to this quarterly send a check for $19.50 ($21.11 CA residents) to Deadline Press, 4884 Pepperwood Way, San Jose, CA 95124.

Necrofile: The Review of Horror Fiction, published quarterly by Necronomicon Press, is edited by Stefan Dziemianowicz, S. T. Joshi, and Michael A. Morrison and continues to be the most important critical magazine in the horror field. During 1992 there were thoughtful reviews by Steve Rasnic Tem, Michael J. Collins, Douglas E. Winter, Brian Stableford, and S. T. Joshi (the latter asking “what the hell is dark suspense?”). Particularly good is a review by Tony Magistrale of Stephen King’s Needful Things, questioning The New York Times’s consistent tendency to choose reviewers who have axes to grind against King. There’s a good column by Tem about creating effective horror and how the marketing of “horror as a genre category” has damaged the field. The magazine regularly lists American and British horror titles. Highly recommended. (Necronomicon Press, 101 Lockwood St., West Warwick, RI 02893. $10/year—specify which issue you would like to begin with.)

Carnage Hall #3, edited by David Griffin, is much better than last year’s generally disappointing issue. Griffin’s editorial makes important points when it doesn’t lapse into hyperbole. He compares the genrefication of science fiction in bookstores with that of horror. But he asserts mistakenly that suburban chains have nothing but brand-name authors with “one tiny notch reserved for ‘literature,’ usually some exorbitantly priced printing of Our Mutual Friend released in faux-leather binding. ...” Most suburban bookstores I’ve been to have “literature” or “general fiction” sections stocked with everything from cheap paperback editions of Dickens to J. G. Ballard s newest novel in hardcover and Vintage reprints of his old ones. The issue also has a good interview with Thomas Ligotti. No subscriptions but individual issues can be bought for $3.50 plus $. 50 postage to Carnage Hall Magazine, P.O. Box 7, Esopus, NY 12429, checks payable to David Griffin.

Gauntlet published its third and fourth issues, edited by Barry Hoffman. The idea of a journal on censorship has always been a promising one, but Gauntlet, in its third year, only succeeds intermittently. Issue #3, “The Politically (In)correct Issue,” maintains an insufferable tone of “we’re more righteous than thou.” The worst example is Dave Marsh’s “dissent” to Steve Lopez’s article about NWA— Niggers with Attitude. Marsh’s rant completely ignores the legitimate issues Lopez presents. And in his “The Year in Censorship,” John Rosenman censures a waitress who “chastised a customer for reading Playboy.” Why? Isn’t her free expression protected? She didn’t take the magazine away from the customer; she expressed an opinion. Her comments may have been rude, but they weren’t censorship. And in the same article, “Note that at Stanford, student law associations for Asians, Blacks, Indians (Whoops!)... I mean ‘native Americans,’ Asian Americans, and Jews now advocate speech codes to combat racism and sexism.” Sarcasm trivializes the problem rather than confronts it. Sloppy language and sloppy thinking throughout make it hard for me to take Gauntlet seriously. Issue #4 had some good fiction, but nothing that couldn’t be published elsewhere. While there are usually a few good articles in each issue, Gauntlet gives too many hysterical contributors a forum for ranting. (Gauntlet, Dept. SUB92A, 309 Powell Road, Springfield, PA 19064. Issue #5 for $9.95 plus $2 postage and handling. One year [2 issues] $18 plus $2 postage and handling.)

Scavengers Newsletter, edited by Janet Fox, is a reliable source of material most useful to the beginning writer, listing small-press, mostly non-paying or minimal-paying markets. There’s also a good (albeit completely subjective) section with comments from readers on editorial policies and problems with various magazines. In general I think the reviewers are far too kind to mediocre material (a consistent problem in the small press). (Janet Fox, Scavengers Newsletter, 519 Ellinwood, Osage City, KS 66523-1329. $12.50/year [12 issues] bulk mail, $16.50 first class).

Tekeli-lil: Journal of Terror, edited by Jon B. Cooke, is in its second year and is slightly late. Issue #3 had a cover date of fall ’91 but appeared in early 1992. Issue #4 had an excellent interview with Thomas Ligotti and a very good column by Gary Braunbeck about horror in the mainstream. Excellent art by Jim Koney, Blair Reynolds, and H. O. Morris. Digest-sized with a nicely slick cover, it looks quite professional. Highly recommended. (Tekeli-lil Journal of Terror, do Jon B. Cooke, 106 Hanover Avenue, Pawtucket, RI 02861, $20 payable to Montilla Publications for the next four issues. RI residents include 7% tax.)

Science Fiction Eye, published and edited by Stephen P. Brown, although still not quite on schedule, is one of the major nonfiction genre-oriented magazines around. Issue #11 has 120 pages with cranky letters, Jack Womack recounting his recent trip to Russia, Paul Di Filippo interviewing Thomas M. Disch, Richard Kadrey covering the music front, great art, and provocative reviews. Highly recommended. $10/year (three issues) payable to Science Fiction Eye, P.O. Box 18539, Asheville, NC 28814.

Science Fiction Chronicle and Locus, the oldest and best news-magazines covering science fiction (primarily), fantasy, and horror, cover books published, give market reports for the U.S. and the U.K., relate domestic and foreign publishing news, and carry convention reports and listings. Ordering information for each are in the acknowledgments at the front of this book. Andrew I. Porter is editor and publisher of Science Fiction Chronicle, and Charles N. Brown is publisher and editor of Locus.

Graphic Novels:

The graphic novel continues to grow as a distinct art form, and there are so many interesting things available that it’s impossible to cover them all. So here’s a sampling of those I found particularly interesting or ambitious that incorporate horror aspects:

Bone Saw #1, edited by John Bergin and James O’Barr (Tundra), is an anthology of edgy material along the lines of Taboo. I like the art, but as in too many graphic novels, I found the prose inconsistent in quality. Bone Saw mixes illustrated stories with stories dominated by prose with a few illustrations. A mistake, I think—it’s difficult for readers/viewers to switch gears between the two forms of expression. Although there is an overabundance of pieces by co-editor Bergin, his “Monkey Fear” is quite good as are pieces by Rene J. Cigler, Duvivier, and Michael Manning/ Misha. Definitely worth a look.

Some of the best illustrative work produced in the horror field can be seen in graphic novels. Tundra’s sketchbook series has showcased several fine artists in the past two years. Two I missed previously were Noodles: Sketchbook Stuff, Random Drawings and Telephone Squiggles by Michael Zulli and a “Special Edition” Kent Williams: Drawings and Monotypes. Both artists have developed recognizable styles. While in his sketch book Zulli occasionally seems overly influenced by the romanticism of Jeff Jones, he is currently working with Neil Gaiman on a Sweeney Todd project that looks to be excellent. The sketches and doodlings in these two books show the artists honing their techniques and having fun; Paul Mavrides’ Sketchbook #10 Skull Farmer could only have come out of the head of a founder of the Church of the Subgenius. One whole color page is used to show different types of ray guns. Excerpts from comic strips, caricatures, parodies. A manic and entertaining mix; Tom Kidd’s Sketchbook #11 shows his detailed drawing techniques and includes sketches for his Gnemo series in addition to providing informative commentary on his own work. Excellent.

Tales from the Outer Boroughs Volume #1, written and illustrated by Douglas Michael (Fantagraphic Books): “Mister Seebring” is the story of the eponymous hero and his talking dead dog, Lucky (run over by a train) and their arrival at the Khoelmacher household. Strange deadpan humor that cuts like a knife. “Lame Dog” is a convoluted tale of an abused child (or two), a clown disguise, a vicious murder, politicking, and, of course, a lame dog. Worth a look.

Taboo 6, edited by Stephen R. Bissette (Tundra), isn’t as provocative as some of its past issues but has some excellent material including the next installment of Moore/Campbell’s From Flell, an old unpublished piece by Charles Burns, and a collaboration by Neil Gaiman and Michael Zulli; Taboo 7 gets back on track with episodes of From Hell, a prologue to the new Neil Gaiman/Michael Zulli Sweeney Todd collaboration; and another new collaboration that looks interesting—Afterlife, by David Thorpe and Aidan Potts. But there were a few losers in this one, too: “The Music-Loving Spider” made no sense to me, although I liked the art, and I’m afraid I find most of Joe Coleman’s work overblown and obvious.

Omnibus. Vlodern Perversity (Blackbird Comics) is a good-looking, reasonably priced series that starts with five pieces of sexual horror. Lewis Shiner’s “Scales,” illustrated by Carlos Castro, is the most comprehensible and the best drawn, although “Zoo’ by Mark London Williams, illustrated by John LeCour, is interesting.

Batman: Night Cries, by Archie Goodwin and Scott Hampton (DC), with Batman as the dark knight, focuses on Police Commissioner James Gordon. The text, about child abuse and its far-reaching consequences, perfectly matches the art by Scott Hampton, whose work gets better and better. He illustrated Robert E. Howard’s “Pigeons from Hell” and Tapping the Vein for Eclipse, neither of which prepared me for his dark, moody work on Night Cries. Highly recommended.

Tell Me Dark, by Karl Edward Wagner, Kent Williams, and John New Rieber (DC), is a sumptuous, dark love story about an American rock star and his doomed lover in the decadent depths of London. It is Williams’s best artwork to date—he was the artist of Blood, written by J. M. Matteis, and demonstrates exquisite technique. Karl Edward Wagner has disavowed this book because it was rescripted without his approval. Despite this, I have to recommend it for its beautiful look. Highly recommended.

The Residents Freak Show (Dark Horse). If you’ve never seen the Residents perform, you’ve missed a treat. They are best known for their giant eyeball costumes, but they’ve been reinterpreting musical artists from Frank Sinatra and Ennio Morri-cone to Elvis. Freak Show is their concept album, each song about a different freak—each artist in the anthology, a fan of the Residents, was given a copy of the album and asked to visualize one of the freaks. While the art is all pretty terrific, the texts vary in successfully capturing the artists’ visions. It has a Charles Burns cover and art by Dave McKean, Brian Bolland, John Bolton, and others.

The Acid Bath Case by Stephen Walsh and Kellie Strom (Kitchen Sink). Nat Slammer is a cop in the fifties, and society is on the cusp of social change— symbolized by the appearance of fast-food restaurants; bad food changes into bad fast food. Several gruesome murders have been committed and Slammer is assigned to solve them. This is an interesting but unsatisfying story. Unless I missed it, there seems to be no motive and there is no resolution. But the cover art and interiors are wonderful.

Batman Gothic, by Grant Morrison and Klaus Janson with an introduction by F. Paul Wilson (DC), is a compilation, appearing for the first time in book form. Morrison again proves himself one of the finest writers of the graphic novel with this Faustian story of an ancient evil about to be unleashed on Gotham by a conscienceless immortal. And Batman as the dark knight is obsessed with fighting evil while trying to control his own dark instincts against which he must constantly struggle. The art bombards the reader with contemporary visions of urban decline and effectively uses monochromatic color to show dream sequences and flashbacks. My only complaint is that the characters bear too much physical resemblance to each other. Highly recommended.

Fast Forward 2: Family (Piranha Press), the second in the series, and the better, has six pieces. Kyle Baker’s story is about a man bedeviled by the walking dead, making it exceptionally difficult to get a date. “Brothers and Sisters” is simple, bittersweet, and effective. “Hostage,” by a cousin of Terry Anderson, is good, but the story doesn’t seem to fit the theme.

Skin, by Peter Milligan, Brendan McCarthy, and Carol Swain (Tundra), is more interesting as a historical document/political statement condemning the greedy drug companies that sold thalidomide in the U.K. with insufficient testing than as an artistic statement. Martin Achitson, a thalidomide baby, is an early skinhead (the introduction explains that originally the gangs weren’t racist; in their “golden age” these working-class thugs usually just beat up on each other). The authors write that Skin was commissioned and then rejected by Fleetway productions for its “adult comic” Crisis. They surmise it’s the deformity that was the problem (shades of K. W. Jeter’s Dr. Adder?), but the objection might just as well have been to the book’s anti-establishment stance and colorful depiction of violence. Martin’s bitterness and hatred is far more understandable than that of most of his peers in the book. I’d like to think the self-congratulatory afterword by McCarthy is a joke.

Mr. Arashis Amazing Freak Show by Suehiro Maruo (Blast Books) is about a “normal” orphan taken in by a traveling freak show in Japan. This is not the warm, supportive, family-type atmosphere that pervades Tod Browning’s movie Freaks. In Mr. Arashi’s show, even within the freak show it’s a cold and cynical world. A powerful, tragic story with excellent black-and-white art. Also from Blast Books (1989) comes Panorama of Hell by Hideshi Hino, a shocking story of post-nuclear Japan as told by a mad painter who uses his own blood as material. Bloody, grisly, perverted and sad, it puts to shame most American graphic novels that are meant to shock.

The Sandman: Season of Mists, written by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by various artists (DC Comics), is the compilation of issues 21-28 in which Dream travels to Hell to bring back an ex-girlfriend he condemned in anger to stay there. To his surprise, Dream finds Lucifer tired of it all, ready to empty Hell of its inhabitants, give up his kingdom, and give Dream the keys to do with as he will. Supplicants from all faiths then visit Dream to blackmail, bribe, tempt, or cajole in order to extract the keys for their own use. Good storytelling and intelligence permeate this charming mini-epic.

The Luck in the Head by M. John Harrison and Ian Miller (VG Graphics). First off, let me say I’m a fan of Harrison’s writing and of Miller’s art. But I think it’s best to consider this more as an art book than a graphic novel. The art is wonderfully lurid and grotesque, with images of violence taken from Harrison’s collection Viri-conium Nights. Unfortuantely, the text, already obscure, is done in a script and design virtually impossible to read.

Other graphic novels of interest are:

The Minotaur’s Tale by A1 Davison (VG Graphics, Dark Horse); Peter Kupers Comics Trips (Tundra Sketchbook special); Fast Forward: Phobias (Piranha Press); The Dreams of Everyman by Joe Lee (Rip Off Press); Boghead by A1 Columbia (Tundra); Snake Eyes No. 2 (Fantographics Books); J. N. Williamson’s Masques 1 & 2 (Innovation); The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, adapted from the film by Ian Carney and Mike Hoffman—three parts (Monster); Freaks, adapted from the movie by Jim Woodruff and F. Solano Lopez (Monster); and Dracula: A Symphony in Moonlight & Nightmares by Jon J. Muth (Nantier Beall Minoustchine).

Art Books:

Coppola and Eiko on Bram Stokers Dracula (Collins-SF/Newmarket). If you enjoyed the newest film version of Dracula and appreciated its operatic and romantic qualities as much as I did, you might find this book a nice complement to and souvenir of the film. The Japanese designer Eiko Ishioka, costume designer for the film Mishima and the play M. Butterfly, was commissioned by Francis Ford Coppola to “make the costumes the set.” In interviews and in their respective journals Coppola and Eiko discuss the cultural and historic influences on the costumes— for example, the Turkish influence on Dracula’s clothes, various European and more exotic influences on the cosmopolitan Lucy Westerna. The photography and art in this coffee-table book is breathtaking, mixing the original sketches with the final designs on high-quality paper. Photography by David Seidman, edited by Susan Dworkin.

Bram Stokers Dracula: The Film and the Legend, by Francis Ford Coppola and James V. Hart (Newmarket Press), is notable for its inclusion of the complete screenplay of the film. This is the book to buy unless you can’t bear not to have those incredible costumes photographed in their full glory. This book is twice as long and $10 less and includes most (if not all) of the same text—excerpts from the journals of Eiko and Coppola on the thought behind the creation of the costumes.

No Mans Land: A Postwar Sketchbook by George Pratt (Tundra Special Sketchbook), with an introduction by Marshall Arisman. These sketches were for a graphic novel entitled Enemy Ace: War Idyll, an antiwar novel on World War I. Despite Pratt’s being born in 1960, the viewer gets a realistic and stark vision of life in the trenches through his sketches and studies of individual and groups of soldiers. The book design is especially notable—clean, uncluttered sketches take center stage with quotations, poems, and observations of battle by writers such as Wilfred Owen, perfectly complementing the visuals. Beautiful.

Faces by Nancy Burson (Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston). Burson is a photographer who works with computers to create unusual effects in portraiture. She has used generated composites of faces to make political and cultural statements: a set of two photographs of women, beauties of the fifties and sixties, are compared. Each is made up of composites of five beauty queens of the decade.

Burson has since moved into age updating, which has helped in identifying missing children. And most recently, she has been photographing children with progeria (premature aging) and cranio-facial deformities. When before she made composite photos of deformed children to help create a distancing effect, she now says, “I want this group of images to be about what is normal and abnormal ... If my photographs make it easier for anyone to look at any of these children, then I will feel that I’ve done my job ... if my two-year-old grows up knowing that the real ugliness in the world comes from within people, then I will also have done my job.” Hard to take, but this is a powerful little book.

Beauty and the Beast, by Nancy Willard and Barry Moser (Harcourt, Brace), is a glorious rendition of the fairy tale. Willard’s prose updates the story, bringing it to New York City and the Hudson River Valley. Moser’s woodcuts are lovely—In the past he has illustrated Alice’s Adventures Underground and The Wizard of Oz (with Nancy Reagan as the Wicked Witch). Highly recommended.

Pitchers Bird, photography by Cindy Sherman, based on a tale by the Brothers Grimm (Rizzoli), is a variation of Bluebeard. Fitcher kidnaps and murders young women. Sherman photographs what look like mannequins, but being aware that she often uses her heavily made-up self as a model, one can’t help wondering if she is Fitcher. In any case, he’s creepy and waxen-looking, and his massive beard almost becomes a character in itself. Oddly disturbing.

H. R. Giger’s Necronomicon II (Morpheus International) is the oversized hardcover book’s first publication in English. In it are designs for The Tourist, an aborted film project, designs for the album cover of Blondie’s Koo Koo, some of Giger’s biomechanical paintings, photographs of his furniture and sculpture. Giger’s dream-(or nightmare-) generated art jumps off the page at the viewer. Additional biographical material on Giger, a few profiles, and an interesting interview with him by Deborah Harry and Chris Stein make for a striking package.

Nonfiction:

Vampire: The Complete Guide to the World of the Undead, by Manuela Dunn Mascetti (Viking Studio), is a beautifully designed book using great art, but it maintains the unfortunate point of view that vampires are real. Mascetti gives “true” historical accounts of vampires and vampirism and mixes them haphazardly with fictional pieces such as “Camilla” and the uncredited Fritz Leiber classic “The Girl with the Hungry Eyes.” The result is beautiful but dumb.

In sharp contrast is the scholarly yet fascinating Vampires, Werewolves and Demons: Twentieth Century Reports in the Psychiatric Literature, by Richard Noll (Brunner/Mazel), a book of case histories that explores the “vampiric” behavior of the patient as generally a manifestation of one aspect of their psychopathology. For example, one who engages in “clinical vampirism—which consists of the periodic craving for blood, association with the dead, and no certain identity” drinks blood (sometimes her own) as a ritual that brings mental relief, not as a means of attaining immortality. And even though a patient may claim to be a werewolf and might behave as an animal, slobbering, crawling around on all fours, and howling at the moon, he looks no different to an objective observer. Dry, but an excellent antidote to the Mascetti book.

Vampyres: Lord Byron to Count Dracula, by Christopher Frayling (Faber & Faber), is a thorough history of the vampire in literature up to and including Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Frayling briefly surveys the novel’s literary forebears; charts a “Vampire Mosaic” in folklore, prose, and poetry, 1687-1913; and reprints Polidori’s “The Vampyre,” Lord Byron’s “Fragments of a Story,” and pieces by Dumas, E. T. A. Hoffman, Fitz-James O’Brien, Alexis Tolstoy, and others. Also, in a readable, gossipy way, Frayling corrects popular misconceptions (some passed on by the actual participants) about the infamous weekend at the villa Diodati on Lake Geneva during which Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Polidori’s “The Vampyr” were born. Finally, Frayling shows some of Stoker’s research notes taken before and while writing Dracula. Highly recommended.

Cut! Horror Writers on Horror Film, edited by Christopher Golden (Berkley), is on the whole entertaining, illuminating, and diverse. The book includes dissections of specific films, analyses of directorial work, interviews with the famous, etc. Cut! begins with a refreshingly different interview of Clive Barker by his friend and colleague Peter Atkins on horror in movies that are not horror; Stephen R. Bissette writes intelligently on three 1990 films about the afterlife: Ghost, Jacob’s Ladder, and Flatliners. Other good pieces include Ramsey Campbell on the quality of terror in film, Nancy Holder on why The Haunting is so effective, and Philip Nutman analyzing David Cronenberg’s “families.” Stanley Wiater’s list of the thirteen most disturbing films ever made and Skipp & Spector's recommended list of all kinds of films are also entertaining. But the most ambitious and perhaps best piece in the book is Katharine Ramsland’s article on Angel Heart—the journey to self as the ultimate horror. Good show. In addition to the paperback, Borderlands Press published a signed (by all but Anne Rice) slipcased limited edition of 500 numbered copies for $65.

Dark Visions: Conversations with the Masters of the Horror Film, by Stanley Wiater (Avon), is a decent introduction to some of the less-familiar names associated with horror film-making: producer Gale Ann Hurd, screenwriter Michael McDowell, make-up artist Dick Smith, screenwriter Joseph Stefano, and others more familiar such as Roger Corman, David Cronenberg, Tom Savini, and Robert Englund.

The Grim Reapers Book of Days: A Cautionary Record of Famous, Infamous and Unconventional Exits, by Ed Morrow (Citadel Press), has at least one death for every day of the year. Although many of these exits are not exactly obscure, Morrow provides a wealth of fascinating details and does occasionally include the less famous ones, such as the death of Mary Bradham Tucker, the Pepsi Girl; and the actor, George Zucco, who basically scared himself to death. Fun for dipping into.

John McCarty’s Official Splatter Movies Guide Vol. II by John McCarty (St. Martin’s Press). If you enjoy reading movie synopses as much as I do and enjoy trash, splatter, and assorted weird movies, this sequel is for you. McCarty covers movies from Fury of the Wolf man to Die Hard to Revenge of the Living Zombies and Don’t Torture a Duckling.

Nuclear Movies by Mick Broderick (McFarland & Company). The subtitle defines what’s included: A Critical Analysis and Filmography of International Feature Length Films Dealing with Experimentation, Aliens, Terrorism, Holocaust and Other Disaster Scenarios, 1914-1990. Comprehensive, it makes for fascinating reading. Broderick’s introductory essay claims that “unlike the 'serious,’ ‘well-intentioned’ parables of the nuclear age, the bulk of the movies which have been condescendingly described as ‘illogical visions (with) hooded, deformed villains, giant insects and other monsters’ remain the most influential treatments of nuclear themes, largely bypassing audience predispositions using metaphor and allegory to depict ‘the unthinkable.’ ” Maybe so, but when I was a pre-teen watching On the Beach on TV for the first time, it terrified me far more than any monster movie I’ve watched since. The filmography goes by year, and with the extensive cross-referencing the reader can discern patterns in movie-making. ($35 for this hardcover with library binding from McFarland & Company, Inc. Publishers, Box 611, Jefferson, NC 28640.)

Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood, Jr. by Rudolph Grey (Feral House). For those unfamiliar with Ed Wood’s career, this biography, told by interweaving interviews with family, friends and colleagues, might prove puzzling. But for those in the know, this book will prove a gold mine. Wood was notorious for two things—his unbelievably schlocky films like Plan 9 from Outer Space, Orgy of the Dead, and The Sinister Urge, and his penchant for cross-dressing (although he was heterosexual and married for many years), particularly in angora sweaters. The latter behavior showed up in his film Glen or Glenda, a sympathetic (if strange) portrayal of a man tormented by his secret yearnings to wear women’s clothing. Wood was an alcoholic and a real character, whose chutzpah far outweighed his talent or money. He used the increasingly ailing Bela Lugosi as an actor until Lugosi’s death. Wood—director, screenwriter, pornographer, and producer— died of a heart attack at fifty-four. ($14.95 plus $1.75 shipping from Feral House, P.O. Box 861893, Los Angeles, CA 90086-1893.)

Cronenberg on Cronenberg, edited by Chris Rodley (Faber and Faber, U.K.), wisely allows the director of such movies as Scanners, Videodrome, Dead Ringers, and The Fly to speak for himself. Cronenberg is articulate about his work, and the book makes a good companion volume to The Shape of Rage, a 1983 book of essays edited by Piers Handling that analyzed Cronenberg’s films up to The Dead Zone.

Murder & Madness: The Secret Life of }ack the Ripper, by David Abrahamsen, M.D., F.A.C.Pn. (Donald I. Fine), uses the author’s experience as a forensic psychiatrist to analyze all available evidence, including previously unreleased files from Scotland Yard, to prove that Jack the Ripper was actually two men working together, who they were, and their motivation. I have no idea how new this evidence actually is, but it’s quite convincing. Abrahamsen’s analysis of the killers themselves is interesting and illuminating, yet I’m troubled by his determinedly Freudian evaluation.

The Body of Frankenstein s Monster: Essays in Myth & Medicine, by Cecil Helman (Norton), is an entertaining book when the author sticks to his theme of medicine’s relationship to myth and other fantastic fiction. Helman discusses the parallel of Frankenstein’s monster to the contemporary use of donated organs; portrays Lycanthropy as madness or metaphor for our animal natures breaking out, and sees “germs” transformed into a powerful symbol of all kinds of unseen yet disruptive contagion, and as a metaphor for sudden social change encompassing everything from “an epidemic of crime” to the Asian flu. Occasionally he stretches the metaphor to breaking, such as when he describes a poor sick old man who has died in front of his television set as being turned to stone by the “medusa machine.”

Guillotine: Its Legend and Lore, by Daniel Gerould (Blast Books), is not a historical view of Dr. Guillotine’s merciful inventions, but rather concerns itself with the “guillotine as a cultural artifact and ... its representation in the arts both high and low.” It was last used in 1977, by which time it had long been an embarrassment to the French. Even in the nineteenth century, at the height of its power, the guillotine was never named in any government documents, instead being called “the instrument of death” or “the timbers of justice. ” Once the “reign of terror” was over, its orphans threw wild debauches dubbed “victims’ balls,” with women wearing slim red ribbons around their necks to simulate the blade mark. Interestingly, Samuel Taylor Coleridge complained that the representation of horror in literature came into vogue as a result of the “reign of terror” because public taste had been utterly debased by overexposure to the atrocities of the French Revolution. (Doesn’t this ignore the fact that public execution by torture was a popular entertainment until the guillotine was invented?) All in all, an entertaining book.

Men, Women and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film, by Carol J. Clover (Princeton University Press), “explores the relationship of the majority viewer (the younger male) to the female victim-heroes who have become such a conspicuous screen presence in certain sectors of horror,” for example, I Spit on Your Grave, Ms. 45, Halloween, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre II. Until Clover began this project she’d rarely seen a slasher or revenge movie, so she comes to the movies with a fresh eye. Her analyses, which begin with De Palma’s Carrie, the hit horror movie of 1976, seem right on the mark. She compares the widely banned exploitation movie I Spit on Your Grave, wherein the heroine takes the law into her own hands and kills her attackers, with the more mainstream movie on the same subject, The Accused, in which the actual hero of the movie is the female lawyer who uses the law to put the attackers behind bars (a less final punishment). This fascinating book is a must for those interested in the questions of who watches certain types of horror films, and why they watch them. Highly recommended.

Other interesting nonfiction titles (some not seen by me) are: Orwell: A Biography by Michael Sheldon (HarperCollins); Out of the Night and Into the Dream: A Thematic Study of the Fiction of J. G. Ballard by Gregory Stephenson (Greenwood); Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Review Annual 1990 (not out until 1992), edited by Robert A. Collins and Robert Lathem (Greenwood)—a valuable reference work covering the field; The James Gang by Rosemary Pardoe (Haunted Library, U. K.)— a bibliography of writers in the tradition of M. R. James; Presenting Young Adult Horror Fiction by Cosette Kies (Macmillan Twayne); Salem Is My Dwelling Place: A Life of Nathaniel Hawthorne by Edwin Haviland Miller (University of Iowa Press); Fairy Tale Romance: The Grimms, Basile, and Perrault, edited by James M. McGIathery (University of Illinois Press, 1991)—a critical study of erotic passion in the literary folktale; Horror Film Directors by Dennis Fischer—covering 51 directors from around the world, illustrated, and nearly 900 pages long in hardcover ($75) and Cinematic Vampires by John L. Flynn—$39.95 (McFarland); Scorsese On Scorsese, edited by David Thompson (Faber and Faber); Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Horror: 1991, edited by Charles N. Brown and William Contento (Locus Press); Reference Guide to Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror by Michael Burgess (Libraries Unlimited); Stephen King, The Second Decade: Dance Macabre to the Dark Half by Tony Magistrate (Twayne); The Dark Descent: Essays Defining Stephen King's Horrorscope, edited by Tony Magistrate (Greenwood Press); Black Forbidden Things: Cryptical Secrets from the “Crypt of Cthulhu,” edited by Robert Price (Starmont House); Discovering Classic Horror Fiction I, edited by Darrell Schweitzer (Starmont House); Lovecraft: A Look Behind the Cthulhu Mythos by Lin Carter (Starmont House); Fear to the World: Eleven Voices in a Chorus of Horror, edited by Kevin E. Proulx (Starmont House); Haunting the House of Fiction: Feminist Perspectives on Ghost Stories by American Women, edited by Lynette Carpenter and Wendy K. Kolmar (University of Tennessee Press, 1991)—12 original essays on a woman’s tradition in ghost stories; Dead Secrets: Wilkie Collins and the Female Gothic by Tamar Heller (Yale University Press); A Web of Relationship: Women in the Short Fiction of Mary Wilkins Freeman by Mary R. Reichardt (University Press of Mississippi); The Changing Face of Horror in the Nineteenth-Century French Fantastic Short Story by Gary R. Cummiskey (Peter Lang Publishing, 62 W. 45th St., New York, NY 10036)—academic; Step Right Up! I’m Going to Scare the Pants Off America: Memoirs of a B-Movie Mogul by William Castle (Pharos Books)—a reissue; Serling: The Rise and Twilight of Television s Last Angry Man by Gordon F. Sander (Dutton); Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-Ending Remembrance by Kenneth Silverman (HarperCollins); and Edgar Allan Poe: His Life and Legacy by Jeffrey Meyers (Scribners)—the latter two much-needed biographies of the troubled father of the macabre.

Odds and Ends:

The Frog Prince Continued, story by Jon Scieszka, paintings by Steve Johnson (Viking). So what happens after the princess kisses the frog? Do they live happily ever after? Of course not. They both get bored and the prince wanders off on a journey to find the right kind of witch to turn him back into a frog. Charming, with great illustrations.

The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales (Viking) is by two of my favorite collaborators: Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith. Fractured fairy tales with editorial and other interruptions throughout. Another charmer. Highly recommended.

Little Pig, by Akumal Ramachander and illustrated by Stasys Eidrigevicius (Viking, U.K.), is a moral tale by an international collaboration, Indian and Lithuanian (the latter now lives in Warsaw). The illustrations are startling: each page has a color photograph of a person with a woman’s face (Mary of Mary’s Pig Farm) superimposed over the actual head, looking almost, but not quite, like a mask. Recommended to everyone, but especially pig lovers.

This Is Your Final Warning, by Thom Metzger (Autonomedia), is a strange little book of rants, fake biographies of Martin Bormann, Lon Chaney, Sr., and Jr., and others, vignettes, stories, and other weird or satirical stuff by the author of Big Gurl. A good-looking production. Autonomedia also published a rash of other titles in 1992 including Cassette Mythos edited by Robin James, a resource guide to the independent cassette underground, Semiotext(e) Architecture, and Columbus and Other Cannibals by Jack D. Forbes.

Crime Beat, edited by T. E. D. Klein, is the magazine for true crime addicts. All the details behind the headlines. It’s informative and looks interesting graphically, but read too much of it and you’ll get really depressed. It’s like reading only the bad news in the newspaper.

Finders, Keepers; Eight Collectors, by Rosamund Wolff Purcell and Stephen Jay Gould (Norton), is a beautiful and appropriate follow-up to their collaboration Illuminations: A Bestiary. The guardians of natural treasures are called “curators” in the U.S. and “keepers” in England, hence the book’s title. Finders Keepers is a coffee table book about eight collectors with lush photographs of their unusual collections. Louis Agassiz’s single-mindedness at collecting fossilized fish drove away his first wife and family; Willem Cornelis van Heurn collected “boxes of perfectly pressed skins of rabbits, rats, dogs, cats, pigs, and moles,” and Purcell describes him as “insatiable and out of control”; Walter Rothchild, with the assistance of two taxonomists, collected nearly every known species of Bird of Paradise, including seventeen he described for the first time; Frederick Ruysch collected fetuses and wrapped them in beads, to create beautiful, if morbid, works of art. A grotesque and gorgeous book. Highly recommended.

The Mutter Museum 1993 Calendar presents the work of a distinguished group of photographers who have turned their attention to the unexpected art inherent in the study of medical photography. ” Included are photographs by Joel-Peter Witkin and Rosamund Wolff Purcell. In 1858 Dr. Thomas Dent Mutter formally presented his collection to the College of Physicians in Philadelphia. As a professor of surgery he gathered a teaching collection of anatomical and pathological specimens and models: the tumor removed from President Grover Cleveland’s jaw, skulls and wax models of eye diseases, a plaster cast made from the bodies of the famous Siamese twins Eng and Chang, and a radiograph of a toy battleship stuck in the esophagus of an infant. Published by The College of Physicians of Philadelphia, 19 South Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103 for $14.95 (possibly more with postage).

1992 The Year in Darkness is the second edition of a monthly wall calendar showcasing original horror stories and illustrations by writers and artists from the small press. This year is “the all-editor issue” with stories by Jessica Amanda Salmonson, Crispin Burnham, Richard Chizmar, William Raley, Peggy Nadramia, and others. Art by John Borkowski, Allen Koszowski, Alfred R. Klosterman, and others. For the 1993 calendar, inquire, including an SASE to Montgomery Publishing, Agency and Studio, 692 Calero Avenue, San Jose, CA 95123.

H. R. Giger Calendar of the Fantastique (Morpheus International) takes note of the birthdates of fantasy/horror writers, the surrealist movement, the world premiere of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Aleister Crowley’s joining of the occult group The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and other pertinent dates. The art is stunning and gorgeously reproduced.

The Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints is a fourteen-month calendar beginning with October 12, 1992—Anti-Columbus Day. With its ever-sharp eye on the coming millennium, Autonomedia has declared every day a high holy day, a day of zero work and celebration. The publishers sent out a “Call for Nominations to Sainthood, and continued to collect names, birthdays, portraits of saints, unusual holidays, etc., until they had enough for a 1993 Jubilee Calendar.” A fun calendar with snippets of information about the known and the obscure people whom the publishers feel worthy (with a decidedly left-leaning slant). $6 plus $2 postage to Autonomedia, P.O. Box 568, Brooklyn, NY 11215.

Evidence by Luc Sante (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). While researching his nonfiction book Low Life, Sante looked through archival material to get a feel for New York City in the early part of the twentieth century. He was directed to the Police Department Photo Collection, where he found a visual record of death in the tenements by murder, suicide, accident. Some of the stark photographs were captioned, some not. Fascinated, he chose fifty-five evidence photographs for this book. They are shocking, beautiful, revelatory. A dead dog lies in what looks like a subway station. It is pregnant and unmarked. Two detectives peer at the camera from a back room while the front room is bare, except for what might be bloodstains on the floor. Sante tried to ascertain the circumstances behind each photograph from newspaper articles of the period. Sometimes, when there’s no information available he speculates from the details in the photograph. He also tells the history of evidentiary photography and ruminates on the possible reasons for the existence of such photos—occasionally there has been obvious manipulation of the crime scene. I hesitate to call this grim book beautiful, but it is. Highly recommended.

Extremes: Reflections on Human Behavior by A. J. Dunning (Harcourt, Brace) is “a series of tales about the extremes of human behavior, true events in which rational, normal people have yielded to passion, to a compulsion out of all proportion to the situation.” The author compares the eating habits of St. Catherine of Siena to those of some teenage girls today; comments on the sacrifice made by the castrati (usually not of their own choice) for the sake of Italian opera, concluding that the practice ultimately died out because in the “long run the price of two testicles for four octaves proved to be too high”; compares Joan of Arc to Gilles de Rais, and immaculate conception in lizards to Jesus Christ's mother, Mary. Written in a clear, accessible, enjoyable style. Highly recommended.

Man-Eater: Tales of Lion and Tiger Encounters, edited by Edward Hodges-Hill. (Cockbird Press, U.K. Seven Hills Book Distributors, 49 Central Avenue, Cincinnati, OH 45202—$12.95 plus $2 postage and handling.) This book is about man-eating lions and tigers in East Africa and India with gripping first-person accounts by hunters, and occasionally victims (few people survive the septicemia of a tiger or lion bite). The accounts are written between 1909 and 1991. In his introduction, Hodges-Hill maintains that the “universal spread of firearms in the nineteenth century through the 1930s saw a higher proportion of the lion and tiger population becoming wounded and maimed and, unable to pursue their normal prey, turning to the native human population for food.” One man-eater, taking a human a day (occasionally in broad daylight from the center of a village) could paralyze an entire area with fear. The reader is provided with the inadvertent bonus of a cultural commentary/history of Western colonialism that seeps into the stories of “great white hunters,” implicitly revealing an uneasy relationship between Europeans and natives.

The New Murderers Who’s Who by J. H. H. Gaute and Robin Odell (International Polygonics Ltd., 1991) is the first U.S. publication of this classic reference work on murderers. The oversized trade paperback features a foreword by Colin Wilson, black-and-white photographs, drawings, and newspaper cuttings, and most important, straightforward accounts of murders covering more than 160 years. The murderers are listed alphabetically. This is not a sensationalized tabloid-type book. Highly recommended.

World Encyclopedia of 20th Century Murder, by Jay Robert Nash (Paragon House), is an expensive but impressive-looking hardcover containing more than 1,000 entries and over 400 illustrations representing all types of homicides and slayers. The in-depth entries are similar to those in the book above, but some go into greater detail, and the book occasionally covers killers not included in the above-mentioned volume. Highly recommended.

Serial Slaughter: What’s Behind America’s Murder Epidemic? by Michael Newton (Loompanics Unlimited), is a serious, detailed, and frightening book about the epidemic of serial and mass murders abounding in America during the 1980s and '90s.

Although the existence of serial killers has been documented throughout American and world history, the last decade saw a massive increase in this kind of random murder. Newton delves into possible causes, provides statistics classifying different types of killers, and statistically delineates their early childhoods and upbringing. Especially powerful are the words of the killers themselves, taken from police interviews. A useful companion volume to Newton’s earlier book (volume 1 is just out in paperback) Hunting Humans: An Encyclopedia of Serial Killers, the “who’s who” of serial murder.

Whoever Fights Monsters by Robert K. Ressler and Tom Shachtman (St. Martin’s Press) is a page-turner by the FBI man who coined the term “serial killer” and who for twenty years has developed and modified criminal profiling to accurately describe unknown serial killers. Much of Newton’s material for Serial Slaughter (see above entry) comes directly from the statistics gathered by Ressler and his trained teams, who have interviewed some of the notorious murderers in the United States for their research. The best parts of Whoever Fights Monsters, the individual cases, read like a novel: we’re right there when Ressler goes to actual crime scenes and deduces, from what he finds there, almost exactly what the murderers will be like—age, occupation, living conditions, how far they live from the crime, etc. Ressler’s autobiographical material is less interesting but doesn’t detract from the rest of this fascinating book. Highly recommended.

Violent Legacies: Three Cantos, by Richard Misrach with an introductory fiction piece by Susan Sontag (Aperture), is part of a project Misrach has been working on since 1979 “searching deserts of the American West for images that suggest the collision between civilization and nature.” He creates art from juxtaposing decay, destruction, and the barren beauty of the desert. This set of photographs is about “militarism and cultural violence.” The first section is called “Project W-47 (The Secret)”—formerly Wendover Air Base in Utah, a secret training and planning site for the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The beautifully composed photographs show a desert scarred by shrapnel, abandoned bunkers, bomb-loading pits, and buildings. “The Pit” focuses on county-designated dead animal pits and trash dumps where locals in the Nevada desert are encouraged to deposit dead livestock. This section is a series of disturbing images, taken between 1987 and 1989, of hundreds of dead animals. The dumps might be on old radioactive test sites and might still be contaminated, an allegation currently under investigation. Last is “The Playboys,” a series of old Playboy magazines used for target practice by unknown persons on the fringes of a Nevada atomic bomb test site. Cover girls seem to have been the principal targets but other cultural icons were inadvertently shot as well. The Sontag piece is a minor and unnecessary parable. On the whole, a beautiful and disturbing coffee table book.

Version 90:3 is a strange hip journal published annually out of Allston, Massachusetts. I picked up the 1992 issue specifically for the interview with photographer Joel-Peter Witkin.

Graven Images, by Ronald V. Borst (Grove Press), is a wonderful visual romp through the history of horror, fantasy, and science fiction in movie-poster art. The personal reminiscences of each decade by Clive Barker, Robert Bloch, Ray Bradbury, Harlan Ellison, Peter Straub, and Forrest J Ackerman vary in effectiveness and are almost incidental. Stephen King’s introduction lists his favorite horror films and his favorite horror posters. The sheer amount (500-plus) and variety of the poster collection and Borst’s captions are what make this book outstanding.

Trading cards continue to be popular, especially the “true crime” cards that have generated so much controversy. Incredible True Life Murderers!, by Bad Otis Link and the Pizz (Rigamor Press), was the very first set of cards dedicated to the subject of murder. In 1992 the Philip Morris Corporation filed suit against Rigamor because the original trading card package was made to look like a pack of Marlboros. Subsequently, the cards in that edition were pulled off the market and a second edition has been released in new boxes. The cards are black and white, snappy in style, and light in attitude. Rigamor also put out The World’s Most Hated People, illustrating “the twentieth century’s most despised tyrants, politicians, criminals and entertainers,” including people such as Morton Downey, Jr., Milli Vanilli, Satan, George Bush, Jimmy Hoffa, and many others. Bloody Visions, by Richard H. Price (Shel-Tone), takes the subjects of mass murder and serial killing more seriously and illustrates perpetrators in black and white and red. The best art is in the color work on the various true-crime series from Eclipse: G-Men and Gangsters, series 1, is by Max Allan Collins and George Hagenauer with art by Paul Lee. Series 2 is Serial Killers and Mass Murderers by Valerie Jones and Peggy Collier with art by Jon Bright. Series 3 is Crime and Punishment by Bruce Carroll with art by Bill Lignante. Other series that came out in 1991 or 1992 and are still available are Crimes Against the Eye by Robert Williams (Kitchen Sink Press)—36 full-color reproductions of the artist’s work, and also from Kitchen Sink: Hollywood Characters and More Hollywood Characters by artists Charles Burns, Rick Geary, Drew Friedman, and others; The Ed Wood, Jr. Players drawn by Drew Friedman; The Saucer People drawn by Steve Bissette, Charles Burns, and others; and Republicans Attack!: A Paranoid Fantasy in 36 Parts by James Vance and Mark Landman.