The Best New Horror 2 Read online

  STEPHEN JONES is the winner of the World Fantasy Award, the Horror Writers of America Bram Stoker Award, and eight-time recipient of The British Fantasy Award. A full-time columnist, film-reviewer, television producer/director and horror movie publicist (Hellraiser, Hellhound, Grave Misdemeanours, Nightbreed etc.), he is the co-editor of Horror: 100 Best Books, The Best Horror from Fantasy Tales, Gaslight & Ghosts, Now We Are Sick and the Fantasy Tales and Dark Voices series, and compiler of Clive Barker’s The Nightbreed Chronicles, The Mammoth Book of Terror, Clive Barker’s Shadows in Eden and James Herbert: By Horror Haunted.

  RAMSEY CAMPBELL is the most respected living British horror writer. After working in the civil service and public libraries, he became a full-time writer in 1973. He has written hundreds of short stories (his latest collection is titled Waking Nightmares) and the novels The Doll Who Ate His Mother, The Face That Must Die, The Parasite, The Nameless, Incarnate, Obsession, The Hungry Moon, The Influence, Ancient Images, Midnight Sun and The Count of Eleven. A multiple winner of both the World Fantasy Award and British Fantasy Award, he has also edited several anthologies, broadcasts weekly on Radio Merseyside as a film critic, and is President of the British Fantasy Society. He especially enjoys reading his stories to audiences.

  BEST NEW

  HORROR 2

  BEST NEW

  HORROR 2

  Edited by

  STEPHEN JONES

  and

  RAMSEY CAMPBELL

  Robinson Publishing

  London

  First published by

  Constable & Robinson Ltd.

  55–56 Russell Square

  London WC1B 4HP

  www.constablerobinson.com

  Best New Horror series copyright © Robinson Publishing 1991

  This selection copyright © by Stephen Jones and Ramsey Campbell

  1991

  Cover illustration © by Luis Rey, courtesy Sarah Brown Ltd, 1991

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN 1 85487 094 7

  eISBN 978 1 47211 362 7

  Typeset by Selectmove Ltd, London

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by

  Mackay’s of Chatham plc, Kent

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  CONTENTS

  Introduction: Horror in 1990

  THE EDITORS

  The First Time

  K.W. JETER

  A Short Guide to the City

  PETER STRAUB

  Stephen

  ELIZABETH MASSIE

  The Dead Love You

  JONATHAN CARROLL

  Jane Doe#112

  HARLAN ELLISON

  Shock Radio

  RAY GARTON

  The Man Who Drew Cats

  MICHAEL MARSHALL SMITH

  The Co-Op

  MELANIE TEM

  Negatives

  NICHOLAS ROYLE

  The Last Feast of Harlequin

  THOMAS LIGOTTI

  1/72nd Scale

  IAN R. MacLEOD

  Cedar Lane

  KARL EDWARD WAGNER

  At a Window Facing West

  KIM ANTIEAU

  Inside the Walled City

  GARRY KILWORTH

  On the Wing

  JEAN-DANIEL BREQUE

  Firebird

  J.L. COMEAU

  Incident on a Rainy Night in Beverly Hills

  DAVID J. SCHOW

  His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood

  POPPY Z. BRITE

  The Original Dr Shade

  KIM NEWMAN

  Madge

  D.F. LEWIS

  Alive in Venice

  CHERRY WILDER

  Divertimento

  GREGORY FROST

  Pelts

  F. PAUL WILSON

  Those of Rhenea

  DAVID SUTTON

  Lord of the Land

  GENE WOLFE

  Aquarium

  STEVE RASNIC TEM

  Mister Ice Cold

  GAHAN WILSON

  On the Town Route

  ELIZABETH HAND

  Necrology: 1990

  STEPHEN JONES & KIM NEWMAN

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  THE EDITORS WOULD like to thank Avon Books, Pulphouse Publishing, and Chris Reed, for their help and support. Thanks are also due to the magazines Locus (Editor & Publisher Charles N. Brown, Locus Publications, P.O. Box 13305, Oakland, CA 94661, USA) and Science Fiction Chronicle (Editor & Publisher Andrew I. Porter, P.O. Box 2730, Brooklyn, NY 11202–0056, USA) which were used as reference sources in the Introduction and Necrology.

  INTRODUCTION: HORROR IN 1990 Copyright © 1991 by Stephen Jones and Ramsey Campbell.

  THE FIRST TIME Copyright © 1990 by K.W. Jeter. Originally published in Alien Sex. Reprinted by permission of the author and the author’s agent.

  A SHORT GUIDE TO THE CITY Copyright © 1990 by The Seafront Corporation. Originally published in Houses Without Doors. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  STEPHEN Copyright © 1990 by Elizabeth Massie. Originally published in Borderlands. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  THE DEAD LOVE YOU Copyright © 1990 by Jonathan Carroll. Originally published in Omni Vol.13, No.3, December 1990. Reprinted by permission of the author and the author’s agent.

  JANE DOE#112 Copyright © 1990 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation. Originally published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine No.576, December 1990. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  SHOCK RADIO Copyright © 1990 by Ray Garton. Originally published in Methods of Madness. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  THE MAN WHO DREW CATS Copyright © 1990 by Michael Marshall Smith. Originally published in Dark Voices 2: The Pan Book of Horror. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  THE CO-OP Copyright © 1990 by Melanie Tem. Originally published in Women of Darkness II. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  THE LAST FEAST OF HARLEQUIN Copyright © 1990 by Thomas Ligotti. Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction No.467, April 1990. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  NEGATIVES Copyright © 1990 by Nicholas Royle. Originally published in Interzone No.35, May 1990. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  1/72ND SCALE Copyright © 1990 by Terminus Publishing Co., Inc. Originally published in Weird Tales No.298, Fall 1990. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  CEDAR LANE Copyright © 1990 by Karl Edward Wagner. Originally published in Walls of Fear. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  AT A WINDOW FACING WEST Copyright © 1990 by Kim Antieau. Originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Mid-December 1990. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  INSIDE THE WALLED CITY Copyright © 1990 by Garry Kilworth. Originally published in Walls of Fear. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  ON THE WING (Originally published as “A la Volette” in Breves No.33/34). English version copyright © 1990 by Jean-Daniel Breque and Nicholas Royle. First published in Fantasy Tales No.5, Autumn 1990. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  FIREBIRD Copyright © 1990 by J.L. Comeau. Originally published in The Women Who Walk Through Fire. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  INCIDENT ON A RAINY NIGHT IN BEVERLY HILLS Copyright © 1990 by David J. Schow. Originally published in Seeing Red. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  HIS MOUTH WILL TASTE OF WORMWOOD Copyright © 1990 by Poppy Z. Brite. Originally published in Borderlands. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  THE ORIGINAL DR SHADE Copyright © 1990 by Kim Newman. Originally published in Interzone No.36, June 1990. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  MADGE Copyright © 1990 by D.F. Lewis. Originally published in Back Brain Recluse No. 15, Spring 1990. Reprinted b
y permission of the author.

  ALIVE IN VENICE Copyright © 1990 by Cherry Wilder. Originally published in Dark Voices 2: The Pan Book of Horror. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  DIVERTIMENTO Copyright © 1989 by Gregory Frost. Originally published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, December 1989. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  PELTS Copyright © 1990 by F. Paul Wilson. Originally published in Pelts. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  THOSE OF RHENEA Copyright © 1990 by David Sutton. Originally published in Skeleton Crew, November 1990. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  LORD OF THE LAND Copyright © 1990 by Gene Wolfe. Originally published in Lovecraft’s Legacy. Reprinted by permission of the author and the author’s agent.

  AQUARIUM Copyright © 1990 by Steve Rasnic Tem. Originally published in The Seaharp Hotel. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  MISTER ICE COLD Copyright © 1990 by Gahan Wilson. Originally published in Omni Vol.12, No.7, April 1990. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  ON THE TOWN ROUTE Copyright © 1989 by Elizabeth Hand. Originally published in Pulphouse Issue Five, Fall 1989. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  NECROLOGY: 1990 Copyright © 1991 by Stephen Jones and Kim Newman.

  For

  FORREST J ACKERMAN

  father to all Famous Monsters

  INTRODUCTION:

  HORROR IN 1990

  IT WASN’T THE BEST of years; it wasn’t the worst . . . And despite the multiplying prophecies of doom from the pundits, horror fiction continued to enjoy a healthy slice of the marketplace, although the total number of titles published was slightly down on the previous year.

  In 1990 Stephen King remained productive, despite not having a new novel published. With more than 150,000 words added or restored to his 1978 apocalyptic SF/horror opus The Stand and a quartet of superb new novellas collected together in Four Past Midnight, there was plenty to keep his fans happy until the next blockbuster comes along.

  Despite being dead for five years, V. C. (Virginia) Andrews continued to dominate the bestseller lists with Web of Dreams (in fact written by horror author Andrew Neiderman), and Dean R. Koontz was hot on her heels with The Bad Place (plus reissues of many of his earlier novels, the bulk of them originally published under various pseudonyms).

  While Clive Barker had no new novel out he was represented by a trinity of movie tie-ins for his latest project as writer and director, Nightbreed: a reissue of the original short novel under the title of Cabal: the Nightbreed; a handsome coffee-table book of portraits and fiction vignettes, Clive Barker’s The Nightbreed Chronicles; and Clive Barker’s Nightbreed: the Making of the Film, which published the script along with interviews and photographs. Unfortunately, none of these (or even a Nightbreed computer game) saved the film from flopping at the box office on both sides of the Atlantic.

  James Herbert was back at the top of the bestseller charts in Britain with his latest, Creed, about a sleazy paparazzo photographer who uncovers a cult of ancient demons, while the prolific Dan Simmons had two short stories published in limited editions of three hundred copies, Entropy’s Bed at Midnight and Banished Dreams. Ramsey Campbell brought out two new books: Midnight Sun, a novel which drew comparisons with Machen and Blackwood, and Needing Ghosts, a novella which some readers found nightmarish, others hilarious. In the same Legend series Jonathan Carroll was as unpredictable as ever with his novella Black Cocktail.

  On a slightly more mainstream note, Ray Bradbury’s A Graveyard for Lunatics was a further instalment of his autobiographical fiction, set in 1950s Hollywood; Anne Rice’s The Witching Hour chronicled the epic history of a family of witches over the centuries; and Robert McCammon’s Mine, despite some great moments of psychological tension, saw the author moving away from supernatural horror towards the more popular thriller market.

  Some publishers kept the dread word “horror” well away from their contributions to the field: Valerie Martin’s Mary Reilly was a retelling of the Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde story from the viewpoint of the doctor’s maid; Phantom, by Susan Kay, was a fictional biography of the Phantom of the Opera; and James Lovegrove’s first novel The Hope was composed of episodes (owing more to the splatterpunks than to William Hope Hodgson) set on a five-mile-long cruise ship adrift at sea for decades. Also standing somewhat aloof from their genre were Patrick McGrath’s Spider and Cold Eye by Giles Blunt.

  Most horror books, however, acknowledged their field. Brian Lumley treated his fans to The House of Doors and expanded his popular vampire trilogy with Necroscope IV: Deadspeak. More vampires figured in The Stake by Richard Laymon, and Tanith Lee dealt with a different kind at length in The Blood of Roses. S. P. Somtow’s Moon Dance was a werewolf novel set in the American West during the nineteenth century, while the lyncanthropes in Charles L. Grant’s Stunts were more contemporary. F. Paul Wilson’s Reborn was his long-awaited sequel of sorts to The Keep; his novella Pelts was limited to just 552 copies. Graham Masterton’s Night Plague was the third in his Night Warriors series. On the ghostly front, The Promise was another of Robert Westall’s fine tales for young adults, while in Rune Christopher Fowler attempted to derive a novel from “Casting the Runes” without M. R. James’ terseness and elegance of style.

  It was good to see new work from veteran pulp writers: Robert Bloch brought out Psycho House, the third in his series about Mrs Bates’ boy Norman, and The Jekyll Legacy, a Gothic mystery written in collaboration with Andre Norton; meanwhile Hugh B. Cave pursued his fascination with Caribbean voodoo in The Lower Deep. To celebrate the centenary of H. P. Lovecraft, publisher Donald M. Grant produced the first separate edition of At the Mountains of Madness, an expensive oversize hardcover illustrated in full colour by Fernando Duval.

  Rex Miller’s Slice once again featured detective Jack Eichord and everyone’s favourite Vietnam psycho Chaingang Bunkowski. Many well-known horror writers had new books to their names: Peter James (Sweet Heart), Stephen Gallagher (Rain), Chet Williamson (Reign), John Farris (Fiends), John Coyne (Child of Shadows), T. M. Wright (The School and Boundaries), Ray Garton (Trade Secrets), Stephen Laws (The Frighteners), Brian Stableford (The Werewolves of London), the unstoppable Guy N. Smith (Phobia, The Unseen and Carnivore), and John Saul (Second Child and Sleepwalk). Fairytales by Steve Rasnic Tem appeared in a 300-copy edition, and David J. Schow could find only a British publisher for his superior second novel The Shaft.

  Other noteworthy titles of 1990 included Fire by Alan Rodgers, The Unseen by Joe Citro, The Vampire Files by P. N. Elrod (three volumes confronting a hardboiled Chicago detective with vampirism during the Depression), The Cartoonist by Sean Costello, October by Al Sarrantonio, Dead Voices by Rick Hautala, and Angel of Darkness by Charles de Lint under his pseudonym Samuel M. Key. Kathryn Ptacek offered more Indian magic in Ghost Dance; Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, more historical horror from the Saint-Germain Chronicles in Out of the House of Life. A vampirish entity wiped out the members of a single family in Kim Newman’s aptly titled Bad Dreams, and vampirism, voodoo, possession and reincarnation all combined in Tempter by Nancy Collins, the follow-up to her acclaimed debut novel Sunglasses After Dark. Steve Harris’s Adventureland showed some promise among its derivations from King and Barker, while Michael Cadnum’s debut Nightlight was impressively assured. Comic relief was provided by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman in their hilarious Good Omens, which mercilessly lampooned the Satanic Apocalypse.

  Demonstrating that horror is still a thriving market for the short form, David J. Schow had two substantial collections published, Seeing Red and Lost Angels, while The Adventures of Lucius Leffing continued the adventures of the late Joseph Payne Brennan’s occult detective. The Call and Other Stories by Robert Westall and Methods of Madness by Ray Garton were both slightly disappointing, given each author’s previous work, though less so than A Fit of Shivers by Joan Aiken. Michael Blumlein’s The Brains of Rats lived up to the weirdness of its title story, and Houses Witho
ut Doors showed that Peter Straub’s considerable talent extends to lengths shorter than the novel. Blood and Grit was a striking first small press collection by Simon Clark. Dan Simmons continued to proliferate with Prayers to Broken Stones, featuring thirteen stories with an introduction by Harlan Ellison, and Brian Lumley toured Lovecraft’s dreamland in Iced on Aran and Other Dreamquests. Peter Haining disinterred and introduced The Best Supernatural Stories of Wilkie Collins.

  *

  1990 was a year for anthologies, with a huge variety of titles flooding the market. Marvin Kaye, ever reliable as an anthologist, put together fascinating contents for Witches and Warlocks: Tales of Black Magic, Old & New and 13 Plays of Ghosts and the Supernatural, two volumes published only by the Science Fiction Book Club. Dark Voices: the Best from the Pan Book of Horror Stories, edited by Stephen Jones and Clarence Paget, collected thirteen stories from Britain’s longest-running and most successful horror anthology series with introductions by contemporary writers in the field. The series subsequently entered its 31st year as Dark Voices 2: the Pan Book of Horror under the editorship of David Sutton and Stephen Jones. The same team were responsible for the move into America of the one-time small press magazine Fantasy Tales, which finally completed the transformation to a twice-yearly anthology format, and The Best Horror from Fantasy Tales saw American publication by Carroll & Graf.

  The year’s most prolific anthologist was, as usual, Martin H. Greenberg, who was involved with a whole host of titles: Mummy Stories, Devil Worshippers, Ghosts of the Heartland, Western Ghosts, Cults of Horror, Phantom Regiments (with Robert Adams), Lovecraft’s Legacy (with Robert Weinberg), The Rivals of Weird Tales (a massive “instant remainder” collection with Weinberg and Stefan R. Dziemianowicz) and Urban Horrors (with William F. Nolan).

  There were excellent stories to be found in Alien Sex edited by Ellen Datlow; The Seaharp Hotel, the third in the Greystone Bay series edited by Charles L. Grant; Intensive Scare edited by Karl Edward Wagner; Walls of Fear edited by Kathryn Cramer and The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories edited by Richard Dalby. Predictably, commentators who had had nothing to say against all-male horror anthologies were quick to condemn two all-female books, Skin of the Soul edited by Lisa Tuttle and Women of Darkness II edited by Kathryn Ptacek. Paul M. Sammon’s Splatterpunks: Extreme Horror was less representative of its chosen sub-genre than the title promised.