Stephen Jones – The Mammoth Book Of Best New Horror 24

Coming in  October 2013

Stephen Jones (ed.) – The Mammoth Book Of Best New Horror 24   (Robinson, October 2013)

Cover: Vincent Chong

Stephen Jones – Introduction: horror In 2012

Neil Gaiman – Witch Work
Alison Littlewood – The Discord Of Being
Dale Bailey – Necrosis
Joe R. Lansdale – The Hunt: Before, And The Aftermath
Simon Kurt Unsworth – The Cotswold Olympicks
Lynda E. Rucker – Where The Summer Dwells
Ramsey Campbell – The Callers
Thana Niveau – The Curtain
Mark Valentine – The Fall Of The King Of Babylon
Terry Dowling – Nightside Eye
Helen Marshall – the Old and The New
Steve Rasnic Tem – Waiting At The Crossroads Motel
Glenn Hirschberg – His Only Audience
Claire Massey – Marionettes
Reggie Oliver – Between Four Yews
Gemma Files – Slick Black Bones And soft Black Stars
Evangeline Walton – The Other One
Joel Lane – Slow Burn
Stephen Volk – Celebrity Frankenstein
Robert Shearman – Blue Crayon, Yellow Crayon
Michael Kelly – October Dreams
Alison Littlewood – The Eyes Of Water

Stephen Jones & Kim Newman – Necrology: 2012
Useful addresses

Blurb
The World’s Longest-Running Annual Showcase Of Horror & Dark Fantasy

Here is the annual selection of some of the very finest, and most disturbing, short stories of horror and the supernatural published in the past year by both contemporary masters of horror and exciting newcomers, including Terry Dowling, Gemma Files, Joel Lane, Claire Masset, Thana Niveau, Lynda E. Rucker, Simon Kurt Unsworth, Mark Valentine, and a bewitching poem by Niel Gaiman.

The latest volume of the record-breaking and multiple award-winning anthology series also offers an in-depth introduction covering the year in horror, an informative Necrology of notable names who are no longer with us, and a useful contact directory that is an indispensable resource for every dedicated horror fan and writer.

The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror is the world’s leading annual anthology dedicated solely to showcasing the very best in contemporary horror fiction in all its many frightening forms.
`Yet another celebration of the diversity of the horror genre.’ – Locus
`A top-quality body of short stories.’ – Writing Magazine

See also the Best New Horror 24 thread on the Vault Forum

Thank you Sam! XXX

Stephen Jones – Zombie Apocalypse! Fightback (October, 2012)

Coming in October

Stephen Jones  (Creator) – Zombie Apocalypse! Fightback  (October, 2012)

JoeRoberts.co.uk

Jo Fletcher – Tabloid Tales
Christopher Fowler – From Prof. Margaret Winn
Christopher Fowler – From Simon Wesley #1
Reggie Oliver – Lord Of The Fleas
Jo Fletcher – The Hobbs End Horror
Christopher Fowler – From Simon Wesley #2
Brian Hodge – Morphogenesis
Jo Fletcher – Hard News
Paul Finch – Dead Air
Amanda Foubister – Consent Form
Christopher Fowler – From Simon Wesley #3
Christopher Fowler – The Well Of Seven
Christopher Fowler – From Simon Wesley #4
Anne Billson – Paris When It Sizzles
Guy Adams – Pages From A British Army Field Manual
Sarah Pinborough – Peace Land Blood
John Llewellyn Probert – ZZ Experiment Camp
Neil Gaimon – Down Among The Dead men
Simon  Strantzas – #zOmBEY
Paul McAuley – Rendition
Brian Hodge – Fright Club
Peter Crowther – The World According To Bernie Maughmstein #1
Pat Cadigan – In The Cloud
Peter Crowther – The World According To Bernie Maughmstein #2
Peter Crowther – Corpse Gas
Peter Crowther – The World According To Bernie Maughmstein #3
Michael Marshall Smith – Getting It Right
Peter Crowther – The World According To Bernie Maughmstein #4
Roz Kaveny – A Shamble Of Zombies
Lisa Morton – Day Of The Dead
Amanda Foubister – To Serve Man
Peter Atkins – You Are What You Eat
Peter Crowther – The World According To Bernie Maughmstein #5
Robert Shearman – The Play’s The Thing
Peter Crowther – The World According To Bernie Maughmstein #6
Lisa Tuttle – Island Life
Peter Crowther – The World According To Bernie Maughmstein #7
Nancy Holder – My Fellow Americans

Picture credits: Reggie Oliver, Les Edwards, (MM) Smith & (S) Jones, Leonardo da Vinci & ‘Thomas Moreby’, Simon Strantzas, Shuttercock com.

Blurb:
Science Fiction
THERE IS NOTHING TO FEAR BUT FEAR ITSELF …. AND ZOMBIES!
Following the outbreak of Human Reanimation Virus — more commonly known as “The Death”— from a hidden crypt beneath a south London church, the centuries-old plague quickly spreads throughout the world, turning its victims into flesh-eating zombies.

As we learn more about the mysterious Thomas Moreby — “Patient Zero”— the surviving members of the human race begin their fightback against the legions of the walking dead, and the Infected themselves begin mutating into something … different.

Told through interconnected eyewitness accounts — emails, text messages, reports, diaries, found video footage, and graphic adaptations — the remnants of humanity battle to survive in a world gone mad.

Stephen Jones – Mammoth Best New Horror 20

Coming in October 2009!

Stephen Jones (ed.) – Mammoth Book Of Best New Horrror #20 (Robinson, October, 2009)

 

Cover design: JoeRoberts.co.uk Cover artwork: Vincent Chong

Stephen Jones – Introduction:  Horror in 2008

Peter Crowther – Front Page McGuffin And The Greater Story Never Told
Simon Strantzas – It Runs Beneath The Surface
Lynda E. Rucker – These Things We Have Always Known
Neil Gaiman – Feminine Endings
Gary McMahon – Through The Cracks
Tim Lebbon – Falling Off The World
Paul Finch – The Old Traditions Are Best
Ramsey Campbell – The Long Way
Michael Bishop – The Pile
Tanith Lee – Under Fog
Christopher Fowler – Arkangel
Ian R. MacLeod – The Camping Wainwrights
Reggie Oliver – A Donkey At The Mysteries
Steve Duffy – The Oram County Whoosit
Stephen King – The New York Times At Special Bargain Rates
Sarah Pinborough – Our Man In The Sudan
Mark Samuels – Destination Nihil by Edmund Bertrand
Albert E. Cowdrey – The Overseer
Pinckney Benedict – The Beginnings Of Sorrow
Brian Lumley – The Place Of Waiting
Steve Rasnic Tem – 2:PM The Real Estate Agent Arrives

Stephen Jones & Kim Newman – Necrology: 2008
Useful Addresses
Blurb:

The Twentieth Anniversary Edition of the World’s Premier Annual Showcase of Horror and Dark Fantasy fiction.

The year’s best – and darkest – tales of terror, showcasing the most outstanding new short stories and novellas by both contemporary masters of the macabre and exciting newcomers, including lain R. MacLeod, Sarah Pinborough, Mark Samuels, Albert E. Cowdrey, Peter Crowther, Paul Finch, Gary McMahon, Reggie Oliver, Simon Strantzas, Tim Lebbon and Steve Rasnic Tem.

As ever, this acclaimed anthology also offers the most comprehensive annual overview of horror around the world in all -its incarnations, a comprehensive necrology of famous names, and a list of indispensable contact addresses for the dedicated horror fan and writer alike.
The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror remains the world’s leading annual anthology dedicated solely to presenting the best in contemporary horror fiction.

`The Best New Horror series continues to break from the herd, consistently raising the bar of quality and ingenuity.’ Rue Morgue Magazine
`If you want to see who’s up and coming in the genre, then this is your book.’ Publishing News

www.constablerobinson.com

Thanks to Sam and Georgie for their continued kindness and support!

Back and up for trouble!

READING IS FUN!

Note almost supernaturally gratuitous use of Bettie Page-style photo. Another devious demonik ploy to grab your "attention"!

illustration: Chrissie Demant

*yawn* is it time to do some more work on WordPress already? It only seems like six months since I sat down and made myself comfy  …

Actually, i’ve not been putting my feet up much at all really! i’ve been kept busy on the Vault forum which leaves me with no time to keep things ticking over on here!

Well, that’s about to change! I need a break from those fiends for a while, so i’ve made an attempt to update all these lapsed wordpress blogs. Don’t tell anyone i’m here!

You’ve maybe noticed that the majority of new books covered on here belong to the Robinson’s Mammoth series. Well, among those recently published under that imprint is one of my very favourite books of 2008. I speak, of course, of Peter Haining’s posthumous Mammoth Book Of True Hauntings which I recommend to fans of ‘real’ ghost stories and ‘News of the Screws’ press clippings as an ideal Christmas present for yourself (because if you read books, you probably haven’t any friends to buy it for you)! Also – Wordsworth Editions. This small team has been responsible for reissuing many rare gems in their superlative Mystery & The Supernatural series at ridiculously low prices. You really should get into them in a big way!

Anyhow; i’ve added news of the BFS Christmas shindig and the revamp of Thinking Man’s Crumpet along with details of three of the aforementioned Mammoths so that should keep you going for now!

Also, i’ve deleted the Vault Newsdesk sub-blog because there’s never any news, ever! “All” the posts should have transferred across except the really useless ones.

News of Paperback Fanatic relaunch when I hear it!

And now i’ve said such rotten things about our forum, stap me if someone good hasn’t joined! Wasn’t it ever so ….

David Kendall – Mammoth Book of Zombie Comics

David Kendall (ed.) – The Mammoth Book of Zombie Comics (Robinson, 2008)

Cover image: Carlos Kastro
Cover design: Pete Rozycki

Blurb:

The Undead are heading your way – 18 of the greatest zombie comics ever.

You can’t keep a good (or bad) corpse down, and they rise up in spectacular form in this new collection. These days zombies are the rock and roll of horror monsters.

Presenting a mix of voodoo victims, creepy somnambulists, and flesh eating deadheads, This collection brings you the best the graveyard can yield up, including:

Vince Locke’s first ever Deadworld comic, Black Sabbath, in which a little window-shopping turns out to be a big mistake.

Scott Hampton’s awesome adaptation of R. E. Howard’s slice of Southern Gothic, Pigeons From Hell.

Darko Macan’s short E.C.-style shocker The Immortals.

Askold Akishin’s The Haunted Ship, in which shipwreck survivors discover an apparently abandoned vessel.

Steve Niles’ modern twist on the traditional back-for-revenge story, Making Amends.

If it’s dead, moving and hungry, you’ll find it here!

“The mindless, shambling zombies of yesteryear are rapidly being replaced by sprinters and runners with an insatiable appetite for human flesh …. “

Unlike the other Mammoths mentioned in this section, … Zombies doesn’t delve back into pre-code days – presumably any pre-nineteen eighties zombies are now far too mouldy to resurrect! I’ve not had time to study everything at length, but as there’s been much response to the recent Robert E. Howard threads, Pigeons From Hell seemed as good a place as any to dip in, a very dark, claustrophobic strip with no dialogue whatsoever. Artist Scott Hampton remains faithful to REH’s original throughout, but perhaps it helps if you know the story or you might struggle to make sense of what’s going on. It’s early days yet, but so far I’ve been most taken with Buddy Scalara’s epic, Necrotic: Dead Flesh On A Living Body from 2001 which answers that big question i’m sure we’ve all put to ourselves at one time or another: can the walking dead still enjoy a love life and if so, what happens when they get …. carried away?

Peter Haining – The Mammoth Book of True Hauntings

Peter Haining – The Mammoth Book of True Hauntings (Robinson, 2008)

photo Tony O’Reilly/ Fortean Picture Library: Cover design: JoeRoberts.co.uk

Foreword: I Am A Researcher Of The Supernatural

A Century Of Hauntings: A Chronology from 1900-2000
The Ghost Hunters: Fifty Authentic Supernatural Experiences
Phantoms In The Sky: Ghostly Pilots, Aircraft And Haunted Airfields
Encounters With The Unknown: Eyewitness Stories By Journalists
Haunted Stars: Show Business And The Supernatural
Supernatural Tales: True Ghost Stories By Famous Authors
Phantom Lovers: Sexual Encounters With Ghosts
What Are Ghosts? The Theories Of The Experts
The A-Z Of Ghosts: Phantoms Of The World

Bibliography
Research Organisations
Acknowledgements

Back cover blurb:

Surprisingly, the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries have turned out to be the most extraordinary periods in the history of supernatural encounters – with more mysterious accounts of ghosts being reported from all over the world than during any previous era.

This giant survey from the acclaimed investigator, the late Peter Haining, years in the making and now posthumously published for the first time, documents the full spectrum of credible hauntings during the last hundred years or so. It encompasses over 100 first-hand accounts of poltergeists and phantoms, ghostly pilots and haunted airfields, seduction spirits and sexual encounters with ghostly entities – and much more. Also included are the notes of famous ghost hunters such as Hans Holzer, Harry Price, and Susy Smith; and some fascinating analysis by notable experts on what ghosts really are.

How appropriate that, as we approach November 19th and the first anniversary of his untimely death, the legendary Peter Haining should return from the grave with a collection of True Hauntings.

Experts will doubtless be mortified that Peter has exhumed several of these ‘true’ accounts from such reliable resources as The News Of The World and The Sunday People, but he’s also ransacked his library to good effect for accounts from (perhaps!) more credible authorities, several old Vault friends among them: Dennis Wheatley (on the true life incident at boarding school which inspired his big seller, The Haunting Of Toby Jugg), Arthur Machen (versus a Poltergeist infestation), Barbara Cartland, James Herbert, Robert Thurston Hopkins, Fred Archer, Elliott O’Donnell, Peter Underwood and medium to the stars Doris Stokes.

Predictably, the NOTW is the source for much of the Phantom Lovers: Sexual Encounters With Ghosts section which reads for the most part like a series of plot-outlines for Benny Hill sketches as the country’s struggling pubs are besieged by randy Royalists, Peeping Toms, Phantom Bottom-pinchers – the whole gamut of sex pests from beyond the grave. Typical of these “Grinning Ghouls”, the spectre in the changing room of The Disco Bar, Newcastle who so put the willies up go-go dancer Maggie in 1974, and an incorrigible old rascal who conducted his reign of terror in The Knights Lodge Inn near Corby during the ‘eighties. “I’ve seen him and he’s a big robust chap – a cavalier who carries an ostrich feather. He uses the feather to lift the ladies’ skirts and tickle them – he must have been a real Casanova when he was alive” deadpans a handy ‘Psychic Investigator’, Jean Cooksley. The vast majority of these encounters feature male spooks mithering Miss GB contestants and dolly birds, although The Sun (who else?) can provide a “scantily clad” (what else?) female phantom who steals the discarded clothing of courting couples should they frolic in her Hertfordshire field.

Spectre smitten, pop chanteuse Lynsey De Paul: Her Eurovision Song Contest hopes hit “Rock Bottom” in spooky circumstances!

As those of us who’ve been terrified out of our wits by The Weekend Book of Ghosts & Horror will know to our cost, saccharine-coated songstress Linsey de Paul is arguably the most haunted women in the history of pop and here we learn of another chilling episode in her troubled career – the case of the haunted headphones that so disrupted the fabled Rock Bottom sessions. Another haunted celebrity is William Shatner – and not just by his inspired incursion into the music world, The Transformed Man. Here he recalls his brush with death on a motorcycling tour where it could well have been all up for him had it not been for the intervention of a phantom biker.

I’ve only had the book a day and, doubtless, will have some more woeful comment to make as I progress, but it’s proving a most diverting read. One to file alongside his outrageous but scandalously entertaining ‘non-fiction’ accounts of The Legend & Bizarre Crimes of Spring-Heeled Jack and The Mystery & Horrible Murders of Sweeney Todd!

Jon E. Lewis – The Mammoth Book of Boys Own Stuff

Jon E. Lewis – The Mammoth Book of Boys Own Stuff (Robinson, 2008)

Cover Design: Ken Leeder

From the back cover blurb:

A staggeringly large guide to all that a modern boy needs to know and to do
Step 1: Turn off the TV, the PC, the PS3, the Wii…
Step 2: Open up The Mammoth Book of Boy’s Own Stuff and get into boyhood like it’s meant to be …

A guide to life, the universe and pretty much everything The Mammoth Book of Boy’s Own Stuff is full of fun as well as important facts on how to be top and an all round great person – from essential Latin to making your own volcano, from SAS survival skills to basic movie making.

Stephen Jones – Mammoth Book of Zombies

Stephen Jones (ed.) – The Mammoth Book of Zombies (Robinson, Oct 1993)

Luis Rey

Introduction: The Dead That Walk – Stephen Jones

Clive Barker – Sex, Death and Starshine
Ramsey Campbell – Rising Generation
Manly Wade Wellman -The Song of the Slaves
R. Chetwynd-Hayes -The Ghouls
Edgar Allan Poe – The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar
Karl Edward Wagner – Sticks
Charles L. Grant – Quietly Now
Basil Copper – The Grey House
M. R. James – A Warning to the Curious
Nicholas Royle -The Crucian Pit
Brian Lumley -The Disapproval of Jeremy Cleave
H. P. Lovecraft – Herbert West: Reanimator
Lisa Tuttle – Treading the Maze
David Riley – Out of Corruption
Graham Masterton – The Taking of Mr. Bill
J. Sheridan Le Fanu – Schalken the Painter
David Sutton – Clinically Dead
Les Daniels – They’re Coming for You
Hugh B. Cave – Mission to Margal
Michael Marshall Smith – Later
Peter Tremayne – Marbh Bheo
Dennis Etchison – The Blood Kiss
Christopher Fowler – Night After Night of the Living Dead
Robert Bloch – The Dead Don’t Die!
Kim Newman – Patricia’s Profession
Joe R. Lansdale – On the Far Side of the Cadillac Desert with Dead Folks

thanks to H. P. Saucecraft & Allthingshorror for providing cover scans.

see also Vault’s Mammoth Book Of  Zombies thread.

Stephen Jones – Mammoth Book of Monsters

Stephen Jones (ed.) – The Mammoth Book of Monsters (Robinson, 2007)

Edward Miller

David J. Schow – Visitation
Ramsey Campbell – Down There
Scott Edleman – The Man He Had Been Before
Dennis Etchison – Calling All Monsters
R. Chetwynd Hayes – The Shadmock
Christopher Fowler – The Spider Kiss
Nancy Holder – Cafe Endless:Spring Rain
Thomas Ligotti – The Medusa
Gemma Files – In the Poor Girl Taken by Surprise
Sydney J. Bounds – Downmarket
Robert E. Howard – The Horror from the Mound
Jay Lake – Fat Man
Brian Lumley – The Thin People
Tanith Lee – The Hill
Joe R. Lansdale – Godzilla’s Twelve Step Program
Karl Edward Wagner – .220 Swift
Robert Silverberg – Our Lady of the Sauropods
Basil Copper – The Flabby Men
Robert Holdstock – The Silvering
Michael Marshall Smith – Someone Else’s Problem
Clive Barker – Rawhead Rex
Kim Newman – The Chill Clutch of the Unseen

Blurb:

Monsterrific stories by top names in horror writing

Vampires, Werewolves, Zombies, Ghouls . . . these and many other Creatures of the Night are featured in this bumper collection of stories by such authors as Clive Barker, Harlan Ellison, Ramsey Campbell, Brian Lumley, Tanith Lee, Michael Marshall Smith, Kim Newman, Joe R. Lansdale, Lisa Tuttle, R. Chetwynd-Hayes, Basil Copper and many others. Here you’ll discover creatures both unnatural and man made, as the walking dead rise from their graves, immortal bloodsuckers seek human nourishment, deformed monstrosities pursue their victims across the countryside, and the ugliest of nightmares is revealed to have a soul. Drawn from the pages of legend and literature, these stories feature Things that slither, stagger, swoop, stomp and scamper. So bolt the doors, lock the windows and shiver in the shadows, because no-one is safe when the Monsters are loose .

The Burley Observer: Vault Newsdesk

Boring Site news: a double dose of Castor oil for yers!

READING IS FUN!

illustration: Chrissie Demant

1. The Burley Observer.

As any ‘news’ items were fast swamped under a tidal wave of anthology posts with the inevitable result that nobody got to suffer them, I figured it would be best to give them a stand-alone section, hence The Burley Observer. Events, new & forthcoming publications, works in progress, etc. Little, if anything, that’s not already appeared on here, but the ‘site’ seems to attract a slightly different audience to the board and perhaps it will become a useful promo tool. Items already added include Paperback Fanatic 7, 3rd Black Book Of Horror, The Thinking Mans Crumpet, Pantechnicon 7, details of the BFS meeting at Ye Olde Cock Inn, Fleet Street on Sat. 19th July, One Eyed Grey 5, Basil Copper: A Life in Books, Peter Normanton’s Mammoth Best Horror Comics, Robert Tinnell & Adrian Salmon’s delightful graphic novel The Faceless and Paul Gravett’s Mammoth Best Crime Comics.

If you’ve not already spontaneously combusted with excitement, those of you who’d like details of your own current & forthcoming books, magazines, WIP’s and what have you to be included, email me and we’ll see what we can come up with. This service, I should point out with as much tact as I am capable, is primarily, but not exclusively for regular contributors to the Vault of Evil forum and the friends and supporters of same. Leaving a solitary post or two on here or the board of the dreaded “Great site! I am the webmaster of blah, blah, blah and my great book/ site/ limerick will be the ultimate work on blah blah f**king blah ” variety is hardly in keeping with the spirit of whatever it is Vault is about, so I thank you in advance for reserving such for your MySp*ce and Face-Ache hourly bulletins.

2. New English Library

Hopefully of more interest: I’ve been working on the NEL section of the site on-off for a few months now, trying to select the best reviews by a variety of desperadoes from both this and the dead suddenlaunch board. It’s nowhere near ready to go ‘live’ yet and with Justin’s NEL horror overview set to continue in the next Paperback Fanatic, I’ll continue to keep it private until …. well, Halloween is always good for a launch and that leaves plenty of time to mess it up!

Thanks, as ever, for your kind support.