Stephen Jones – Mammoth Vampire Stories By Women

Stephen Jones (ed.) – The Mammoth Book of Vampire Stories by Women (Robinson, 2001)

Ingrid Pitt – Introduction: My life Among The Undead

Anne Rice – The Master Of Rampling Gate
Poppy Z. Brite – Homewrecker
Mary A. Turzillo – When Gretchen Was Human
Tanya Huff – The Vengeful Spirit Of Lake Nepeakea
Nancy Kilpatrick – La Diente
Tina Rath – Miss Massingbird And The Vampire
Freda Warrington – The Raven Bound
Nancy A. Collins – Vampire King And The Goth Chicks
Storm Constantine – Just His Type
Elizabeth Hand – Prince Of Flowers
Louise Cooper – Services Rendered
Janet Berliner – Aftermath
Yvonne Navarro – One Among Millions
Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman – Luella Miller
Lisa Tuttle – Sangre
Chelsea Quinn Yarbo – A Question Of Patronage
Ingrid Pitt – Hisako San
Kathryn Ptacek – Butternut And Blood
Wendy Webb – Sleeping Cities
E. Nesbit – The Haunted House
Roberta Lannes – Turkish Delight
Tanith Lee – Venus Rising On Water
Gemma Files – Year Zero
Mary E. Braddon – Good Lady Ducayne
Melanie Tem – Lunch At Charon’s
Elizabeth Massie – Forever, Amen
Ellen Kushner – Night Laughter
Christa Faust – Bootleg
Gala Blau – Outfangtheif
Pat Cadigan – My Brother’s Keeper
Caitlin R. Keirnan – So Runs The World Away
Gwyneth Jones – A North Light
Connie Willis – Jack
Jane Yolen – Vampyr

Blurb

Collected here for the first time are 34 strange and erotic tales of vampires, created by some of supernatural fiction’s greatest mistresses of the macabre. From the classic stories of Edith Nesbit, Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman and Mary Elizabeth Braddon, to modern incarnations by such acclaimed writers as Poppy Z. Brite, Nancy Kilpatrick, Tanith Lee, Caitlin R. Kiernan and Pat Cadigan, these blood-drinkers and soul-stealers range from the sexual to the sanguinary, from the tormented good to the unspeakably evil. Among these children of the night you will encounter Chelsea Quinn Yarbro’s Byronic vampire Saint-Germain, Nancy A. Collins’ undead heroine Sonja Blue, Tanya Huff’s vampiric detective Vicki Nelson and Freda Warrington’s age-old lovers Karl and Charlotte. Featuring the only vampire short story written by Anne Rice, the undisputed queen of vampire literature, and boasting an autobiographical introduction and original tale by Ingrid Pitt, the star of Hammer Films’ The Vampire Lovers and Countess Dracula, this is one anthology from which every vampire fan will want to drink deeply.

Stephen Jones & Ramsey Campbell – Best New Horror

Stephen Jones & Ramsey Campbell (eds.) – The Best New Horror (Robinson, 1990)

Les Edwards

Introduction: Horror in 1989 – Stephen Jones & Ramsey Campbell

Robert R. McCammon – Pin
Cherry Wilder – The House On Cemetery Street
Stephen Gallagher – The Horn
Alex Quiroba – Breaking Up
Ramsey Campbell – It Helps If You Sing
Laurence Staig – Closed Circuit
Steve Rasnic Tem – Carnal House
Kim Newman – Twitch Technicolor
Gregory Frost – Lizaveta
Donald R. Burleson – Snow Cancellations
Nicholas Royle – Archway
Thomas Ligotti – The Strange Design Of Master Rignolo
Chet Williamson – …To Feel Another’s Woe
Robert Westall – The Last Day Of Miss Dorinda Molyneaux
Brian Lumley – No Sharks In The Med
D. F. Lewis – Mort au Monde
Thomas Tessier – Blanca
Ian Watson – The Eye Of The Ayatollah
Karl Edward Wagner – At First Just Ghostly
Richard Laymon – Bad News

Necrology: 1989 – Stephen Jones & Kim Newman

includes:

Stephen Gallagher – The Horn: Three strangers, Mick, Dave and the narrator, are marooned inside a hut during a snow blizzard. The cabin is base to the clean-up team who attend the grim business of scraping up accident casualties and one wall is plastered with newspaper accounts of this stretch of motorway’s greatest hits.

“Entire families wiped out. A teenage girl decapitated. Lorry drivers crushed when their cabs folded around them like stepped-upon Coke cans ….. an unwanted mistress dumped, Jimmy Hoffa-style, into the wire skeleton of a bridge piling that had been boxed-up ready to take concrete the next morning. ENTOMBED ALIVE! the headline said, but even that looked kind of pale next to the disaster involving the old folks’ outing and the pet food truck full of offal.

When their gas cylinder – the only source of heat – conks out, the men have an unpleasant decision to make. Stay here and probably freeze to death, or head out into the snowstorm, make for the huge articulated rig about half a mile on and sit it out in the warm cabin. Mick volunteers to go on ahead and give them a blast on the horn once he’s got the heater going.

But a murderous something else has beaten him to it ….

Michael Marshall Smith – The Man Who Drew Cats: One day old Tom just blew into Kingstown, stepped into The Hogshead Bar and the locals – unusually for them – took to the quiet fellow straight away. A quiet and private man, he makes his living from the extraordinary paintings he tosses off for tourists and sometimes when the mood takes him, he chalks his more complex designs on the pavement. But when he befriends little Billy and his mom and learns that her nogoodnik, drunken husband regularly beats the shit out of them both, he draws something really terrifying.

Chet Williamson – …To Feel Another’s Woe: The beautiful Sheila Remarque is a stage actress of exceptional ability but her gift is not for acting: she vamps the emotions of all those who come in close contact with her, draining them until they are little more than zombies.

Robert McCammon – Pin: The psychotic Joey Shatterly stands before the mirror diving the pin through each of his pupils in turn prior to stepping out with his rifle and seven bullets …

Nicholas Royle – Archway: From the day she moves into her North London flat, Bella is haunted by the scornful laughter of an old, grey faced tramp she’s see on the street. She is unfairly dismissed from her job, encounters the red-tape horrors of the DSS and faces eviction. Finally …

***

Several of these stories, along with selections from vols. 2 and 3, were resurrected in The Giant Book Of Best New Horror (Magpie, 1993, 1994)

Continues on the Vault Of Evil Forum: Best New Horror 1

Steve Jones – Best New Horror 17

Steve Jones (ed.) – Best New Horror 17 (Robinson, 2006)

 

cover: Les Edwards

Stephen Jones – Introduction – Horror in 2005

Ramsey Campbell – The Decorations
David Herter – Black and Green and Gold
Carol Emshwiller – I Live With You and You Don’t Know It
Peter Atkins – The Cubist’s Attorney
Liz Williams – All Fish and Dracula
China Mieville, Emma Bircham & Max Schaffer – The Ball Room
Tim Pratt – Gulls
Elizabeth Massie – Pinkie
Mark Samuels – Glyphotech
Holly Phillips – One of the Hungry Ones
Brian Hodge – If I Should Wake Before I Die
Rpberta Lannes – The Other Family
Gahan Wilson – The Outermost Borough
Glen Hirshberg – American Morons
Adam L. G. Nevill – Where Angels Come In
Terry Lamsley – Sickhouse Hospitality
Joe Hill – Best New Horror
Caitlin R. Kiernan – La Peau Verte
David Morrell – Time Was
Clive Barker – Haeckel’s Tale
Brian Lumley – The Taint
Ramsey Campbell – The Winner

Stephen Jones & Kim Newman – Necrology: 2005

Basil Copper ‘A Life in books’ launch this saturday

sorry it’s such short notice. it’s looking like there will be a decent vault presence at this. i’m the guy rat-tail hair, wild staring eyes and broken arm and you are very welcome to say hi and get me incredibly drunk! see olde cock tavern thread on vault site for latest news/ arrangements for night so you’ll know how best to avoid us.

and thanks to Mark Samuels for tipping us off and typing this out!

BASIL COPPER BOOK LAUNCH

Hosted by the British Fantasy Society and PS Publishing, the bio/bibliography BASIL COPPER: A LIFE IN BOOKS Compiled and Edited by Stephen Jones will be launched on SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 23rd at THE UPSTAIRS BAR, YE OLDE COCK TAVERN, 22 FLEET STREET, LONDON EC4Y 1AA from 6:00pm onwards.

Among those signing copies will be BASIL COPPER, editor/co-designer STEPHEN JONES, artists RANDY BROECKER and LES EDWARDS, co-designer MICHAEL MARSHALL SMITH and publisher PETER CROWTHER. Special Guests (subject to commitment) include legendary anthology editors HUGH LAMB, MICHEL PARRY and DAVID A. SUTTON.

Basil Copper became a full-time writer in 1970. His first story in the horror field, ‘The Spider’, was published in 1964 in THE FIFTH PAN BOOK OF HORROR STORIES, since when his short fiction has appeared in numerous collections and anthologies, and been extensively adapted for radio and television. Along with two non-fiction studies of the vampire and werewolf legends, his other books include the novels THE GREAT WHITE SPACE, THE CURSE OF THE FLEERS, NECROPOLIS, THE BLACK DEATH and THE HOUSE OF THE WOLF. Copper has also written more than fifty hardboiled thrillers about Los Angeles private detective Mike Faraday, and has continued the adventures of August Derleth’s Sherlock Holmes-like consulting detective Solar Pons in several volumes of short stories and the novel SOLAR PONS VERSUS THE DEVIL’S CLAW.

Concluding three years’ extensive research, multiple award-winning editor and writer Stephen Jones was given unprecedented and unrestricted access to the books and papers of renowned British macabre and crime writer Basil Copper.

The result is BASIL COPPER: A LIFE IN BOOKS, a unique and in-depth study of the author and his works. Not only does this volume contain the most comprehensive Working Bibliography ever compiled of Basil Copper’s productive output – including Macabre and Supernatural Novels and Collections, the “Solar Pons” series, the “Mike Faraday” series, Short Fiction and Novellas, Media Adaptations, Unpublished Works and much more, enhanced with commentary by the author himself – but it also features several rare and obscure articles covering everything from Arkham House creator August Derleth to a brief history of Count Dracula.

There are also a number of short stories, most of them original to this volume, ranging from his very first published work back in 1938 to a brand-new “Mike Faraday” detective adventure, along with a complete television script based on M.R. James’ classic horror story ‘Count Magnus’.

With an in-depth look at the author’s life and career by acclaimed ghost story editor Richard Dalby, and Basil Copper’s inspirational Guest of Honour speech from the 1977 British Fantasy Convention, BASIL COPPER: A LIFE IN BOOKS is illustrated with numerous cover reproductions, artwork and unique personal photographs.

If you cannot make it to the signing, but still want to PRE-PURCHASE a personally-signed copy (or copies) please contact PS Publishing for details of how to place your order. Dealer’s enquiries welcome – trade discounts available.

ISBN 978-1-905834-98-3 (Jacketed hardcover) £25.00 / $50.00 (approx.) ISBN 978-1-905834-97-6 (Hardcover) £15.00 / $30.00 (approx.) 280pp

BFS BONUS!!! On the night, a number of specially-priced copies of the PS hardcover anthology DON’T TURN OUT THE LIGHT will be available on a first-come basis. Edited by STEPHEN JONES, this third volume in the acclaimed new “Not at Night” series features work by BASIL COPPER, PAUL McAULEY, MARK SAMUELS, JAY RUSSELL, RANDY BROECKER, LES EDWARDS and many others (including Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson, Charles L. Grant and Hugh B. Cave).