In the past few years, murmurs of discontent have been heard at the annual World Fantasy Convention. Fantasy enthusiasts complain that the awards have been dominated by horror, horror enthusiasts have been clamoring for their own convention, and their own awards. In fact, fantasy and horror seem pretty equally represented at the convention itself and in the award-giving.

In any case, 1987 was the year the Horror Writers of America was incorporated. Initially discussed in 1986 by Robert McCammon and Melissa Mia Hall, the idea for a horror organization fully coalesced in 1987, with Dean R. Koontz and his wife Gerda largely responsible for its official formation and incorporation.

The officers in 1988 are Charles L. Grant, President; Thomas Monteleone, Vice President; Betsy Engstrom, Secretary; Maxine O'Callaghan, Treasurer. Membership costs $40.00, $45.00 outside the United States. To become an Active member you must possess certain publication credentials. Anyone can join as an Affiliate, though, and the biggest difference between the privileges of Active and Affiliate membership is that an Active member you can vote for the final ballot and for officers. (For information contact Maxine O'Collaghan, Treasurer/Membership Committee, 25971 Serenata Drive, Mission Viejo, CA 92691).

Awards will be given for "superior achievement," rather than for the "Best" of the year, an attempt by the founders to avoid the sense of competitiveness engendered by most literary awards. The awards, named after Bram Stoker, the author o the classic Dracula, will be voted on by the full active membership, at this time over one hundred members. If any two nominees receive more than 30 percent of the votes, both will win. The first annual awards will be given in New York City on June 24th at a weekend convention. Whether or not this breaking off of horror writers into a new organization will make a difference to the character of the World Fantasy Convention and the World Fantasy Awards remains to be seen.

The major loss to the horror field in 1987 was the suspension and subsequent killing of Night Cry, the sister publication of Rod Sterling's The Twilight Zone. The digest-size magazine was edited by Alan Rodgers and was the only professional, exclusively horror fiction magazine being published. Night Cry had been developed as a spinoff of TZ during the editorship of Ted Klein. The magazine was originally supposed to look like a paperback book, and Klein came up with the idea of having one artist illustrate an entire issue. Klein edited the first issue, in 1984, which was made up completely of TZ reprints. The second issue had three original stories. Rodgers became editor with the third issue, and he initiated a no-holds-barred policy as far as content. No taboos, no censorship. Some of Night Cry's art, much of it by J. K. Potter, was as striking as its best stories.

While holding its own, the magazine was not making a large profit. With only newsstand distribution, it sold reasonably well compared to other digest-size magazines on the newsstand. But since most digests are essentially subscription supported this would have been the natural direction for Montcalm Publishers to take. They were either unwilling or unable to mount a subscription drive and, dissatisfied, put the magazine up for sale in spring 1987. Operations of Night Cry were suspended and the last issue came out in fall 1987. With the loss of Night Cry, the field is again without a single professional exclusively horror magazine.

Luckily, small-press horror magazines seem to be thriving, some of them excellent. The best small-press horror magazine being published right now is The Horror Show. It is consistently literate and interesting. The overall quality of the small-press magazines ranges from some high-quality fiction and decent designs in The Horror Show, Fantasy Tales, Eldritch Tales, Fantasy Macabre, and other publications down to amateurish publications with unreadable layouts and type and barely literate stories. In general, however, the art in all these magazines is abysmal--obvious and heavy-handed--with some notable exceptions. Deathrealm ran some excellent illustrations by Jeffrey Osier for his own story; The Horror Show had some terrific covers by J.K. Potter. And then following artists did good interiors for several small presses: Jeanette Hopper, Allen Koszowski, John Borkowski, James Garrison, Denis Tiani, and Chris Pelletiere.

The year 1987 marks the first complete year with Tappan King at the helm of The Twilight Zone. Under his editorship the magazine had been redesigned with a more readable and slicker layout and seems to be playing down the media features somewhat. In general, the magazine is more upscale in look and content, and seems aimed at an older and more sophisticated audience. In 1987 King published some of the best horror stories of the year by genre writers as well as stories by Joyce Carol Oates and John Updike; there were theme issues and expanded coverage of the occult and the unexplained, perhaps modeled somewhat after OMNI. Fiction wordage increased by about 5-10,000 words per issue and in the course of the year King ran about six novelettes, unlike his predecessors, who ran only short stories.

Under Ted Klein, the first editor, the magazine was very much tied to the original concept of the Twilight Zone TV series as well as being somewhat Gothic in theme; then with Michael Blaine, the magazine became more New York literary establishment. Now King seems to be making the magazine more eclectic and to be trying to broaden the definition of the fantastic. Critically, the fantasy/horror community has responded favorably to the changes but the magazine has lost some of its traditional readers. Two of the strongest and best but also darkest stories he published last year, Lucius Shepard's "The Exercise of Faith" and Michael McDowell's "Halley's Passing," received considerable negative readership response and management's response was to persuade King to ease off from the more overtly dark and violent stories--no matter how good they are. That means there is probably no longer a magazine market for these stories; although if the Twilight Zone can make up for the readers it's lost quickly enough to keep management happy, King will be able to occasionally sneak in some dark, ambitious work in the future.

Although other professional magazines occasionally publish horror--such as The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine,OMNI, Interzone, Amazing, and Playboy--they are hardly major markets for the genre. Currently the only thriving professional horror market is that of original and reprint anthologies and collections.

Night Cry published excellent stories and poems by A.R. Morlan, Lucius Shepard, Charles L. Grant, Paul Witcover, Lewis Shiner, and others. Twilight Zone published notable stories by Charles L. Grant, Michael McDowell, Ramsey Campbell, Lucius Shepard, David J. Schow, Marc Laidlaw, Jane Yolen, Richard Paul Russo, George Zebrowski, Barry Malzberg and Jack Dann, and others.

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction published some very good horror stories by Stephen Gallagher, Chet Williamson, Ian Watson, and Barbara Owens. The editor is Edward L. Ferman.

Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine had some strong horro by Charles de Lint, Steve Rasnic Tem, Nancy Kress, and Susan Palwick. The editor is Gardner Dozois.

Whispers #23-24 had interesting stories by Julie Stevens, Barbara W. Durbin, and Brian Lumley but in general was disappointing. Long time editor-publisher is Stuart Schiff.

The Horror Show published top-notch stories by Lawrence C. Connoly, Joe R. Lansdale, Bentley Little, Poppy Z. Brite, Paul Olson, and Carol Reid. The publisher is David B. Silva.

Eldritch Tales published fine fiction and poems by Fred Croft, Steve Rasnic Tem, William Relling, Jr., and Sam Gafford. The publisher is Crispin Burnham.

Fantasy Macabre published good stories by Thomas Ligotti, Carol Reid, and Archie Roy. The editor is Jessica Amanda Salmonson.

Grue Magazine had good stories from Joe Lansdale and Thomas Ligotti. Peggy Nadramia is the editor.

There were strong stories by George R.R. Martin, George Alec Effinger, Michael Bishop, Susan Casper, Sue Marra, Thomas Ligotti, Rudy Kremberg, and Joe Lansdale in OMNI, Playboy, Amazing, Ouroboros, The Crypt of Cthulhu, Haunts, Nightmares, and Opus.

Weird Tales, the granddaddy of horror magazines, has been revived for the fifth time, and although the first new issue has a cover date of spring 1988, it was made available Halloween weekend at the 1987 World Fantasy Convention in Nashville. It is being produced by a triumvirate consisting of George Scithers, John Gregory Betancourt, and Darrel Schweitzer. The title, owned by Robert Weinberg, is being licensed to the publishers.

As mentioned above, the strongest market for dark fantasy and horror short fiction today is the anthology market. There were several major anthologies published in 1987. Whispers VI, edited by Stuart Schiff, is one of the longest-running horror anthologies. It's generally made up of original stories and some of the best reprints from Schiff's Whispers magazine. As usual, there were some top-notch original stories this year, particularly by William F. Nolan, Steve Rasnic Tem, Lucius Shepard, and Charles L. Grant. Another reliable source of good original horror stories is Charles L. Grant's ongoing Shadows anthology series. Shadows 10 is an important showcase for newer horror writers of the low-keyed style Grant's own writing exemplifies. There are stories by Lisa Tuttle, T. M. Wright (who rarely writes short stories), Thomas Sullivan, Melissa Mia Hall, Mona C. Clee, and Ken Wisman. From now on Shadows will be published by the foundation imprint of Doubleday/Bantam in an expanded size every other year.

Dark Harvest publisher Paul Mikol has been putting out beautifully packaged triple-author collections for the last few years under the series title Night Visions. Night Visions IV, published in 1987, included original stories and novelettes by Robert McCammon, Dean Koontz, and Edward Bryant. While the stories are all high quality, and the overall production and design is excellent, the copyediting and proofreading continue to be very poor. This is inexcusable considering the obvious care taken with every other aspect of these books.

Another original anthology of note was Masques II (Maclay), edited by J.N. Williamson. The most ambitious story in the volume was Douglas E. Winter's controversial "Splatter." It also contained notable stories by John Robert Bensink, Richard Matheson, G. Wayne Miller, and Steve Rasnic Tem (and a minor one by Stephen King).

Theme anthologies abounded in 1987. One of the best of the original theme anthologies was The Architecture of Fear (Arbor House), edited by Kathryn Cramer and Peter Pautz. There's not a clinker in the bunch and some of the stories are very good, indeed. All the stories were originals, except for a Robert Aickman reprint. Another good original anthology was Down City (Tor), edited by Charles L. Grant, based in the imaginary town of Greystone Bay, conceived of by Grant. Unlike most shared-world anthologies, and to the book's credit, the stories are only tenuously related and stand very much on their own. The standouts are those by Nancy Holder, Kathryn Ptacek, and Bob Booth.

The best of the reprint theme anthologies were The Dark Descent (Tor), David G. Hartwell's massive and ambitious attempt to trace the revolution of horror fiction from the psychological investigations of Edgar Allan Poe, William Faulkner, and Thomas M. Disch through the supernatural allegories of J. Sheridan Le Fanu, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ray Bradbury, and Harlan Ellison to the disturbing stories of Edith Wharton, Robert Aickman, and Gene Wolfe; Vampires (Doubleday) edited by Alan Ryan and covering stories of vampires from Clark Ashton Smith and August Derleth to Richard Matheson, Suzy McKee Charnas, and Steve Rasnic Tem. This volume was a good overview of this subgenre; Christmas Ghosts, edited by Kathryn Cramer and David G. Hartwell;Daphne Du Maurier's Classics of the Macabre (Doubleday), featuring the stories "Don't Look Now" and "The Birds," effectively illustrated by Michael Foreman. Devils and Demons (Doubleday), edited by Marvin Kaye. Also of note were Dracula's Brood (Inner Traditions International), edited by Richard Dalby and featuring "rare" vampire stories; Demons! (Berkley) edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois; Vamps (DAW), edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Charles G. Waugh; Nightmares in Dixie, thirteen horror tales from the American South (August House) edited by Frank McSherry, Charles G. Waugh, and Martin H. Greenberg; Casting the Runes and Other Ghost Stories of M. R. James (Oxford University Press) edited by Michael Cox, House Shudders (DAW), edited by Rosalind M. Greenberg, Martin H. Greenberg, and Charles G. Waugh, and The Year's Best Horror Stories edited by Karl Edward Wagner.

This is only a sampling of the available anthologies of horror fiction. There seems to be a never-ending production (particularly by university presses) of "classic" horror anthologies, probably because most of these "classics" are no longer covered by copyright law. For example, there were at least three collections of M.R. James's ghost stories published in 1987 and at least three anthologies of "classic" vampire stories. There's such a glut of them, it's hard to believe they sell well.

Two other theme anthologies published in 1987 deserve special note, only in part because of the high quality of the stories. The first is In the Field of Fire (Tor), edited by Jeanne van Buren Dann and Jack Dann, a combination of science-fiction, fantasy, and horror stories concerning the Vietnam war. More than half hte stories were original to this volume and several could be considered horror stories (supernatural or psychological). The second, Other Edens (Unwin Hyman) edited by Christopher Evans and Robert Holdstock, serves as a showcase for British speculative fiction (except for Lisa Tuttle, and honorary Briton). Its science fiction borders on fantasy, its fantasy borders on horror, its horror on mainstream. Among the best "horror" stories in this anthology were those by Lisa Tuttle, M. John Harrison, Garry Kilworth, and Robert Holdstock. So far, it's only been published in England.

What is most interesting about these two volumes is that both continue the movement of the overlapping of genres in the field of the fantastic. Many of the best collections in 1987 are by authors whose works seem to point this out. Lucius Shepard's The Jaguar Hunter (Arkham House), George R.R. Martin's Portraits of his Children (Dark Harvest), The Essential Ellison, a collection of Harlan Ellison's work (Nemo Press), Ronald Dahl's Two Fables (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), The Stories of Muriel Spark (Bodley Head), The Best of Pamela Sargent (Academy Chicago), Leigh Kennedy's Faces (Atlantic Monthly Press), Josephine Saxton's Little Tours of Hell (Pandora), Ramsey Campbell's Dark Feasts, and Ian Watson's Evil Water and Other Stories (Gollancz)--all these collections contains various types of speculative or fantastic fiction.

Other good collections were Scars (Scream/Press) by Richard Christian Matheson; Scared Stiff (Scream/Press) by Ramsey Campbell; Polyphemus (Arkham House) by Michael Shea; Why Not You and I (Dark Harvest) by Karl Edward Wagner; A Goose on Your Grave (Gollancz) by Joan Aiken; Other Engagements (Dream House) by John Maclay, all of which include some material never before published; The Valley So Low (Doubleday) by Manley Wade Wellman; Dark Feasts (Robinson Publishing) by Ramsey Campbell; Midnight Pleasures (Doubleday) by Robert Bloch.

As in science fiction, there is a booming business in a small-press short-story collections and anthologies of horror fiction. Books are published in limited editions that quickly go out of print and become instant collector's items. Often, at that point a trade publisher will pick up the book for reprint.

I only read a handful of the horror novels published in 1987, but I particularly liked Shadow Stalker (Berkley) by Jorge Saralegui, a multilayered psychological thriller along the lines of Thomas Harris's brilliant Red Dragon. Stephen King's Misery (Viking) is the tightest, most consistently riveting and frightening novel King has written for some time. It too is psychological rather than supernatural horror. Clive Barker's first novel, The Damnation Game (Putnam) pointed out both his flaws and strengths as a writer--not quite under control, yet his energy knocks the socks off the reader. It's a powerful, entertaining shocker. Live Girls (Pocket Books) by Ray Garton has a great premise--vampire/hookers in Times Square--and is a good read; Joe R. Lansdale's The Nightrunner (Dark Harvest)is so violent and raw that it might offend some readers, but the power of Lansdale's storytelling makes the experience worth it. Dean R. Koontz's The Watchers (Putnam) is a science fiction/horror thriller that features two escapees from a genetic engineering experiment. A terrifically satisfying read.

It seems that almost every major publisher has at least some horror on its list. The most visible horror programs ar those of Berkley, Tor, and NAL, who are regularly publishing horror novels or anthologies each month, Tor's being the most ambitious program, with three titles per month. Bantam has upcoming novels and a zombie anthology from the "splatter punks" John Skipp and Craig Spector and has John Saul on its list. Foundation, the new SF/fantasy Doubleday/Bantam line is touting Raymond Feist's epic horror novel Fairie Tale and plans to continue publishing the two major horror anthologies Shadows and Whispers. In addition, they've signed a multibook contract with Al Sarrantonio. Avon is reprinting Whitley Strieber's early horror novels and publishes Steve Rasnic Tem, a talented poet and short-story writer who is just breaking out as a novelist. Pocket Books published Ray Garton's notable Live Girls with considerable energy, and has published Clive Barker's Books of Blood IV-VI in paperback. St. Martin's plans to continue the Masques series, and publishes horror novels regularly.

As David Hartwell points out in The Dark Descent, horror has only recently evolved from being primarily a short-story genre to a novel genre. Until fairly recently, horror novels were marketed (successfully) simply as "fiction" or "literature" (Frankenstein, Dracula, Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist). Now, with publishers creating "horror lines," the genre is suddenly being treated as a category, much the same as science fiction. More and more bookstores have horror sections. Tor and other publishers are deliberately making hte covers on their books identifiable as horror, which will bring in the predisposed reader but is as likely to turn off the general reader. In the long run, a horror genre ghetto, much like that of science fiction, with predetermined ceilings on sales of most genre titles, might result. It would be extremely unfortunate if the boom we're seeing is sowing the seeds of disaster for the future of the horror novel.