Nineteen eighty-eight heralded few significant changes overall in the horror field, but there were some interesting events that might have long-term effects. Pageant Books, a co-publishing venture started by Crown and Waldenbooks, is essentially dead after only six months, a casualty of the acquisition of Crown by Random House. Initially, it was announced that Pageant would not be affected by Crown's sale and that its program was already exceeding previously set goals for income and units sold; however, the last of the line was published in April 1989, the staff was laid off, and acquisitions were halted. Even though the Pageant imprint is ostensibly for sale, Waldenbooks has not actively sought a new partner. Pageant had been a controversial entity from the start; they were publishing eight to ten category fiction books per month, prompting Waldenbooks to cut back on orders for other midlist category books, thereby hurting other publishers.

The Pinnacle imprint has been resurrected by Zebra books. Feast, by British horror writer Graham Masterton, will inaugurate the program.

Tudor Books, the paperback house established by the late Ron Busch in 1987, was acquired by Stanley J. Corwin and Gerald Seth Sindell, book packagers and film producers. Editor Kate Duffy is actively looking for horror and occult novels and in May 1988 Tudor published its first horror novel, Amityville: The Evil Escapes by John G. Jones.

St. Martin's Press announced that it was cutting back its regular sf line and irregular horror line, primarily because of the competition with Tor. St. Martin's is completely dropping its mass market sf program and cutting back on its sf hardcover program. This didn't come as that much of a surprise to industry experts, who speculated on the wisdom of creating a new line in competition with an established one within the same corporation. Tor, however, is also cutting its mass market list by 25 percent, from four horror titles a month to three.

Beginning with Sphinx by David Lindsay last July, Carroll & Graf started publishing a series of books called Supernatural Fictions, selected and featuring introductions by Colin Wilson. The hardcover titles have a unified format, with the covers proclaiming them part of "The Supernatural Library."

In the fall, McGraw-Hill announced that it was selling its trade book division, but as of January 1989 there was still no sale and the unit was still working on its spring and fall 1989 lists. In the last couple of years they've published Bare Bones: Conversations on Terror with Stephen King, edited by Tim Underwood and Chuck Miller; Age of Wonders by David Hartwell; The Unlikely Ones by Mary Brown; and Eddy Deco's Last Caper: An Illustrated Mystery by Gahan Wilson.

Most book publishers in 1988 either had horror programs or at least published the occasional horror novel or anthology on their mainstream lists. Tor, Berkley, NAL Onyx, and, on the lower level of both quality and payment, Zebra and Leisure had very visible horror lists. According to Locus [magazine], at least 170 supernatural horror novels were published (Locus doesn't count psychological horror novels) in 1988. This is almost double the number published last year. While aficionados of horror fiction could be encouraged by these numbers, I'm not. I'm worried because most of what I see is "generic" horror, horror as the romance novel of the late eighties. There's no way to tell the schlock from the quality. The packaging makes it all look and sound the same. This may not be bad for established horror writers who already have followings, but it could be deadly for writers breaking into the field.

The "controversy" over splatterpunk vs. quiet horror continues to rage--and is about as important to the horror field in actual meaningfulness as was cyberpunk vs. everything in sf a few years ago. It's all just as silly and manufactured; there's enough room in the field for all kinds of horror. And as with the "cyberpunks," the best writers of horror today are those whose fine writing and versatility make labels meaningless. What is more interesting, and to me more disturbing, is the rash of horror novels that take gratuitous potshots at women. There is an underlying hostility in this that I find unsettling. Some of the characterizations are so unbelievable that I wonder if the answer is simpler than misogyny: bad writing by males who are absolutely ignorant as to what women think or talk about.

My horror novel reading was peripatetic this year and admittedly the following opinions are completely biased. Also, some of the books were published before 1988 and I've just found them or gotten to them:

The Scream by John Skipp and Craig Spector (Bantam) is an effective rock and roll horror novel but lacks the discipline evident in their excellent short stories.

The Cormorant by Stephen Gregory (St. Martin's, first U.S.) is a short literary horror novel about a man who inherits an ungainly and unfriendly cormorant from a relative. Won the Somerset Maugham Award in England. So-so.

Bones of the Moon by Jonathan Carroll (Arbor House/Morrow, first U. S.). As always, the writing is wonderful but this one struck me as a bit too insular and precious. Not a favorite Carroll of mine.

Sleeping in Flame by Jonathan Carroll (Century Hutchinson/Doubleday). There's some overlap with Bones but this is not a sequel. This is the Carroll novel I've been waiting for since Land of Laughs. It's about magic and the darkness just around the corner-as are all his books-and it's the "true" story of Rumpelstiltskin. A brilliant and satisfying build-up leads to a disappointing last page. But this time he almost makes it all work. Highly recommended.

Mascara by Ariel Dorfman (Viking). A "literary" horror novel about a man whom no one notices and his obsession with faces, this book has been embraced by the New York literary establishment as a brilliant political statement, but as horror, I found it virtually unreadable--oblique and no meat. I couldn't get through it but it has gotten some very positive review attention.

Cabalby Clive Barker (Poseidon). A good novella by a writer who is always entertaining, at the very least. The stories in the volume, which made up the sixth Book of Blood in England, are excellent. Highly recommended.

The Kill Riff by David J. Schow (Tor). His first novel. It's very well-written, as one would expect from Schow, but I had a problem with the fact that there are no sympathetic characters. The "protagonist" is a psychotic anti-hero with a very nasty little secret who is bent on avenging the death of his teenage daughter at a rock concert.

The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing (Knopf). A very upsetting short novel about a couple who crave the "ideal" family and decide to have as many children as they can until their fifth is born--an inhuman goblin whom no one, not even his mother, can love. The mother's inability to divest herself of this creature leads to the dissolution of the entire family. This odd, powerful fable is borderline horror recommended for those willing to broaden their definitions.

Possession by Peter James (Doubleday). A frightening, effective supernatural thriller that falls apart when you think back on it, a problem novels of the supernatural often have. Is it that writers don't bother to tie up loose ends or that they lose track of what they've previously established, or simply that the supernatural inherently doesn't make sense if you think about it too hard? Recommended with strong reservations.

Sleep: A Horror Story by Lynn Biederstadt (St. Martin's/Richard Marek). This is an excellent novel about a man haunted by an entity within, "sleep," who begins to take over his waking life in addition to generating nightmares. The characters are engaging and this is an incredibly powerful, terrifying, and well-wrought horror tale that maintains its logic throughout and doesn't give the reader a bullshit trick ending. A very satisfying read. First published in 1986 in hardcover and reprinted by Paperjacks. This is one I unequivocally recommend. If you can find a copy, buy it.

Koko by Peter Straub (E. P. Dutton). A serial killer is "inspired" by a Vietnam atrocity. Good reading but doesn't really get cooking until about halfway through. Could have cut about 100 pages from its 560-plus page length. Recommended.

Necroscope by Brian Lumley (Tor). Despite a truly disgusting and (I think) misleading, although not completely inaccurate cover, an excellent book about ESP, vampires, Soviet/West rivalries and what death is really like. While the blurb says it's the first volume of a trilogy, the book is satisfyingly independent. Recommended.

Roofworld by Christopher Fowler (Ballantine). A first novel about a society existing above London and the deadly warfare that erupts between two factions, one of which wants to impose a new, dark order on the world below. Science fiction but macabre, with hints of the supernatural. Very readable, although the ending goes on too long. Nice characterizations. Read this and forget his short stories (City Jitters and More City Jitters).

The Drive-In by Joe R. Lansdale (Bantam/Spectra). A good read. Violent and virulently funny and with a lighter touch than much of Lansdale's recent work. No, it doesn't exactly have a happy ending but it makes you feel pretty good, anyway. Recommended.

Sepulchre by James Herbert (Putnam) is a good horror/thriller with believable characters. Herbert is excellent at building and sustaining suspense. A good read.

The Dark Door by Kate Wilhelm (St. Martin's), while billed on the cover as science fiction, is actually more horror. It's a novel about a malfunctioning alien space probe that causes madness wherever it shows up. Excellent characterizations.

The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris (St. Martin's), while not as dazzling as Red Dragon, ain't bad. Harris brings back Hannibal (the Cannibal) Lector, the brilliant, evil serial killer/psychiatrist from the earlier novel, and introduces him to FBI trainee Clarice Starling. She is looking for insight into the mind of a serial killer nicknamed Buffalo Bill. Lector, a monster in human form, is a very believable character. While he loves "playing games" and is a vicious killer, there is something endearing in his relationship with Starling and his "psychoanalysis" of her. Highly recommended. One of the best of the year.

The Arabian Nightmare by Robert Irwin (Penguin). I was first made aware of this remarkable book in London in 1987. Viking published it in 1987 and it's now out in trade paperback. A funny, horrific, Byzantine adventure of an innocent in medieval Cairo. Highly recommended for those who like cross-over material.

The People of the Dark by T.M. Wright (Tor) is a reprint of the 1985 hardcover. Good eerie story, much better than his recent novel The Island. Subtle and low-key and very frightening. A confusing prologue that didn't make sense to me even after reading the entire book should be skipped. Go right to the meat. Recommended.

Waking the Dead by Scott Spencer (Ballantine). The paperback was published in 1987 but I just got to it. The author of Endless Love writes a beautiful, heartbreaking ghost story about a lawyer offered a chance at public office-something he has worked for his whole life-who be-gins to see (or thinks he does) the woman he loved, and who was killed twelve years before. It's about ideals, ambition, passion, and love. An exquisite book that's only peripherally a ghost story, but still....Highly recommended.

Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice (Knopf), the third in her Vampire Chronicles. Goes into more depth about the genesis of the creatures. Mythical, legendary, historical, and of course, talky. But an excellent addition to vampire lore. Recommended.

Black Wind by F. Paul Wilson (Tor) is a big book, more suspense novel and thriller than horror but there are occult elements. If only everything weren't so coincidental. All these people just happen to meet over and over again in the period before WWII. Contrived and demands a great suspension of disbelief, but there's some real horror here.

For Fear of the Night by Charles L. Grant (Tor). An excellent ghost story. Subtle, well written; something you can sink your teeth into. Well-rounded characters and no trick endings. Recommended.

The Fire Worm by Ian Watson (Gollancz, U.K.) is an sf/horror novel that expands Watson's brilliant story from Interzone (1986), "Jingling Geordie's Hole." It's about a reincarnation therapist who mesmerizes patients into their past lives during the day and writes horror fiction under a pseudonym by night. It's also about AIDS, reincarnation, and an evil telepathic wormlike creature that corrupts the innocent. A tough but very good read. Recommended if you can find it.

Cities of the Dead by Michael Paine (Charter) is a first novel about Egypt in the early 1900's, about the horrifying yet fascinating clash of cultures and religions. There isn't enough action in it, but the book is unsettling and frightening. Paine's someone to watch. Skip the generic prologue.

Dreamer by Daniel Quinn (Tor). A good, convoluted first novel about a man who is either being fiendishly manipulated or is crazy.

The Two Deaths of Senora Puccini by Stephen Dobyns (Viking) is most definitely a stretch but very worthwhile. A dark novel about obsession, passion, morality, reminiscent of some Luis Bunuel films, a Don Juan becomes obsessed with the one woman who shows no interest in him. Although written by a North American, the book takes place in an unnamed Latin American country and is magical realist in feel. Brilliant, powerful, depressing.

The magazine field also saw many changes in the past year. In January 1989, Montcalm Publishing Corporation decided without warning to "suspend publication of Twilight Zone magazine indefinitely." The same language was used in describing the death of Night Cry, so one can only assume that this means Twilight Zone is, in effect, dead. This decision took the editorial staff by surprise because, although circulation had de-clined over the last two to three years, there seemed to be no precipitating factor to influence the shutdown decision. The last issue (June 1989) will be available in March.

The magazine, named after Rod Serling's famous television show, was started up by Montcalm in April 1981. T.E.D. Klein was the founding editor, with Carol Serling, Rod Serling's widow, acting as consultant. Since it was conceived as an homage to Rod Serling and his vision, the magazine always featured a good deal of television and film coverage and the fiction combined the nostalgia, wonder, and terror inspired by the TV show. After T.E.D. Klein left in 1985, the two subsequent editors, Michael Blaine and Tappan King, both, in different ways, moved the fiction into more experimental territory. In 1988, the magazine moved away from "strong horror" and returned to its earlier nostalgia and media magazine focus.

Twilight Zone, with its annual short story contest and later through its "TZ First" policy, provided a forum for new writers. Two of the writers first published in TZ this way are Dan Simmons (Song of Kali, Carrion Comfort) and Elizabeth Hand (who has sold but not yet published a first novel). There has never been a professional horror magazine market comparable to the science fiction market, and TZ was one of the few slick magazines regularly publishing horror. It's a devastating loss to the field.

As far as Twilight Zone's 1988 fiction was concerned, the magazine published less "dangerous" (read "offensive") material, by order of the publishers. So while there was some very good short fiction by John Skipp and Craig Spector, Elizabeth Hand (her very impressive first sale), T.M. Wright, Charles L. Grant, Chet Williamson, Barbara Owens, and Michael Blumlein, in general I think the breadth of fiction suffered.

Several other horror and horror-related magazines published good fiction in 1988. Fantasy and Science Fiction, edited by Ed Ferman, published fine horror stories by Brian Lumley, Rory Harper, Brian Stableford, Lucius Shepard, Charles L. Grant, Ian Watson, Brad Strickland, and Jessie Thompson (another impressive debut).

Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, edited by Gardner Dozois, published excellent horror by Alexander Jablokov, Pat Cadigan, Thomas Wylde, Martha Soukup, Somtow Sucharitkul, Lisa Mason, Gregory Frost, and Cherry Wilder.

Interzone, until recently Britain's only sf/fantasy magazine, has gone from quarterly to bi-monthly as of its August 1988 issue. It published a surprising number of horror stories in 1988, including some very good ones by Greg Egan, Julio Buck, Brain Stableford, Susan Beetlestone, Ian Watson and Bob Shaw.

OMNI (of which I'm fiction editor) also published more horror than usual, mostly as a result of my having commissioned five horror short-shorts for a special horror theme project in April. There were good stories by Dan Simmons, Pat Cadigan, Edward Bryant, Richard Matheson (his first new one in seventeen years), Harlan Ellison, Garry Kilworth, and Lucius Shepard.

Weird Tales, revived in the winter of 1987-8 by George Scithers, Darrell Schweitzer, and John Gregory Betancourt, published three issues in 1988, the first a special Gene Wolfe issue featuring six stories by Gene Wolfe, all but one reprints from obscure sources, the exception being an original. Summer '88 featured two novelettes by Tanith Lee and Fall '88 featured three pieces of fiction by Keith Taylor. Very little of the fiction so far impressed me as being particularly horrific, notable exceptions being a couple of the Tanith Lee stories and the Brian Lumley.

There are occasional horror pieces mixed in with the straight suspense and mystery in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. In AHMM there were good borderline horror stories by Bill Crenshaw and David Kaufman. In EQMM there were good stories by J. Wagner, Thomas Adcock, Robert Twohy, and Stringfellow Forbes.

Fantasy Tales, edited by Stephen Jones and David Sutton and one of the oldest and most respected of the semi-pro magazines, has just gone to a different format: perfect bound, digest-size with a full color cover. It is now called "A Paperback Magazine of Fantasy and Terror" and is being published by Robinson Publishing twice a year. In the first new-format issue, which appeared at the World Fantasy Convention in London, there were good stories by Charles L. Grant and C. Bruce Hunter.

The Horror Show, edited by David B. Silva, looked very good in 1988. The covers and inside illustrations were for the most part imaginative, sophisticated looking, and usually appropriate to what they were illustrating. There was a particularly good piece of art by Russ Miller called "Metamorphosis" in the Winter '87 issue. (I received the Winter 1987 issue after last year's deadline so didn't cover it in the previous volume). There were excellent stories by Dennis Etchison, Brian Hodge, John Strickland, A. R. Morlan, Susan M. Watkins, Bentley Little, and Benjamin T. Gibson.

New Pathways, edited by Michael G. Adkisson, doesn't often publish horror fiction, but there are occasional reviews of horror material and black humor graphics by Ferret.

Weirdbook, published by Paul Ganley, wasn't very visible in 1988, but this award-winning magazine did bring out a twentieth-year anniversary issue late in the year-unfortunately too late for review in the current anthology; a review will appear in next year's Year's Best.

Despite these continuing markets, the death of Twilight Zone Magazine leaves a great gap begging to be filled. Several new magazines began publication in 1988. Pulphouse Publishing, a small press in Eugene, Oregon, started a quarterly magazine in hardcover format. The first issue of Pulphouse: The Hardback Magazine of Dangerous Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror was an all-horror issue that came out in fall 1988. The trade edition is an attractive and well-made volume, although the print is a little small. The fiction was uniformly interesting, with fine stories by William F. Wu, Steve Rasnic Tern, Lori Ann White, Harlan Ellison, Jeannette M. Hopper, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Edward Bryant, and Randolph Cirilo. The winter issue was devoted exclusively to speculative fiction; it featured an excellent crossover story by Charles de Lint and a fine horror piece by Spider Robinson. The spring issue will concentrate on fantasy, and the summer issue will be sf. The magazine is published by Dean Wesley Smith and edited by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.

Fear, a new slick, professional-looking magazine devoted to horror, fantasy, and sf, appeared in Britain the third week in June 1988. Judging from the first issue, the nonfiction emphasis seems to be on media. There were three pieces of fiction: schlock by king of schlock Shaun Hutson, average Ramsey Campbell, and a pretty good story by newcomer Nicholas Royle. But four writer profiles in one issue is just too much. And so are three "competitions." Still, it's a good-looking, colorfully illustrated magazine and it's scheduled to be bimonthly. The publisher, Newsfield Ltd.--a company best known for its computer magazines--has committed to six issues. John Gilbert is editor

Midnight Graffiti is a slick new large-format quarterly focusing on dark fantasy and horror. The first issue, available May 1988, featured interesting fiction by David j. Schow and Harlan Ellison, some good articles and reviews, good interior illustration and a powerful Giger-inspired cover by Martin Cannon. The second issue, published in Fall 1988, had stories by Steven R. Boyett and Joe Lansdale, and the "censored" chapter of Ray Garton's Crucifax (originally cut more in the interest of good taste, I think, than because the material was too hot to handle). The issue also included serial killer John Wayne Gacy's art portfolio, a preview of John Skipp and Craig Spector's forthcoming Book of the Dead anthology, and another smashing full-color cover by Martin Cannon. So far, it's very promising, although I'd like to see more fiction in it. Highly recommended. The publisher is James Van Hise and he is also editor, along with Jessie Horsting.

What would you expect of a magazine named Slaughterhouse? Blood and gore, right? Well, that's exactly what you get in this new bimonthly, first published in October. Edited by Jim Whiting and Mark Gibson, this four-color horror magazine specializes in spectacular and disgusting photos of special effects: rotting corpses, monstrosities sprouting from human bodies, etc. The first issue, which is kind of amateurish-looking, also contains one so-so piece of fiction, some good capsule movie and book reviews, and interviews with horror stars Linnea Quigley and Vic Noto and director John Carpenter. The second issue looks much better but lacks fiction, although the editors promise more next issue.

The Starlog Group, which publishes Starlog and Fangoria, is now also publishing Gorezone, a bimonthly. The first issue appeared in May 1988. It's more a media magazine than anything else, but there is one original horror story per issue. (Not seen by me.)

Horrorstruck, Paul Olson's ambitious and much needed news magazine specializing in horror, unfortunately folded after only two issues, which leaves the field with no news source covering horror exclusively and extensively (Science Fiction Chronicle, Locus, SF Eye, and other magazines only cover it peripatetically).

There were also noteworthy horror stories by William F. Wu, Buzz Dixon, Kathleen Jurgens, Jeffrey Osier, D. P. Pavlovic, Steve Rasnic Tern, John Shirley, Philip Sidney Jennings, Archie N. Roy, Joe Clifford Faust, Ron Weighell, Roger Johnson, Jeannette M. Hopper, D. W. Taylor, Ronald Burnight, and Stefan Grabinski in Eldritch Tales,2 A.M., South-east Arts Review, The Grabinski Reader, Tales of Lovecraftian Horror, Grue, Dagon, Ghosts and Scholars, Cemetery Dance, and Noctulpa.

And there was some excellent poetry by Bruce Boston, Sue Marra, Leonard Wallace Robinson, and Ree Young, in The Nightmare Collector (a chapbook produced by 2 A.M. Publications), Not One of Us, The Atlantic Monthly, and Noctulpa.

Some comments on small press horror magazines: Deathrealm, published by Mark Rainey, has tiny but readable type and excellent illustrations by Jeffrey Osier and Mark Rainey.

2 A.M., published by Gretta Anderson, varied greatly in 1988. In general, the spring issue contained stories that started off well then trailed into sloppiness and/or unoriginal endings and in the summer issue I felt there wasn't enough variety in theme. But there were some standout stories.

Perdition Press issue #0, edited by Wayne Allen Sallee in December. It looks like a one-shot and Sallee writes that the "magazine was initially put together to spotlight the artwork of some of my fellow Chicagoans." It does a nice job of it. The magazine is an attractive-looking and readable digest-size publication. There were stories by up and coming names in the horror field but none of the fiction really stood out.

Not One of Us #3 had an excellent story that actually is mainstream by John Rosenman. The magazine is difficult to read, though, because the type is single-spaced.

Fantasy Macabre #10 had some good work by David Starkey, Carol Reid, and Jules Faye. #11 had consistently good writing but too many familiar ideas, and some excellent collage illustrations.

Nightmares January-March had a good story by Richard King, and a good interview with Joe Lansdale. However, the art was sophomoric and most of the story endings were telegraphed miles away (sometimes in the title or illustration).

Crypt of Cthulhu #56 was good in general, especially the Lin Carter and Thomas Ligotti stories. The magazine is a good one for those interested in the Lovecraft mythos.

The Fishers from Outside (Crypt of Cthulhu Presents) is a special Lin Carter issue (he died February 7, 1988). All the stories are by Carter and were never published before.

Ghosts and Scholars #10 had some good artwork by Nick Blinko. (Many of the horror magazines listed here are only available by sub-scription, and very few-particularly of the small press magazines -come out on a regular schedule.

Even though there are now a few more slick magazines publishing horror fiction, original anthologies continue to dominate the short horror fiction field. Probably the most hyped anthology of the year was Prime Evil, edited by Douglas E. Winter (NAL). On the cover, the publisher announces "new stories by the Masters of Modern Horror" and inside proclaims "this is writing that will shape the way horror is viewed and written well into the next century." Does the anthology live up to these extravagant claims? Well, in general the level of writing is excellent, but there's an abundance of old ideas not freshened up enough to make the anthology as exciting as it could have been. Very few stories are of Cutting Edge (edited by Dennis Etchison; St. Martin's Press) quality, challenging the reader or even attempting to stretch the boundaries of the acceptable, the major exception being Peter Straub's novelette "The Juniper Tree," which was one of the best pieces of horror fiction published in 1988. And the inclusion of Paul Hazel and Jack Cady as "masters of horror" is perplexing to me. Neither is known for his horror, and Cady, while a good writer, is barely known at all, even in the mainstream. Also, there is a glaring absence of female writers in the anthology considering it's being touted by the publisher as the "future of horror. " This is not a criticism of the editor, who I know has little influence on how the book is advertised, but of the way the book was marketed. Another gripe is that the stories are advertised as "never before published," but Thomas Ligotti's "Alice's Last Adventure" appeared three years ago in a small press collection of his stories,Song of a Dead Dreamer. Despite all this, the anthology is a good solid one, with excellent stories by M. John Harrison, Peter Straub, Jack Cady, Clive Barker, and David Morrell.

Silver Scream, edited by David J. Schow (Dark Harvest/Tor), is a theme anthology about the medium of film and filmmaking and is made up primarily of original stories. The best are by John M. Ford, Joe R. Lansdale, Edward Bryant, F. Paul Wilson, Robert McCammon (more fantasy than horror), and Richard Christian Matheson.

Ripper! (Tor), published to commemorate the centennial of Jack the Ripper's crimes, edited by Gardner Dozois and Susan Casper, also contains mostly original material. In it are powerful stories by Lewis Shiner, Sarah Clemons (her first), Gene Wolfe (reminiscent of his early mysterious and perplexing stories such as "Three Fingers"), Pat Cadigan, Charles L. Grant, Lucius Shepard, Scott Baker, and Tim Sullivan. Some of the stories would have had more impact if they'd appeared separately in various places rather than all in one theme anthology. My advice is not to read through the anthology all at once, but savor one or two stories at a time.

Tropical Chills (Avon), edited by Tim Sullivan, features eleven original stories and three reprints. On the whole, the anthology is entertaining, with standouts by Steve Rasnic Tern and Pat Cadigan.

14 Vicious Valentines (Avon), an original anthology (with two reprints) edited by Rosalind M. Greenberg, Martin Harry Greenberg, and Charles G. Waugh is uninspired with the exception of stories by Barry N. Malzberg and Jeannette M. Hopper.

The Songbirds of Pain by Garry Kilworth (Unwin, pb., U.K.) is finally out in paperback, albeit only in England. This remarkable collection by an underrated British writer was published in 1982 and disgracefully has still not been published in the U.S. A mixture of sf, fantasy, and horror. Beg, steal, or borrow.

Scare Tactics (Tor) is a collection of two new stories and a short novel by John Farris. Farris first became famous for his teenage potboiler of the early sixties. Harrison High (it was on par with Peyton Place as far as "checking out the dirty parts"), and then wrote a number of energetic and effective horror novels' that gave him a different sort of fame and following. The new short novel isn't bad but the two stories are quite predictable. Also, Farris's characterizations are needlessly confusing be-cause he refers to every female as "girl." As a result, readers have no idea how old any of his female characters are.

Women of Darkness (Tor), edited by Kathryn Ptacek, is disappointing. It doesn't do justice to either women horror writers in general or to the variety of horror fiction women write. The book has an overabundance of undistinguished stories--even some of the better known writers included aren't at their best. Also, too many of the stories are stereotypical of what people think women write about: relationships, family, and baby/child stories. This does a disservice to the many women writing horror today who aren't in the anthology, such as Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Suzy McKee Charnas, Joyce Carol Oates, and Pat Cadigan, all of whom write a variety of types of horror. Despite the anthology's flaws, it contains quite good stories by Tanith Lee, Nancy Varian Berberick, Elizabeth Massie, Melanie Tern, Melissa Mia Hall, and Karen Haber.

The most hyped collection of the year was Blood and Water by Patrick McGrath (Poseidon), who is touted by his publisher (who also publishes Clive Barker) as the "Poe of the 80s." I found the collection (mostly reprints from literary magazines) disappointing, the prose stilted and self-conscious, the ideas a combination of warmed-over T. Coraghessan Boyle and Angela Carter without the obsession of Boyle or the grace of either. McGrath works too hard at trying to convey atmosphere and his work comes across as precious.

Bad Behavior, a collection by Mary Gaitskill (Poseidon). From the publisher of Clive Barker and the overhyped Patrick McGrath, these nine stories are horror only by the skin of their teeth--they provide horrifying glimpses of sado-masochistic relationships in modern day N.Y.C. Quirky and fascinating, Gaitskill's writing is unpretentious and direct in contrast to McGrath's purportedly Poe-like baroque pretension. Highly recommended for anyone who wants to see mainstream blended with horror and surrealism.

City Jitters and More City Jitters by Christopher Fowler (Dell): The first collection, City Jitters, was originally published in England in 1986; in 1988, Dell published it in the U.S. along with More City Jitters. Both books feature some colorful writing and some good imagery, but the basic plots are pretty unoriginal. These stories are a real disappointment after reading his first novel, Roofworld (Ballantine, See above).

Tales from the Hidden World by R. Chetwynd-Hayes (William Kimber) is an original collection. Chetwynd-Hayes does a certain kind of British ghost story and haunted/tainted house quite well. In this collection there is a nice inkling of humor but also a low-level anti-female bias in some of the stories.

Gaslight and Ghosts, the 1988 World Fantasy Convention program book, was a good-looking hardcover package with excellent, previously unpublished stories by Charles L. Grant, Lisa Tuttle, Robert Holdstock, and others. It also includes lovely color illustrations by Michael Foreman .

Night Visions V (Dark Harvest) featured fiction by Stephen King, Dan Simmons, and George R. R. Martin. The King material was so-so, the Simmons pretty good, but the Martin novella, "The Skin Trade," is a knockout, and alone is worth the price of the book. Night Visions VI (Dark Harvest) boasted "Faces," the excellent short fiction piece by F. Paul Wilson, and powerful novellas by Ray Garton and Sheri Tepper.

Lord John Ten, edited by Dennis Etchison (Lord John Press), is a volume created specially for this specialty press's anniversary and includes original material by most of the writers (mainstream and genre) who have con-tributed to the small press's success in its first ten years. There's excellent horror fiction by Ramsey Campbell and Roberta Lannes.

Charles Beaumont: Selected Stories, edited by Roger Anker, is selected and introduced by writers who knew him. A handsome volume illustrated by Peter Scanlan (Dark Harvest). There are five original stories by Beaumont, none of which are bad and a couple of which are excellent.

Tales from the Darkside Vol. 1, edited by Mitchell Galin and Tom Allen (Berkley), is an anthology of stories from which various episodes of the TV show have been taken. Two of the stories are based on original teleplays by Michael McDowell. The writing is excellent, but perhaps because of the limitations of television, the ideas, while effectively used, just aren't all that new.

Other Edens II, edited by Christopher Evans and Robert Holdstock (Unwin Hyman, U.K.) had only three stories that could remotely be considered horror-Graham Charnock's beautiful "She Shall Have Music," Ian Watson's "The Resurrection Man" and Colin Greenland's "The Wish."

Wild Cards IV: Aces Abroad edited by George R. R. Martin (Bantam/Spectra) had some good borderline horror by John Miller and Victor W. Milan, and Synergy 2, edited by George Zebrowski (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich) had a good horror story by James Morrow.

There was also horror or borderline horror in the mostly reprint collections The Consolation of Nature, by Valerie Martin (Houghton Mifflin), Alan Ryan's The Bones Wizard (Doubleday), Dennis Etchison's The Blood Kiss (Scream/Press), Rick DeMarinis's The Coming Triumph of the Free World (Viking); and Isaac Bashevis Singer's The Death of Methuselah and other Stories (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). And there was an interestingly bizarre story by Kurt Tidmore in Soho Square, edited by Isobel Fonseca (Blooms-bury Publishers).

Some other notable reprint collections or anthologies published in 1988 were John the Balladeer, the only complete set of this series of stories by Manley Wade Wellman (Baen); The Year's Best Horror, edited by Karl Edward Wagner (DA W); A Double Life: Newly Discovered Thrillers of Louisa May Alcott, edited by Madeleine B. Stern (Little, Brown); The Signalman and other Ghost Stories by Charles Dickens (Academy Chicago); The Best Horror Stories of Arthur Conan Doyle, edited by Frank McSherry, Martin Harry Greenberg, and Charles Waugh (Academy Chicago); The Best Horror from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, edited by Edward L. Ferman and Anne Jordan (St. Martin's); The Best of Shadows, edited by Charles L. Grant (Doubleday Foundation); The Best of Masques, edited by J. N. Williamson (Berkley); The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions by H. P. Lovecraft (Arkham House); Darkness at Dawn (some occult) by Cornell Woolrich (Peter Bedrick); The Mammoth Book of Short Horror Novels, edited by Mike Ashley (First U.S., Carroll & Graf); White Wolf Calling and Others: The Year's Best Horror Stories IV, edited by Ger-ald W. Page (Starmont); Haunting Women, edited by Alan Ryan (Avon); A Rendezvous in Averoigne by Clark Ashton Smith, with an introduction by Ray Bradbury and illustrations by J. K. Potter, containing thirty of his best stories (Arkham House); Ghosts of The Car-olinas, Ghosts of the Southern Mountains and Appalachia, and This Haunted Southland: Where Ghosts Still Roam, all edited by Nancy Roberts (D. of South Carolina Press); The Wine-Dark Sea by Robert Aickman (Arbor House/Morrow); The Supernatural Tales of Fitz-James O'Brien, volumes one and two edited with notes and introduction by Jessica Amanda Salmonson (Doubleday); The Book of Fantasy, edited by Jorge Luis Borges, Silvina Ocampo, and Adolfo Bioy Casares (Viking); Fine Frights: Stories that Scared Me by Ramsey Campbell (Tor); Monsters, edited by Isaac Asimov, Martin Harry Greenberg, and Charles Waugh (Signet); Hunger for Horror, edited by Robert Adams, Martin Harry Greenberg, and Pamela Crippen Adams DAW); and the following edited by McSherry, Greenberg, and Waugh: Yankee Witches (Lance Tapley), Haunted New England: Classic Tales of the Strange and Supernatural (Yankee Books), Pirate Ghosts of the American Coastgust House), and Red Jack (DAW).

The small specialty presses were fairly active in 1988, producing attractive high-priced "collectors" editions of books along with more reasonably-priced trade editions. Donald M. Grant published a special signed-by-all-authors edition of the anthology Prime Evil, which is already sold out, and also published Robert E. Howard's The Hour of the Dragon (Ilustrated by Ezra Tucker), My Lady of Hy-Brasil by Peter Tremayne (illustrated by Duncan Eagleson), and Madame Two Swords by Tanith Lee (illustrated by Thomas Canty). Hill House Publishers offered an attractive limited edition of Faerie Tale, by Raymond E. Feist, with a jacket by Don Maitz and interiors by Lela Dowling. This year Dark Harvest published, in addition to the Night Visions collections, the limited edition of Silver Scream, edited by David J. Schow, and Ray Garton's Crucifax Autumn (interior illustrations and cover art by Bob Eggleton) as well as House of Thunder, a Dean Koontz novel originally published under his pseudonym Leigh Nichols, and Charles Beaumont: Selected Stories. Underwood-Miller released The Selected Stories of Robert Bloch (three volumes); Reign of Fear: Fiction and Film of Stephen King edited by Don Herron. Space and Time published a novel by Jeffrey Ford called Vanitas. Paul Ganley published a signed and numbered slipcased edition of Brian Lumley's The Burrowers Beneath. Jeff Conner's Scream/Press long awaited special edition of Clive Barker's Books of Blood IV-VI finally made an appearance-or at least, number IV did. Scheduled for 1987 but plagued by production delays, the limited edition illustrated by Harry O. Morris finally appeared in 1988. It's a handsome volume and was worth the wait. The Blood Kiss, Dennis Etchison's collection, also was published in 1988 by Scream/Press.

There were also several chapbooks published in limited editions. Mark Ziesing published The Silver Pillow: A Tale of Witchcraft by Thomas M. Disch, illustrated by Harry O. Morris. 2 A.M, Publications put out The Nightmare Collector, mostly reprint poems by Bruce Boston, illustrated by Gregorio Montejo, and also a novella by David Starkey called "Wishes and Fears" (an ambitious ten titles are scheduled for 1989). Bill Munster's Footsteps Press released Richard Christian Matheson's short story, "Holiday." Chris Drumm published the mostly reprint collection Skin Trades: Ten Tales of Terror and Transformation by Bruce Boston, Wordcraft (David and Susan Memmott) published Misha's mixed genre pieces in Prayers of Steel, illustrated by Ferret.

Some of the more intriguing nonfiction books concerning the horror field were: Private Demons: The Life of Shirley Jackson by Judy Oppenheimer (Putnam); Horror: 100 Best Books, edited by Stephen Jones and Kim Newman (Carroll & Graf); Raising Goosebumps for Fun and Profit by T.E.D. Klein (Footsteps Press); Bare Bones: Conversations on Terror With Stephen King, edited by Tim Underwood and Chuck Miller (McGraw-Hill, first trade edition); Cornell Woolrich: First You Dream, Then You Die by Francis M. Nevins, Jr. (Mysterious Press); Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde After 100 Years, edited by William Veeder and Gordon Hirsch (U. of Chicago Press); The Gothic World of Stephen King: Landscape of Nightmares, edited by Gary Hoppenstand and Ray B. Browne (Bowling Green State U. Press); The Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Volume 3, edited by Betty T. Bennett (John Hopkins U. Press); Dracula: The Vampire and the Critics by Margaret L. Carter (UMI); Lovecraft: A Study in the Fantastic by Maurice Levy (Wayne State U., first English translation); Redefining the American Gothic: From Wieland to Day of the Dead by Louis Gross (UMI); Mary Shelley: Her Life, Her Fiction, Her Monsters by Anne K. Mellor (Routledge, Chapman and Hall); Gothic Fiction: A Master List of 20th Century Criticism and Research by Frederick S. Frank (Meckler Publishing); Sudden Fear:The Horror and Dark Suspense Novels of Dean R. Koontz, edited by Bill Munster (Starmont); Roald Dahl by Alan Warren (Starmont); Dream Lovers and Their Victims in British Fiction by Toni Reed (U. Press of Kentucky); Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror: 1987 by Charles L. Brown and William G. Contento (Locus Press).

Some of the nonfiction movie books published included Revenge of the Creature Feature Movie Guide by John Stanley (Creatures at Large Press); Roger Corman, a short biography and picture-by-picture description of his films by Mark McGee (McFarland); The Dead That Walk: Dracula, Fran-kenstein, The Mummy and Other Favorite Movie Monsters by Leslie Halliwell (Crossroad/Continuum); Interviews with "B" SF and Horror Movie Makers; Writers, Producers, Directors, Actors, Moguls and Makeup by Tom Weaver (McFarland); Films of Science Fiction and Fantasy by Baird Searles (Abrams); Forgotten Horrors: Early Talkie Chillers from Poverty Row by George Turner and Michael Price (Eclipse); and The De Palma Cut: the Films of America's Most Controversial Director by Laurent Bouzerean (Dembner Books).

The first Horror Writers of America banquet and conference took place in New York City at the Warwick Hotel the weekend of June 24-26. To start things off, Friday evening HWA and Berkley/Putnam publishers co-hosted a cocktail party. The official program started Saturday morning with an HWA business meeting, and panels were held that afternoon on various aspects of the publishing business. In the evening there was another cocktail reception, and then the Bram Stoker Awards Banquet. The actual award, given for Superior Achievement, is an eerily detailed haunted house sculpture with the winner's name inscribed behind a little door that opens. It was designed by Stephen M. Kirk. The recipients were: for Life Achievement: Fritz Leiber, Frank Belknap Long, and Clifford D. Simak; for Novel (tie): Misery, Stephen King (Viking) and Swan Song, Robert McCammon (Pocket); First Novel: The Manse, Lisa Cantrell (Tor); Novelette (tie): "The Pear-Shaped Man," George R. R. Martin (OMNI) and "The Boy Who Came Back From the Dead," Alan Rodgers (Masques II, Maclay pub.); Short Story: "The Deep End," Robert Mc-Cammon (Night Visions IV, Dark Harvest); Collection: The Essential Ellison (Nemo Press); Nonfiction: Mary Shelley, Muriel Spark (E. P. Dutton). Last year I mentioned a number of people responsible for making the Horror Writers of America a reality. It has been pointed out to me that I neglected to mention Karen Lansdale, whose participation was crucial in the organization's creation. My apologies.

1988 was the year Phantom of the Opera became the biggest hit on Broadway. Yet only after unofficial (and finally legal) protests was author of the original 1910 novel, Gaston Leroux, credited in the production notes. It was also the year Stephen King's novel Carrie made it to the Great White Way and became one of the biggest flops in Broadway history--thanks to its savaging (undeserved) by the critics. I saw the show in preview and it was pretty good, despite some silly moments. The rest of the audience seemed to enjoy it, too.

The following are some odds and ends I've come across in the past year that defy classification but are worthy of attention. They may be mixed genres or mixed media or merely associational.

Graphic novels have become the newest hot artform, thanks in part to Alan Moore's brilliant work in Watchmen (Warner) and Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns (Warner). This year brought a new Batman special by Alan Moore, Brian Bolland, and John Higgins, The Killing Joke (DC Comics)-fascinating, horrific, atmospheric, and downbeat.

Then there's Hard-boiled Defective Stories by Charles Burns (Pantheon). It's from RAW, producers of Art Spiegelman's Maus. The cover sports a gorgeous dame with a gun-and two heads. The demented oversize comic features El Borbah, a big mug of an anti-hero detective in a world of mutants, mad scientists, greedy humans with weird hairdos, and ungrateful children. Bizarre and wonderful. Violent Cases by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean (Escape Magazine) was published in England in 1987 and is worth looking for. An excellent evocation of confused childhood memories and the roaring '20s, it's about a child's encounter with Al Capone's oesteopath. Phoenix Restaurant by Ferret (Fandom House) pro-vides dark humor with horrific elements and could be subtitled "Eating Well During the Apocalypse." Quirky and weird. Taboo, published by Stephen R. Bissette and Nancy O'Connor, packaged by Bissette and John Totleben (Spiderbaby Graphix), is an anthology of mixed genre work by S. Clay Wilson, Alan Moore, Charles Burns, and others I'm not familiar with. Most of the material is horrific, all of it is disturbing. Stray Toasters, created, written, and drawn by Bill Sienkiewicz (Epic) is a brilliant dark mini-series that dredges up the unconscious by enveloping the reader in abstract rather than literal impressions in its art and text. The first three of four parts came out in 1988, the fourth is due in early 1989. Fly in my Eye (Arcane), an anthology of comics edited by Steve Niles, has an art portfolio by Clive Barker, effective horror comics by Steve Bissette, Ted McKeever, and others, and an excellent, chilling horror story by John Shirley.

Everybody's Favorite Duck: A Novel of Crime and Adventure by Gahan Wilson (Mysterious Press) is quirky and should be of interest to anyone who enjoys his work. The Magic Mirror by Mickey Friedman (Viking) is a mystery about murder and the theft of what is purported to be the mirror Nostradamus used for predictions. Not hor-rific, but dark fantasy. Apocalypse Culture is a trade paperback by Adam Parfrey published by Amok Press. It's true-life horror, a collection of essays on such subjects as self-mutilation and necrophilia. Brought to you by the folks at the Amok bookstore in L.A., which carries the paintings of convicted serial killer John Wayne Gacy (killer clown) and photographic books on freaks and oddities, in addition to cutting edge fiction by Ballard, Dick, Gibson, Burroughs, et al.

High Weirdness by Mail: A Directory of the Fringe-Mad Prophets, Crackpots, Kooks and True Visionaries by Rev. Ivan Stang (Church of the Sub-genius). A subversive, anarchic, absurdist cult which is an elaborate parody of nut-cult religions.

Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux (Mysterious Press). A special edition in honor of the seventy-fifth anniversary of its first publication. Illustrated by Andre Castaigne. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (Peter Bedrick). A new edition illustrated by Charles Keeping. Dracula by Bram Stoker (Peter Bedrick). A new edition illustrated by Charles Keeping.

The Monster Garden by Vivian Alcock (Delacorte) is a charming and poignant young adult novel that's more sf than horror--about young Frankie Stein, the motherless daughter of a busy geneticist who decides to "create" her own creature from some leftovers from the lab. Highly recommended.

A special treat for those who like pop-up books is Classic Tales of Horror: A Fiendish Pull-the-Tab Pop-Up Book by Terry Oakes (Souvenir Press/ Dutton), containing pop-up scenes from Frankenstein, Dracula, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, The Pit and the Pendulum, and The Phantom of the Opera. And The Phantom of the Opera Pop-Up Book (Harper and Row).

For Clive Barker fans, a couple of art portfolios: One, called Nightmares in Blood, is work by artist Stephen Fabian based on Barker's Books of Blood. Included are twelve black-and-white plates in a color wraparound portfolio jacket. (Outland Publishers). The other is artwork by Barker himself, a portfolio of six full-color lithographs of the British cover art for The Books of Blood, with one new black-and-white print specially created for this limited edition, signed and numbered by Barker (Arcane).

Running Wild, by J. G. Ballard (A Hutchinson Novella-new series, U.K.). A wonderful psychological horror about an upscale planned com-munity in England which becomes the site of an inexplicable massacre and apparent kidnapping of the victims' children. Chilling.