The Year's Best Horror Stories: Series VII, ed. by Gerald W. Page (1979)

Don't worry, TMHF readers, that you've missed my reviews of previous entries in the long-running anthology series The Year's Best Horror Stories; this one, Series VII (DAW Books, July 1979), is the first one I've read in its entirety. I own only about half of the entire run, dipping into them here and there but never committing to a full volume. Till now, and I couldn't even tell you why this one, exactly. Sure, the cover featuring a ghoulish repast by the esteemed Michael Whelan is striking to the eye...

During this era, many paperback anthologies still included "dark fantasy" under the rubric of horror (DAW Books was a science fiction/fantasy publisher). "Dark fantasy" means to me fantasy, of course, but with major elements of the macabre and grotesque, with a fair amount of violence, usually with a medieval or mythic atmosphere and setting. The language too is often archaic, formal, stilted even. There may be sword 'n' sorcery going on as well. A few years later, Charles L. Grant used that term "dark fantasy" to describe his own stories and novels of subtle modern unease, but I prefer "quiet horror" for his brand of fiction. I say all this to simply state I'm not a fan of this kind of dark fantasy, and feel I don't quite have the critical acumen to judge dark fantasy. I tend to skim stories in that vein.

In Series VII, four stories fit this subgenre: "Amma" by Charles Saunders (above), "The Secret" by Jack Vance, "Divers Hands" by Darrell Schweitzer, and "Nemesis Place" by David Drake. I was unfamiliar with Saunders but liked well enough his West African griot's tale of a woman's unlikely secret identity; its comfortable switch-up ending evokes fables we first heard in childhood. Vance's story of Pacific islanders who know, unconsciously, that to leave their home is to encounter a strange wide world the knowledge of which may not be welcome. Again, something like a child's tale.

Schweitzer (above), long a critic and editor of genre fiction, contributes a longish work never before published. Knights, horses, swords, chainmail, maidens... no thanks. But Schweitzer writes strong prose, knows his way around violence and creeping dread, so I think "Divers Hands" will appeal greatly to those whose appreciation of such works is greater than mine. Drake's "Nemesis Place" contains the phrase "trader in spices" and that pretty much was quits for me, though I read the last paragraph and it seemed pretty bloody, so cool I guess.

Anyway, on to the real horrors.

An early work from one of the 1980s greats, Dennis Etchison, "The Pitch" is a pitch-black bit of unexpected vengeance by a kitchen cutlery salesman. Ouch. Etchison is a master of the modern convenience and its impact on our lives. "The Night of the Tiger" is a very minor work from Stephen King; it appeared in neither of his classic collections Night Shift and Skeleton Crew. King's authorial voice is strong, and the circus setting is convincing, but the final twist is rote. Now I enjoyed the relaxed charm of Manly Wade Wellman's tale of a lovely vampire lady, "Chastel." This dude hated it though. Ah well.

Autumnal sadness/grief/heartbreak/terror of Charles L. Grant's "Hear Me Now, Sweet Abbey Rose" is bittersweet. A sensitive family man protects his daughters against some drunken louts but the final horror is almost mean-spirited. One of Grant's finest. Another familiar name in any late '70s/1980s horror anthology is Ramsey Campbell, and his offering "Heading Home" may elicit a groan thanks to its pun, but it works as horror and as comedy. TMHF favorite Lisa Tuttle's "In the Arcade" has a woman lost in a lonely nightmare, looking back over a shameful racial history. It didn't appear in her amazing collection A Nest of Nightmares; not sure why, maybe it's the slight SF twist.

Ah, I forgot that the fine "Sleeping Tiger" from Tanith Lee (above) is also dark fantasy: a Brave Prince named Sky Tiger happens upon two lovelies in the forest named Orchid Moon and Lotus Moon. They bring him to a tower and perhaps promise paradise; Venerable Priest appears and puts the kibosh on that. That final twist is impolitic. "Intimately, with Rain" is Janet Fox's modern fable of ancient guilt. Love the ending for this one, even if I've read and seen it elsewhere.

The two final tales are, I feel, the best of the lot: superb in style and sensibility, "Collaborating" by Michael Bishop and "Marriage" by Robert Aickman (above) offer the very best in genre fiction. The former is a kind of Cronenbergian medical horror story written with taste and steely-eyed insight (We gave them stereophonic sweet nothings and the nightmares they couldn't have by themselves); I don't want to spoil it for first-time readers. The latter is another of Aickman's precisely-penned tales of daily English life and the traps it holds in store for those who attempt to go against it (He glared brazenly at the universe). Fantastic works, and two of the best short stories I've read this year.

Editor Gerald W. Page was involved with Year's Best Horror Stories for several years. In his intro he rightly states "You  never know where a good imaginative story will take you, whether it's science fiction, fantasy or horror..." and notes that good writing is just good writing. That's true, certainly, but good writing isn't my only criteria; I find I prefer my horror to be generally modern. But that's between me and me, and I think many other readers will find Series VII a worthwhile addition to their shelves of horror fiction...

On the Eve of Dusk

It's a Garden and a Death of Soul

A Sort of Human Picnic

I don't think the cover artist had a real good grasp of just what a zombie was.

The Year's Best Horror Stories Series: The 1970s

The Year's Best Horror Stories series ran for over two decades, from 1971 till 1994, collecting what one hoped actually were the year's best horror stories. Before Karl Edward Wagner picked up the mantle as editor in 1980 with volume eight, the series had two other editors: Richard Davis and then Gerald W. Page. But it's just the cover art I'm interested in for this post, not the stories within. Artist Hans Arnold's cover for the 1975 reprint (at least I think it's the reprint; I've found conflicting info on publication years) of the first in the series, seen above, evokes a nice balance of horror, dark fantasy, romance, and fairy tale. In other words (I think), "A witch's brew of sf grue"! First few times I looked at this cover I didn't even notice the rotting crone behind the crimson-eyed Victorian girl weeping blood...

Karel Thole's surreal yet rather tame cover for the original 1972 paperback doesn't have nearly the same impact - but the names Matheson and Bloch and, uh, Tubb beckon. I wonder how many science fiction fans, the people who would normally buy books from the DAW line, were interested?

Arnold returns for Series II (1974) and wham-bam, gives us an impressive double image of Mssrs. Jekyll and Hyde. Pretty cool. And an intro from Sir Chris? That's class. But the word "series" I find confusing; "volume" would be more accurate, no?

With the third book in the series, the famous Michael Whelan brought his talents to the party; Series III (1975) seems more science fictiony to me than horror fictiony, and rather prefigures the cover of King's Night Shift. But this is apparently the "chill-of-the-year book" so who am I to say?

Author Gerald W. Page's tenure as editor began with Series IV (1976), and Whelan contributed another cover, still with SF elements - I mean, behind that guy's head, that's no moon. There are some bats, though, I'll give it that.

Okay, Whelan's cover for Series V (1977) is fucking metal as fuck. I mean, FUCK YEAH. You just know Steve Harris was grooving on this artwork after a few puffs while plonking away on his bass.

Yee-haaawwwgggghhh... cowboy corpse comin' for ya! Series VI is from '78, and King gets the cover, of course (anybody else remember the short-lived horror/western mashup called "cowpunk"?).

And finally a truly horrific cover for Series VII (1979), Whelan once more, this time not shying away from gut-wrenching (literally!) horror whatsoever. Thank the infernal gods below!

Oh, before I go, anybody got a spare $300 lying about? You say you do? Then check this out.

Brian Lumley: The Lovecraftian Titus Crow Paperback Covers

On this day in the year 1937 the stars were right and born of man and woman was Brian Lumley, a British human whose tales of Lovecraftian and vampiric mayhem and mystery have been part of our beloved horror fiction for decades now. In addition to his ever-popular epic Necroscope series (many moons ago I got about 100 pages into the first volume and was overwhelmed by what I recall as ESP sensitives and Cold War espionage - topics which make me deliriously bored), Lumley added deeply and uniquely to the Cthulhu Mythos. Unlike the usual whey-faced antiquarian professor or amateur genaeologist that populate the Providence Gentleman's tales, Lumley's characters - particularly one Titus Crow - face the octopoid and batrachian obscenities with courage and high good humor, neither of which Lovecraft supplied in any real capacity.

Honestly I've not read any of these vintage-looking science-fiction horror paperbacks; I have however seen recent trade paperback editions that collect these and other Titus Crow stories. Guess which I prefer?

The Burrowers Beneath (at top, Daw 1974, art Tim Kirk) is a perfectly conceived landscape of Lovecraftiana; next, The Transition of Titus Crow (Daw 1975, art Michael Whelan). Also see a UK paperback of Burrowers, from Grafton with art by Alan Hood.

Third: A Clock of Dreams (Jove 1978), which looks more like a contemporary fantasy, particularly with note of the legendary Philip K. Dick and the mighty Harlan Ellison, definitely two writers of genre the who'd carved their own niches in that speculative field. Dude's beard gives a real hearty '70s sensitive masculinity vibe too. I'm safely guessing this novel takes place in Lovecraft's Dreamland of Kadath, Celephaïs, Sarnath and who can forget the Plateau of Leng? Good times for all, I'm sure.

Spawn of the Winds (Jove 1978), is apparently more of a Robert E. Howard-style men's adventure, even in prose style, despite the in the terrifying tradition of H.P. Lovecraft tag. With its cover art by Vallelejo - a polar bear? dude - how could it not be? Lumley apparently deepened the Mythos in a way few other writers did, even though it sounds like he deepened it in a direction I have no interest in, both by adding derring-do fisticuffs and fantastical alien fairie princesses and more insight into otherdimensional deities. I like my Mythos dank and sepulchral and maddening, thank you! The title font makes it look like a historical romance.

Same goes for In the Moons of Borea (Jove 1979): this is not the kind of Lovecraft-inspired fiction that I crave, seems like Edgar Rice Burroughs got in there somehow. And we all know old HPL would want nobody bare-assin' it on the cover of one of his books! Fine for some readers, not so much me. Ah well. I like those early DAW covers, as this UK paperback of the final volume in the Titus Crow series, Elysia: The Coming of Cthulhu (1989/Grafton 1993 with George Underwood art) recalls.


Cthlulhoid tentacles crawling, all evil, upon a coffin which contains... what? Humanity? Our world? The universe? Don't even bother telling me if I'm wrong. And finally, a '90s Tor paperback for Lumley's many short stories through the decades, the awesomely-titled Fruiting Bodies and other Fungi. That's a missed opportunity title for an aged Arkham House edition if I ever heard one!

Brian Lumley

Karl Edward Wagner and The Year's Best Horror Stories Series

Just found an oh-so-worthwhile personal remembrance of the late Karl Edward Wagner, by one of his oldest friends, entitled "The Dark Muse of Karl Edward Wagner." Turned up on one of my periodic Google searches for new info on older horror writers. I love this kind of behind-the-scenes look at the life and struggles of a modern pulp/horror/fantasy writer, and I think a lot of you will dig it too. Guy was a powerhouse at whatever he did.

Known for both his medical expertise (he very nearly became a doctor) as well as for lighting up 1970s horror conventions with his Viking-biker appearance and appetite for drugs and booze - not to mention his own considerable fiction - Wagner took over the editorial reins of The Year's Best Horror Stories for DAW Books in 1980, and continued until his unfortunately early death at age 49 in North Carolina in 1994. He lived in nearby Chapel Hill for awhile. In fact, I recall years ago finding books from his own personal library in a used bookstore here in Raleigh. According to Amazon, none of his dozens of books are currently in print.

H.P. Lovecraft Paperback Covers II: In Madness You Dwell

Let's continue, shall we, with more terrific (and terrible) cover art for various vintage paperback editions of H.P. Lovecraft. It's addictive - I can't get enough! And I'm certain you guys can't either. And if there are any Lovecraft novices out there, these covers give you only the slightest glimpse of the dread and nameless horrors that await all humanity should we venture too far from our placid islands of ignorance. So gaze upon them affrightedly, and despair...