The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 2003: Vol 14

The finest exponents of horror fiction writing today, Neil Gaiman, China Mieville, Ramsey Campbell, Kim Newman, Graham Joyce, Paul McCauley, Stephen Gallagher, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Basil Cooper, Glen Hirshberg, Jay Russell, feature in the world's premier annual horror anthology series, another bumper showcase devoted exclusively to excellence in macabre fiction. To accompany the very best in short stories and novellas is the year's most comprehensive horror overview and contacts listing as well as a fascinating necrology.

From Publishers Weekly

Lovers of bone-crunching visceral horrors and prose that pulses with inventive morbidity, beware: Jones's selection of 20 choice cuts from the previous year's fear fiction is more kindly predisposed to subtle stories informed by the genre's classic tradition. Some are period chillers, such as Paul McAuley's novella, "Dr. Pretorius and the Lost Temple," a well-told Victorian penny dreadful involving psychic detection, Roman remains, subterranean survivals and occult experiments to create life. Jay Russell's "Hides" features Robert Louis Stevenson in a tale of recrudescent horrors that linger in Donner's Pass. In "Ill Met by Daylight," Basil Copper pays tribute to the fiction of turn-of-the-century ghost story master M.R. James. Both China Mieville, in "Details," and Caitlin R. Kiernan, in "Nor the Demons Down Under the Sea," obliquely invoke the Cthulhu Mythos in stories that put a modern spin on Lovecraft's cosmic terrors. Neil Gaiman's "October in the Chair" is a delicate dark fantasy homage to Ray Bradbury's Halloween Gothic. Even stories that don't explicitly reference horror's hallowed icons show the impact of their lessons in tasteful restraint, among them Don Tumasonis's "The Wretched Thicket of Thorn," which conjures an awesome monster that's all the more frightening for never being shown directly. In his indispensable overview of horror in 2002, Jones speaks of "the diversity of taste and erudition that binds our community." This volume, like volumes past, exuberantly celebrates that diversity. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Jones' annual is a yearly treat for fans. Contributors to this edition include Neil Gaiman, David J. Schow, and Ramsey Campbell. Gaiman's "October in the Chair" opens with the months of the year personified and sitting in the woods telling stories. October regales the group with the tale of a boy who runs away from home and finds a ghostly friend. In Stephen Gallagher's "Little Dead Girl Singing," a man takes a young relative to a singing competition and is struck by a talented but seemingly emotionless competitor and her family. Kim Newman's "Egyptian Avenue" involves a group of Egyptologists puzzling over a set of mummies and wondering how they are related to recent supernatural unrest; what they discover is a crime in the past and a very real danger to the present. The collection also includes the usual roundup of horror news and publications from the past year and a tribute to horror greats who have passed on. Kristine HuntleyCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author

Stephen Jones has won more awards for editing horror and fantasy than anyone else in the field. His more than sixty books include Horror: The 100 Best Books and The Mammoth Book of Vampires. He lives in London.

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