Karl Wagner - The Year's Best Horror Stories 11

Horror is enjoying a period of unparalleled popularity. Horror novels regularly make the bestseller lists. Horror films, whether big budget or bargain basement, rake in the bucks. In short fiction, the horror genre continues to prosper and develop, as older writers perfect their art and new writers come along to lead the genre in new directions.

Horror stories have a way of springing up everywherenot just in science fiction/fantasy magazines and anthologies, but in amateur publications and in any sort of periodical that might publish fiction. Trying to read all the horror stories published during each year and then select the best of them is no easy task. You are holding the result of a years reading and selecting.

The Grab by Richard Laymon. Copyright 1981 by Montcalm Publishing Corporation for Gallery, January 1982. Reprinted by permission of the author.

The Show Goes On by Ramsey Campbell. Copyright 1982 by Ramsey Campbell for Dark Companions. Reprinted by permission of the author.

The House at Evening by Frances Garfield. Copyright 1982 by Stuart David Schiff for Whispers No. 15-16. Reprinted by permission of the author.

I Hae Dreamd a Dreary Dream by John Alfred Taylor. Copyright 1981 by Michael Ambrose for The Argonaut #8. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Deathtracks by Dennis Etchison. Copyright 1982 by Stuart David Schiff for Death. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Come, Follow! by Sheila Hodgson. Copyright 1982 by Rosemary Pardoe for Ghosts & Scholars 4. Reprinted by permission of the author.

The Smell of Cherries by Jeffrey Goddin. Copyright 1982 by TZ Publications, Inc. for Rod Serlings The Twilight Zone Magazine, November 1982. Reprinted by permission of the author.

A Posthumous Bequest by David Campton. Copyright 1982 by Stuart David Schiff for Whispers No. 17-18. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Slippage by Michael Kube-McDowell. Copyright 1982 by TZ Publications, Inc. for Rod Serlings The Twilight Zone Magazine, August 1982. Reprinted by permission of the author.

The Executor by David G. Rowlands. Copyright 1982 by Rosemary Pardoe for Ghosts & Scholars 4. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Mrs. Halfboogers Basement by Lawrence C. Connolly. Copyright 1982 by TZ Publications, Inc. for Rod Serlings The Twilight Zone Magazine, June 1982. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Rouse Him Not by Manly Wade Wellman. Copyright 1982 by Manly Wade Wellman for Kadath No. 5. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Spare the Child by Thomas F. Monteleone. Copyright 1981 by Thomas Monteleone for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January 1982. Reprinted by permission of the author.

The New Rays by M. John Harrison. Copyright 1982 by Interzone for Interzone, Spring 1982. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Cruising by Donald Tyson. Copyright 1982 by TZ Publications, Inc. for Rod Serlings The Twilight Zone Magazine, September 1982. Reprinted by permission of the author.

The Depths by Ramsey Campbell. Copyright 1982 by Ramsey Campbell for Dark Companions. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Pumpkin Head by Al Sarrantonio. Copyright 1982 by Al Sarrantonio for Terrors. Reprinted by permission of the author.

While in the process of preparing my notes for The Years Best Horror stories: Series XI, I read my way through all 29 issues of the classic E.C. horror comic book, The Vault of Horror. No, not the originals, some of which are literally worth their weight in gold, but the awesome five-volume hardcover boxed set published this past year by Russ Cochran. Cochrans production values are mind-boggling: the facsimile edition is larger than the original comic pages, reprinted (from the original art, I gather) in black and white on heavy stock (the boxed set weighs some seven pounds) with all covers reproduced in full color, and pertinent commentary accompanying each issue. Truly a labor of love, and intended to last for centuries. Further, this is but one such boxed set out of a continuing project to reprint all the E.C. New Trend and New Direction comic books in this permanent format.

Why all this attention lavished upon a comic book? For any of several good reasons. The E.C. magazines were special. Just as the (at the time equally denigrated) pulp magazine, Weird Tales, was state-of-the-art horror during the 1930s, so were the E.C. horror comics in the early 1950s. Plots as a rule followed the formula of poetic justice through supernatural retribution, often served up with a dose of black humor and inevitably with lots of grue and gore. By 1955 pressure from outraged citizens groups, who had positively linked such comic books to juvenile delinquency, moral decay and communism, brought an end to the E.C. horror comics and their less sophisticated but equally gruesome imitators. Fortunately, not before the young minds of many of todays horror writers (your editor included) had been hopelessly warped.

Where, I hear you ask, might one discover state-of-the-art horror of the 1980s? As the Vault-Keeper would have said: Heh, heh! Well, kiddies! Welcome to the terror-dripping pages of the latest fright-filled issues of The Years Best Horror Stories!

Three decades later, horror is still alive and creepingif anything, enjoying a period of unparalleled popularity. Horror novels regularly make the best-seller lists. Horror films, whether big budget or bargain basement, rake in the bucks. Interestingly, one of this past years top-grossing films was Creepshow, George Romero and Stephen Kings homage to the old E.C. horror comics. In short fiction, despite the continuing absence of a regular major market, the horror genre continues to prosper and develop, as older writers perfect their art and new writers come along to lead the genre in new directions.

Horror stories have a way of springing up everywherenot just in science fiction/fantasy magazines and anthologies, but in amateur publications and in any sort of periodical that might publish fiction: from The New Yorker to Easy Rider, High Times to Running Times, Rocky Mountain Magazine to Gallery, Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine to Harpers, Ms. to Hustler. Trying to read all the horror stories published during each year and then select the best of them is no easy task. You are holding the result of a years reading and selecting. Here is state-of-the-art horror fiction from 1982: The Years Best Horror Stones: Series XI.

The big news of 1982 for horror/fantasy fans was that Twilight Zone Magazine treated us to twelve consecutive monthly issues. Starting on a monthly schedule in April of the previous year, Twilight Zone Magazines accomplishment at a time when most new science fiction/fantasy magazines rarely last half a dozen issues cannot be overpraised. Much of its success is due to the excellent work of editor T.E.D. Klein (himself one of the leading writers in the field), who manages to cram a surprising number of fine stories into each issue, along with articles and reviews, color photographs and commentary on new films, as well as stills and transcripts of the famous