From Publishers Weekly
Carroll & Graf's Mammoth Horror series is remarkable not only for presenting an outstanding selection of the best in horror and dark fantasy every year, but for doing so during a decade that has not been kind to the genre. As Jones points out in his introduction to this 10th volume, "the erosion of the mid-list and the cancellation of genre imprints" have resulted in the "all-but-collapse of the commercial field." Despite the decline, this multiple-award-winning anthology includes a wealth of fine offerings from both new and established authors. As usual, the volume includes a catch-all essay about horror in the past year. This time, more than a third of the hefty volume is devoted to two novellasAyet the space is well used. The first, Peter Straub's brilliant revenge story "Mr. Clubb and Mr. Cuff" (inspired by Herman Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener"), has won both Bram Stoker and International Horror Guild awards. The second, "The Boss in the Wall," is a posthumous work of old-fashioned horror from Avram Davidson (completed by his former wife Grania Davis). From the Hollywood noir of Dennis Etchison's "Inside the Cackle Factory" to the starkly eerie "The Dead Boy at Your Window" by Bruce Holland Rogers to the elegant "A Victorian Ghost Story" by Kim Newman, these tales evoke the grand tradition of horror while attesting to its lively and innovative future. Indispensable reading for horror lovers, this anthology and its predecessors must also be credited with having a hand in keeping horror itself alive. (Nov.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
Creeping out the the London fog comes . . . the International . . . Mammoth Book of Best Horror 10! British editor Jones, joined for the annual necrology by fellow Brit Kim Newman, has put together a terrifically newsy volume featuring an introduction that offers an atomically detailed survey of horror publishing for the past yearand adds a gathering of addresses useful for young writers or pros. Big sighs in the necrology include the passing of Ted Hughes (Ffangs the Vampire Bat and the Kiss of Truth); of Bob Kane, comic-book artist, who is survived by his creations Batman, Robin and Catwoman; and Frank Sinatra, who paid for the funeral of Bela Lugosi, who died broke. Jones's Introduction about the horror publishing biz and his omnivorous essay (Horror in 1998") are impossibly well-detailed, including all publishing shifts and conglomerate mergers, thumbnails of the top novels (Frederick Forsyth's The Phantom of Manhattan, review forthcoming, will appear as a DVD audiobook for New Millennium Entertainment), the names of all contributors to dozens of anthologies, and so on. Horrormeisters here include Neil Gaiman (``The Wedding Present''), Ramsey Campbell (``Ra*e''), Harlan Ellison (``Objects of Desire in the Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear'') and Peter Straub, whose ``Mr. Clubb and Mr. Cuff'' is a variation on Melville's ``Bartleby the Scrivener. The most valuable horror book of the year. --
Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
