Horror: The 100 Best Books (40 page)

JOHN CLUTE (b. 1940) was born in Toronto and grew up in Canada and America. His first science fiction story, "A Man Must Die", was published in
New Worlds
(1966) and he moved to London in 1969. Author of the novel
The Disinheriting Party
(1977) and co-editor of the award-winning
The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction
(1993) and
The Encyclopedia of Fantasy
(1997), his acclaimed non-fiction collection,
Strokes: Essays and Reviews 1966-1986
, was published in 1988. Widely regarded as the premier critic of the science fiction field, his reviews and commentary have been published regularly in
Foundation
,
Interzone
,
The Times Literary Supplement
,
The Guardian
,
New Statesman
,
New Scientist
,
Omni
,
The Washington Post
and
The New York Times
.

ADRIAN COLE (b. 1949) was born in Plymouth and worked for a number of years as a librarian in Birmingham before moving to Devon with his family. He began writing in the small press magazines in the early 1970s, creating a series of adventures about a cursed warrior, The Voidal. His early books include
Madness Emerging
(1976),
The Lucifer Experiment
,
Wargods of Ludorbis
and
The Dream Lords
trilogy. More recently he has published two children's books,
Moorstones
and
The Sleep of Giants
, and two ambitious adult series: "The Omaran Saga" (
A Place Among the Fallen
,
Throne of Fools
,
The King of Light and Shadows
and
The Gods in Anger
) and the "Star Requiem" novels (
Mother of Storms
,
Thief of Dreams
,
Warlord of Heaven
and
Labyrinth of Worlds
).

BASIL COPPER (b. 1924) was born in London and for thirty years he worked as a journalist and editor of a local newspaper before becoming a full-time writer in 1970. His first story in the horror field was "The Spider" in
The Fifth Pan Book of Horror Stories
(1964), and among his most-reprinted tales are "Camera Obscura" and "Amber Print". Besides writing two non-fiction studies of the vampire and werewolf in legend, fact and art, his novels of the macabre and gaslight gothic include
The Great White Space
,
The Curse of the Fleers
,
Necropolis
,
House of the Wolf
and
The Black Death
. Copper's short fiction has been collected in
Not After Nightfall
,
From Evil's Pillow
,
When Footsteps Echo
and
And Afterward the Dark
, and has been extensively anthologised and adapted for radio and television. He has also written more than fifty hard-boiled thrillers about Los Angeles private detective Mike Faraday, and his
Solar Pans
collections have successfully continued the exploits of August Derleth's Holmes-like consulting detective. Basil Copper is also one of Britain's leading film collectors, with a private archive containing more than a thousand titles.

RICHARD DALBY (b. 1949) is a London-born author, bibliographer, researcher and bookdealer specializing in supernatural fiction. In 1971 he unearthed a previously unreprinted M.R. James story which he included in his first anthology,
The Sorceress in Stained Glass and Other Stories
. He has followed that with a host of superior anthologies, many drawn from obscure sources or tied into particular themes:
The Best Ghost Stories of H. Russell Wakefield
,
Dracula's Brood
,
Ghosts and Scholars
(with Rosemary Pardoe),
The Virago Book of Ghost Stories
(two volumes).
The Virago Book of Victorian Ghost Stories
,
Ghosts for Christmas
,
Chillers for Christmas
,
Mystery for Christmas
,
Crimes for Christmas
,
Tales of Witchcraft
and
The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories
(two volumes). Dalby is also the author/compiler of
Bram Stoker: A Bibliography of First Editions
(1983).

LES DANIELS (b. 1943) was born in Danbury, Connecticut, but moved to Providence, Rhode Island, to study at Brown University, where he graduated with honours in English Literature. He received an M.A. in English in 1968 from Brown, since when he has been a freelance writer, composer, film buff and musician. He has performed with such groups as Soop, Snake and The Snatch; The Swamp Steppers, and The Local Yokels. His first book was
Comix: A History of Comic Books in America
(1971), and he went on to write
Living in Fear: A History of Horror in the Mass Media
and a huge book about the comics publisher,
Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World's Greatest Comics
. He has also edited
Thirteen Tales of Terror
(with Diane Thompson) and
Dying of Fright: Masterpieces of the Macabre
. Daniel's debut novel,
The Black Castle
, was published in 1978 and introduced readers to Don Sebastian de Villanueva, the enigmatic vampire-hero whose exploits span the centuries and a series of superior horror novels:
The Silver Skull
,
Citizen Vampire
,
Yellow Fog
,
No Blood Spilled
and
White Demon
. His rare short fiction can be found in
Cutting Edge
,
Book of the Dead
,
Borderlands
,
The Sea-Harp Hotel
,
After the Darkness
and
Dark Voices 4: The Pan Book of Horror
.

JACK DANN (b. 1945) was born in Johnson City, New York. A writer and anthologist with a BA in social and political science, he began publishing science fiction in 1970 with two stories in
Worlds of If
: "Dark, Dark, the Dead Star" and "Traps", co-written with George Zebrowski. His short fiction has been published in most of the leading SF magazines, plus
Playboy
,
Penthouse
,
Omni
,
Gallery
,
Shadows
,
After Midnight
and
A Gallery of Horror
. The author of such novels as
Starhiker
,
The Man Who Melted
,
Counting Coup
, and the collection
Timetripping
, Dann has also edited a number of anthologies, including
Future Power
,
Aliens!
,
Unicorns!
,
Magicats!
(two volumes),
Bestiary!
,
Mermaids!
and
Sorcerers!
(all with Gardner Dozois),
Wandering Stars
,
More Wandering Stars
, and the acclaimed collection of Vietnam-related SF stories,
In the Field of Fire
(with his wife, Jeanne Van Buren). He is a multiple nominee for the Nebula Award, World Fantasy Award and British Science Fiction Association Award.

CHARLES DE LINT (b. 1951) was born in Bussum, the Netherlands, but his father's job with a surveying company allowed him to grow up in places as diverse as the Yukon, Turkey, Lebanon and Canada, where he currently lives as a full-time writer and musician. His first two books,
The Riddle of the Wren
and
Moonheart
, won him the 1984 William L. Crawford Award for Best New Fantasy Writer. Since then he has published a wide variety of books in the fantasy and horror genres, including
The Harp of the Grey Rose
,
Mulengro
,
Yarrow
,
Jack the Giant Killer
,
Greenmantle
,
Drink Down the Moon
,
Ghostwood
,
The Dreaming Place
,
The Little Country
,
Spiritwalk
and the novella,
Our Lady of the Harbour
. His columns on horror fiction and book reviews have appeared in a number of magazines, and he has served as a judge for the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Short Fiction Award, the 1986 World Fantasy Awards, the 1987 Horror Writers of America Awards and the 1988 Nebula Awards.

THOMAS M. DISCH (b. 1940) was raised in Arizona and has been a resident of New York, England, Turkey, Italy and Mexico. Poet, reviewer, short-story writer and novelist, Disch has been described by David Hartwell as producing "a body of work that seems of growing importance to the contemporary horror field." His first science fiction story, "The Double-Timer", appeared in
Fantastic
in 1962, and his highly regarded output includes
One Hundred and Two H Bombs
,
The Genocides
,
Camp Concentration
,
The Prisoner
(based on the cult TV series),
334
,
On Wings of Song
,
Fun With Your New Head
,
Getting Into Death
,
The Businessman
,
The Silver Pillow
and
The M.D.
Disch has also had two popular children's books published,
The Brave Little Toaster
(turned into an animated movie by Disney in 1987) and
The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars
, and such recent collections of poetry as
Yes, Lets: New and Selected Poems
and
Dark Verses & Light
. He also collaborated with John Sladek on a mystery novel,
Black Alice
(1968) and a Gothic,
The House That Fear Built
(1966).

MALCOLM EDWARDS (b. 1949) was born in London, and he studied for three years at King's College, Cambridge. He has an M.A. in social anthropology which he has "never put to any constructive use." Formerly Administrator of the Science Fiction Foundation and editor of the journals
Vector
and
Foundation
, Edwards was also one of the founding co-editors of
Interzone
. He was a Contributing Editor to
The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction
and coauthor (with Maxim Jakubowski) of the
Complete Book of SF and Fantasy Lists
. He has also co-written six illustrated books, one with Harry Harrison and five with Robert Holdstock, and his first published story, "After-Images" (
Interzone
, 1983), was reprinted in
The Year's Best Horror Stories
and won the British Science Fiction Award for Best Short Story. Malcolm Edwards has been the Publishing Director of Victor Gollancz, SF and fantasy division, Publishing Director of fiction at HarperCollins (UK), and is currently Managing Director at Orion.

HARLAN ELLISON (b. 1934), author, essayist and screenwriter, was born and raised in Ohio and moved to Los Angeles in 1962, where he has remained. Probably one of the field's most controversial yet talented writers, Ellison made his professional debut with "Glowworm" in
Infinity Science Fiction
(1956). After several books based on his experiences with New York street gangs (
Rumble
,
The Juvies
etc.) and a stint as editor of
Rogue Magazine
, he firmly established himself as a maverick SF/horror writer with a string of powerful short stories and the occasional novel. In 1963 he started writing for television, contributing scripts to such popular shows as
The Alfred Hitchcock Hour
,
The Outer Limits
,
The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
,
Star Trek
and the revived
Twilight Zone
. Ellison co-scripted
The Oscar
(1966), and his 1969 novella
A Boy and His Dog
was filmed with reasonable success in 1975. He edited the landmark anthologies
Dangerous Visions
(1967) and
Again, Dangerous Visions
, (1972), while a third volume,
Last Dangerous Visions
, has been awaiting publication for many years. He has won numerous awards, including the Hugo, Nebula, Edgar, Writer's Guild of America, World Fantasy and Bram Stoker, and his essays and criticism were recently collected in
Harlan Ellison's Watching
and
The Harlan Ellison Hornbook
.

DENNIS ETCHISON (b. 1943) was born in Stockton, California. Described as the best short story writer in the horror field today, he started writing before his teens, winning $250 for an essay "What America Means to Me" at the age of twelve. His first professional sale was a science fiction story, "Odd Boy Out", in
Escapade
(1961), since when he has contributed fiction to numerous magazines and anthologies. Etchison has had three major collections of short stories published,
The Dark Country
,
Red Dreams
and
The Blood Kiss
, and he has edited the anthologies
Cutting Edge
, three volumes of
Masters of Darkness
,
Lord John Ten
and
MetaHorror
. He is the author of such novels as
Darkside
,
Shadowman
and
California Gothic
, and his novelizations include
The Fog
and, under his "Jack Martin" pseudonym,
Halloween II
,
Halloween III
and
Videodrome
. Etchison has worked with such directors as John Carpenter, David Cronenberg and Dario Argento, and his unproduced screenplays include
Halloween IV
and adaptations of Ray Bradbury's
The Fox and the Forest
and Stephen King's
The Mist
, and he was a staff writer for the HBO TV series
The Hitch Hiker
. He also adapted his own story "The Late Shift" for a short film entitled
Killing Time
, and his story "The Dark Country" won both the British Fantasy Award and The World Fantasy Award.