Horace Walpole has a lot to answer for. The author of what's generally regarded as the first modern horror novel, The Castle of Otranto (1765), certainly had no idea that such literature would still be in vogue 240 years later. Indeed, the category was old news even by the time Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897) and Henry James's The Turn of the Screw (1898) became a part of Western literature. And now, more than a century later, taboos once considered exclusive to horror—such as serial murder, ritual killings, cannibalism and child abuse—pervade contemporary literature. Robert Bloch's Psycho begat Thomas Harris's TheSilence of the Lambs, which in turn begat a new genre of psychological suspense fiction.
These days horror is creeping out from under the curse of category and being restored to its former status—as well as benefiting from genre specialization. "You'll now find horror shelved with mainstream fiction, science fiction and fantasy—which is not necessarily a bad thing," says Ellen Datlow, a consulting editor at Tor who has edited the horror half of The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror (St. Martin's) for 17 years. "I've never been convinced that a specific horror section is important to the field. Horror started out in the mainstream/lit sections and I'm delighted that it's back there."
But between where it once was and where it is now, horror has followed an interesting path. Since this is PW's first-ever look at the category, an overview might be in order.
In the late 1960s and throughout the '70s a variety of factors—including a handful of horrific bestsellers that became even more popular films (Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist, The Other, etc.), the centralization of book distribution, and an author named Stephen King—produced an interest in Gothic literature as great as that seen during the 19th century. American publishing took that interest, turned into a never-before-established marketing category and dubbed it "horror."
Horror became a marketable product, whose preferred package was a type of novel confined by generic strictures and expectations. Eventually, instead of only a handful of books published each year, hundreds of horror books flooded the market. The '80s became the boom years for horror.
With so many monthly slots to fill, consideration of literary quality seemed to rarely be a concern for most of the publishers, editors and writers who were turning out truckloads of terror. Horror—to their thinking and that of most readers—became, by definition, generic and formulaic. But author and critic Douglas E. Winter suggests, "The problem is that horror is not a genre, it is an emotion. Horror is not a kind of fiction. It's a progressive form of fiction that continually evolves to meet the fears and anxieties of its times." Still, publishing generic titles produced a marketplace in which a greater number of non-generic titles could also be published and sold. Some writers transcended the genre and used the traditions of literary horror to effectively portray human drama. Others explored dark emotions and human nature through surreal and lyrical prose. Not surprisingly, there was the good, the bad and the in-between. But it was all lumped together as horror.
The mix sold well at first, but not for long.
As the '90s dawned, the boom went bust. To meet the public's demand for horror, publishers had turned to second-, then third-tier novels to fill bookshelves, only to see disappointed readers turn away from the tide of shoddy product and stop buying horror without the name of a superstar author (King, Koontz, Rice) on the cover. Returns ran rampant, the word disappeared from books' spines and horror sections in bookstores began disappearing.
Horror was still being published, of course. Ace executive editor Ginjer Buchanan has referred to "stealth" horror: books that would have been marketed as horror a decade earlier were now known as supernatural fiction, fantasy, thriller, suspense, etc. But, there was very little horror-called-horror being published.
The Advent of Specialization
Something else happened back in the '70s and '80s when mainstream publishers were discovering horror. A horror specialty press developed to serve collectors and aficionados. These houses fed a wider awareness of earlier horror literature by republishing "classics." Supported by a growing audience and without the constraints of commercial publishing, the specialty presses also served modern horror by nurturing new talent, encouraging experimentation and publishing important collections and anthologies of short fiction. They also helped establish a demand for hardcover books.
Eventually, in the 1990s, these specialty presses helped keep horror itself going during a period when many of its writers could not find other markets.
If the '80s surge in popular horror established the niche and the '90s decline made specialty presses into saviors of sorts, the new century is bringing the leading small publishers a new level of success.
Critic Stefan Dziemianowicz wrote in 1998 that "the most influential horror publisher" at that time was Cemetery Dance Publications. Established in 1988, the Forest Hill, Md., press now averages 20 titles per year. According to publisher Richard Chizmar, "We did fewer in 2003, because of the time we spent on our new film production company, but we'll publish more than 30 titles in 2004 to make up the difference." About 25% of CD titles are released in both trade and limited format, says Chizmar, "but most are released in a kind of mutant edition—a clothbound, signed hardcover in the $35—$40 price range. We've found that we can service all markets with this type of edition and price point—the average reader, the collector, the retail and library markets—and it still allows us to deal with the large distributors like Ingram and Baker & Taylor. We've also published several trade paperbacks."
Though some of Cemetery Dance's bestsellers—The Traveling Vampire Show, a novel by the late Richard Laymon, and big anthologies such as The Best Of Cemetery Dance and October Dreams—will sell 3,000 trade copies, 1,000 copies of a title is more typical. CD also frequently publishes hardcover collectors' editions of trade books or paperback originals. Novellas or short novels are not commercially viable for big publishers, but are a particular strength for small presses. Jack Ketchum's The Crossings, recommended by Stephen King in his National Book Award acceptance speech, is a CD original novella.
Subterranean Press, which publishes about 30 books a year, was founded in 1995 in Burton, Mich. "Most specialty presses," says publisher Bill Schafer, "follow their own interests, to the extent that they can make a living doing so. I'm no different. What I've come to think of as 'category' horror just isn't the place where the most interesting work is being done. Do we really need a lowest-common denominator zombie novel or vampire series being pushed as the latest, hottest thing horror has to offer? I don't think so."
According to Schafer, Sub Press focuses on "the dark fantastic side of the street, but that doesn't stop us from projects like reissues of Lawrence Block obscurities or limited editions of Dan Simmons's SF epic Ilium." Subterranean Press books, most of which are hardcovers, run the gamut from small, strictly limited editions to trade editions with print runs of more than 4,000 copies. "This year, some of our highlights that could easily be called horror include collections from Norman Partridge, Joe R. Lansdale and Brian Lumley. We'll also be publishing a new Lansdale novel later this year, The Drive-In: The Bus Tour."
Night Shade Books, located in Portland, Ore., started in 1998 with a nonfiction book about the Necronomicon, an imaginary grimoire that was fabricated early in the 20th century by H.P. Lovecraft. "It would never have found a home in New York," says publisher Jason Williams. A recent Night Shade title (which Williams admits "no one else would do"), The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric and Discredited Diseases, edited by Jeff VanderMeer and Mark Roberts, has sold more than 5,000 copies since its release last October.
Night Shade sees itself as a trade hardcover (and sometimes trade paperback) publisher that only occasionally issues a signed limited edition; sales of most titles are typically in the 2,000—2,500 range. "We publish horror, but don't necessary call it that," says Williams. Typical of the company's "literate" direction was last year's Things That Never Happen, a massive collection of short fiction from British "writer's writer" M. John Harrison. According to Williams, "Without the benefit of advertising and virtually just on the strength of reviews, it's sold 2,200 in hardcover alone." A low figure in New York-style numbers, but more than enough to be profitable for a small publisher like Night Shade.
Among Night Shade's darker titles for 2004 are a collection from British newcomer Conrad Williams, Use Once, Then Destroy (May), and Viator, a novel by Lucius Shepard (Aug.). The house also republishes works from under-appreciated early 20th-century writers of weird fiction.
Golden Gryphon, located in Urbana, Ill., does more SF/fantasy than horror, but what it does publish is "high quality and well-distributed," according to Alan Beatts, owner of San Francisco's Borderlands Bookstore. Beatts also cites Canadian specialty publisher Ash-Tree Press, which is known for its supernatural fiction in hardcover limited editions. "They are hard to get since they have no U.S. distribution," notes Beatts, "but they have great ghost stories."
Big publishers often find new talent via specialty publication. Extremely strong reviews for The Etched City by K.J. Bishop (Prime Books) brought almost immediate resale in England as well as a deal with Bantam Spectra in the U.S. "After horror went into its dramatic crash, small presses were about the only place publishing it," says senior editor Anne Groell. "We often look first to these presses for titles that are well-written and well-reviewed. The Etched City is not really horror, but it is very dark and a really wonderful book we discovered that way." Bantam Spectra's edition will be out in December.
By Any Other Name...
Though specialty presses are clearly important in this category, Del Howison of Dark Delicacies, a Burbank, Calif., bookstore that deals only in horror, points out, "As far as readership, these presses are, unfortunately, mainly preaching to the choir. This is better than not preaching at all, but horror book buyers should also turn to the major publishers to continually prove there is a market. If the people don't buy them, the market won't produce them."
New York publishers are, once again, rediscovering horror. The "h- word" is no longer as shunned as it once was. Some publishers are beginning to realize that discerning readers and booksellers have the intelligence to sort out horror for themselves. Doubleday declared that Chuck Palahniuk "continues his twenty-first century reinvention of the horror novel" with Diary (Doubleday, Aug. 2003; Anchor, Sept.). Random House proudly proclaimed Peter Straub a "master of literate horror" with last fall's Lost Boy Lost Girl (PW termed the novel "an exciting, fearful, wondrous tale") and Farrar, Straus & Giroux called Stewart O'Nan's poignantly spooky The Night Country (Oct. 2003) "a strange and unsettling ghost story in the tradition of Ray Bradbury and Shirley Jackson."
Since horror is now often cross-bred with SF, fantasy, mystery, thriller, romance and historical fiction, publishers can still, if so inclined, avoid calling horror "horror" altogether. John Harwood's first novel The Ghost Writer (Harcourt, July) is scheduled for a 50,000 first printing. In PW's most recent First Fiction feature (Aug. 11, 2003), editor Andrea Schultz reported that the novel is "for people who like scary stories and entertain the possibility that something eerie lurks in the bottom of the drawer," but she never uttered the h-word.
Other publishers prefer to find horror as just one element of many. "Though Del Rey publishes some of the most influential horror of the 20th century in the works of H.P. Lovecraft," says executive editor Steve Saffel, "we don't seek out works of horror so much as we seek out well-written speculative fiction. If the tale incorporates nicely crafted elements of horror and the supernatural, and uses them effectively, then that's good writing. John Shirley's Demons and Crawlers would be perfect examples, as has been proven by the critical praise they've received."
Del Rey is also the U.S. publisher for British author China Miéville, whose fourth novel, Iron Council, is due in July. Says the author, "I am conscious of writing in a tradition that blurs the boundaries between three fantastic genres: supernatural horror, fantasy and science fiction. I have always been of the opinion that you can't make firm distinctions between the three."
Neil Gaiman, whose dark novel American Gods (HarperCollins, 2002) spent eight weeks on PW's bestseller charts in its hardcover and paperback editions (and which was recognized with both a Hugo Award for best science fiction/fantasy and a Bram Stoker Award as outstanding horror novel) says, "Horror is something I like to use as a condiment, a spice. You can use it to add tang to what you're doing."
In the words of Barry Hoffman, publisher of the 14-year-old Gauntlet Press in Colorado Springs, "Horror is being packaged as mainstream fiction by mass market publishers as chain bookstores shun horror by all but the biggest names. No matter how it's labeled, however, if it walks like a duck and squawks like a duck it's still a duck (in this case horror), no matter how publishers try to masquerade it as something else. As for the future, the specialty press may soon be the home of mid-list horror writers."
Creepy Collections
One way in which horror readers can get their literary "fix"—-indeed, a variety of fixes—-is through the anthology format; such collections of original dark fiction generally consist of a blend of horror and fantasy tales. In the words of Tor senior editor James Frenkel, "The Dark: New Ghost Stories, edited by Ellen Datlow [Oct. 2003], is an anthology of the sort of stories that attracted me and millions of others to horror when we were kids. Analogous to SF's 'sense of wonder,' these stories of the dark share a sense of awe and the unknown which is thrillingly frightening, sometimes disquieting and ultimately renewing," A trade paperback edition of The Dark is due in October.
For those who want to keep up with the best in horror, St. Martin's publishes the Year's Best Fantasy and Horror series. With the 17th edition due in August, Datlow returns to helm the horror half with new editors Kelly Link and Gavin Grant editing the (often dark) fantasy half. "There are more quality horror stories being published in and out of genre than ever before," says Datlow. "This year I've found excellent horror fiction in Esquire, the New Yorker and McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales [Vintage, 2003] as well as in mixed-genre periodicals and collections."
The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror (Carroll & Graf), which returns in November in its 15th incarnation, is, according to editor Stephen Jones, "devoted exclusively to excellence in macabre fiction." For the coming year, Jones has also edited "a 'best of' the classic Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories series, that the late R. Chetwynd-Hayes edited in the 1970s and '80s." Cemetery Dance is doing the hardcover and Carroll & Graf doing the trade paperback edition; both are due in the fall. Also coming from Carroll & Graf, both under Jones's editorial direction, are The Mammoth Book of New Terror and TheMammoth Book of Vampires, both of which are reworkings of highly successful titles from the early '90s.
Going Batty
In the Department of No Surprises: nearly any story or book with a vampire in it winds up being labeled as horror. According to Howison of Dark Delicacies, "Vampires are still king as a single subject seller. However, with the demise of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on TV, they've slowed down a little."
Beatts at Borderland Books adds, "Vampires are dying out (excuse the pun) except as quasi-porn and romance. Nothing seems to be taking their place except possibly 'supernatural investigators' like Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake books [her latest, Seduced by Moonlight, marks week #4 on PW's charts], Jim Butcher's paranormal investigator series, The Dresden Files (NAL/Roc) and Rachel Caine's new Weather Warden series (NAL/Roc)." One notable difference, he adds, between these newcomers and classic paranormal investigators from earlier works is that the classic characters "didn't have much in the way of supernatural powers themselves. The new breed tend to be witches or possess magic or supernatural powers in their own right."
Berkley editor John Morgan says, "Horror was strong in the '80s and it is coming back. Only now, it is erotic, funny and coming out of the sci-fi genre." It also has a high proportion of vampires. The success of the Anita Blake series, a blend of fantasy, adventure, detective fiction, horror, romance and light erotica, has inspired much of the cross-fertilization. Berkley is now repackaging Hamilton's previous mass market successes, including Circus of the Damned (Apr., hardcover) and Guilty Pleasures (Aug., trade paper). The next Anita Blake novel, Incubus Dreams, will be out in October as a Berkley hardcover.
Another author Morgan cites is Charlaine Harris, whose Dead to the World (Ace hardcover, May) is the fourth in her Southern vampire series—and the first in hardcover. An endorsement from Harris is featured on the cover of Kim Hamilton's Dead Witch Walking, the first in a vampire series coming from HarperTorch in May.
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, regarded as the mother of vampiric historical horror, is the creator of good-guy romantic vamp Count Saint-Germain, who debuted in 1978's Hôtel Transylvania; he'll return in November in the 17th installment, Dark of the Sun (Tor). Meanwhile Warner Books is reissuing Saint-Germain's third adventure, Blood Games, in trade paperback next month. In October, Bantam is republishing George R.R. Martin's vampire-historical Fevre Dream in trade paper format. First published in 1982, the novel was deemed enough of a classic by 2001 to become #13 in the Gollancz (U.K.) Fantasy Masterworks series. Bantam's edition will be the book's first time in print in the U.S. in 15 years.
YA author S.E. Hinton turns to adult fiction with a vampire novel, Hawkes Harbor, coming from Tor in October. Says senior editor Melissa Anne Singer, "A young man accidentally awakens a vampire who, ravished with hunger, attacks and inadvertently turns him into a Renfield-like slave. You'll be convinced at first this is one bad vampire, but he then seeks redemption for himself and a way out of thralldom for his victim."
But not all vampires are nice. In another Tor title, Midnight Mass (Apr.), veteran F. Paul Wilson reworks an earlier novella into a new retro-horror hardcover novel of really nasty, totally unromantic, unamusing vampires.
And still they take wing. Coming in May from Pinnacle are The Blood Hunters, Katherine Ramsland's second book in her series about an "elite cadre of vampires in jeopardy" and James Thompson's Tainted Blood, second in a good vamp vs. bad vamp series. Romantic vampires are the focus of Blood Red Dawn, the seventh book in Karen E. Taylor's Vampire Legacy series, which Pinnacle is reissuing in October. Kensington channels vampires into its African-American imprint, Dafina, with titles such as Brandon Massey's Dark Corner (Jan.).
Following in Anita Blake's footsteps in the vampire huntress subgenre is Damali Richards, star of L.A. Banks's Vampire Huntress Legend series from St. Martin's/Griffin. Minion, which kicked off the series last June, was followed by last month's The Awakening. Another St. Martin's, er, stake in this genre is Sherrilyn Kenyon's Dark-Hunter mass market series, which launched in 2002; coming in April is Kiss of the Night. "Where Sherrilyn is different," notes paperback publisher Matthew Shear, "is that her books not only feature vampires and werewolves but they are very sexy, with a lot of wit and humor." Reviewing her latest, Dance with the Devil, PW said, "Move over, Anne Rice."
Some Like It Hot
Erotic horror, says Tor publicist Nicole Kalian, "is a niche which has become more popular in recent years. Scared Stiff by horror master Ramsey Campbell virtually created this subgenre back in 1987. Tor expanded and re-issued the collection in 2002 in hardcover and last year in trade paper." (Campbell, whom The Oxford Companion to English Literature calls "Britain's most respected living horror writer," is represented in another Tor release, May's Alone with the Horrors, a 30-year retrospective of the author's short fiction.)
Kensington has revived the original "Hot Blood" erotic horror anthologies, first published in 1989. "We knew from our romance line there was a market for erotic horror, so we picked the series up from Pocket," says executive editor John Scognamiglio. "We published a new trade paperback Hot Blood XI: Fatal Attractions edited by Michael Garrett and Jeff Gelb last February; Hot Blood XII will be out in trade paperback in November." Scognamiglio adds that Kensington is also re-issuing several of the original series books.
Small erotica press Circlet is reissuing Nancy Kilpatrick's (writing as Amarantha Knight) The Darker Passions series of seven highly eroticized horror classics.
In the Mainstream
"I've always thought," says bestselling author Peter Straub, "that horror had deep connections to serious literature, and in fact could be serious literature, if treated with sufficient respect. When I started writing, it seemed far more literary than the crime or mystery genre to me and at this point, after all these years, I think the boundaries between good horror writing and literature are so porous as to be non-existent." In the Night Room, Straub's next novel, will be published by Random House in October.
Another noted writer in this field is Tananarive Due, who in a recent review was called "the indisputable heiress to Stephen King's supernatural turf." Last September, Atria published Due's The Good House; a trade paperback edition is due in July from Washington Square Press. Also from Atria is the just-published Bad Men by John Connolly, an Irish author who weaves horror elements into mystery/thrillers, a combination frequently found at mainstream houses. Atria executive editorial director Emily Bestler explains: "John doesn't write horror per se, but he does use the supernatural to super-spooky effect, and Bad Men is the spookiest to date—he's writing about evil men reborn to do more evil."
Groell at Bantam Spectra tells PW, "Although we knew there was a market for horror, we wanted books with that sensibility and without a lot of the blood and gore. I'd read Chris Golden's earlier novel, Strangewood, and felt it was like what we were looking for. I asked Chris to consider us if he ever wrote a similar novel, and The Boys Are Back in Town [Feb.] is the result. The book has that mainstream sensibility except for one factor—and that one factor makes it really creepy."
Mass market publisher Dorchester takes credit for noting the underpublication of horror and doing something about it by restarting their horror line in the late '90s. For the new and improved line, says Leisure editor Don D'Auria, "Our idea was to aim the books at real horror fans, people we knew were out there but who weren't seeing the kind of books they wanted. We wanted to show readers that we thought of the horror titles as real books, written by good authors, not just product thrown out to fill bookstore shelves." By 2000, he adds, Leisure "achieved feature title status at most chains and distributors, something we didn't have in the old days." Now Leisure publishes 24 horror paperbacks a year and last September added a line of non-supernatural thrillers. D'Auria sees Leisure's biggest contribution to dark fiction "is that we made sure that some excellent authors had a chance to reach an audience."
Leisure has drawn on reprints from established authors as well as newer writers with originals. Also featured are British authors from the genre's earlier flowering, such as Graham Masterton and Simon Clark, who in the '90s was widely published in the U.K. but not in the U.S. British newcomer Tim Lebbon has two original novels for Leisure this year, Fears Unnamed (Feb.) and Desolation (Dec.) Among newer American authors Leisure is featuring are James A. Moore (Possessions, June) and Gary Braunbeck (In Silent Graves, Apr.)—both of whom came up through the horror small press.
Leisure has also experimented with a few hardcover titles, which D'Auria says "we've done pretty well with. The first few were testing of the waters, but we've been getting more distribution with each title as people realize we are doing hardcover. We've been particularly pleased with the performance of our last one, To Wake the Dead by Richard Laymon. His next one, The Lake, will be out in September."
Paperback publishers like Kensington followed Leisure's lead with reprints and originals, but mostly with vampire novels, reprints (see above) and genre themes from previously published authors. Tamara Thorne has already produced 10 original scarefests for Kensington/Pinnacle and, according to Scognamiglio, is working on a new novel for 2005. Her Thunder Road, out last July, tackles the "small town battles the forces of evil" theme. Scott Nicholson, one of the few new writers for the imprint, follows two earlier Pinnacle supernatural titles in the last two years with his take on ghosts and hauntings with The Manor (Sept.).
NAL stuck with King-esque novelist Bentley Little even when horror was sparse. Senior editor Dan Slater says Little's "skill at delving into the dark side of human nature is a big reason his increasingly commercial appeal speaks directly to readers of horror who are being underserved out there in the marketplace." NAL/Onyx will publish Little's The Resort in September. NAL/Roc, now merged editorially with Berkley Ace, broke award-winning novelist Caitlin Kiernan out of the small press and comics with Silk (1998) and published her third novel, Low Red Moon, last fall. Roc also publishes newcomer Dale Bailey (The Fallen, 2002; House of Bones, 2003).
Although Pocket offers a number of horrific crime and genre horror mass market titles—the focus seems to be more on gaming (Resident Evil) and titles related to dark films like the upcoming Hellboy, Van Helsing and Constantine. Other movie tie-ins are less closely associated with the films they hope to ride to popularity. Tor's The Journal of Professor Abraham Van Helsing (Apr.) by debut novelist Allen C. Kupfer, purports to be the "reconstruction of the personal journal of the greatest vampire hunter ever"—soon to be portrayed by Hugh Jackman on movie screens everywhere. Also in April, Ace features an "all-new anthology of stories featuring the original vampire hunter," The Many Faces of Van Helsing edited by Jeanne Cavelos.
Horror by any name, of course, can be found in abundance in the fall (think October 31). And this fall's big news is Donald M. Grant/Scribner' publication of the final two installments of Stephen King's mammoth Dark Tower series. Actually the penultimate entry, Song of Susannah, is a summer release; its one-day laydown date is June 8, with a hefty 650,000-copy first printing. The Dark Tower, the seventh and final book, will be released on September 21, King's birthday. This, according to many reports, is the celebrated author's swan song, and one can't help wondering who might inherit King's crown. Although, in the words of Scribner publicity director Patricia Eisemann, "We know this closes the book on Roland the Gunslinger and Stephen's 30-year creation of this epic. But as far as what new door might open, who knows?
