Published by Deadline Press, A Writer’s Tale was an autobiographical volume in which Richard Laymon talked about his experiences writing and publishing within the horror genre.
In Northern Dreamers: Interviews with Famous Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Writers, editor Edo van Belkon interviewed twenty-two fellow Canadian authors, including Nancy Baker, Charles de Lint, Candas Jane Dorsey, Phyllis Gotlieb, Tanya Huff, Nancy Kilpatrick and Robert Charles Wilson.
Reflections on Dracula: Ten Essays by Elizabeth Miller appeared from Transylvania Press, Piercing the Darkness: Undercover with Vampires in America Today was a revealing look at contemporary underground vampire culture by Katherine Rams-land, and The Vampire: A Casebook was an academic study of the legends, edited by Alan Dundes.
From Scarecrow Press, Vampire Readings: An Annotated Bibliography by Patricia Altner covered almost 800 items and was indexed by author and title, while The Vampire Gallery: A Who’s Who of the Undead was a guide to bloodsuckers from the past two centuries by the often unreliable Gordon J. Melton.
St. James Guide to Horror, Ghost, and Gothic Writers edited by David Pringle looked at more than 440 fiction authors, arranged alphabetically with an emphasis on the 20th century. Mike Ashley and Brian Stableford were contributing editors, and there was an introduction by Dennis Etchison.
In Screams of Reason: Mad Science and Modern Culture, David J. Skal explored the concept of the mad scientist in literature and the media, while Marina Warner’s No Go the Bogeyman: Scaring, Lulling and Making Mock was a critical look at figures of terror from fairy tales to horror fiction.
Edited by Clive Bloom, Gothic Horror: A Reader’s Guide from Poe to King and Beyond contained more than thirty excerpts and essays on horror by Poe, Freud, Barker and others, including a chronology of “Significant Horror and Ghost Tales” and a selected bibliography. Susan Jennifer Navarette looked at 19th century literature and society in The Shape of Fear: Horror and the Fin de Siecle Culture of Decadence.
Waterstone’s Guide to Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror turned out to be an idiosyncratic reference work edited by staff members Paul Wake, Steve Andrews and Ariel for the British bookstore chain. Despite such contributors as Stephen Baxter, Ramsey Campbell, John Clute, Neil Gaiman and Anne McCaffrey, and the inclusion of an interview with Michael Marshall Smith, the book contained some curious omissions.
A decade after the original volume appeared, Carroll & Graf reprinted a revised and updated edition of the Bram Stoker Award-winning Horror: 100 Best Books edited by Stephen Jones and Kim Newman.
Part of Visible Ink Press’ seemingly never-ending series of movie reference guides, Videohound’s Horror Show: 999 Hair-Raising, Hellish and Humorous Movies by Mike Mayo included an alphabetical listing of reviews and special “Hound Salutes”. The Sci-Fi Channel Encyclopedia of TV Science Fiction was a guide to various series from the past five decades by Roger Fulton and John Betancourt.
The Avengers: The Making of the Movie by Dave Rogers was certainly more interesting than the film it was promoting, as was The Official Godzilla Compendium: A 40-Year Retrospective by J. D. Lees and Marc Cerasini, which appeared in time to tie-in with the big-budget remake.
“They’re Here. ” Invasion of the Body Snatchers: A Tribute contained essays about the classic 1956 SF movie by Stephen King, Tom Piccirilli and others with an introduction by Dean Koontz. It was edited by the film’s star, Kevin McCarthy, and Ed Gorman.
The Making of The X-Files was an illustrated look at the creation of the feature film by Jody Duncan, while I Want to Believe: The Official Guide to The X-Files was the third in a series of illustrated episode guides by Andy Meisler.
Christopher Golden and Nancy Holder’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Watcher’s Guide, the official companion to the hit show, was a confusingly-designed look at the first two seasons, complete with background information and an exclusive interview with creator Joss Whedon. However, Buffy X-Posed by Ted Edwards was an unauthorised biography of actress Sarah Michelle Gellar that also included an episode guide plus black-and-white-photos.
All I Need to Know About Filmmaking I Learned from The Toxic Avenger by Lloyd Kaufman and James Gunn was the former’s autobiography and charted the history of his Troma distributing company. At the other end of the spectrum, James Whale: A New World of Gods and Monsters by James Curtis was a biography of the famed Hollywood director.
McFarland’s expensive reference works included Of Gods and Monsters: A Critical Guide to Universal Studio’s Science Fiction, Horror and Mystery Films 1929–1939 by John T. Soister, Italian Horror Films of the 1960s: A Critical Catalogue of 62 Chillers, an A-Z guide by Lawrence McCallum, and Tom Weaver’s Science Fiction and Fantasy Film Flashbacks: Conversations with 24 Actors, Writers, Producers and Directors from the Golden Age, which included interviews with John Badham, Edward Dmytryk and Debra Paget.
From the same publisher came John Kenneth Muir’s Wes Craven: The Art of Horror, while Brian J. Robb’s Screams & Nightmares: The Films of Wes Craven appeared from Titan Books.
Batman: Animated by Paul Dini and Chip Kidd was a beautifully produced, full-colour look at the stylised TV cartoon series based on the classic DC Comics character.
Also superbly designed by Chip Kidd, Superman: The Complete History: The Life and Times of the Man of Steel was impeccably researched by Les Daniels.
From Collectors Press, Pulp Culture: The Art of Fiction Magazines was a marvellously illustrated history of pulp magazines edited by the knowledgeable Frank M. Robinson and Lawrence Davidson and featuring full-colour reproductions of more than 400 mint-condition covers. It was also available as a limited edition hardcover.
William Gibson contributed the introduction to The Art of the X-Files edited by Marvin Heiferman and Carole Kismaric. The Haunted Tea Cozy was Edward Gorey’s very strange reworking of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.
Published by Morpheus International, Barlowe’s Inferno contained various personal views of Hell by artist Wayne Barlowe, with an introduction by Tanith Lee, and The Fantastic Art of Beksinski collected the paintings of Polish artist Zdzislaw Beksinski. Also from Morpheus, H. R. Giger’s Retrospective: 1964–1984 was a translation of a 1984 German edition, covering two decades of the artist’s work.
For Underwood Books, Arnie Fenner and Cathy Fenner edited Icon: A Retrospective Collection by the Grand Master of Fantastic Art, the single largest collection of Frank Frazetta’s work ever published. It also included text by Rick Berry, James Bama and William Stout, along with an illustrated biography. Besides the trade edition, it was published in a deluxe slipcased edition of 1,200 copies containing an extra sixteen pages of art, and as a $300 leatherbound traycased edition of 100 copies which included an unpublished Frazetta drawing. Also from Underwood and edited by the Fenners, Spectrum 5: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art included more than 300 pieces of art from over 180 artists, selected by a jury system. The only hardcover edition appeared from the Science Fiction Book Club.