From Paul Miller’s Earthling Publications, American Morons collected seven superior stories (two original) by Glen Hirshberg. There was also a signed edition of 150 copies and a twenty-six-copy traycased lettered edition.
World of Hurt was a 50,000-word short novel about the battle between Good and Evil by Brian Hodge, handsomely presented in hardcover by Earthling with a Foreword by Stephen Jones and an Introduction by Brian Keene. It was available in a 500-copy signed numbered edition.
Set in the Kansas Dust Bowl during the 1930s Depression, a young girl and an escaped convict battled a plague of vampiric creatures in Bloodstained Oz, a short novel by Christopher Golden and James A. Moore. With an Introduction by Ray Garton and illustrations by Glenn Chadbourne, the book was also available in both numbered and lettered editions.
Conrad Williams’ novel The Unblemished was the second book in Earthling’s Halloween series. With an Introduction by Jeff VanderMeer and an Afterword by the author, it was published in 500 numbered and 15 lettered hardcover copies.
Fine Cuts from Peter Crowther’s prolific PS Publishing imprint collected twelve superior reprint stories by Dennis Etchison set in and around Hollywood, along with a new Preface by the author and an Introduction by Peter Atkins.
Fourteen stories (two original) by Steven Utley, along with an Introduction by Howard Waldrop, were collected in Where or When, and Jack Dann provided the Introduction to Past Magic, which contained eleven stories (including an excised chapter from The House of Storms) and a new Preface by Ian R. MacLeod.
Moby Jack and Other Tall Tales collected twenty-one reprint stories spanning all genres by Garry Kilworth, with an Introduction by Robert Holdstock. Impossible Stories assembled five of Yugoslavian writer Zoran Živković’s linked narrative cycles, totalling twenty-nine stories in all. Paul Di Filippo provided the Introduction, and there was an Afterword by Tamar Yellin.
A young woman travelled through a dream landscape in Richard Calder’s novel Babylon, introduced by K. J. Bishop.
Each PS hardcover was published in a 500-copy numbered trade edition signed by the author and a 200-copy slipcased edition signed by all contributors.
With an Introduction by Mark Morris, Mark Samuels’ The Face of Twilight from PS Publishing was a bizarre novella set in London that blurred the living with the dead.
Two individuals apparently shared the same apartment with a highly intelligent parrot in T. M. Wright’s I Am the Bird, introduced by Ramsey Campbell, and David Herter’s novella On the Overgrown Path involved real-life opera composer Leoš Janáček investigating a mysterious murder in an obscure mountain village. John Clute supplied the Introduction.
PS novellas were published in 500 numbered paperback editions signed by the author, and 300 numbered hardcover copies signed by all the contributors.
Produced as a “special publication for PostScripts subscribers”, Christmas Inn by Gene Wolfe was an odd holiday fable about a group of enigmatic strangers that involved seances, ghosts and a mysterious child. A signed hardcover was sent by PS to all hardcover subscribers to its magazine, with an additional 200 copies available for sale.
Fifteen years after the previous volume appeared, Gauntlet Press published Masques V as a handsome signed and numbered hardcover limited to 500 copies. Edited by the late J. N. Williamson with Gary A. Braunbeck, the anthology featured twenty-nine stories (one reprint), along with an Introduction and overly-enthusiastic story notes by Williamson and dust-jacket artwork by Clive Barker. The impressive line-up of contributors included Poppy Z. Brite, Richard Matheson, Ray Russell, Mort Castle, Barry Hoffman, Tom Piccirilli, John Maclay, Thomas F. Monteleone, Richard Christian Matheson, William F. Nolan, Ed Gorman, Ray Bradbury, and both editors. The lettered edition only also featured original drafts of the Bradbury and R. C. Matheson stories while, as a premium for those who ordered the book directly from the publisher, Masques V: Further Stories was an attractive chapbook with cover art by Barker. It contained more new fiction from Braunbeck, Hoffman, Castle and Tim Waggoner, and was limited to just 552 copies.
Bloodlines: Richard Matheson’s Dracula, I Am Legend and Other Vampire Stories was edited by Mark Dawidziak and included appreciations by Ray Bradbury, John Carpenter, Mick Garris, Richard Christian Matheson, Steve Niles, Rockne S. O’Bannon and Frank Spotnitz. It was published in a signed edition of 500 copies.
Also from Gauntlet, Harbingers was the tenth volume in F. Paul Wilson’s “Repairman Jack” series.
The Lost District and Other Stories was a major retrospective collection of twenty-four stories (five original) by Joel Lane, published by Night Shade Books in trade paperback. Dark Mondays contained nine offbeat tales (six original) by Californian writer Kage Baker. It was published in both trade and limited hardcover editions, the latter containing an extra new story.
The Ghost Pirates and Other Revenants of the Sea was the third volume in Night Shade’s “The Collected Stories of William Hope Hodgson”.
A West Virginia town found itself cut off from the rest of the world and invaded by creatures from another dimension in Stephen Mark Rainey’s novel The Nightmare Frontier. It was available for Halloween from Sarob Press in a limited hardcover edition and as a deluxe signed and slipcased edition signed by the author and cover artist Chad Savage.
In Lee Thomas’ novel Damage, something evil emerged into the suburban community of Pierce Valley. It was also published in hardcover by Sarob in a limited edition and a deluxe slipcased edition signed by Thomas and artist Paul Lowe.
Edited by Alison L. R. Davies with a Foreword by Stephen Jones and a frontispiece illustration by Clive Barker, Shrouded in Darkness: Tales of Terror was an anthology produced by Telos Publishing to raise money for DebRA, a British charity working on behalf of people with the genetic skin blistering condition Epidermolysis Bullosa (EB). The attractive trade paperback contained twenty-three stories by Neil Gaiman, Ramsey Campbell, Michael Marshall Smith, Poppy Z. Brite, Christopher Fowler, Tim Lebbon, Charles de Lint, Graham Masterton, Mark Samuels and Peter Crowther, amongst others, along with original tales from Justina Robson, Darren Shan, Paul Finch, James Lovegrove, Dawn Knox, Steve Lockley and Paul Lewis, Debbie Bennett, Simon Clark, publisher David J. Howe, and the editor herself. A signed, limited edition was also announced.
In Dominic McDonagh’s debut novella Pretty Young Things, one of a group of predatory lesbian vampires set out to rescue a former boyfriend from her fellow bloodsuckers. Joseph Nassie’s novella More Than Life Itself was about choice and consequences, as one desperate man was prepared to do anything to save his dying four-year-old daughter.
Also from Telos, A Manhattan Ghost Story was a reprint of T. M. Wright’s superior 1984 supernatural novel.