Well, that's enough for the bad news. The good news is that quite a lot of excellent horror fiction manages to get published despite all this. And, if we consider Sturgeon's Law that 90 % of everything makes good organic fertilizer, then it follows that there's hope for the remaining 10 % — and thus if there's twice as much horror fiction as before, then that 10 % is twice as big. Just a matter of sorting through that twice-as-big 90 % to find the good stuff.
There is another positive side to this helter-skelter proliferation. Readers' tastes mature, become sophisticated. Writers grow up. There will be the inevitable attrition: the kid who isn't all that upset when his mom dumps his comics collection after he gets married; the garage-band star who puts up his K-Mart keyboard at a garage sale. Sturgeon said: 90 % ker-flush. The other 10 % is in there for the kill. That's why the horror field is growing stronger and getting better, despite all the crap it takes and the crap it cranks out.
What bothers me more about the horror genre just now is a frenetic trend toward fragmentation. It's almost as if the genre seems poised on the brink of a Beirut-style civil war — tolerate no disbelievers, accept no compromises, take no prisoners. Most obvious has been the sniping over the past decade between advocates of "quiet horror" and of (presumably) "loud horror." To an extent this is all merely a continuation of the earlier quarrel between fans of traditional horror and those of contemporary horror. It's all getting to be a bit strident, and the pursuit of excellence is too often abandoned in favor of pointless extremism. Because a story is dead boring dull, it is not necessarily literary horror. Writing about a Roto-Rooter rapist does not necessarily push back the frontiers of horror's future.
Well, each to his own tastes, and I have no problem with magazines and anthologies that are restricted to one given approach to what is actually a highly diversified genre. These basically are further examples of the theme anthologies so popular today: collections devoted to haunted houses, dead rock stars, holiday seasons, zombies, or — if you will — dark fantasy or splatter punk.
I do, however, have misgivings concerning a present trend to limit anthologies to special groups of writers. Recently we have seen a good number of by-invitation-only anthologies as well as collections restricted to women writers only or to British writers only. Something doesn't feel right here.
Granted that there is always incentive for an editor to include as many Big Name authors as possible; granted that no one enjoys reading through the slush pile; granted that editors do tend to keep their friends in mind — but what about the No Name authors who are trying to be heard? If the "Members Only" attitude rankles, then I find those anthologies, which arbitrarily exclude entire groups of writers far more invidious. While this may be considered an approach toward thematic unity, I can imagine the outcry if an editor announced an anthology restricted to male authors only. After that, perhaps, WASP writers only?
As a writer, I like to believe that my stories can stand on his or her own against the competition and be judged by their merit. If an editor bounces a story because it isn't good enough or it isn't right for the anthology, that's fair enough. Every writer deserves a fair chance. As an editor, I've always tried to maintain the same open policy that I'd expect if I were submitting a story to The Year's Best Horror Stories. After all, I used to submit stories to The Year's Best Horror Stories back when Gerald W. Page was editor — and Jerry bounced as many as he bought.
And now we come to The Year's Best Horror Stories: XVIII.
Once again, you'll find a few big name writers, quite a few who may well become the big name writers of this decade, and quite a few who probably won't. About a third of these writers are making their first appearance in The Year's Best Horror Stories, proof that new blood is flowing freely.
And this time you have an alphabet of horror — twenty-six stories and poems ranging from angst to zombies. Regardless of your favorite tastes in horrors, you're going to find plenty to feast on here — from gothic to gore, from science fiction to surreal, from traditional to experimental, from frisson to fried brains.
Twenty-six. Count 'em. Angst to zombies. In all its many shapes and shades, this is state-of-the-art horror as we closed out the 1980s.
Stay tuned to this channel, and I'll be back to take you on a tour through the 1990s.
— Karl Edward Wagner Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Kaddish
by JACK DANN
Born in Johnson City, New York on February 15, 1945, Jack Dann and his wife, Jeanne Van Buren Dann, now live in Binghamton, New York in a large old house with plenty of room for books. Good job that, as Dann has written or edited well over twenty books. Recent books include his mainstream novel, Counting Coup, and an anthology of stories concerned with the Vietnam War, In the Fields of Fire, edited in collaboration with his wife. Dann's latest major project is a novel about Leonardo da Vinci, which, at the start of this decade, was at 400 pages and going strong. Dann's short fiction approaches horror in a quiet, moving style that creates powerful and disturbingly reflective moods. Very often he makes use of Jewish themes and history, as is the case with "Kaddish." Regarding this story, Dann argues: "It's got to be the only story written this year about Jewish horror! (We should all live and be well!)" Don't know about that, Jack, but it's clear that horror isn't bound by religion or creed — this story will give everyone a chill.
What ails you, O sea, that you flee?
Nathan sat with the other men in the small prayer-room of the synagogue. It was 6:40 in the morning. "One of the three professors who taught Hebrew Studies at the university was at the bema, the altar, leading the prayers. His voice intoned the Hebrew and Aramaic words; it was like a cold stream running and splashing over ice. Nathan didn't understand Hebrew, although he could read a little, enough to say the Kaddish, the prayer for the dead, in a halting fashion.
But everything was rushed here in this place of prayer, everyone rocking back and forth and flipping quickly through the well-thumbed pages in the black siddur prayer books. Nathan couldn't keep up with the other men, even when he read and scanned the prayers in English. Young boys in jeans and designer T-shirts prayed ferociously beside their middle-aged fathers, as if trying to outdo them, although it was the old men who always finished first and had time to talk football while the others caught up. Only the rabbi with his well-kept beard and embroidered yarmulke sat motionless before the congregation, Ms white linen prayer shawl wrapped threateningly around him like a shroud, as if to emphasize that he held the secret knowledge and faith that Nathan could not find.
Nathan stared into his siddur and prayed with the others.
He was the Saracen in the temple, an infidel wearing prayer shawl and phylacteries.
A shoe-polish black leather frontlet containing a tiny inscribed parchment pressed against Nathan's forehead, another was held tight to his biceps by a long strap that wound like a snake around his left arm to circle his middle finger three times. But the flaming words of God contained in the phylacteries did not seem to make the synaptic connection into his blood and brain and sinew. Nevertheless, he intoned the words of the prayers, stood up, bowed, said the kad-dish, and then another kaddish, and he remembered all the things he should have said to his wife and son before they died. He remembered his omissions and commissions, which could not be undone. It was too late even for tears, for he was as hollow as a winter gourd.