Tim Waggoner’s Deep Like the River was an atmospheric novella about a creepy canoe trip, nicely packaged by Dark Regions Press.
The Night Just Got Darker was a psychological horror story about a writer cursed to hold back the darkness by Gary McMahon. It was available in chapbook form from the UK’s KnightWatch Press in an edition of 100 signed copies.
From Rainfall Books, Gunthar: The Purple Priestess of Asshtar by Steve Dilks and Glen Usher and Gunthar and the Jaguar Queen by Dilks alone offered sword & sorcery fiction in the tradition on Conan, with artwork by Steve Lines.
The previously unpublished fantasy story The Horse of Another Color by artist and author Hannes Bok (1914-64) was issued by the Sidecar Preservation Society as an attractive booklet limited to 170 copies with a cover illustration by Tim Kirk.
Entering its 66th year of publication, Gordon Van Gelder’s The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction produced its usual six bumper bi-monthly issues with fiction by Dale Bailey, Scott Baker, Albert E. Cowdrey, Gordon Eklund, Paul Di Filippo, Phyllis Eisenstein, C.C. Finlay, Ron Goulart, Alex Irvine, Marc Laidlaw, Tim Sullivan, Ian Tregilli, Ray Vukcevich and Ted White, amongst others.
There were the usual book and film review columns by Charles De Lint, Elizabeth Hand, Michelle West, James Sallis, Chris Moriarty, David J. Skal, Alan Dean Foster, Kathi Maio and others, and Lawrence Forbes, David Langford, Bud Webster, Paul Di Filippo and Graham Andrews contributed to the always fascinating ‘Curiosities’ column. The July/August issue of F&SF was guest-edited by C.C. Finlay.
The non-fiction in Andy Cox’s Black Static has always had the edge over the stories, and that was certainly true for the six stylish issues published in 2014, with insightful commentary on the genre in each issue by Stephen Volk and Lynda E. Rucker; interviews with A.K. Benedict, Ramsey Campbell, Gary Fry, Carole Johnstone and James Cooper; book reviews by Peter Tennant, and DVD reviews by Tony Lee. Nicholas Royle contributed a touching personal tribute to author Joel Lane in the January/February edition, and there was also fiction from the likes of Ray Cluley, John Grant, Andrew Hook, Maura McHugh, Paul Meloy, Steve Rasnic Tem, Tim Waggoner, Simon Bestwick and others.
Cox’s companion SF and fantasy magazine Interzone boasted full colour throughout and featured book reviews by diverse hands and film reviews by the dependable Tony Lee and Nick Lowe.
Edited by Richard T. Chizmar, Cemetery Dance produced an “All Fiction Special Issue” that featured stories by Bentley Little, Simon Clark, Darrell Schweitzer, Jack Ketchum, Joel Lane and others.
Canada’s glossy Rondo Award-winning Rue Morgue magazine included interviews with writers Mike Mignola, Nancy Baker, Simon Strantzas, Aaron Sterns, Gregory Lamberson, Josh Malerman, Lauren Beukes, Anne Rice, Kim Newman and Joe R. Lansdale, and film-makers David Cronenberg, Gareth Edwards, Ty West, Robert Rodriguez, Kevin Connor, Eli Roth, Chuck Russell, Eduardo Sánchez, Jennifer Kent, Jen and Sylvia Soska, Ivan Reitman, Lloyd Kaufman and Douglas Cheek. The 17th Anniversary Halloween issue was a special tribute to artist H.R. Giger.
The seventh issue of the British Illustrators magazine featured an extensive spread on the work of Alan Lee, illustrated with many original paintings and book covers.
In April, The New Yorker presented a previously unpublished story by the late Shirley Jackson. ‘The Man in the Woods’ was an atmospheric weird tale about a man who came upon a lonely house, occupied by three strange inhabitants.
Locus included interviews with Stephen Baxter, Sir Terry Pratchett, K.W. Jeter and Michael Moorcock. To celebrate the centenary of the birth of R.A. Lafferty (1914-2002), the November issue included a short story reprint by the author, while the following month’s edition celebrated Moorcock’s 75th birthday.
The two issues of Hildy Silverman’s small press magazine Space and Time: The Magazine of Fantasy, Horror, and Science Fiction featured the usual mix of fiction and poetry, along with interviews with Catherine Asaro and Jody Lynn Nye.
David Longhorn’s Supernatural Tales managed three solid issues in 2014, with contributions from David Buchan, Michael Chislett, Tim Foley, Sean Logan, William I.I. Read and David Surface, amongst others, while Sam Dawson supplied the artwork for each edition.
With issue #27, Aaron J. French took over as editor-in-chief of Dark Discoveries (which was also available in a limited hardbound edition). With issues devoted to “Dark Mystery” and “Zombie Creature Feature”, the full-colour magazine included fiction by Douglas Clegg, Bentley Little, John R. Little, Kevin J. Anderson, Gene O’Neill and Tim Waggoner, interviews with Brian Evenson, Tom Piccirilli, Graham Masterton and Doug Bradley, and short features by Michael R. Collings, Yvonne Navarro, Frank R. Robinson, James R. Beach and Robert Morrish, amongst others.
Rosemary Pardoe’s usual two issues of her always fascinating The Ghosts & Scholars M.R. James Newsletter featured Jamesian-inspired fiction by Mark Nicholls, Derek John, D.P. Watt, Jacqueline Simpson and Peter Bell, along with articles and news. Issue #25 came with a hefty Reviews Supplement.
Tim Paxton (with help from co-editor Steve Fenton) revived his movie magazine Monster! as a monthly PoD paperback. Featuring numerous exuberant reviews and interesting articles crammed in amongst the cluttered layouts, issues also featured interviews with Joe Dante and Roger Corman, along with a Godzilla portfolio by Stephen R. Bissette.
During a turbulent year that saw the resignation of two of its quartet of editors, the four paperback issues of the British Fantasy Society’s BFS Journal contained the usual news and events, along with interviews with Mark Hodder, Richard Wright, William Meikle, Freda Warrington, Tim Powers, Helen Marshall, Lavie Tidhar, Rosie Garland, and artists Howard Hardiman, Pye Parr and Jennie Gyllblad.
There were articles about sexism in the genre, writing a television guide, Jonathan Carroll’s The Land of Laughs, John Jakes’ “Brak the Barbarian” series, Geoff Ryman’s The Child Garden, John Mansfield’s The Box of Delights, Roger Zelazny’s The Chronicles of Amber, and a delayed celebration of Peter Cushing’s centenary, along with fiction and poetry from, amongst others, Mike Chinn, Allen Ashley, Gary Couzens, Jonathan Oliver, James Dorr, Marion Pitman and Tina Rath.
It is perhaps debatable whether the world really needed yet another biography of the Gentleman from Providence, but Paul Roland’s The Curious Case of H.P. Lovecraft from British publisher Plexus did a decent enough job of summing up the influential pulp author’s life and career, with the welcome addition of two sections of photographs and various Appendices.
Boasting a delightfully perverse cover by Gahan Wilson, Bobby Derie explored the aberrant sex found in the work of Lovecraft and others in Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos from PoD imprint Hippocampus Press, who also published S.T. Joshi’s substantial volume Lovecraft and a World in Transition: Collected Essays on H.P. Lovecraft.
Edited by the busy Joshi for PS Publishing, Letters to Arkham: The Letters of Ramsey Campbell and August Derleth, 1961-1971 was exactly what the title said, with an Afterword by Campbell. Also from PS, Peter Berresford Ellis’ The Shadow of Mr. Vivian: The Life of E. Charles Vivian (1882-1947) was a terrifically entertaining biography of the prolific British novelist and pulp author whose real name was Charles Henry Cannell, but who also wrote as “Jack Mann” and “Barry Lynd”. The hardcover also included a useful Bibliography of the author’s work.