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Haunted Trucks, Ghostly Theaters, and Creepy Picnics: The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series XII, edited by Karl Edward Wagner

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The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series XII (DAW, November 1984). Cover by Vicente Segrelles The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series XII was the twelfth volume in the DAW Year’s Best Horror series and the fifth edited by the great Karl Edward Wagner (1945–1994). The book was copyrighted and printed in 1984. After nine covers by Michael Whelan, we have a new cover artist, the Spanish artist Vicente Segrelles (1940–). I think this is a frightening cover and less fantastic than…

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Vintage Treasures: Deathweave and Darkloom by Cary Osborne

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Deathweave and Darkloom (Ace Books, 1998 & 1999). Covers by Royo I bought a collection of vintage paperbacks on eBay a while back (I do that a lot), and buried in the mix was one I knew nothing about, a midlist ACE SF adventure titled Deathweave by Cary Osborne. Now, I love midlist paperbacks. They’re basically an undiscovered country. If you’re an entry-level author, the theory is that if you work long enough, like countless writers before you, you’ll eventually build…

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James Nicoll on Five Classic SFF Collections Too Good to Be Forgotten

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A Pride of Monsters (Collier Books, 1973), Eyes of Amber (Signet, 1983) and Neutron Star (Ballantine, 1976). Covers by Richard Jones, Tom Kidd, and Rick Sternbach Over at Tor.com, James Davis Nicoll looks at a fine set of vintage SF collections, including Eyes of Amber and Other Stories by Joan D. Vinge. Vinge began her publishing career with memorable novellas and novelettes. It’s therefore quite frustrating that, to my knowledge, there are only three collections of her work, all out…

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IMHO: A PERSONAL HISTORY OF SWORD & SORCERY AND HEROIC FANTASY

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The Evolving and Cloned Barbarian Conan, King Kull, Cormac, Bran Mak Morn — names that conjure magic, characters often imitated, but never duplicated. These creations of Robert E. Howard (circa 1930) started the Sword and Sorcery boom of the 1960s and early 1970s. Then there are the barbarian warriors inspired by Howard — “Clonans,” as one writer recently referred to these sword-slinging, muscle-bound characters. A fair observation, but in some cases, not so true. I prefer to think of these…

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Vintage Treasures: Heroic Fantasy edited by Gerald W. Page and Hank Reinhardt

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Heroic Fantasy (DAW, 1979). Cover by Jad If you were a sword & sorcery fan in the 70s and 80s, there wasn’t a lot to get excited about. Lin Carter’s Flashing Swords anthologies. Andrew J. Offutt’s Swords Against Darkness, naturally. And the occasional Conan pastiche and Lancer paperback. And there was Gerald W. Page and Hank Reinhardt’s one-shot anthology Heroic Fantasy, which came out of nowhere, never had a sequel, but was packed with terrific original stories by Charles Saunders,…

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Vintage Treasures: Swords Against Darkness edited by Andrew J. Offutt

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Swords Against Darkness (Zebra Books, February 1977). Cover  by Frank Frazetta Sword Against Darkness was a seminal five-volume sword & sorcery anthology series edited by Andrew J. Offutt in the late seventies (1977-79). It published original fantasy by some of the biggest names of the era, including Andre Norton, Tanith Lee, Keith Taylor, Charles de Lint, Charles R. Saunders, Orson Scott Card, Simon R. Green, David C. Smith, Robert E. Vardeman, Darrell Schweitzer, Diana L. Paxson, and many others. The…

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Were-Antelopes, Haunted Cabins, and the Horror of Retail: The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series VII (1979), edited by Gerald W. Page

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The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series VII (DAW, July 1979). Cover by Michael Whelan The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series VII was the seventh volume in DAW’s Year’s Best Horror Stories, published in 1979. This was the fourth and final installment edited by horror author and editor Gerald W. Page (1939–). Given the strength of his anthologies, I doubt that Page was let go; but I don’t know why this was his last. Perhaps he returned to his own writing….

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“Deeply Weird”: Craig L. Gidney on The Darkangel by Meredith Ann Pierce

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The Darkangel and A Gathering of Gargoyles (Tor Books, 1984 and 1985). Covers by Kinuko Y. Craft Facebook is a great place to discover vintage fantasy. I know, right? It’s not just old people and Bob Byrne talking about actors he recognizes. Earlier this month Craig L. Gidney (A Spectral Hue, Skin Deep Magic) caught my attention with this short post. Before there was Twilight, there was The Darkangel by Meredith Ann Pierce, the original teenage vampire romance novel. The…

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Elven Phantoms, Children of the Corn, and Kane: DAW’s The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series VI (1978), Edited by Gerald W. Page

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The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series VI (DAW, 1978). Cover by Michael Whelan The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series VI, published in 1978, was the third volume in the series edited by horror author and editor Gerald W. Page (1939–). Michael Whelan (1950–) appears for the fourth time in a row on the cover, though with a very different style from his previous efforts. Where Whelan’s covers usually have a big surreal background, this one is more muted and draws…

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Witches, Curses, and Wagner’s Kane: DAW’s The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series V (1977), Edited by Gerald W. Page

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The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series V (DAW, 1977). Cover by Michael Whelan The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series V was the fifth volume in DAW’s Year’s Best Horror Stories, copyright and printed in 1977. It was the second edited by Gerald W. Page (1939–), who was also a successful horror author and editor at the time. Michael Whelan (1950–) appears for the third time as the cover artist. Whelan is a classic genre artist and I really liked his…

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