The Mammoth Book of New Terror

by Stephen Jones (Editor), Brian Lumley (Contributor), Graham Masterton (Contributor)

The Mammoth Book of New Terror is a revised and expanded new edition of the touchstone collection of modern horror fiction, selected by the acknowledged master of the genre—the award-winning godfather of grisly literature, Stephen Jones. Here are over 20 stories and short novels by the masters of gore, including Ramsey Campbell, Dennis Etchison, F. Paul Wilson, Brian Lumley, Tanith Lee and John Kaine. This classic Mammoth title features new and previously uncollected stories from some of the biggest and brightest names on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as classics from acknowledged masters.

The contents include:

Fruiting Bodies by Brian Lumley
Needle Song by Charles L. Grant
Turbo-Satan by Christopher Fowler
Talking In The Dark by Dennis Etchison
The Circus by Sydney J. Bounds
Foet by F. Paul Wilson
The Candle In The Skull by Basil Copper
The Chimney by Ramsey Campbell
Dark Wings by Phyllis Eisenstein
Reflection Of Evil by Graham Masterton
Mirror Of The Night by E.C. Tubb
Maypole by Brian Mooney
Under The Crust by Terry Lamsley
Tir Nan Og by Lisa Tuttle
A Living Legend by R. Chetwynd-Hayes
Wake-Up Call by David J. Schow
The Fourth Seal by Karl Edward Wagner
Unlocked by Tanith Lee & John Kaiine
Closing Time by Neil Gaiman
It Was The Heat by Pat Cadigan
Fodder by Tim Lebbon & Brian Keene
Open Doors by Michael Marshall Smith
Andromeda Among The Stones by Caitlín R. Kiernan
Flowers On Their Bridles, Hooves In The Air by Glen Hirshberg
Amerikanski Dead At The Moscow Morgue Or: Children Of Marx And Coca–Cola by Kim Newman
Among The Wolves by David Case

Genres: Horror, Anthologies, Fiction, Short Stories

496 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Stephen Jones is an eighteen-time winner of the British Fantasy Award.

Reviews

[Shawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

FIRST TIER: A solid anthology in which Jones' attempts to set-up up a non-Year's best series with stories he either liked from recent years (but perhaps didn't make the cut into the BEST NEW HORROR, or stories he feels are unjustly out of print. With such a variety, it is sure to offer something to please and frustrate all readers, and by my estimation came out as a solid, middle of the line collection.

SECOND TIER: In the Introduction, Jones explains that this is something of a notable landmark for him, as THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF TERROR was the first in the MAMMOTH series he edited years ago. So, he saw this as an opportunity to revisit the title while freeing himself from the constraints of the BEST NEW HORROR series. With that in mind, the book is intended to contain a small sampling of recent reprints, a few new pieces, and notable older work that is no longer easily available to the public. Which is a laudable goal. I myself had only previously read about 1/5 of what's on offer here, with a smaller selection waiting on my "should read" list, so it served as a nice collection - as usual, a grab bag of styles, not all to my taste, but there are some solid choices here.

THIRD TIER: As usual, a lot of reviews to record. As usual, weakest to strongest - for the just Okay stories, we have: In "Turbo-Satan" by Christopher Fowler, a college art student discovers a code from his mobile phone that seemingly grants him wishes, but his inability to be satisfied results in him making a disastrous, open-ended request. Eh, this didn't work for me, which is a shame because the setting (Tower Block living) and character work (the callow art student and his more street-level friend) were appreciated. I just felt like the ending was muddled and unclear. A woman, extremely concerned with her social and financial status, finds that there is a new, controversial and morally repugnant fad sweeping through the fashionista elite in "Foet" by F. Paul Wilson. Well...Wilson re-purposes his own moral crusade over changing times and perceptions of personal freedom (see his previous "Buckets") into something a little less black and white, and a little more "on the money." For an extremely short piece, it's still a little longer than it needs to be. Not bad, and one can't help to wonder what Wilson's politics might be like in our current (2020) situation. In E.C. Tubb's "Mirror of the Night" a couple stuck on Appalachian back roads take shelter in a ruined mansion during a thunderstorm, but something is awakened by their presence. Eh, this was all very "old school," but not in a particularly good way, just routine horror pulp. "Tir Nan Og" by Lisa Tuttle has an aging women (in a slowly collapsing relationship with a married man) wonder why her female friends of similar age seem to be satisfied with no men in their life. Their confession leads her to a special fountain in upstate New York. Eh, a bit of fantasy (not even really "dark" fantasy), all right for what it is, but it goes on a bit longer than it needs to (and really shouldn't be in this book). A businesswoman at a conference in New Orleans slowly falls under the sway of insistent heat, erotic tension and the ephemeral being which embodies them both in Pat Cadigan's "It Was The Heat". Again, this is dark fantasy and not horror, not bad (I adjusted it slightly up in my rating on the re-read) but also the kind of genre mislabeling that, I think, tends to burn out casual readers who may finish this and think "not really scary" - when it's really just trying (and succeeding) at being evocative. Oddly, the end resonates (accidentally, one presumes) with an aspect of Lovecraft's "Cool Air." "Fodder" by Tim Lebbon & Brian Keene is set in the trenches of WWI, where a British unit has to deal with something far worse than the wholesale, mechanized slaughter of "The War That Presaged All Wars". Technically, I should have liked this more than I did (I find WWI related fiction very interesting), but I found myself reading it in pieces and it felt very scattered, (perhaps hewing to the POV of a traumatized WWI soldier a bit too closely, in that). Seeing as it originated in an Arthur Machen tribute anthology, I expected something like a prequel to "The Terror" - which it both is and isn't (philosophically, but not actually). Maybe I'll find it stronger on a reread - a decade or so from now... Finally, Glen Hirshberg's "Flowers On Their Bridles, Hooves In The Air" is about a husband and wife and their lifelong, drifting friend, who head out to a now derelict Long Beach pier where the wife used to be taken to the merry-go-round by her deadbeat when she was a girl. Now overrun with the homeless and other undesirables, the pier also contains a strange type of pinball parlor/betting casino which entrances some of them... perhaps too much. This was an odd story for me - in many ways it was an exemplar of my problems with a lot of modern "weird fiction" - striking setting, some deep (perhaps too) character psychology and dynamics, a creepy moment or two, but no real attempt to "scare" (technically, I'd call this "dark fantasy") and lacking any "punch." Such things, generally, I find unsatisfying for their length and the vagueness of their central conceit. This was engaging "in the moment," in the sense that it never felt like a slog (the characters are exceedingly well-drawn), but I also felt that the wrap-up, in which the author baldly states the story's vague "point," was clunky and inelegant. Not bad at all, but not as good as it could be, I felt.

Next we have the Good but slightly flawed stories: In Charles Grant's "Needle Song," two adolescents in a traditional small town have tied the neighborhood's subsequent decline (following a burst of good luck) to the arrival and installation of an uncommunicative old blind women into the creepy house across the street, where she sits and plays piano. So they've devised a way of defeating her dark magic, but it seems to turn out only partially successful. I run hot & cold on Grant's "quiet horror" offerings - the story here is presented in what I would call a Ray Bradbury dark fantasy mode than anything else. It's not bad, but a little confusingly told, and I dropped it a grade on the reread. In "The Circus" by Sydney J. Bounds, a British reporter, waiting in a small, rural town for his car to be fixed, stumbles across a little circus claiming to display real vampires, werewolves and other monstrosities. So he attends with the intent of debunking it... Not bad - a little on the nose, but a nice, truncated, slightly more sinister and less philosophical version of The Circus of Dr. Lao. On Halloween, a chemist plans the perfect murder of his wife, while his strangely intense and fae-like daughter enthuses about the holiday in Basil Copper's "The Candle In The Skull." Eh, not bad but kind of perfunctory - hard to beat Bradbury's "October Game" for a "murder at Halloween" story, honestly. In Phyllis Eisenstein's "Dark Wings," a female artist finds herself becoming obsessed with a brief & singular seashore encounter with a large bird in the dead of night. She works hard at trying to capture the feel and sense of the event, finally producing an enormous canvas. But this seem only to serve as an evocation... I bumped this up a bit on the reread, as on the one hand it's essentially dark fantasy (which I only like in small doses) BUT it's also well-done - succinct and pointed (a symbolic reading is not unjustified), with a nasty final line. A University professor who teaches folklore finds herself waylaid and in need of car repairs in an isolated British hamlet where, of course, they still practice "the old ways" for their upcoming May Day celebration in "Maypole" by Brian Mooney. This was fine, nothing surprising and takes a while (lots of build-up of suspense) to get to the expected payoff, but not terrible. "A Living Legend" by R. Chetwynd-Hayes, set in the 1970s, has a journalist discover that a 19th Century author of some repute (whose identity was always a mystery) is still alive, making her somewhere around 117 years old! Tracking her down to her decaying manor home, he strikes a deal with her manservant for an interview.... This is an odd thing - I've mentioned before that Hayes strikes me as a British Robert Bloch, turning out reams of serviceable (if slightly bland) horror fiction, but occasionally hitting some stronger, solid notes. Here, the Gothic set-up just breezes us right into the scenario, and it is an enjoyable read, even if the pay-off (when it finally comes) is rather hamfistedly brought across. Promising start, though.

Continuing in the Good-Okay rating: A man commits suicide and then discovers that this is merely the beginning of a deliberate, corporately-managed slave existence in David J. Schow'a "Wake-Up Call." Not bad, if a tad obvious. "Unlocked," by Tanith Lee & John Kaiine, has an old diary reveal a centuries old illicit affair between two women, and its awful outcome. I was worried this was going to turn out to be a "dark fantasy masquerading as horror" story, but the tragic end of the romance plays out in truly terribly, (if historically realistic) conté cruel fashion. A bitter and truthful story, that perhaps spends a bit too much time on the romance. Finally, "Amerkanski Dead At The Moscow Morgue or: Children Of Marx & Coca-Cola" by Kim Newman is set in Russia during the zombie apocalypse, where soldiers fight hordes of walking dead Americans (wearing or carrying their symbols of Capitalist decadence) and we are made privy to the goings on in the old Moscow Spa, now transformed into a research facility. But as the zombies start to show new, strange behavior, it's just possible that one of the researcher's projects in the basement (involving a notorious figure from Russian history) may actually be more of a danger... Originally written for the aborted third volume of Skipp & Spector's Book of the Dead (an anthology series that presaged the surge in zombie fiction by a few decades), this starts as a look at what Mother Russia is undergoing as the zombie plague spreads, setting up a scenario eerily reminiscent of Romero's film DAY OF THE DEAD (Government scientists and soldiers in a "secure" area cracking under the pressure as they try to find an answer), but then veers into a strange, if enjoyably weird direction. The detail of the American dead "queuing" like tourists was a good one...

As I had said, there were a number of solidly Good stories here as well: In "Fruiting Bodies" by Brian Lumley, a man visits an abandoned seashore town that is literally falling into the sea, as the tides (over the years) have eaten away the coast and by now have taken away quite a bit of property. There, he meets a retired old man who lives cheaply in a small bungalow, selling off lumber and metal from the town for scrap. But the old man shows him that the area is also plagued with a mysteriously aggressive and invasive fungus that reduces much of the timber, and even the stone, to an unusable state. About a year later, our main character returns to the lonely spot, only to find that the dry rot has advanced considerably. I'm not Lumley's biggest fan but this is a solid creepfest, with Jamesian touches of antiquity (an old church and graveyard), Campbellian touches of modernity (the psychologies of our two characters, one fearing his parents' aging, the other still traumatized by the death of his beloved wife) and the wonderfully evocative setting. It's a little wordy, and slow (given the pay-off) but a solid tale and well done. Dennis Etchison gives us "Talking In The Dark" featuring a troubled, alienated, young man, living in a small town, who wants to be a writer and sends obsessive fan letters to a "Stephen King"-like author he admires and projects on. But what happens when his idol actually visits him and proves to be more (and less) than he imagined? A very strange and, ultimately, intense story - Etchison remains as inscrutable as ever, but I liked it. Graham Masterson's "Reflection Of Evil" has a team hired to "clear" an excavation site's archeological significance, stumble across evidence that it may be the actual location of the mythical home of the "Lady Of Shallot" (who was imprisoned in a tower and could only look upon fair Camelot). Unwilling to endanger their job, they haul a relic - a huge mirror of polished metal marked with the word "Lamia" - out of the ground and bring it home, only to find it conceals something in its depths. Not bad, very old school, but solid for all that. In "Under The Crust" by Terry Lamsley, an increasingly stressed-out man, facing financial ruin, accidentally runs across strange doings at a local quarry that now serves as a rubbish tip. He finds himself haunted by thin, long armed figures as he investigates the strange bones found in the ground, rumors of a massacred local village, and underground burrows. This has a nicely delirious feel, as events start badly and spiral out of control from there - climaxing in an oddly surreal setting. It would make a good short film.

Continuing the Good stories: In Karl Edward Wagner's "The Fourth Seal," an up and coming doctor involved in medical research begins to find that his breakthroughs in cancer treatments have attracted the wrong kind of attention. Not a bad little conspiracy story, well-handled. "Closing Time" by Neil Gaiman has a man relate a story from his youth in which he and a couple of older boys sneaked onto a seemingly abandoned estate's grounds and stumbled across a strange play-house. Not bad - Gaiman has a breezy, ingratiatingly light style. and a deft hand at capturing the adventures and mindset of young boys. The "weird" element itself is ambiguous and effective, if relatively minor. An average man, left at loose ends with nothing to occupy himself, decides to indulge himself in a bit of a wander through suburbia (in "Open Doors" by Michael Marshall Smith) but his desire to pursue his every random impulse gets the better of him...or does it? I enjoyed this, a nice little psychological conté cruel, with an engaging voice.

REVIEW FINISHED IN THE FIRST COMMENT

[Donald · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a big fan of Stephen Jones. I feel he's one of the few editors left that still understands the horror genre; each year I eagerly await his year's best collection (the award-winning Mammoth Book of Best New Horror). When I purchased his follow-up to 1991's Mammoth Book of Terror (which I unfortunately do not own (yet)), I had high expectations - horror stories rarely scare me anymore, but a book full of tales of terror? I'll get my nightlight ready!

Well, that wasn't exactly the case here. Jones' goal was not to collect together stories that were more frightening than what you'd find in his or any other year's best anthology. Instead, his goal was to collect stories that, in his words, "...for one reason or another are not currently in print, or have never been previously published on one side of the Atlantic or the other." That said, this is still a solid collection of short stories. However, while there are several stellar stories, there are a few duds as well.

Among the stellar entries are Karl Edward Wagner's "The Fourth Seal". I'm a huge supporter of including Wagner's work in any sort of anthology where it's appropriate; mostly because he is one of the giants of horror and dark fantasy, but also because collections of his short fiction are prohibitively expensive so it's nice to just get to read something of his every now and then. "The Fourth Seal" concerns a brilliant young doctor on the brink of a miraculous breakthrough in his research. However, he quickly learns that not every doctor is truly dedicated to the greater good and, perhaps, the very profession isn't all that it seems.

Another strong entry in this anthology is David Case's "Among the Wolves," a story that has been out of print for 30 years. It's the story of a young researcher on the periphery of an investigation of a string of local murders, believed to be the work of a maniac, and his discussion with an elderly ecologist who attempts to argue the actions of the killer from a natural perspective (rather than a anthropocentric one). He argues that the killer is only targeting the weak and the infirm, groups that, in nature, are often sacrificed to predators for the benefit of the species and that the human practice of taking care of the weak and infirm is, in fact, unnatural. The ending for the story was somewhat predictable, but I'm not certain if that was intentional, as it never seemed like Case took any particular precautions to mislead the reader, or if it's due to the age of the story (though I feel the former is closer to the truth).

Perhaps the weakest story in the book was Lisa Tuttle's "Tir Nan Og". Perhaps the biggest barrier keeping me from enjoying the story is that it's hard for me to relate to the protagonist, "a woman of a certain age" (in her 50s), unmarried and romantically involved with a married man. It also seemed there was nothing really horrific in this story; depressing, yes, perhaps even weird, but not horrific. It centers on this "woman of a certain age" coming to grips with the fact that the man she's involved with is quickly losing interest while she has discovered that her feelings for him are deeper than she suspected. Knowing what's coming, she turns to her circle of friends to ask how they coped with similar situations in their lives, and received some odd advice.

The Mammoth Book of New Terror is a good general introduction to contemporary horror. It covers all the basics, from stories about monsters to purely psychological terror to tales that mix sex and horror. Despite a few hiccups, the overall quality of the stories is good, and it's always nice to see a modern anthology that includes stories that have been out of print for years or even decades.

[Gary · Rating 2 out of 5]

Many years ago, I read a short horror story titled "The Braille Encyclopedia" by Graham Masterton. That story has been the standard by which I evaluate horror stories/novels that I have subsequently read.
Using Masterton's story a my benchmark, I am sorry to report that this collection falls way short. Out of the 26 stories collected here, I only liked ten. Of course the argument can be made that there is a difference between the definitions of "horror" and "terror"-fine. I still didn't find more than half the stories in this anthology very interesting-I guess my expectations were just too high.

[Blogul · Rating 4 out of 5]

except a few (about 4-5 from 26) that did not match my taste (but were not bad), the rest ranged from good to very, very good and also very much diverse in the types of terrors described. They are also all written my kind of style, realistic and straight to the point, without the artsy-pantsy ”not
really going anywhere worth the wait” I hate in Datlow anthologies, for example.
The word that summarizes this book is solid work, and it is a good collection to read thoroughly (but keep in mind it is a very big one, 26 stories, as I said).
4.5/5 for me - I will look for more Stephen Jones anthologies.

[Wren · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review to come

[Anatha · Rating 3 out of 5]

In accordance with my usual reviews of short story anthologies featuring multiple authors, I'll rate each one on a scale from 1 to 5 stars as I go, with 5 being fabulous and worth beseeching others to read, and 1 being painfully lame and unfair for others to suffer.

To be fair, I am not familiar with the bulk of these authors, with the exception of the genre-giants such as Neil Gaiman, Kim Newman, Dennis Etchinson, Tanith Lee, and Ramsey Campbell. With that being said, should I encounter a story that I dislike, I'll do my best to not judge the author harshly. I don't think a dud guarantees that its author is, too, a dud. I feel more comfortable with his or her oeuvre speaking for itself in time as I round myself out more as a reader.

And so, with all that nonsense said:

1. "Fruiting Bodies" by Brian Lumley - ★★★★☆
2. "Needle Song" by Charles L. Grant - ★★☆☆☆
3. "Turbo-Satan" by Christopher Fowler - ★★★☆☆
4. "Talking in the Dark" by Dennis Etchinson - ★★★☆☆
5. "The Circus" by Sydney J. Bounds - ★★☆☆☆
6. "Foet" by F. Paul Wilson - ★★★★☆
7. "The Candle in the Skull" by Basil Copper - ★★☆☆☆
8. "The Chimney" by Ramsey Campbell ★★★★☆
9. "Dark Wings" by Phyllis Eisenstein ★★★★☆
10. "Reflection of Evil" by Graham Masterton ★★★★☆
11. "Mirror of the Night" by E.C. Tubb ★★★★☆
12. "Maypole" by Brian Mooney ★★★★★
13. "Under the Crust" by Terry Lamsley ★★☆☆☆
14. "Tir Nan Og" by Lisa Tuttle ★★★☆☆
15. "A Living Legend" by R. Chetwynd-Hayes ★★★☆☆
16. "Wake-Up Call" by David J. Schow ★★★★☆
17. "The Fourth Seal" by Karl Edward Wagner ★★★★☆
18. "Unlocked" by Tanith Lee & John Kaiine ★★★★★
19. "Closing Time" by Neil Gaiman ★★★★☆
20. "It Was the Heat" by Pat Cadigan ★★★☆☆
21. "Fodder" by Tim Lebbon & Brian Keene ★★★★☆
22. "Open Doors" by Michael Marshall Smith ★★★☆☆
23. "Andromeda Among the Stones" by Caitlin R. Kiernan ★★★☆☆
24. "Flowers on Their Bridles, Hooves in the Air" by Glen Hirshberg [-]
25. "Amerikanski Dead at the Moscow Morgue or: Children of Marx and Coca-Cola" by Kim Newman [-]
26. "Among the Wolves" by David Case [-]

EDIT (4/28/13): I told myself once that I wouldn't be that person that didn't bother finishing a book or a collection of short stories, and I am confessing now, at last, that I didn't officially finish this. I know, I'm not pleased, either. It's just... I don't know. I got tired of it, I think, and not of the content in and of itself. Just. Balls. I loved where (25) was going, but that je ne sais quoi. I can't even. I'll get my act together and finish it one day, I suppose. Don't eat me!

[Riju Ganguly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amidst all the rubbish which were being heaped upon us by the so-called great editors in the genres that we love (Stephen Jones had decided to go for mindless gore, while the great Gardner Dozois had decided to put us to sleep with some of the most tedious & boring stories that have ever tainted the arena of science-fiction [Alas, how I was reminded by one of the all-time greatest stories by that single word: Arena!]), this collection had indeed acted as a welcome change, harking back to those days when horror meant scaring the readers, not titillating them to some of their own fantasies. This book had contributions from some of the old masters (Ramsey Campbell, Basil Copper, Graham Masterton, Christopher Fowler, Dennis Etchison, E.C. Tubb, Lisa Tuttle), some of the contemporary favourites (Brian Lumley, Brian Mooney, F. Paul Wilson, Terry Lamsley) and some of the brightest stars of the present (Caitlin R. Kiernan, and Kim Newman), apart from stellar efforts from others. Overall, this collection has remained a fan-favourite, and deserves to stay so.

[Ann Stoudt]

Over 20 terrifying stories and short novels by the masters of gore, including Graham Masterton, Ramsay Campbell, R. Chetwyn-Hayes and Neil Gaiman. This sequel to the classic Mammoth horror anthology features five new and unpublished stories from some of the biggest and brightest names on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as gems from acknowledged masters.
All veins of the genre are represented including suspense, visceral horror and sheer razor-slashing terror.

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second book I wanted to give four and a half stars. Unlike other "Mammoth" books, this one didn't have a couple great stories among a bunch of okay and mediocre ones. Nothing in this book really jumped out at me as being fantastic, but at the same time I really enjoyed reading it. Everything was very good, nothing was great.

[Kristine · Rating 5 out of 5]

There wasn't a single story in this collection that wasn't wonderful. They were all different, unique, well written, captivating, and completely original. I even got goosebumps reading a few of the stories in this collection.

[GD · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are a couple of lame stories in here, but for the most part, this book is filled with completely ass-kicking stories. It's difficult to put down.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

The English stories overwhelmed the Armerican ones. And where are my Indian, Italian, Australian, African tales? Oh, Mammoth Book, you are so constricted.

[Elizabeth Nesbit-comer · Rating 4 out of 5]

They say new terror, but then add authors who have been dead for a long time ???? I wonder how new they mean. Still I enjoyed the stories.

[Rachel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wasn't too impressed with this collection. One or two were a bit creepy, but most were kind of meh.

[Kayleen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read: Closing Time, Neil Gaiman.

It didn't really feel like a Gaiman story, some was pretty good though.

[Bill Borre]

"Maypole" by Brian Mooney - Anthea visits a small village where their maypole celebration involves ritual human sacrifice.

"A Living Legend" by R. Chetwynd-Hayes - wc