INTERACTION

A thread for people to discuss anthologies, as I've reviewed thirteen of them in the latest Black Static and will be posting a whole lot more anthology related material to the website.

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http://trumpetville.wordpress.com
http://ttapress.com/blackstatic/casenotesblog/

Anthology Month announced here:-

http://ttapress.com/918/and-for-our-next-trick/0/5/

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http://trumpetville.wordpress.com
http://ttapress.com/blackstatic/casenotesblog/

I'll start the ball rolling by bigging up The First Hum Drumming Book of Horror.

Not a bad story in the bunch, particular highlights are And Then There Was Blood by James Cooper, Bathtub Fiction by Carol Weekes and Hum Drum by Gary McMahon.

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www.rosswarren.co.uk

When I was a child I loved the Alfred Hitchcock anthologies, where I discovered loads of great writers. I think that ignited by love of horror and suspense.

Then the Pan Horrors, which I inherited from some elderly aunt, disturbed me with their now-notorious mix of depravity and unpleasantness. I absolutely loved them!

I think the first anthology I read that appeared to move in a different direction to the majority of late 80s horror was Dark Fantasies, edited by Chris Morgan. I have several fondly remembered stories from that.

And I'd mention Prime Evil edited by Douglas Winter, Charles L Grant's Shadows series, and David G Hartwell's The Dark Descent as being very important to me.

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www.stephenbacon.co.uk

Ross, with his editorial hat on, has just expanded on the comment above here:-

http://ttapress.com/928/desert-island-a ... arren/0/5/

I've read some of the Hitchcock books Stephen mentions, though way too long ago to remember anything except unctuous Alfie, and quite a few of the Pans, and I loved "Prime Evil". I've got "Dark Descent" in a pile somewhere, but haven't got around to reading it, though I've read many of the individual stories in other settings.

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http://ttapress.com/blackstatic/casenotesblog/

Ross's piece doesn't seem to be there. Spooky.

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http://jimsteel.wordpress.com/

One antho that seemed to come and go was the BFS Yearbook from 2009. Some great stuff in there. And my own tale, too, I admit. But even Marilyn had a mole.

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Gary Fry
Author of Sanity and Other Delusions, PS Publishing

I've got loads of anthologies around the house - Best New Horror, Best New SF, etc - but not that many that I've actually finished reading, though I've read all the non-fiction bits. When I get to a story I like I tend to wander off to look for that writer's novels and collections.

Of the ones I have read, my favourites were Brian Aldiss's space opera collections - Galactic Empires, Evil Earths, etc - and the Nebula winners collections.

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Theaker's Quarterly Fiction

I just finished Where the Heart Is - a terrific antho. Too many good stories in there to mention but enjoyed the contributions by Simon Bestwick, Gary McMahon, Joel Lane and Carole Johnstone. (No, there are too many good 'uns - I really shouldn't have started a list!)

Loved the humour in Gary Fry's, too. (Of course, any story that uses the word 'apeth' is all right with me.)

I did find myself wondering how many people read through this atho in the intended order. I kept dipping in with the thought, right, where shall I go next...?

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http://www.alisonlittlewood.co.uk

You using IE Jim? It doesn't appear in IE for me, but is perfectly okay with Firefox.

And Gary's right - exactly the same thing happened with the first part of the BFS Yearbook review.

I can't explain any of this, other than the usual 'technology hates us' mantra (and the feeling is mutual). I'll sleep on it and see if I can think of anything to do.

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http://trumpetville.wordpress.com
http://ttapress.com/blackstatic/casenotesblog/

The only similarity I can see with Ross' post and the previous one we had trouble with is that both ended with paragraphs containing a sentence beginning with 'if', and in IE this causes something funny to occur:-

http://www.quirksmode.org/css/condcom.html

Unfortunately removing the offending words and/or rephrasing appears to make no difference to whatever coding has been added. So I deleted the original and reposted today without my last paragraph.

If anyone can't see this please let me know:-

http://ttapress.com/933/desert-island-a ... arren/0/5/

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http://trumpetville.wordpress.com
http://ttapress.com/blackstatic/casenotesblog/

Yes, IE and, yes, I can read it now, Pete. Ta! A fine piece at that.

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http://jimsteel.wordpress.com/

Today's contributor is Jaym Gates:-

http://ttapress.com/934/desert-island-a ... gates/0/5/

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http://trumpetville.wordpress.com
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Colin Harvey with a popular choice:-

http://ttapress.com/935/desert-island-a ... arvey/0/5/

Personally, of recent Datlow anthologies I preferred "Poe", and from her earlier titles the excellent "Little Deaths". Anyone else?

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Today's contributor is Michael Kelly:-

http://ttapress.com/936/desert-island-a ... kelly/0/5/

Excellent choice. I tried to buy this via amazon a few years back, but although advertised as the complete book it was only the first section (at one stage the three sections were published as separate volumes). I haven't read it yet, but a lot of the stories are familiar from elsewhere, including those Michael mentions.

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