The Year's Best Horror Stories: Series IV

by Gerald W. Page (Editor), Frank Belknap Long, E. Hoffmann Price

Often the line between science fiction and the weird tale defies detection. Because some science fiction can also be tales of horror and some terror tales can be science fictional. That is why you will find among the authors in this latest selection of the best horror stories of the past year some names familiar to SF: Hal Clement, R.A. Lafferty, Arthur Byron Cover.

And you will also find some names best known for their triumphs in producing gooseflesh a la Lovecraft and Poe: Brian Lumley, Joseph Payne Brennan, Ramsey Campbell.

And there are names that belong to readers of fantasy in all its many forms: Fritz Leiber, Avram Davidson, Frank Belknap Long.

You will find many more, too, because this is the very special 4th Series of the one and only annual of horror tales produced in America.

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Anthologies, Weird Fiction

208 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

Reviews

[Craig]

This is the fourth volume in DAW's Year's Best Horror, and the first to be edited by Page after Richard Davis did the first three. Page edited the series for four years before Karl Edward Wagner took over for the rest of the series' run. It's a kind of uneven but diverse anthology, diverse in the sense of how the word used to be used. The book has fourteen stories, an essay that's seems kind of awkward and out of place about Lovecraft by E. Hoffman Price, and a Michael Whelan cover. Among the stories are an original novelette about vampires by Hal Clement (I am not making that up!), a Ramsey Campbell Christmas story, and an Avram Davidson Playboy story. My favorites were the stories by Arthur Byron Cover, Frank Belknap Long, Joseph Payne Brennan, and David Drake, who only used two names.

[Zach]

In which Gerald Page takes over as editor and raises the bar a good bit. Mostly reprints from 1974-1975, with a few originals tossed in (augh). All men (double augh).

Forever Stand the Stones (Joe Pumilia)
Stonehenge traps two spirits outside of time. The structure is ambitious, the prose better than most, the content (a series of ritualistic murders repeated throughout history) largely uninteresting.

And Don’t Forget the One Red Rose (Avram Davidson)
A dull worker in Queens visits his upstairs neighbor’s new bookstore, which has an eccentric pricing system. Things escalate with his shitty boss. Somewhat Blochian in its approach; the title is an injunction to the main character never uttered in the actual story, which I don't think I've ever run into before.

Christmas Present (Ramsey Campbell)
A Christmas party in Liverpool is cast awry by a stranger giving the antithesis of a Christmas present to prove a point. Wonderfully uncanny, full of weird sounds, put me in mind of Aickman’s “Ringing the Changes.” Short but punchy.

A Question of Guilt (Hal Clement)
~200 AD, a Roman family live in a cave to protect their last son after the first 3 died because of complications from hemophilia. Dad is focused on action to find a cure, mom is convinced she's cursed by the gods. Endless descriptions of trying to invent a needle/IV. In theory an interesting spin on the origin of vampire legends, in practice exceedingly tedious.

The House On Stillcroft Street (Joseph Payne Brennan)
In a small New England town, voracious ivy vines have taken over a reclusive botanist's house. An utterly pro forma creature feature, but at least Brennan knew exactly what he was aiming for.

The Recrudescence of Geoffrey Marvel (G.N. Gabbard)
Germany, 1653, a drama-quoting English cad faces down a ghost-taunting baron to save a barmaid. Vacuous pastiche.

Something Had to Be Done (David Drake)
Two army guys go to serve a death notification to next of kin during the Vietnam War, but it turns out one of them had ulterior motives. Brief, but another nice spin on vampires, tying them into the imperialism of the war (whether or not Drake meant it to come across that way).

Cottage Tenant (Frank Belknap Long)
A boy, obsessed with his theory about parrot-ish sea monsters winning the Trojan war, accidentally summons one because of the Jungian collective unconscious and anxiety about the Bomb (or something). Ridiculous; absolutely wooden prose.

The Man with the Aura (R.A. Lafferty)
The handsomest, richest, most respected, most popular man in the US is really a two-bit crook with an “aura machine.” He explains this endlessly to a politician who responds to confessions of arson and matricide with “such drollery!” Quite apropo to modern American life, but spins the joke out longer than it should have (much like modern American life).

White Wolf Calling (Charles L. Grant)
An elderly rural couple lament their loser twin sons; the father finds a surrogate child in their Czech neighbor. How do you say "Black Shuck" in Czech? Feels authentic, strikingly better than most of the others prose-wise.

Lifeguard (Arthur Byron Cover)
A teenager smokes a lot of pot, sees the ghost of a colonial woman, and learns that's why some people never make it out of his dead-end town. The apathetic post-hippie youth make this feel more of-its-time than many of these other stories.

The Black Captain (H. Warner Munn)
A man isolates himself in the desert, terrified of any exposure to darkness or shadow. The backstory reveal is trite, the prose overwrought at points, but the whole thing is convincingly arid and desolate and terror-stricken.

The Glove (Fritz Leiber)
A woman is assaulted; the perpetrator’s glove takes on a life of its own. Very much lesser Leiber, although as always the SF apartment building full of freaks and outcasts is well-drawn. A reread.

No Way Home (Brian Lumley)
A rural area in England confuses drivers such that they end up in an alternate dimension where no one has heard of their town and they find themselves rootless and alienated. Very Twilight Zone, creepy and relatively low-key, Lumley almost had me with this one! Then, in a further-removed dimension, house-shaped monsters attack the protagonist, “plooping” after their prey.

[Graham P]

Another mixed bag of mid-1970's short fiction from the longstanding series, 'The Year's Best Horror Stories'...this one edited by Gerald Page, who took over from Richard Davis.

'Forever Stands the Stones' by Joseph Pumilia
-a time-shifting tale of serial killers and Stonehenge, but a bit stodgy and cardboard besides its interesting ideas.

'And Don't Forget the One Red Rose' by Avram Davidson
-the lesson is never learned. Never go in a bookstore when you're not really a reader. Just desserts played in the sly NYC style that Davidson excelled at during his understated yet prolific career.

'Christmas Present' by Ramsey Campbell
-like most Campbell classics, full of barely-glimpsed terrors, encroaching unexplained darkness (see 'Incarnate'), and a church bell ringing a different type of hymn.

'A Question of Guilt' by Hal Clement
-wanted to like this (especially with Clement being a stones-throw away as a Somerville, Massachusetts resident) but boy, what a dry parchment of a horror tale, like slogging through the Sahara desert with no clothes on, and not a drop of water. Painfully bland.

'The House on Stillcroft Street' by Joseph Payne Brennan
-nature's curse, a theme of Brennan's that runs through most of his 'gooey' monster tales via nature gone bad. Not good, not horrible. Just beware of vines and old houses, and stodgy white narrators of the bookish and bachelor kind.

'The Recrudescence of Geoffrey Marvell' by G.N. Gabbard
-ghosts and grue, in a castle with questionable hauntings. Not quite a simmering wet fart of a tale, but really, emblematic of how Page seemed to select mostly lukewarm tales.

'Something Had to Be Done' by David Drake
-great set-up of the post-Vietnam vet delivering a message to a dead soldier's family. The EC comic ending is a bit baffling, but at this point, I felt the collection (and hoped) would pick up some steam.

'Cottage Tenant' by Frank Belknap Long
-alas, the engine didn't pick up much steam as this seaside tale creates tension of the horrible ID of childhood trauma, only to end up reading like a pamphlet on what constitutes proper mental hygiene for a bratty kid.

'The Man with the Aura' by R.A. Lafferty
-Lafferty nails the time-travel comedy, full of political jest and sharp dialogue. Not quite horror, but well worth reading.

'White Wolf Calling' by C.L. Grant
-can't go wrong with the atmosphere of reading a Charles Grant story.

'Lifeguard' by Arthur Byron Cover
-lesson is: get the fuck out of smalltown USA and go to college in the city. A ghost tale, of sorts, reminding me a bit of Dennis Etchison's work of the 1970's.

'The Black Captain' by H. Warner Munn
-sensory tale of the desert and an untimely eclipse. Solid.

'The Glove' by Fritz Leiber
-I always thought Leiber resorted to the 'wink wink' ending in the usual Robert Bloch fashion. Still, an entertaining read, with a vivid diatribe about gloves and how creepy they are in reality. Beckons the question, why do we shudder at the sight of a lone glove on the sidewalk, and why do we step over it?

'No Way Home' by Brian Lumley
-Lumley does so well at writing strange come-uppance tales. Here we get lost in a town that may or may not exist. Here we find a house on a hill, a shadow looking out a window. Here we pull over on a road that suddenly is no longer gravel but a spongy substance, from what might be, an alternate dimension. Oh, where do these roads lead to?

'The Lovecraft Controversy. Why?' by E. Hoffman Price
-strange to include Price's brief letter to both fans and naysayers of HP Lovecraft. Critic De Camp didn't care much for the long-faced Providence Prince, but Belknap Long sure did. Just reminds a modern reader that even back in the day, Lovecraft was a writer of contention and discourse. In the end, Price asks 'why can't us bookworms and nerds just get along'.

Very uneven collection, perhaps worthy of a 2 and 1/2 star rating, but the great cover makes this old paperback a wary three out of five.

[Kevin Lucia]

Not the same quality of stories as found in later editions edited by the late Karl Edward Wagner. Whether that's a reflection of the editor, or simply happenstance, have no idea. But this definitely didn't stand up to the Wagner tomes, with the exception of the last tale, "No Way Home," by Brian Lumely. Made me want to hunt up some of his short story collections.

[Shawn]

This is the first of the Gerald Page edited YEAR'S BEST HORROR, taking over from Richard Davis and featuring "the Year's Best Horror" stories for 1974-1975 (the orig. publication dates make it unclear - more on that later). Mr. Page did the next 3 before turning it over the Karl Edward Wagner in 1980.

So, Horror circa 1974-1975? I have to admit, I'm intrigued by the period. Unfortunately, there's only one real winner in the entire batch, at least to my taste, with a couple of strong runners-up. What's striking here is the high level of dark fantasy, with the occasional funny horror and lashings of pulp. There are also some real head-scratchers like "And Don't Forget The One Red Rose" by Avram Davidson which is an excellent story but isn't anything like what you'd call horror unless you're applying that to the bright, witty little conte cruels of Roald Dahl mixed with some light "dark fantasy". And the long-winded-to-little-effect "A Question Of Guilt" by Hal Clement is supposedly a horror story because it posits a scientific origin for the myth of vampires, having to do with a couple trying to cure hemophilia in ancient Rome. Really! Not bad (I'd argue its overwritten, whatever the genre) but this should be in some science-fantasy collection. There's also an essay by E. Hoffmann Price about the then-brewing "Lovecraft controversy" attending two biographies being published. It all seems kind of silly now.

Blazing, cartoony, lurid pulp surges forth from Joe Pumilia's "Forever Stand The Stones", a story consisting of everything Robert Bloch did with Jack The Ripper crossed with Robert E. Howard and a Dr. Strange comic book of the era. It's not very good dark fantasy but it is fun in that kinda comic-booky way. "The House On Stillcroft Street" by Joseph Payne Brennan is a low-key, quirky slice of New England-iana developed on the resurgent old trope of engulfment. Okay but tepid, a higher grade of pulp. "Something Had To Be Done" by David Drake is an military monster story and "The Black Captain" by H. Warner Munn is a solid cut of a "weird tale" with all the fat pared away to nothing (the main character being accursed by some slithering monstrosity from an Aztec temple is treated as a short revelation near the climax). It's kind of neat in an experimental pulp way. Fritz Leiber's "The Glove" is just okay, a slasher/detective/psychological/ghost story story.

"Cottage Tenant" by Frank Belknap Long is Lovecraftian (that most overused of adjectives amongst horror fans) without containing a single Lovecraft reference, just a horror from the surf, a figure looming in the shadows, the smell of brine and rotting fish, an inquisitive child and Jungian psychology. It is an interesting oddity, although the start was confusing and the end a bit too pulpy. "The Recrudescence of Geoffrey Marvell" is a humorous pastiche of Germanic fairy tales by G.N. Gabbard. Enjoyable. "The Man With The Aura" by R.A. Lafferty is a little bit Richard Matheson dryness combined with some science fiction.

"White Wolf Calling" by C.L. Grant (I assume Charles L. Grant) is, in my opinion, a confusing mess of a story, but wins points for including a realistic family scenario. Arthur Byron Cover's "Lifeguard" does an excellent job of capturing a specific place and, more importantly, time (70's college stoner stuck a home for the summer) and even has an interesting germ of an idea but never illuminates the mechanics of the threat. It should have been longer, and I'd like to check out Cover's Autumn Angels someday. "No Way Home" by Brian Lumley is a little overwrought in getting around to its parallel worlds scenario (and only so much can be gotten away with "...I read science fiction as well") but the ending is nicely creepy, leaving a feeling akin to the ending of Stephen King's "The Mist".

The great story, the find of 1974-1975, is Ramsey Campbell's amazing "The Christmas Present" which is just a solid piece of inventive horror combining creepy turns of thought with terse, painterly prose and solid character stuff. Great atmosphere as well, this needs to be reprinted soon. A reading of it was supposedly broadcast on the BBC in 1969 (which again brings into sight the problems of a "year's best horror" comp. Wagner was much stricter, I believe, about making it "that *particular* year's...best horror").

So that's what you get. Let's see what Volume 5 offers, shall we?

[Hugo]

Not deserving of a One Star rating, but definitely an even worse selection of fiction than the previous volume. Competent, if unremarkable, stories from Campbell, Brennan, Drake, Leiber, and Lumley; and a very decent example of quiet horror from Charles Grant, the only hint that the genre—aided by King hitting it big—was about to undergo a sea change.

The back cover blurb even makes excuses for including SF and fantasy authors, none of whom raise the bar, least of all Hal Clement's interminable "A Question of Guilt', a dull recounting of a Roman attempting to cure his son's haemophilia, which Page introduces as 'scientific vampirism'! By all means include SF writers if you must, but maybe make sure they've written, I don't know... horror stories?

[Brad]

Average rating of all of the stories was 3.03 and that's probably a fair assessment, though I wouldn't argue with a 2.5. No reason to seek this out, I just happened to have an electronic copy of it and thought it sounded like an appropriate read for near-Halloween.

Rating: PG-13, for some chills, some violence, and some references to sex, but nothing on-screen.

Forever Stand the Stones - Joe Pumilia (2/5)
Trippy little story about Stonehenge. The architect of it was trapped for 3400 yrs, finally replaced when a druid entered under rare specific circumstances by an Englishman from the late 1800s. Who apparently can visualize any time or place past or present, but it's kind of a living hell because you can't get out.

And Don't Forget the One Red Rose - Avram Davidson (4/5)
An employee who takes abuse (both verbal and physical) from a boss meets a new neighbor who sells books for interesting prices. The cost of the book he's most interested in turns out to be one he can afford--the crushed head of a Babylon sandal salesman, which happens to be his boss's other job (Babylon, Long Island). Just needs a red rose in his mouth.

Christmas Present - Ramsey Campbell (2/5)
Meh, just ok. Something about an anti-Christmas, and a mob of scary-seeming people, and an argumentative college student. I guess I just didn't get it.

A Question of Guilt - Hal Clement (3/5)
An interesting take on the origin of the vampire myth, and Clement does it without any fantastical elements. A couple in ancient Rome tries to find a way to save the life of their hemophiliac child.

The House on Stillcroft Street - Joseph Payne Brennan (4/5)
Might be one of my favorites of the anthology thus far. Short and sweet. A botanist brings a sample of ivy back home that overgrows his house and eventually overgrows him too.

The Recrudescence of Geoffrey Marvell - G. N. Gabbard (4/5)
Reminded me (in a good way) of a Brothers Grimm story. Charming rogue saves a damsel from a baron with a ring that protects him from the ghosts of people he has killed withe intention of making them ghosts. He steals the ring off his finger and the ghosts get the baron.

Something Had To Be Done - David Drake (3.5/5)
Another short and sweet story of a sergeant giving news to a family of the death of their son in the war. They were some kind of gypsy family, and their son had survived what should have been lethal gunfire. Then other squadmates began to die mysteriously and they discovered this guy was the cause. They killed him, and the sergeant ended up with a crazy malignant melanoma. He brought a grenade with him to the family and blew them up.

Cottage Tennant - Frank Belknap Long (1/5)
Mildly Lovecraftian (which I normally like), but just boring and too long for me. A kid imagines up some creatures that attack some neighbors, then him and his family. Blah blah, Jungian theories, dad puts kid in a trance, and creatures go away.

The Man with the Aura - R. A. Lafferty (5/5)
An excellent short story, my only complaint being how repetitive the listener's comments felt. Sneaky guy builds a machine that makes people like him and think the best of him, despite whatever terrible things he might do (like killing two wives, making lots of money through insurance and arson, etc.) Ends up killing the guy he's telling the truth to, and the guy thinks it's all a big joke.

White Wolf Calling - C. L. Grant (2/5)
People see a big white wolf, and die shortly after.

Lifeguard - Arthur Byron Cover (2/5)
A loser stoner smokes a particular joint that makes him see the ?ghost of someone who had originally lived in Cook's Cabin back in frontier days. And everyone else who has smoked that same pot saw her, too, and then they don't leave town.

The Black Captain - H. Warner Munn (3/5)
A treasure-seeker lives in fear of the consequences of some of his exploring. Went to a temple with a colleague to loot it, turns out that creatures still worshiped the god of it. He injured his colleague to be able to get out himself, and has avoided shadows ever since. Until the eclipse, when one of the beasties swoops down and gets him like a tarantula wasp.

The Glove - Fritz Leiber (3.5/5)
Creepy story, well done. Semi-possessed glove belongs to a neighbor of the narrator who posed as someone helpful and kind, but had committed a terrible act against another neighbor and left the glove behind. He gets caught.

No Way Home - Brian Lumley (3.5/5)
Another good selection for the anthology. Jerk of a guy gets lost while driving unfamiliar roads that end up taking him to a place where houses are sentient and he gets eaten.

The Lovecraft Controversy--Why? - E. Hoffman Price (-/5)
Didn't read this one, as I don't care much about the different versions of Lovecraft presented in two different biographies, or even that there was a controversy.

[Bryan Stubbles]

These stories may have been the year's best for someone. That someone wasn't me.

Avram Davidson's And Don't Forget the Red Rose has a crackerjack ending despite the casually racist stereotype the seller embodies.

Joseph Payne Brennan's The House on Stillcroft Street is a bit of twisted fun.

G.N. Gabbard's The Recrudescence of Geoffrey Marvell brings some Gothic adventure to the horror party.

Brian Lumley's No Way Home creates a mencacing atmosphere.

Gerald W. Page's opening essay is worth a read as is the closing essay by E. Hoffmann Price regarding two biographies of H.P. Lovecraft and his own experiences with the author.

Worth a look for these stories, but I doubt one's life trajectory will change much if one skips this volume.

[Brent Winslow]

Found in a used book store outside Orlando, this book presents a series of short horror stories considered the best of 1976. While I recognized a number of authors, one in particular is worth mentioning. Fritz Leiber's The Glove stood above the rest, and I look forward to finding more of his work.

[Jesse]

A few gems and an interesting essay on two contemporary Lovecraft biographies, but ultimately a rather staid and generic offering, with stories often slipping more into melodramatic fantasy than horror.

[Bill Borre]

"No Way Home" by Brian Lumley - George meets a man named Kent who claims to be from a parallel world where he lives in a location called High House. George had been to the location earlier and offers to drive Kent back in exchange for a thousand pounds. George drops Kent off but when he attempts to return to the road it soon becomes apparent he has been stranded in an alien dimension worse than the one he dropped Kent off in.

"The Recrudescence of Geoffrey Marvell" by G. N. Gabbard - Kassier places Marvell into his dungeon intending to add him to his collection of ghosts but Marvell escapes and leaves the baron to face the wrath of those he has murdered.

[Angela Maher]

Another nicely varied selection of stories and authors.

[Dollie]

I always enjoy reading collections of horror short stories. There were several in this book that I enjoyed.