The Best Horror of the Year Volume 8 edited by Ellen Datlow

The Best Horror of the Year Volume 8 is now available. I’m very proud that my short story “Fabulous Beasts” is included in this amazing line-up.

This story, which appeared on Tor.com last year, has been shortlisted for a Shirley Jackson Award and British Fantasy Award.

***

Table of Contents:
Summation 2015 – Ellen Datlow
We Are All Monsters Here – Kelley Armstrong
Universal Horror – Stephen Graham Jones
Slaughtered Lamb – Tom Johnstone
In a Cavern, In a Canyon – Laird Barron
Between the Pilings – Steve Rasnic Tem
Snow – Dale Bailey
Indian Giver – Ray Cluley
My Boy Builds Coffins – Gary McMahon
The Woman in the Hill – Tamsyn Muir
Underground Economy – John Langan
The Rooms Are High – Reggie Oliver
All the Day You’ll Have Good Luck – Kate Jonez
Lord of the Sand – Stephen Bacon
Wilderness – Letitia Trent
Fabulous Beasts – Priya Sharma
Descent – Carmen Maria Machado
Hippocampus – Adam Nevill
Black Dog – Neil Gaiman
The 21st Century Shadow – Stephanie M. Wytovich
This Stagnant Breath of Change – Brian Hodge
Honorable Mentions

***

Order from your local bookshop but if that’s not an option:

Amazon UK Audio download

Amazon UK Kindle

Amazon UK Paperback (pre-order)

Amazon US Audio download

Amazon US CD

Amazon US Kindle

Amazon UK Paperback

 

British Fantasy Society Awards 2016 Nominees

The British Fantasy Society have announced the nominees for their awards this year. I am absolutely thrilled to be in the short fiction category with “Fabulous Beasts” alongside some storming work by writers I admire.

You can read my story on Tor.com. All my thanks to Ellen Datlow for taking it.

Massive congratulations to  eveyone nominated.

The Guardian’s article on the awards.

Best anthology
African Monsters, ed. Margrét Helgadóttir and Jo Thomas (Fox Spirit Books)
Aickman’s Heirs, ed. Simon Strantzas (Undertow Publications)
Best British Horror 2015, ed. Johnny Mains (Salt Publishing)
The Doll Collection, ed. Ellen Datlow (Tor Books)
The 2nd Spectral Book of Horror Stories, ed. Mark Morris (Spectral Press)

Best artist
Ben Baldwin
Vincent Chong
Julie Dillon
Evelinn Enoksen
Sarah Anne Langton
Jeffrey Alan Love

Best collection
Ghost Summer: Stories, Tananarive Due (Prime Books)
Monsters, Paul Kane (The Alchemy Press)
Probably Monsters, Ray Cluley (ChiZine Publications)
Scar City, Joel Lane (Eibonvale Press)
Skein and Bone, V.H. Leslie (Undertow Publications)
The Stars Seem So Far Away, Margrét Helgadóttir (Fox Spirit Books)

Best comic/graphic novel
Bitch Planet, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Valentine De Landro, Robert Wilson IV and Cris Peter (Image Comics) (#2–5)
Ms. Marvel, Vol. 2: Generation Why, G. Willow Wilson, Jacob Wyatt and Adrian Alphona (Marvel)
Nimona, Noelle Stevenson (HarperTeen)
Red Sonja, Gail Simone and Walter Geovani (Dynamite Entertainment) (#14–18)
Saga, Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples (Image Comics) (#25–32)
The Sandman: Overture, Neil Gaiman, J.H. Williams III and Dave Stewart (Vertigo)

Best fantasy novel (the Robert Holdstock Award)
Guns of the Dawn, Adrian Tchaikovsky (Tor)
Half a War, Joe Abercrombie (HarperVoyager)
The Iron Ghost, Jen Williams (Headline)
Signal to Noise, Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Solaris)
Sorcerer to the Crown, Zen Cho (Macmillan)
Uprooted, Naomi Novik (Macmillan)

Best film/television production
Inside No. 9: The Trial of Elizabeth Gadge, Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton (BBC Two)
Jessica Jones: AKA WWJD?, Scott Reynolds (Netflix)
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Peter Harness (BBC One)
Mad Max: Fury Road, George Miller, Brendan McCarthy and Nico Lathouris (Warner Bros. Pictures et al.)
Midwinter of the Spirit, Stephen Volk (ITV Studios)
Star Wars: The Force Awakens, by Lawrence Kasdan, J.J. Abrams and Michael Arndt (Lucasfilm et al.)

Best horror novel (the August Derleth Award)
A Cold Silence, Alison Littlewood (Jo Fletcher Books)
The Death House, Sarah Pinborough (Gollancz)
Lost Girl, Adam Nevill (Pan Books)
Rawblood, Catriona Ward (Weidenfeld & Nicholson)
The Silence, Tim Lebbon (Titan Books)
Welcome to Night Vale, Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor (Orbit)

Best independent press
The Alchemy Press (Peter Coleborn and Jan Edwards)
Angry Robot (Marc Gascoigne)
Fox Spirit Books (Adele Wearing)
Newcon Press (Ian Whates)

Best magazine/periodical
Beneath Ceaseless Skies, ed. Scott H. Andrews (Firkin Press)
Black Static, ed. Andy Cox (TTA Press)
Holdfast Magazine, ed. Laurel Sills and Lucy Smee (Laurel Sills and Lucy Smee)
Interzone, ed. Andy Cox (TTA Press)
Strange Horizons, ed. Niall Harrison (Strange Horizons)

Best newcomer (the Sydney J. Bounds Award)
Becky Chambers, for The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet (Hodder & Stoughton)
Zen Cho, for Sorcerer to the Crown (Macmillan)
Peter Newman, for The Vagrant (HarperVoyager)
Steven Poore, for The Heir to the North (Kristell Ink)
Marc Turner, for When the Heavens Fall (Titan Books)

Best non-fiction
The Art of Horror: An Illustrated History, ed. Stephen Jones (Applause Theatre & Cinema Books)
Fantasy-Faction, ed. Marc Aplin and Jennie Ivins (Fantasy-Faction)
Ginger Nuts of Horror, ed. Jim Mcleod (Jim McLeod)
King for a Year, ed. Mark West (Mark West)
Letters to Tiptree, ed. Alexandra Pierce and Alisa Krasnostein (Twelfth Planet Press)
Matrilines, Kari Sperring (Strange Horizons)

Best novella
Albion Fay, Mark Morris (Spectral Press)
Binti, Nnedi Okorafor (Tor.com)
The Bureau of Them, Cate Gardner (Spectral Press)
The Pauper Prince and the Eucalyptus Jinn, Usman T. Malik (Tor.com)
Witches of Lytchford, Paul Cornell (Tor.com)

Best short fiction
The Blue Room, V.H. Leslie (Skein and Bone)
Dirt Land, Ralph Robert Moore (Black Static #49)
Fabulous Beasts, Priya Sharma (Tor.com)
Hippocampus, Adam Nevill (Terror Tales of the Ocean)
Strange Creation, Frances Kay (Tenebris Nyxies)
When The Moon Man Knocks, Cate Gardner (Black Static #48)

The Drugs Don’t Work

Antimicrobial resistance is a very modern horror story. If you want to know more, this book by Professor Dame Sally Davies (Chief Medical Officer for England- incidentally the first woman to hold this post),  Dr Jonathan Grant and Professor Mike Catchpole is brilliant. It’s a short read that’s not preachy or patronising.

Sally Davies addresses not just patients and doctors but also the farming industry and pharmaceutical companies. And if we’re going to survive antimicrobial mutation we’re going to have to work across borders.

Plus there’s some sobering statistics about handwashing.

Get it at your local bookshop or from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com

Mark West’s Brit Horror Mixtape

Mark West‘s new post is an intriguing one. For The Brit Horror Mixtape he’s asked writers to name their favourite short story by a British author and say a few words about why they like it so much.

Mark was kind enough to ask me to be involved and he’s indulged me a bit by including my choice as it isn’t strictly horror. It was an interesting question but it was more interesting to read about other people’s choices. There are some stories I know and others I’m going to have to seek out.

What’s yours?