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A review by bunnieslikediamonds
The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 11 by Stephen Jones
3.0
Cleansing my library. Thought I'd re-read this before throwing it away, but now that I've re-read the introductions by Stephen Jones I can't get rid of it. Don't get me wrong, some of the stories are quite good (My Death by Lisa Tuttle especially), but the introductions are amazing. The poor editor laments the deplorable cover art to no avail:
1998: Just because I thought vampires had become a cliché did not mean that the publisher was in any way averse to putting them on the cover. However, it was perhaps unfortunate that they chose to do so with the Tenth Anniversary edition which, unlike the previous volume, did not actually contain any stories featuring the undead.
2001: I had hoped that by now I had made my point regarding the covers. However, when The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 13 came out with blobby lettering and what looked like a DayGlo skull on the front, I knew that nobody was listening to my opinions anymore.
2002: After the psychedelic skull of the previous year, things had to change. If there was any chance that the series would once again have a cover design that did justice to the contents, then I realized that I would actually have to do it myself.
And then things get slightly better, until 2008:
The cover they wanted to put on the Twentieth Anniversary edition was even more awful than the previous one. I finally had to put my foot down. Again.
The suffering that man has endured.
1998: Just because I thought vampires had become a cliché did not mean that the publisher was in any way averse to putting them on the cover. However, it was perhaps unfortunate that they chose to do so with the Tenth Anniversary edition which, unlike the previous volume, did not actually contain any stories featuring the undead.
2001: I had hoped that by now I had made my point regarding the covers. However, when The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 13 came out with blobby lettering and what looked like a DayGlo skull on the front, I knew that nobody was listening to my opinions anymore.
2002: After the psychedelic skull of the previous year, things had to change. If there was any chance that the series would once again have a cover design that did justice to the contents, then I realized that I would actually have to do it myself.
And then things get slightly better, until 2008:
The cover they wanted to put on the Twentieth Anniversary edition was even more awful than the previous one. I finally had to put my foot down. Again.
The suffering that man has endured.