#Titanuary ‘New Fears’ edited by Mark Morris

About the book…

The horror genre’s greatest living practitioners drag our darkest fears kicking and screaming into the light in this collection of nineteen brand-new stories.

In The Boggle Hole by Alison Littlewood an ancient folk tale leads to irrevocable loss.

In Josh Malerman’s The House of the Head a dollhouse becomes the focus for an incident both violent and inexplicable.

And in Speaking Still Ramsey Campbell suggests that beyond death there may be far worse things waiting than we can ever imagine… Numinous, surreal and gut wrenching, New Fears is a vibrant collection showcasing the very best fiction modern horror has to offer.

‘New Fears’ was published in 2017 and not only boasts an impressive line up of contributers, it was edited by one of my favourite horror authors, Mark Morris. All of these are original stories, published together for the first time, without an overall tie-in arc.

What makes each and every one us scared varies so vastly, that under the umbrella of ‘new fears’, Mark is able to tease out the deepest , darkest recesses of the human mind-and trust me, it gets pitch black-to create a sprawling, engaging and scary collection. The high calibre of names that he can command is truly impressive, you will not only find established genre figures such as Sarah Lotz and Stephen Volk, but there will also be new favourites to discover. In my case, it was an instant case of adoration for the words of Angela Slatter, and a re-connecting with the the work of Muriel Gray.

Standouts include Josh Malerman’s ‘House Of The Head’ which was adapted for a segment of the Shudder revamp of Stephen King’s ‘Creepshow’. If you have a dolls house in your home, you might find yourself checking the figures aren’t moving, and soon, find that they become mesemerising…

Nina Allan’s ‘Four Abstracts’ is short story perfection, a lamentation on love and loss which when you finish it, makes you long for a full length novel. It is such a self contained, haunting narrative that lasts exactly the right amount of time when you read it, that pulling yourself away is a wrench.

Adam Nevill’s ‘Eumenides(The Benevolent Ladies)’ reminds you why his is such a fresh and vibrant voice in the horror pantheon.His Grecian myth inspired tale set in the world of a lonely IT logistics technician looking for love, ignoring the advice of the resident historian at his boarding house at his peril when he sets out on a first date at an abandoned zoo, with quite a back story.

Taking in psychological, gory and folkloric horror, this is a labyrinthine stroll through some of the most interesting voices working in horror fiction today. Fear, and the nature of what makes our skin crawl, is exactly the business that every contributer revels in. The notion of goosebumped flesh and disturbed sleep is their goal, and in many cases, they succeed.

About the editor…

Mark Morris became a full-time writer in 1988 on the Enterprise Allowance Scheme, and a year later saw the release of his first novel, ‘Toady’. He has since published a further sixteen novels, among which are ‘Stitch’, ‘The Immaculate’, ‘The Secret Of Anatomy’, ‘Fiddleback’, ‘The Deluge’

He has written tie-in novels for popular movies as well as orginal stories for ‘Doctor Who and ‘Torchwood’

His short stories, novellas, articles and reviews have appeared in a wide variety of anthologies and magazines, and he is editor of the highly-acclaimed Cinema Macabre, a book of fifty horror movie essays by genre luminaries, for which he won the 2007 British Fantasy Award.

His most recently published or forthcoming work includes Obsidian Heart trilogy and editing short story collections New Fears 1 and 2  for Titan Books.

Twitter @TitanBooks @MarkMorris10