Another year, another underwhelming showing from the mainstream publishing industry. That explains the many small press offerings included in this, my 2025 ranking of the previous year’s print offerings. Also included, as always, are a selection of non-ranked books (reprintings, periodicals, etc.) and sneak peaks of upcoming publications that sound interesting.
I won’t go into the reasons for 2024’s underwhelming publishing slate (as I’ve already bitched at some length about that subject elsewhere). Instead, I’ll concentrate on the good stuff, which wasn’t always easy to find but was extant, as proven by…
The Ranking
1. KUBRICK: AN ODYSSEY by ROBERT PHILIP KOLKER, NATHAN ABRAMS
Quite simply the best Stanley Kubrick biography on the market. Authors Robert Philip Kolker and Nathan Abrams engagingly trace the “Odyssey” of this incomparable American genius, starting with his boyhood in Depression-era New York, his teenaged employment as a LOOK magazine photographer and his 1950s attempts at no-budget filmmaking. By that point, as this book makes clear, Kubrick’s bad habits (which even the most rabid fanatic must acknowledge) had already begun to make themselves apparent. Those habits included denying his collaborators (screenwriters in particular) their rightful credit, and only grew increasingly prevalent as Kubrick aged, and directed classic films like 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968), A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971) and THE SHINING (1980). In many respects the Kubrick saga is a tragic one, and a cautionary depiction of the dark side of fame—although the man did nonetheless turn out some of the greatest films ever made.
2. BEWARE US FLOWERS OF THE ANNILHILATOR by ALEXANDER ZELENYJ
About this, the latest and most comprehensive collection of stories by Canada’s master of elegantly drafted bizarrie Alexander Zelenyj (THESE LONG TEETH OF THE NIGHT), a few things are apparent: that Mr. Zelenyj has an unmatched gift for evocative titles (“Rat-Eaters in Lucifer Island,” “Houses Within Houses Within Houses Within,” etc.); that in contrast to all the pretend surrealists currently at work, Zelenyj understands dream logic in and out; and that he simply knows how to spin a great yarn. Science fiction, surrealism and great storytelling: not too many books these days can be said to Have It All, but BEWARE US FLOWERS OF THE ANNIHILATOR can and does.
3. COMBAT SHOCK by BUDDY GIOVINAZZO
A 40-years-after-the-fact novelization of Buddy Giovinazzo’s notorious 1984 no-budgeter COMBAT SHOCK, written by the filmmaker himself. In relating the beyond-bleak account of Frankie Dunlan, a severely traumatized ‘Nam vet mired in a NYC hellscape amid junkies, killers and a severely deformed infant, Giovinazzo was freed from the budgetary restraints and bad acting that marred his film (about which even receptive viewers like myself have to be VERY forgiving). He also heightened the grit factor considerably, all-but rubbing the reader’s nose in urban grunge via a host of supporting characters as doomed as Frankie. It all works due to insightful prose and an authoritative depiction of street life; COMBAT SHOCK’s urban milieu is one Giovinazzo (who currently resides in Germany) knows inside and out, and it proves a disturbingly appropriate setting for the splatterpunk excesses of the final pages.
4. THE WITCH OF SANLUCAR by HANNS KRÜGER-WELF
One of several 2024 translations of early twentieth century German horror-fantasy by Joe E. Bandel. THE WITCH OF SANLÚCAR, a long-neglected 1925 publication, offers up a dark parable of ignorance and the (apparent) supernatural in a highly picturesque environ. The narrator is a young man stationed in an Andalusian seafront who relates the tragic story of a gypsy woman believed by the locals to be a witch. The reader is teased about the possibility that this woman may indeed be witchy, and a climactic plot development strongly suggests just that. Yet the ignorance and superstition of Sanlúcar’s residents are just as vividly portrayed, and lead to a climactic tragedy that’s capped by a deeply mournful, note-perfect final line.
5. DIONYSOS SPEED by RAINER J. HANSHE
A visionary concoction that can be categorized as surrealist poetry or avant-garde science fiction. It’s certainly up to date, set on a future Earth whose chronically online, cybernetically enhanced populace has been digitally enslaved by a fascistic government (this is fiction?). This government’s ultimate aim is the unification of humanity and technology, which is resisted by a band of anarchists who use surreal means to disrupt the status quo. Author Rainer J. Hanshe obeys no existing compositional rules, grouping his imaginings into self-contained chapters (or “epigrammatic sequences”). Visual aids, in the form of artfully defaced photos, are included, as are a variety of compositional quirks: freeform verse, entire chapters rendered in a single run-on sentence, etc. Quite simply, you’ll either “get” DIONYSOS SPEED or you won’t. Happily, I did.
6. PURE: THE SEXUAL REVOLUTIONS OF MARILYN CHAMBERS by JARED STEARNS
The late Marilyn Briggs (1952-2009), or Marilyn Chambers, was one of the most noteworthy performers to emerge from the porno movie renaissance of the 1970s. Chambers stood out due to her movie star good looks and the fact that she delivered an absolutely scorching performance in BEHIND THE GREEN DOOR (1972). Yet she also achieved fame (of a sort) as the face of Ivory Soap, with its iconic “99 & 44/100% pure” tagline, and endured a stormy marriage to the notorious Chuck Traynor (1937-2002). Her final years were bleak ones, with drug abuse, stripping, an ill-fated flirtation with politics and death (of a brain aneurysm) at age 56. First-time biographer Jared Stearns made an excellent debut with PURE, whose frankness and erudition would likely have been appreciated by Marilyn Chambers herself.
7. BEHIND THE SHADOWS by RAY VAN HORN, JR.
A hugely enjoyable collection that offers a full blast of media infused gen-X oriented horror. That means readers who didn’t grow up with cassette tapes, TOP GUN, Geraldo Rivera TV specials, Garbage Pail Kids and MARRIED WITH CHILDREN may not fully comprehend my enthusiasm. The stories of Ray van Horn, Jr. are drafted with enormous energy and ingenuity, but what really gives them their edge is the author’s grasp of late Twentieth Century pop culture minutia (typical is a throwaway observation about a pair of chairs “looking like they’d been around when David Bowie had released the LOW album in 1977”). This could have resulted in something along the lines of those interminable wannabe Tarantino films that proliferated in the late 1990s, but the skilled prose and pointed conceptions, which often revolve around actual media events from years past, make for a collection whose horrific content registers as strongly as its name drops.
8. MARK TWAIN’S WAR PRAYER by MARK TWAIN, SEYMOUR CHWAST
WAR PRAYER, one of the most furious anti-war texts of all time, was written by Samuel Clemens, a.k.a. Mark Twain, who purposely withheld it from publication during his lifetime. A freeform poem that takes the form of a church sermon by a very Christ-like individual (showcasing Twain’s disdain for religion), it’s a patriotic plea that quickly turns into a hymn to bloodlust (“help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain…stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet!”). With this graphic novel rendering the veteran illustrator Seymour Chwast lays out Twain’s writing in a forceful and visually striking manner (as in one or two words per page), and provides deliberately primitive, childlike drawings, making for an impacting presentation of a text that works fine on its own.
9. THE FUTURE WAS NOW: MADMEN, MAVERICKS, AND THE EPIC SCI-FI SUMMER OF 1982 by CHRIS NASHAWATY
If you’re a film buff this book is a must read. The subject is mainstream science fiction cinema in the summer of 1982, a pivotal time for those of us who lived through it. The films covered in THE FUTURE WAS NOW include E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL, BLADE RUNNER, THE THING, STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN, THE ROAD WARRIOR, TRON, CONAN THE BARBARIAN and POLTERGEIST. Author Chris Nashawaty engagingly details the making of these opuses, with budget overruns (unsurprisingly) being a common issue, along with meddling studio executives, time-consuming special effects and, in the cases of BLADE RUNNER and THE THING, critical indifference. From a financial standpoint only E.T., STAR TREK II and POLTERGEIST were unqualified successes, with the rest fated to wait years, if not decades, to attain their full appreciation. I’d question how authoritative this book truly is, as the stories related in its pages tend to differ from previously documented accounts, but it’s a fun read, providing a long-overdue accounting of a vital period in film history.
10. UWE BOLL RAW: A MEMOIR by UWE BOLL
This long-in-coming autobiography is exactly what you’d expect from a filmmaker who’s often called the modern day Ed Wood: grammatically suspect, often uproarious and downright pissy. It’s also great, juicy fun. A quintessentially Germanic bluntness informs Boll’s descriptions of Hollywood folk like Tara Reid (“She’s not an asshole, but she gets drunk every night”), Billy Zane (an “arrogant self-promoter”) and Bryan Singer (“It’s amazing how some directors keep getting jobs even though they are absolute perverts, idiots, and/or drug addicts”). Boll isn’t too enchanted with the current state of the film industry or his place in it, and rages against more celebrated German directors like Uli Edel, Wim Wenders and Doris Dörrie—they, for those who don’t know, are talented filmmakers who generally turn out quality films, something Boll would do well to emulate.
11. HITS, FLOPS AND OTHER ILLUSIONS by ED ZWICK
Ed Zwick is a screenwriter, TV impresario and high profile filmmaker. This memoir begins with an extremely telling line: “I tell stories for a living.” Storytelling is a category in which HITS, FLOPS AND OTHER ILLUSIONS excels, with Zwick’s screenwriting skills evident in the pacing, structure and overall layout. Zwick’s filmmaking career never reached the heights attained by colleagues like David Lynch (with whom Zwick attended the AFI Conservatory in the 1970s) or Oliver Stone, and this book shows why. Quite simply, he’s too intellectually oriented to fully thrive in what Werner Herzog dubbed an “art of illiterates.” That intellectual bent, however, makes for a book that’s level-headed, self-deprecating and not a little dishy. Among the revelations Zwick offers up: that Jim Belushi gave him trouble during the filming of ABOUT LAST NIGHT (1986), that Matthew Broderick was a royal pain in the ass on GLORY (1989) and that Julia Roberts put him through the ringer during pre-production on SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE (1998), while Harvey Weinstein, the executive producer of that opus, apparently behaved like Harvey Weinstein.
12. THE LAST DANGEROUS VISIONS edited by HARLAN ELLISON (and J. MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI)
The long-delayed final entry in an anthology series that began with the Harlan Ellison edited DANGEROUS VISIONS in 1967, and continued with AGAIN, DANGEROUS VISIONS in 1972. J. Michael Straczynski, Ellison’s literary executor, completed THE LAST DANGEROUS VISIONS, selecting which of the Ellison commissioned stories made the final cut and personally soliciting several new ones. The result is a disjointed mixture of old and new, “dangerous” and safe, Ellison and Straczynski—with the latter, in all cases, ultimately winning out. In fairness, THE LAST DANGEROUS VISIONS would have likely been a disappointment in any form, with the best part of the book being Straczynski’s introductory essay. It’s a lengthy recounting of Straczynski’s relationship with Ellison, in which we learn that Ellison’s overbearing nature came from a very real mental condition, bipolar disorder, and that his final years involved multiple instances of indecent exposure, a suicide attempt and confinement in a mental hospital. My chief complaint about THE LAST DANGEROUS VISIONS is with the “Edited By” credit, which should have been given to J. Michael Straczynski, or perhaps “Harlan Ellison and J. Michael Straczynski,” rather than Ellison getting sole billing. Doing so may be interpreted as an act of generosity on the part of Straczynski, but I believe in giving credit where credit is due.
13. THE UNIVERSE AS PERFORMANCE ART by COLBY SMITH
The Neo-Decadent movement gets a strong showing in THE UNIVERSE AS PERFORMANCE ART, the premiere collection by Colby Smith. That Smith is a poet is evident in these stories, which are profoundly eccentric in both conception and execution, yet also quite rhythmic. Standout offerings include “The First Masterpiece of the Marquis de Sade,” concerning a youthful Donatien Alphonse Francois de Sade experiencing his “first masterpiece”—an orgasm—after cutting himself on rose thorns and eating the petals; “The Game Show Expats,” about eccentric folk who’ve won a trip to the Florida keys, only to be met with madness and severe disillusionment; and “Cooking Australia,” whose many interesting revelations include the fact that “Human waste contains grains of memories from the realm of dreams” and “There are eighteen human beings in Australia; the rest are paid actors with investments in gold.”
14. COYOTE by MAX RESTAINO
The first entry in the Amphetamine Sulphate Horror Line, a spare and poetic depiction of unrestrained psychosis. The narrative involves a young boy finding his reality upended by a nondescript entity known as the Intruder, which somehow merges with the boy’s consciousness. Under the Intruder’s influence the boy becomes obsessed with slasher movies and engages in murderous behavior amid a stifling atmosphere marked by worms, blood and slime. Completing the effect are photographic illustrations by Steven Purtill, depicting indistinct black and white happenings that appear perverse and disturbing.
15. QUENTIN TARANTINO: A GRAPHIC BIOGRAPHY by MICHELE BOTTON, BERNARD SANTIAGO ACOSTA
A graphic novel biography of Quentin Tarantino that is, as the front cover makes clear, “Unofficial and Unauthorized.” This means you shouldn’t expect an authoritative treatment, and scripter Michele Botton doesn’t attempt to provide anything of the sort. What he does provide is a quirky rumination on Tarantino’s Hollywood ascension and his thematic concerns (violence in particular), related in the form of a series of dialogues dominated by Tarantino himself. We get a good sense of the man’s outgoing and fiercely idiosyncratic personality, even if the “reality” of what we’re shown is questionable. Overall this is a praise-worthy work, telling us most everything we need to know about the subject at hand, and doing so in an enjoyable manner.
16. SALUTING THE BLOOD OF HEROES: BEHIND THE APOCALYPTIC FILM by DANNY STEWART
Author Danny Stewart is quickly establishing himself as one of the preeminent chroniclers of underappreciated science fiction cinema from the eighties and nineties, and the world’s foremost authority on screenwriter David Webb Peoples. Stewart’s 2023 book SOLDIER: FROM SCRIPT TO SCREEN offered an exhaustive take on the making and reception of the Peoples scripted SOLDIER (1998), and SALUTING THE BLOOD OF HEROES: BEHIND THE APOCALYPTIC FILM purports to do the same for THE BLOOD OF HEROES (1989), a.k.a. SALUTE OF THE JUGGER, Peoples’ first and only outing as a director. It’s a dystopian Rutger Hauer vehicle that Stewart uses as a jumping-off point for a panoramic overview of apocalyptic cinema, with a range of subject matter—Mary Shelley, Philip K. Dick, MAD MAX, James Cameron, Cormac McCarthy and Terry Gilliam—that I found irresistible.
17. THE EXOPOTAMIA MANUSCRIPT by MAXIM JAKUBOWSKI
A novella that is, frankly, a mess. It is, however, a fascinating mess packed with literary allusions, autobiographical shading and a highly picturesque scope. The protagonist Joseph Modiano was evidently patterned on his creator Maxim Jakubowski. Like the eightyish Jakubowski, Joe is an aging English novelist and compulsive traveler, embarking on a “surreal ballet of stuttering relationships” through numerous continents in what may have been intended as a sustained hallucination. Jakubowski, as anyone who’s read any of his earlier fiction well knows, is a skilled and extravagant wordsmith, and THE EXOPOTAMIA MANUSCRIPT offers further proof of his talents.
18. WITH LOVE, MOMMIE DEAREST: THE MAKING OF AN UNINTENTIONAL CAMP CLASSIC by A. ASHLEY HOFF
This isn’t the first book about the making of MOMMIE DEAREST (1981), but author A. Ashley Hoff succeeds nonetheless in telling us everything we need to know about this “Unintentional Camp Classic.” WITH LOVE, MOMMIE DEAREST consists primarily of recollections by participants in the DEAREST debacle, including actress/author Christina Crawford, whose 1978 memoir about her abusive foster mother, the iconic Hollywood star Joan Crawford, inspired the flick. Hoff makes sure to speak with nearly every surviving member of the cast and crew, with the film’s star Faye Dunaway being one of the only non-forthcoming MOMMIE DEAREST alums. That’s no wonder, as few of the interviewees have anything good to say about her (with the most effusive Dunaway praise coming from, ironically, Mara Hobell, who played the abused Christina) and she herself is said to be chagrined by the film. With good reason!
19. HANNS HEINZ EWERS: THE STORY OF HIS DEVELOPMENT by HANNS KRÜGER-WELF
Here translator Joe E. Bandel once again turns his attention to a little-known German language text: a 1922 biography of Hanns Heinz Ewers (1871-1943). We know Ewers as a pioneering horrormeister, but his contemporaries thought of him primarily as a poet, and it’s that aspect upon which author Hanns Krüger-Welf concentrates his scrutiny. The fact that this book was published in 1922 is significant, as Ewers hadn’t yet destroyed his reputation by joining the Nazi party (which occurred in 1931). The other especially controversial event in Ewers’ life, when after relocating to New York City he was arrested in 1918 for spreading German propaganda, is glossed over in these pages. Regarding his subject’s bisexuality, Krüger-Welf is even more tight-lipped, although he takes pains to emphasize Ewers’ sensitive and retiring nature. This book is essentially an extended fan letter, and as such it works fairly well. As a straight biography, however, it leaves a great deal to be desired.
20. BLOODLETTER by DAVID KUHNLEIN
The second entry in the Amphetamine Sulphate horror line, a phantasmagoric novella that appears to be about a disembodied consciousness performing evil acts in various time periods. Among this entity’s manifestations are a member of a Santeria cult in Mexico, a servant of the Hungarian “Blood Countess” Elizabeth Bathory and a Nazi, with murder and mutilation being constants. Then again, though, I may have that all wrong, as narrative coherence wasn’t among author David Kuhnlein’s primary (or secondary) concerns. It’s the wildly baroque, opulently worded prose (“Triangulated thirds rid my eyes of riposte, spine leaking kundalini, slithering stony maya”) and elegantly gruesome imagery (“That night I have a dream that human bellies fall from the sky”) that take center stage. The effect is not dissimilar to the writing of LORD HORROR’s late David Britton, but lacking its propulsive power and sense of real world outrage.
21. GHOSTS IN THE SWAMP by KARL HANS STROBL
Yet another translation of a long-forgotten German text by Joe E. Bandel. Written in 1920 by Karl Hans Strobl (1877-1946), GHOSTS IN THE SWAMP functions as occult horror, avant-garde science fiction, visionary fantasy and philosophical allegory. The setting is an alternate 1920 in which people wear stockings made of human skin and electrically charged belts, transparent towers exist in which one can look down “through sixteen stories into an abyss of glass,” and a mysterious pestilence has rendered Vienna a wasteland. Americans treat this decaying region as a sightseeing destination, with deep-pocketed patrons given tours of the city (you can probably guess that Strobl’s attitude toward us Yanks isn’t too positive) despite the fact that it has but a short time to go before becoming completely uninhabitable. An interesting novel that’s overstuffed and uneven; frankly, there’s a reason GHOSTS IN THE SWAMP has been so thoroughly forgotten.
22. HORROR MOVIE by PAUL TREMBLAY
In the field of horror movie themed horror fiction, HORROR MOVIE ranks as mid. The novel is solidly drafted, even if its concept of a cursed film from a past era making its mark in the present is a mite hackneyed. That past era was the early 1990s and the film a no-budgeter called HORROR MOVIE, directed by a young woman named Valentina Rojas. The production was a fraught one that ended with a murder trial and the finished film being shelved; its only surviving cast member is a now middle aged fellow who played the antagonist, and happens to be the book’s narrator. Paul Tremblay’s presentation of the horror media scene, which includes an appearance the narrator makes at a horror convention, feels authentic. Tremblay has clearly done his homework, and turned out an engaging book with a staunchly intellectual air. Where Tremblay falls short is an area that afflicts many movie-themed horror novels: he’s neglected the horrific aspects, with Tremblay’s determination to show off his research having evidently distracted him from his core mission.
Other Noteworthy 2024 Publications
BARE BONES #17
The Winter 2024 issue of BARE BONES zine, which explores the weirder niches of all things pulp. Featured is an impressive roster of authors—Tim Lucas, David J. Schow, William Schoell, S. Craig Zahler—and topics: THE FUGITIVE book tie-ins, the splatterpunk awards, fanzine publishing, the paperback novels of Marvin H. Albert and lots more.
DARK GODS by T.E.D. KLEIN
A new edition of T.E.D. Klein’s 1985 collection of longish stories, all involving Lovecraftian horror in urban settings. Not an especially unique premise, but one 
that’s rarely been pulled off with more finesse than it was in DARK GODS.
HOUSE OF PSYCHOTIC WOMEN by KIER-LA JANISSE
This updated version of Kier-la Janisse’s classic “Autobiographical Topography of Female Neurosis” is said to contain a great deal of new material. The old version, I must say, was pretty damn good.
NOCTUARY & THE SPECTRAL LINK by THOMAS LIGOTTI
An omnibus edition of two out-of-print collections by the great Thomas Ligotti. I have yet to read THE SPECTRAL LINK (2014) but have perused NOCTUARY (1994), and can report that it fully lives up to its creator’s exalted reputation.
THE OBSCENE BIRD OF NIGHT by JOSE DONOSO
The 2024 edition of Jose Donoso’s dark and horrific 1970 epic adds 20 pages that weren’t in any of the previous English language editions. 20 pages may not sound like much, but I say they make all the difference, allowing the book to attain full masterpiece status.
THE PAPERBACK FANATIC 49
The latest issue of the Justin Marriott edited PAPERBACK FANATIC, the longest running, and best, print resource devoted to vintage paperbacks. Featured are articles on J.G. Ballard’s novels, plastic surgery in crime and thriller fiction, action-adventure SF and UK editions of H.P. Lovecraft’s books.
UGLY MUG #8
The latest iteration of House of Harley’s “Industrial Strength Comics Compendium” that, in the words of underground comics legend Ed Pinsent, is “laced with heavy doses of insanity, wonder, and escapades inside the dream house.” Yes, that is a recommendation!
Looking Forward…
ARKADI AND THE LOST TITAN by CAZA
A 500-plus page sci fi graphic novel by Philippe Cazaumayou, a.k.a. Caza, that was originally published in French in the late 1980s, and has been compared with the abovementioned INCAL. Humanoids is finally bringing it to the English speaking world.
ART! TRASH! TERROR! ADVENTURES IN STRANGE CINEMA By CHRIS ALEXANDER
A collection of interviews and essays on “strange cinema” by ex-FANGORIA editor Chris Alexander, who really knows of what he writes.
BRINGING DARKNESS INSTEAD OF LIGHT by MICHAEL DOYLE
A collection of 16 years’ worth of never-before-published interviews with the one and only John Carpenter.
COAL by J. JASON GRANT
Apparently “The Greatest Black Western Ever Written,” a novel that has until now been all-but impossible to find (and prohibitively expensive if you do). COAL is being brought back into print, FYI, by its original publisher Holloway House.
COLD FRONT by BARRY HAMMOND
Another outrageously scare publication being given new life in 2025, a 1980s paperback original that’s been called a “fast paced, well written, absolutely bonkers, horror novel.”
DON’T SHOOT THE BORLOKS! By RICHARD BESSIERE
A long-in-coming English language “adaptation” of a 1968 novel about alien toys. The author was France’s gifted Richard Bessiere, whose work isn’t too common in English. Included, I understand, is a 2012 sequel by J.M. Lofficier & J.-M. Archaimbault.
THE EMPLOYEE by JACQUES STERNBERG
I’ve no idea what this novel is about, but Jacques Sternberg is a highly interesting author who’s severely underrepresented in the English speaking world, for which reason I’m looking forward to THE EMPLOYEE.
FANTASTIC ORGY by ALEXANDER M. FREY
From Wakefield Press: “Four tales of grotesque empathy from the Weimar Republic that include all the ingredients endemic to that period: maimed beggars, female automatons, cultural prosthetics, and the spiderweb of thin lines separating everyone from opulent decadence and dire poverty.”
THE STONE DOOR by LEONORA CARRINGTON
Carrington’s crazed 1970s surrealist fantasia, unavailable for decades, finally returns to print, courtesy of NYRB.