Exotic Gothic is an anthology series of original short fiction and novel excerpts in the gothic, horror and fantasy genres. A recipient of the World Fantasy Award [1] and Shirley Jackson Awards, [2] it is conceptualized and edited by Danel Olson, a professor of English at Lone Star College in Texas. [3]
According to the Houston Chronicle newspaper, "The collection includes contemporary ghost, werewolf, vampire, and beastly creature stories; weird and paranormal tales; and neo-Gothic romances....[prompted from] a sabbatical last fall [2006], after his own Gothic research led him to a walking tour of Transylvania and facing a gypsy woman's curse..." [4] The 2003 Bram Stoker Award-finalist webzine Horror World [5] concludes that Exotic Gothic "raises the question as to 'How does the contemporary global Gothic enlarge, transcend, scramble, subvert, or mock the genre?' Olson subdivided the Anthology into Sections for Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, Latin America, and North America. Each Section then has various stories that are set within or relate to the particular geographic area.." [6] Inside the first volume, the editor "celebrates the loosening of geographic bonds, an emancipation of the genre." [7]
Exotic Gothic: Forbidden Tales from Our Gothic World (published Oct. 2007 by Ash-Tree Press, hardcover and trade ppk., cover photography from Anne Brigman-courtesy Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 306pp.) "showcases twenty-three stories (eight original to the anthology) that take place around the world." [8]
Exotic Gothic 2: New Tales of Taboo was published Sept. 2008 by Ash-Tree Press, hardcover and trade ppk., original cover photography by Nicholas Royle, 318pp. [14]
Ellen Datlow described "Exotic Gothic 2 edited by Danel Olson (Ash-Tree Press) as a worthy follow-up to the editor's first, mixed reprint and original anthology. EG2 has all new stories taking place all over the world. The most notable were those by George Makana Clark, Barbara Roden, Nicholas Royle, Nancy A. Collins, Edward P. Crandall, Christopher Fowler, Reggie Oliver, Tia V. Travis, and Rob Hood." [15]
The second volume was a finalist for the 2008 Shirley Jackson Award [16] and had stories reprinted in the following year's round of "Best Of" collections.
Exotic Gothic 3: Strange Visitations was published in Dec. 2009 by Ash-Tree Press, hardcover, original art by Jason Zerillo, 277pp. [26]
In each successive volume of the Exotic Gothic series so far, women have assumed more presence on the table of contents, but it is a presence still shy of what one sampling of contemporary American-edited horror anthologies found: Black Static staff reviewer Peter Tennant discusses the disparity of women in US and British horror anthologies (not mentioning Exotic Gothic 3, but writing within ten months of Exotic Gothic 3's release), pointing out that women make up around 32% of the contributors for American-edited horror anthologies he examined, and merely 21% of the contributors for contemporary UK-edited horror anthologies he examined. [27] Reviewer Rich Horton in the March 2010 issue of Locus (magazine) , praised Exotic Gothic 3 for its "evocations of ghost traditions unfamiliar to most Westerners." [28] Horton wrote that "I found my favorite story to be the most traditional, Barbara Roden's "The Haunted House of Etobicoke," and it is so beautifully executed that we are moved again." [28]
Peter Tennant, writing in Black Static, noted that "Of the other overlapping anthologies, Exotic Gothic 3 scored with both [anthologists] Jones and Datlow" in 2010. [29] Author Stephen Jones found "The third volume in the series edited and introduced by Danel Olson, Exotic Gothic 3, was one of the more satisfying anthologies of the year\." [30] Humanities Librarian Richard Bleiler describes it as a "strong and often satisfying collection of stories." [31] Bleiler argues that some of the books best tales come out of Africa and Europe: Zimbabwe born contributor "George Makana Clarke's tale is gripping and nightmarish and carries an internal conviction," while "disastrous relationships ... figure prominently in the European section, and the horrors of the Third Reich and the Balkan Wars echo ... particularly [in] Peter Bell's 'The Barony at Rodal,' Christopher Fowler's 'Arkangel,' and David Wellington (author)'s 'Grvnice'." [31] In a summary of international horror fiction from 2009, anthologist Ellen Datlow argues that Exotic Gothic 3 "is an all original collection ... with terrific ones from Simon Clark, Terry Dowling, Simon Kurt Unsworth, and Kaaron Warren, and good ones from the other contributors." [32]
The third volume was a finalist for the 2009 Shirley Jackson Award [16] and 2010 World Fantasy Award, [33] and had stories reprinted in the following year's round of "Best Of" collections.
Exotic Gothic 4: A Postscripts Anthology was released as hardcover July 2012 and paperback January 2014 by PS Publishing, original cover photography by Apolinar L. Chuca, 301pp. [44]
Writing for LOCUS magazine Lois Tilton described the fourth incarnation as "Neo-Gothic stories, which the editor aptly characterizes as 'that genre of things wrongly hungered for and things wrongly alive." [45] Mario Guslandi, writing for Thirteen O'Clock, [46] echoes Tilton's fondness for the book's non-Western settings: "[The] stories by a distinguished group of genre experts, set in different locations, addressing a diversity of themes [still share] the character of modern gothic fiction [but] set in places of the world we either least associate with 'gothic' or fail to even consider in the genre." [47]
Making a case that the anthology represents social criticism, Morgan interprets Margo Lanagan's lead-story in the collection, "Blooding the Bride", as "a strong feminist subtext on the nature of the marriage rite as an oppressive trap for women, even in our modern, post-feminist movement time." [47] According to Morgan the book is dominated by "themes of cultural oppression, the evil claws of colonialism still deeply embedded in the back of certain nations, feminine sacrifice to ancient traditions with hidden shackles, ... elavat[ing] them beyond mere horror stories." [47]
A review in Dead Reckoning described the novel as "a sumptuous package," with stories "sensuous," "skewed and grotesque," "passionate," and "ambiguously ghostly." [48]
Eotic Gothic 4 won the World Fantasy Award for Best Edited Anthology on 3 November 2013, as well as the Shirley Jackson Award for Superior Anthology on 14 July 2013. In an interview after the awards in The Gothic Imagination, Olson described his approach to selecting the stories: "My hope is to choose stories that, like dreams, resurface long after our first experience with them, and often an indication of that power manifests in the images, rhythms, struggles, and secret identifications within [their] opening paragraph." [49]
Exotic Gothic 5 was released 2013 by PS Publishing, hardcover, Vol. I original front and back cover photography by Marcela Bolívar, design by Michael Smith, 244 pages; [56]
One of the short stories, "The Open Mirror" from Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud, first appeared in its original French in the Catholic daily, La Croix in 2008. [57] "A Game of Draughts" from Joyce Carol Oates was published in similar form in her 2013 novel, The Accursed. [58]
Italian reviewer Mario Guslandi described the volume as "dark stories of modern gothic from every corner of the world ... apt to elicit pleasurable shivers without resorting to gore and violence." [59] Horror Novel Reviews agreed with Guslandi regarding the volumes' disinclination towards blood and grue: "Like the prior anthologies, [Olsen] focuses on the Gothic literary tradition of suspense, fear, and atmosphere rather than gore and violence." Comparing the two volumes, Horror Novel Reviews concludes that though it "reaches into the colonial fear of native sexuality" [60] A consensus by Locus editors and reviewers placed Exotic Gothic 5 on the 2013 Locus Recommended Reading List along with one dozen other original anthologies. [61]
A review in the print quarterly Gothic Beauty by Gail Brasie conclude that "the series [stops] the assumption that the only people reading neo-Gothic stories are white kids" and does so successful: "The storytelling is brilliant and as varied as the settings." [62]
PS Publishing is an independent book publisher based in Hornsea, UK.
Ellen Datlow is an American science fiction, fantasy, and horror editor and anthologist. She is a winner of the World Fantasy Award and the Bram Stoker Award.
Stephen Dedman is an Australian writer of dark fantasy and science fiction stories and novels.
Dean Francis Alfar, is a Filipino playwright, novelist and writer of speculative fiction. His plays have been performed in venues across the country, while his articles and fiction have been published both in his native Philippines and abroad, such as in Strange Horizons, Rabid Transit, The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror and the Exotic Gothic series.
Lucy Taylor is an American horror novel writer. Her novel, The Safety of Unknown Cities was awarded the Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel and the International Horror Guild Award for Best First Novel in 1995, and the Deathrealm Award for Best Novel in 1996. Her collection The Flesh Artist was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award in 1994.
David Wellington is an American writer of horror fiction, best known for his Zombie trilogy. He also writes science fiction as D. Nolan Clark.
Margo Lanagan is an Australian writer of short stories and young adult fiction.
Terence William (Terry) Dowling, is an Australian writer and journalist. He writes primarily speculative fiction though he considers himself an "imagier" – one who imagines, a term which liberates his writing from the constraints of specific genres. He has been called "among the best-loved local writers and most-awarded in and out of Australia, a writer who stubbornly hews his own path ."
Robert Maxwell Hood is an Australian writer and editor recognised as one of Australia's leading horror writers, although his work frequently crosses genre boundaries into science fiction, fantasy and crime.
Kaaron Warren is an Australian author of horror, science fiction, and fantasy short stories and novels.
Anil Menon is an Indian writer of speculative fiction, as well as a computer scientist with a Ph.D. from Syracuse University, who has authored research papers and edited books on Evolutionary Algorithms. His research addressed the mathematical foundations of replicator systems, majorization, and reconstruction of probabilistic databases, in collaboration with professors Kishan Mehrotra, Chilukuri Mohan, and Sanjay Ranka. After working for several years as a computer scientist, he started to write fiction. His short stories and reviews have appeared in the anthology series Exotic Gothic, Strange Horizons, Interzone, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, Chiaroscuro, Sybil's Garage, Apex Digest, and others.
Angela Slatter is a writer based in Brisbane, Australia. Primarily working in the field of speculative fiction, she has focused on short stories since deciding to pursue writing in 2005, when she undertook a Graduate Diploma in Creative Writing. Since then she has written a number of short stories, many of which were included in her two compilations, Sourdough and Other Stories (2010) and The Girl With No Hands and other tales (2010).
The Best Horror of the Year: Volume One (ISBN 978-1-59780-161-4) is a horror fiction anthology edited by Ellen Datlow that was published on January 1, 2009. It is the first in The Best Horror of the Year series.
The Best Horror of the Year: Volume Two (ISBN 978-1-59780-173-7) is a horror fiction anthology edited by Ellen Datlow that was published on March 10, 2010. It is the second in The Best Horror of the Year series.
The Best Horror of the Year: Volume Four (ISBN 978-1-59780-399-1) is a horror fiction anthology edited by Ellen Datlow that was published on May 1, 2012. It is the fourth in The Best Horror of the Year series.
The Best Horror of the Year: Volume Six (ISBN 978-1-59780-503-2) is a horror fiction anthology edited by Ellen Datlow that was published on June 3, 2014. It is the sixth in The Best Horror of the Year series.
Nina Allan is a British writer of speculative fiction. She has published four collections of short stories, a novella and three novels. Her stories have appeared in the magazines Interzone, Black Static and Crimewave and have been nominated for or won a number of awards, including the Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire and the British Science Fiction Association Award.
Swan River Press is an independent Irish publishing company dedicated to gothic, supernatural, and fantastic literature. It was founded in Rathmines, Dublin in October 2003 by Brian J. Showers. Swan River publishes contemporary fiction from around the world with an emphasis on Ireland's past and present contributions to the genre. They also issue the non-fiction journal The Green Book: Writings on Irish Gothic, Supernatural and Fantastic Literature, and sporadically organise the Dublin Ghost Story Festival.
Centipede Press is an American independent book and periodical publisher focusing on horror, weird tales, crime narratives, science fiction, gothic novels, fantasy art, and studies of literature, music and film. Its earliest imprints were Cocytus Press and Millipede Press.
The Best Horror of the Year: Volume Five (ISBN 978-1-59780-475-2) is a horror fiction anthology edited by Ellen Datlow that was published in August 2013. It is the fifth volume in The Best Horror of the Year series.
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