For Christmas this year I got Alice a copy of The Big Book of Female Detectives, a 1136-page anthology edited by Otto Penzler. It’s the 13th (I think?) of Penzler’s massive pulp-style anthologies from Vintage, which he’s published one per year (roughly) since 2007. I’ve been cataloging them here as I stealthily acquire them all. They are:

The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps — 2007
The Vampire Archives — 2009
The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories — 2010
Zombies! Zombies! Zombies! — 2011
The Big Book of Adventure Stories — 2011
The Big Book of Ghost Stories — 2012
The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries — 2013
The Black Lizard Big Book of Locked-Room Mysteries — 2014
The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories — 2015
The Big Book of Jack the Ripper — 2016
The Big Book of Rogues and Villains –- 2017
The Big Book of Female Detectives — 2018

An oversight in my survey so far has been Zombies! Zombies! Zombies!, Penzler’s 2011 tribute to everyone’s favorite undead (“It’s so good, it’s a no-brainer.”) This one is packed with stories by Stephen King, Robert E. Howard, Henry Kuttner, HP Lovecraft, Hugh B. Cave, Robert Bloch, Manly Wade Wellman, Robert McCammon, Theodore Sturgeon, Seabury Quinn, Gahan Wilson, Ramsey Campbell, Micheal Swanwick, Joe R. Lansdale, Steve Rasnic Tem, Dale Bailey, Edgar Allen Poe, and many, many more — including a complete novel by Theodore Roscoe, Z is for Zombie (1989). I ordered a copy last year, and it turns out to be just as much fun as the previous volumes. Packed with fascinating intros and delicious pulp spot art, it makes an irresistible addition to your horror collection.

[Click the images for zombie-sized versions.]

One thing I appreciate about these books is that, while they’re huge, the attractive layout makes them extremely easy to read. Here’s a few sample pages.

 

This is the perfect book to dip into when you’re looking for a creepy tale. It includes plenty of classics, such as F. Marion Crawford “The Upper Berth” by (from 1885) and “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” by Edgar Allan Poe (1845), as well as a generous sample of pulp stories, such as a Jules de Grandin novelette from Seabury Quinn, “The Corpse-Master” (1929), three tales from H. P. Lovecraft, including a Dream Cycle story, “The Outsider,” plus Herbert West—Reanimator,” and “Pickman’s Model,” and Theodore Sturgeon’s classic “It” (1940).

There’s also a fine assortment of more recent tales, such as “Bodies and Heads” by Steve Rasnic Tem (1989), “Eat me” by Robert R. McCammon (1989), “Later” by Michael Marshall Smith (1993), and “Home Delivery” by Stephen King (1989).

Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

Introduction by Otto Penzler
“Dead Men Working in the Cane Fields” by William B. Seabrook (The Magic Island, 1929)
“After Nightfall” by David A. Riley (Weird Window #1, 1970)
“Mission to Margal” by Hugh B. Cave (The Mammoth Book of Zombies, 1993)
“The Cairnwell Horror” by Chet Williamson (Walls of Fear, 1990)
“Crawling Madness” by Arthur Leo Zagat (Terror Tales, March 1935)
“Treading the Maze” by Lisa Tuttle (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, November 1981)
“Red Angels” by Karen Haber (The Ultimate Zombie, 1993)
“Later” by Michael Marshall Smith (The Mammoth Book of Zombies, 1993)
“White Zombie” by Vivian Meik (Devils’ Drums, 1933)
“Was It a Dream?” by Guy de Maupassant (Pierre and Jean, Ball of Tallow: The Complete Works of Guy de Maupassant, 1910)
“Bodies and Heads” by Steve Rasnic Tem (Book of the Dead, 1989)
“Death and Suffrage” by Dale Bailey (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, February 2002)
“The Graveyard Rats” by Henry Kuttner (Weird Tales, March 1936)
“The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” by Edgar Allan Poe (Broadway Journal, December 20, 1845)
“Feeding the Dead Inside” by Yvonne Navarro (Mondo Zombie, 2006)
“Ballet Nègre” by Charles Birkin (The Smell of Evil, 1964)
“Dead Right” by Geoffrey A. Landis (The Ultimate Zombie, 1993)
“The Taking of Mr. Bill” by Graham Masterton  (The Mammoth Book of Zombies, 1993)
“The Grave Gives Up” by D. L. Champion (Thrilling Mystery, August 1936)
“Herbert West—Reanimator” by H. P. Lovecraft (Home Brew, January 1922)
“Pickman’s Model” by H. P. Lovecraft (Weird Tales, October 1927)
“Maternal Instinct” by Robert Bloch (Mondo Zombie, 2006)
“Bringing the Family” by Kevin J. Anderson (The Ultimate Zombie, 1993)
“Mess Hall” by Richard Laymon (Book of the Dead, 1989)
“Schalken the Painter” by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (Dublin University Magazine, 1839)
“While Zombies Walked” by Thorp McClusky (Weird Tales, September 1939)
“April Flowers, November Harvest” by Mary A. Turzillo (Midnight Zoo, May 1993)
“The Old Man and the Dead” by Mort Castle  (Still Dead, 1992)
“Jumbee” by Henry S. Whitehead (Weird Tales, September 1926)
“Marbh Bheo” by Peter Tremayne (The Mammoth Book of Zombies, 1993)
“The Hollow Man” by Thomas Burke (Colliers, October 14, 1933)
“They Bite” by Anthony Boucher (Unknown Worlds, August 1943)
“Come One, Come All” by Gahan Wilson (Still Dead, 1992)
“It Helps If You Sing” by Ramsey Campbell (Book of the Dead, 1989)
“The Ghouls” by R. Chetwynd-Hayes (The Night Ghouls and Other Grisly Tales, 1975)
“The Corpse-Master” by Seabury Quinn (Weird Tales, July 1929)
“The Upper Berth” by F. Marion Crawford (Unwin’s Annual for 1886, 1885)
“Vengeance of the Living Dead” by Ralston Shields (Terror Tales, September 1940)
“The Song the Zombie Sang” by Harlan Ellison and Robert Silverberg (Cosmopolitan, December 1970)
“Men Without Blood” by John H. Knox (Horror Stories, January 1935)
“The Broken Fang” by Uel Key (The Broken Fang and Other Experiences of a Specialist in Spooks, 1920)
“It” by Theodore Sturgeon (Unknown, August 1940)
“League of the Grateful Dead” by Day Keene (Dime Detective, February 1941)
“Love Child” by Garry Kilworth (The 15th Fontana Book of Great Horror Stories, 1982)
“Corpses on Parade” by Edith Jakobsson and Ejler Jakobsson (Dime Mystery, April 1938)
“Where There’s a Will” by Richard Christian Matheson and Richard Matheson (Dark Forces, 1980)
“The Dead” by Michael Swanwick (Starlight 1, 1996)
“The Song of the Slaves” by Manly Wade Wellman (Weird Tales, March 1940)
“The Outsider” by H. P. Lovecraft (Weird Tales, April 1926)
“Eat me” by Robert R. McCammon (Book of the Dead, 1989)
“Deadman’s Road” by Joe R. Lansdale (Weird Tales, February-March 2007)
“Pigeons from Hell” by Robert E. Howard  (Weird Tales, May 1938)
“Live People Don’t Understand” by Scott Edelman (The Book of All Flesh, 2001)
“The House in the Magnolias” by August Derleth and Mark Schorer (Strange Tales of Mystery and Terror, June 1932)
“Home Delivery”e by Stephen King (Book of the Dead, 1989)
“Dance of the Damned” by Arthur J. Burks (Horror Stories, August-September 1936)
Z Is for Zombie by Theodore Roscoe (1989)
Permissions

Zombies! Zombies! Zombies! was published by Vintage Crime/Black Lizard on September 20, 2011. It is 810 pages, priced at $25 in trade paperback. There is no digital edition. The cover is by Virgil Finlay.

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