Sometimes.

Sometimes I love the Internet. Many years ago, when he was still active and working, the late Karl Edward Wagner published two stories in his old Year's Best Horror series by a writer I'd never heard of: John Gordon. The two stories were amazing and effective and chilling. They deserved to be there, and it was a rare honor for one author to have more than one story in a DAW Year's Best Horror.

But old Gordon was a complete unknown to me, then. Wagner went on to state that, effectiveness aside, the stories had been published in a collection meant for children/young adults! I was floored. What? Are they trying to traumatize the kiddies in the UK?! So I set about trying to find a copy of the collection from whence these two amazing yarns. It was called CATCH YOUR DEATH AND OTHER GHOST STORIES. But here I was in the USA and there was the book and its publisher in the UK. And keep in mind, this was in the days before the Internet.

Try as I might, I just could not land a copy. Apparently the book went out of print quickly and no US distributor had picked it up. Whenever I heard a close friend mention that they were going to the UK I would give them the book title and author and ask them to search for it. No luck.

After some years, I located a few copies, but at $200 to $300 each they were just way the hell out of my price range. In due course, I just forgot about ever being able to own a copy.

Until last week. I was trolling the Net looking for books and decided to key in CATCH YOUR DEATH by John Gordon. It popped up. Not a huge surprise--they sometimes do, with a high price attached. But this time...99 cents!! WTF?! I didn't debate and I didn't even bother to look too closely at the fine print. I just grabbed it, paid the small shipping charge, and waited to see if the book would actually come.

Today, it did. And a copy in very good condition, indeed! Only a small nick on the back cover, otherwise in fine condition.

I am a happy reader today.

CATCH YOUR DEATH and Other Ghost Stories by John Gordon.

DAW'S YEAR'S BEST HORROR

When I was a young man learning how to write, one of the publications that I looked forward to every single year was THE YEAR'S BEST HORROR published by DAW Books and edited by Karl Edward Wagner. DAW no longer publishes a year's best collection of the finest horror stories, and of course Karl Wagner has fled this mortal coil. Anyway, who was going to try to fill Wagner's shoes at the helm of DAW's year's best collection every year? It would have been a really tough act to follow.

Wagner had a truly unique way of looking at horror fiction, and no one who collects this material has equaled his ability to choose the finest of the works of short fiction to be published each year. And, of course, the industry itself has changed. Almost all of the magazines are gone, and even the little fanzines and micro-zines have, like Wagner himself, faded into oblivion.

I really miss that yearly collection. More than anything else from the days of my youth, I miss that volume that would hit the shelves every year. I'd go to the bookstores and check every week until it arrived. I have every single one of that series. Including the six that preceded Wagner's arrival, mostly edited by Gerald Page. Mr. Page did a good job, too, with some memorable hits in his own tenure at the editor's desk. But nobody topped Wagner.

I miss DAW's Year's Best Horror. And I miss the professional presence of Karl Wagner. I wish they were still with us.

Alas, time passes. And everything, and everyone, eventually heads for extinction.

Two of my editions of DAW's YEAR'S BEST HORROR. I have them all.