Wishin' and Hopin' and Thinkin' and Screamin'...

Since many of my fellow horror blogosphere cohorts are answering the same question - "What are you most looking forward to in 2010?" - let's get back to The Jar by tackling the selfsame query...and as circumstances have warranted, my answer would have been the same in 2009...and 2008...and 2007...and earlier.

At the World Horror Convention in April of 2004, anthologist John Pelan announced an ambitious project to be published by Richard Chizmar and the fine, fine folks over at Cemetery Dance Publications. It was to be called The Century's Best Horror Fiction, a massive two-volume tome that collected 100 of the greatest fear-fraught offerings in short fiction that the prior millennium was able to muster. The guidelines were simple; one story per year, and no more than one story per author. Here's the list, presented at the convention, and subsequently promoted through the CD website -

1901: Barry Pain -- The Undying Thing
1902: W.W. Jacobs -- The Monkey's Paw
1903: H.G.Wells -- The Valley of the Spiders
1904: Arthur Machen -- The White People
1905: R. Murray Gilchrist -- The Lover's Ordeal
1906: Edward Lucas White -- House of the Nightmare
1907: Algernon Blackwood -- The Willows
1908: Perceval Landon -- Thurnley Abbey
1909: Violet Hunt -- The Coach
1910: Wm Hope Hodgson -- The Whistling Room
1911: M.R. James -- Casting the Runes
1912: E.F. Benson -- Caterpillars
1913: Aleister Crowley -- The Testament of Magdelan Blair
1914: M. P. Shiel -- The Place of Pain
1915: Hanns Heinz Ewers -- The Spider
1916: Lord Dunsany -- Thirteen at Table
1917: Frederick Stuart Greene -- The Black Pool
1918: H. De Vere Stacpoole -- The Middle Bedroom
1919: Ulric Daubeny -- The Sumach
1920: Maurice Level -- In the Light of the Red Lamp
1921: Vincent O'Sullivan -- Master of Fallen Years
1922: Walter de la Mare -- Seaton's Aunt
1923: George Allen England -- The Thing from Outside
1924: C.M. Eddy -- The Loved Dead
1925: John Metcalfe -- The Smoking Leg
1926: H.P. Lovecraft -- The Outsider
1927: Donald Wandrei -- The Red Brain
1928: H.R. Wakefield -- The Red Lodge
1929: Eleanor Scott -- Celui-La
1930: Rosalie Muspratt -- Spirit of Stonhenge
1931: Henry S. Whitehead -- Cassius
1932: David H. Keller -- The Thing in the Cellar
1933: C.L. Moore -- Shambleau
1934: L.A. Lewis -- The Tower of Moab
1935: Clark Ashton Smith -- The Dark Eidolon
1936: Thorp McCluskey -- The Crawling Horror
1937: Howard Wandrei -- The Eerie Mr Murphy
1938: Robert E. Howard -- Pigeons from Hell
1939: Robert Barbour Johnson -- Far Below
1940: John Collier -- Evening Primrose
1941: C.M. Kornbluth -- The Words of Guru
1942: Jane Rice -- The Idol of the Flies
1943: Anthony Boucher -- They Bite
1944: Ray Bradbury -- The Jar
1945: August Derleth -- Carousel
1946: Manly Wade Wellman -- Shonokin Town
1947: Theodore Sturgeon -- Bianca's Hands
1948: Shirley Jackson -- The Lottery
1949: Nigel Kneale -- The Pond
1950: Richard Matheson -- Born of Man & Woman
1951: Russell Kirk -- Uncle Isiah
1952: Eric Frank Russell -- I Am Nothing
1953: Robert Sheckley -- The Altar
1954: Everill Worrell -- Call Not Their Names
1955: Robert Aickman -- Ringing the Changes
1956: Richard Wilson -- Lonely Road
1957: Clifford Simak -- Founding Father
1958: Robert Bloch -- That Hell-Bound Train
1959: Charles Beaumont -- The Howling Man
1960: Frederic Brown -- The House
1961: Ray Russell -- Sardonicus
1962: Carl Jacobi -- The Aquarium
1963: Robert Arthur -- The Mirror of Cagliostro
1964: Charles Birkin -- A Lovely Bunch of Coconuts
1965: Jean Ray -- The Shadowy Street
1966: Arthur Porges -- The Mirror
1967: Norman Spinrad -- Carcinoma Angels
1968: Anna Hunger -- Come
1969: Stefan Aletti -- The Last Work of Pietro Apono
1970: David A Riley -- The Lurkers in the Abyss
1971: Dorothy K. Haynes -- The Derelict Track
1972: Gary Brandner -- The Price of a Demon
1973: Eddy C. Bertin -- Like Two White Spiders
1974: Karl Edward Wagner -- Sticks
1975: David Drake -- The Barrow Troll
1976: Dennis Etchison -- It Only Comes Out at Night
1977: Barry Malzberg -- The Man Who Loved the Midnight Lady
1978: Michael Bishop -- Within the Walls of Tyre
1979: Ramsey Campbell -- Mackintosh Willy
1980: Michael Shea -- The Autopsy
1981: Stephen King -- The Reach
1982: Fritz Leiber -- Horrible Imagings
1983: David Schow -- One for the Horrors
1984: Bob Leman -- The Unhappy Pilgrimage of Clifford M
1985: Michael Reaves -- The Night People
1986: Tim Powers -- Night Moves
1987: Ian Watson -- Evil Water
1988: Joe Lansdale -- The Night They Missed the Horror Show
1989: Joel Lane -- The Earth Wire
1990: Elizabeth Massie -- Stephen
1991: Thomas Ligotti -- The Glamour
1992: Poppy Z. Brite -- Calcutta Lord of Nerves
1993: Lucy Taylor -- The Family Underwater
1994: Jack Ketchum -- The Box
1995: Terry Lamsley -- The Toddler
1996: Caitlin R. Kiernan -- Tears Seven, Times Salt
1997: Stephen Laws -- The Crawl
1998: Brian Hodge -- As Above, So Below
1999: Glen Hirshberg -- Mr. Dark's Carnival
2000: Tim Lebbon -- Reconstructing Amy

Impressive, no? And once announced, it led to much online chatter among the Horror Polloi as to individual author and year representations, but all were agreed that, boy oh boy, this was gonna be something to own. CD was listing the price at a hefty $150, but for 700,000 words, this was a must-have. And then we waited. And waited. And waited. For the last few years CD has said on its website that the books are "going out with the next batch," but one would assume that several "batches" have come and gone without the promised result. The book is taking on all the characteristics of Harlan Ellison's long-promised, never-delivered The Last Dangerous Visions, albeit with tales that were previously published and possible to find elsewhere...if you are willing to dig. What was once a very high-profile announcement on the CD site has now been buried, and you have to search to find the page dedicated to the books. There is info buzzing around the Interweb that they are still waiting for rights clearance for a handful of stories, but that seems a far cry from telling fans they're getting shipped off to the printers, if not outright dishonest. For a publisher with such a reputation for excellence, the failure to deliver after all this time is a black eye. So my hope is that all the forces come together, the books truly are ready to become reality, and that next year at this time I'm holding these in my hot little hands...taking care not to drop either on my foot.