The Living Dead, John Joseph Adams

[lemming13]

I did try a site search and didn't find this, so forgive me if there's already a thread; I'm burrowing through this omnibus from Night Shade Books, published 2008, and I have bumped into a rock, which I'd like to consult the Vault's experts on. First off, contents list.
This Year's Class Picture, Dan Simmons
Some Zombie Contingency Plans, Kelly Link.
Death and Suffrage, Dale Bailey.
Ghost Dance, Sherman Alexie.
Blossom, David J Schow
The Third Dead Body, Nina Kiriki Hoffman
The Dead, Michael Swanwick
The Dead Kid, Darrell Schweitzer
Malthusian's Zombie, Jeffrey Ford
Beautiful Stuff, Susan Palwick
Sex, Death and Starshine, Clive Barker
Stockholm Syndrome, David Tallerman.
Bobby Conroy Comes Back From the Dead, Joe Hill.
Those Who Seek Forgiveness, Laurell K. Hamilton
In Beauty, Like the Night, Norman Partridge
Prairie, Brian Evenson
Everything Is Better With Zombies, Hannah Wolf Bowen
Home Delivery, Stephen King
Less Than Zombie, Douglas E. Winter
Sparks Fly Upward, Lisa Morton
Meathouse Man, George R. R. Martin
Deadman's Road, Joe R. Lansdale
The Skull-Faced Boy, David Barr Kirtley
The Age Of Sorrow, Nancy Kilpatrick
Bitter Grounds, Neil Gaiman
She's Taking Her Tits To the Grave, Catherine Cheek
Dead Like Me, Adam-Troy Castro
Zora and the Zombie, Andy Duncan
Calcutta, Lord Of Nerves, Poppy Z Brite
Followed, Will McIntosh
The Song the Zombie Sang, Harlan Ellison and Robert Silverberg
Passion Play, Nancy Holder
Almost the Last Story by Almost the Last Man, Scott Edelman
How the Day Runs Down, John Langan

There've been some excellent items in this, though rather too many appearances by trendy pap-mongers to suit me entirely, but the Stephen King one is what threw me. I hardly dare mention his name, though once on a time he wrote some good fiction (when properly restrained by a righteous editor). But I'm sure I read Home Delivery years ago in a collection of his short tales, and it was substantially shorter. And better, actually, for being brisker. Can anyone confirm for me I'm not going senile, it isn't just that this seems longer but he's actually milking it by re-releasing stuff like this in revamped, longer versions?

[dem]

Can't help you on the expert front, but have Home Delivery in the paperback of Skipp & Spector's marvellous zombie anthology Book Of The Dead, where it runs to 29 pages, and the Nel paperback of Dreamscapes & Nightmares, 31 pages this time, but likely the same. Is the version in The Living Dead significantly longer? I recognise Blossom and Less Than Zombie from the Skipp & Spector, and Sex, Death and Starshine has been knocking around a while, but guessing the bulk of the rest are originals?

[lemming13]

It's only 20 pages, but this book is much larger than standard paperback: 23 x 15 cm, roughly. Might be the Nightmares and Dreamscapes version, but it seems sooo much longer. Maybe I'm just bored with King's excessive detail.
As for the other stories, This Year's Class Picture was in the Skipp & Spector; Kelly Link's came from her own collection, Magic For Beginners; Death and Suffrage was adapted for the Masters of Horror series (and was one of the best things in it, in my opinion, though not a patch on Dreams in the Witch House and Cigarette Burns); Ghost Dance comes from McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales; Those Who Seek Forgiveness was in the author's Strange Candy collection; Meathouse Man is in the George R R Martin collection Dreamsongs; Bitter Grounds is in the anthology Mojo; and the Ellison/ Silverberg one featured in Partners In Wonder. The rest are either from various magazines or original to the collection. I'm actually thinking seriously of going for a couple more Night Shade titles, simply for the titles: Mall of Cthulhu, Dead In the West, and the pirate anthology Fast Ships, Black Sails.

[dem]

Shows how out of touch I am with the contemporary stuff - don't think I recognised any of those titles! Looked up McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales and that looks interesting/ potentially infuriating in a way only an attempt at pulp revival can be.

[dem]

Sept 2, 2010 20:20:01 GMT lemming13 said:

It's only 20 pages, but this book is much larger than standard paperback: 23 x 15 cm, roughly. Might be the Nightmares and Dreamscapes version, but it seems sooo much longer. Maybe I'm just bored with King's excessive detail.
As for the other stories, This Year's Class Picture was in the Skipp & Spector; Kelly Link's came from her own collection, Magic For Beginners; Death and Suffrage was adapted for the Masters of Horror series (and was one of the best things in it, in my opinion, though not a patch on Dreams in the Witch House and Cigarette Burns); Ghost Dance comes from McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales; Those Who Seek Forgiveness was in the author's Strange Candy collection; Meathouse Man is in the George R R Martin collection Dreamsongs; Bitter Grounds is in the anthology Mojo; and the Ellison/ Silverberg one featured in Partners In Wonder. The rest are either from various magazines or original to the collection. I'm actually thinking seriously of going for a couple more Night Shade titles, simply for the titles: Mall of Cthulhu, Dead In the West, and the pirate anthology Fast Ships, Black Sails.

A couple of these Nightshades found their way into local charity shop over recent weeks including The Living Dead:

John Joseph Adams (ed.) - The Living Dead (Nightshade, 2008)

David Palumbo

Also:

Tim Pratt (ed.) - Sympathy For The Devil (Nightshade, 2010)

David Palumbo

Tim Pratt - Introduction

Neil Gaiman - The Price
Andy Duncan - Beluthahatchie
Richard Butner - Ash City Stomp
Charles de Lint - Ten for the Devil
Holly Black - A Reversal of Fortune
Nathaniel Hawthorne - Young Goodman Brown
Stephen King - The Man in the Black Suit
Natalie Babbitt - The Power of Speech
Sarah Zettel - The Redemption of Silky Bill
Mark Twain - Sold to Satan
Elizabeth M. Glover - MetaPhysics
Charles Stross - Snowball's Chance
Scott Westerfeld - Non-Disclosure Agreement
Jan Wildt - Like Riding a Bike
James Morrow - Bible Stories for Adults, No. 31: The Covenant
Elizabeth Bear - And the Deep Blue Sea
Jay Lake - The Goat Cutter
Jeffrey Ford - On the Road to New Egypt
Robert Bloch - That Hell-Bound Train
Michael Chabon - The God of Dark Laughter
David Ackert & Benjamin Rosenbaum - The King of the Djinn
Nick Mamatas - Summon, Bind, Banish
Robert Louis Stevenson - The Bottle Imp
Kage Baker - Two Old Men
Carrie Richerson - ...With By Good Intentions
Kris Dikeman - Nine Sundays in a Row
Kelly Link - Lull
Neil Gaiman - We Can Get Them for You Wholesale
China Mieville - Details
Scott Bradfield - The Devil Disinvests
John Kessel - Faustfeathers
Theodore Sturgeon - The Professor's Teddy Bear
Jonathan Carroll - The Heidelberg Cylinder
David J. Schwartz - Mike's Place
John Collier - Thus I Refute Beelzy
Dante Alighieri - Inferno: Canto XXXIV (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

Blurb:
The Devil is known by many names: Serpent, Tempter, Beast, Adversary, Wanderer, Dragon, Rebel. His traps and machinations are the stuff of legends. His faces are legion. No matter what face the devil wears, Sympathy for the Devil has them all.
Edited by Tim Pratt, (Hart & Boot & Other Stories, The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl, Blood Engines), Sympathy for the Devil collects the best Satanic short stories by Neil Gaiman, Holly Black, Stephen King, Kage Baker, Charles Stross, Elizabeth Bear, Jay Lake, Kelly Link, China Mieville, Michael Chabon, and many others, revealing His Grand Infernal Majesty, in all his forms.
Thirty-five stories, from classics to the cutting edge, exploring the many sides of Satan, Lucifer, the Lord of the Flies, the Father of Lies, the Prince of the Powers of the Air and Darkness, the First of the Fallen... and a Man of Wealth and Taste. Sit down and spend a little time with the Devil.