999 edited by Al Sarrantonio
reviewed by Georges T. Dodds
With excellent stories ranging from the straightforward and graphic to the complex and cerebral, from suspense to supernatural horror, from strict rationalism to irrealism, from the grimly horrifying to the humorous, with settings ranging from current New York society to depression-era Southern farm-folk, anyone unable to find something to raise the hair on the nape of their neck in 999, is likely in need of resuscitation paddles. With authors ranging from horror icons like Stephen King and William Peter Blatty, to lesser known or more recent entrants to the field, like Bentley Little and Michael Marshall Smith, the book presents an excellent cross-section of horror as it is and as it stands to be in the next millennium.

Waiting Out The New Millennium With F. Paul Wilson
An interview with Lisa DuMond
On vampires:
"I think they're more fun as nasty, obligate parasites with no redeeming qualities. I also like all the old-fashioned trappings of the vampire myth: repelled by garlic and crucifixes, scarred by holy water, killed by sunlight or beheading or a stake through the heart."

A Conversation With Tim Powers
An interview with Kim Fawcett
On how he writes:
"It's all in the outline and the calendar. I try to make my outlines infinitely detailed. I even have bits of dialogue in the outline, ready for use. For one thing it's a cure for writer's block. What am I supposed to write today? Well, there it is, look all the descriptions are there, you've even got some of the bits of dialogue already laid out. Just, you know, put that into a thousand words."

A Conversation With Michael Marshall Smith
An interview with Duane Swierczynski
On Y2K:
"I think that, if anything, it demonstrates an interesting human need to live in a cyclic fashion. We need our ups and downs. It used to be the coming of the seasons and the harvest, but now that we can buy strawberries regardless of the time of year, I guess we are looking for other cycles to worry about -- and the passing of a millennium is a nice big one."

Thomas F. Monteleone: Literary Lion
An interview with Thomas Myer
On starting out:
"After college, I just started writing stories. I wrote 30 of them in two years. Collected over 200 rejection slips. My first sale was to Amazing. They paid me a penny a word for a 3000 word story. I got a $30 check."

A Conversation With P.D. Cacek
An interview with Lisa DuMond
On telling bedtime stories:
"... when my sons were little, they absolutely refused to let me make up bedtime stories... saying that I could only read them stories from books they selected. I guess I tended to get carried away."

A Conversation With David Morrell
An interview with Lisa DuMond
On shoes:
"A couple of years ago, on a major street near where I live, shoes began appearing, sometimes singly, sometimes in pairs. Old and new. All kinds of shoes. Every morning, on schedule, shoes would be on the dividing line of the street. There was a lot of speculation about who was putting them there."

A Conversation With Chet Williamson
An interview with Lisa DuMond
On competition:
"Hundreds of companies (including publishers) have cannibalized each other in recent years, a practice that will only increase and intensify in its feeding frenzy."

A Conversation With Ed Bryant
An interview with A.L. Sirois
On movies:
"Movies are one of my passions, probably because of heavy exposure when I was a kid. Back in the 50s, when I lived on the ranch, my uncle the rodeo star also loved film. Two or three times a week, we'd drive 26 miles to town to see what was usually a double feature at the Ramona Theatre, the only movie house in 80 miles."

Other Interviews
Dark Planet	William Peter Blatty Nancy A. Collins
Steven Silver's SF Web Site	Kim Newman
Nuketown	Edward Lee Joe R. Lansdale
Cybling	Al Sarrantonio (editor) Ed Gorman Rick Hautala P.D. Cacek
The Orphic Chronicle	Joyce Carol Oates Bentley Little
Spicy Green Iguana	Dennis L. McKiernan Dennis L. McKiernan: The Language of Mithgar Ramsey Campbell Thomas Ligotti