Annal:1989 World Fantasy Award for Novel

Koko

Peter Straub

• 1989 WFA–Novel winner
• Score: 10.39

KOKO…

Only four men knew what it meant. Vietnam vets. One was a doctor. One was a lawyer. One was a working stiff. One was a writer. All were as different as men could be—-yet all were bound eternally together by a single shattering secret.

And now they joined together again on a quest that could take them from the graveyard and fleshpots of the Far East to the human jungle of New York…hunting an inhuman ghost of the past risen from nightmare darkeness to kill and kill and kill…

The Last Coin

James P. Blaylock

• 1989 Mythopoeic-Adult finalist
• 1989 WFA–Novel nominee
• Score: 12.39

Judas betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. Twenty-nine of the coins are already in the possession of the unpleasant Pennyman. The last coin is all that stands between the world and doom, and it now belongs to ordinary Andrew Vanbergen, owner of an inn where dark magic and bizarre heroism are about to intertwine.

Sleeping in Flame

Jonathan Carroll

• 1989 WFA–Novel nominee
• Score: 6.39

Ricocheting between the haunted chic of Vienna and the mystical crassness of Los Angeles, between the world of desire and the landscape of dreams, Sleeping In Flame is a hypnotic literary, novel with irresistible elements of fantasy and magic.

It is the story of Walker Easterling, who saves a woman’ life only to place her in infinitely greater danger by falling in love with her. It’s the story of Maris York, an androgynous beauty who arouses incinerating passions in the around her. It is a novel populated by a shaman with a fondness for sandwiches, an autistic Adonis, and a tiny man as powerful and ravenously jealous as the God of the Old Testament.

Praised by writers ranging from Stanislaw Lam to Stephen King, Jonathan Carroll has made Sleeping In Flame a dizzying tour de force of tenderness and terror, realistic suspense and mythic imagination.

Fade

Robert Cormier

• 1989 WFA–Novel nominee
• Score: 6.39

It is the summer of 1938 when young Paul Moreaux discovers he can “fade.” First bewildered, then thrilled with the power of invisibility, Paul experiments. But his “gift” soon shows him shocking secrets and drives him toward a chilling act.

“Imagine what might happen if Holden Caufield stepped into H. G. Wells’ The Invisible Man, and you’ll have an idea how good Fade is…. I was absolutely riveted.” —Stephen King

The Silence of the Lambs: A Novel

Thomas Harris

• 1989 Anthony-Novel winner
• 1988 Stoker–Novel winner
• 1989 WFA–Novel nominee
• Score: 26.39

A serial murderer known only by a grotesquely apt nickname—Buffalo Bill—is stalking women. He has a purpose, but no one can fathom it, for the bodies are discovered in different states. Clarice Starling, a young trainee at the FBI Academy, is surprised to be summoned by Jack Crawford, chief of the Bureau’s Behavioral Science section. Her assignment: to interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter—Hannibal the Cannibal—who is kept under close watch in the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.

Dr. Lecter is a former psychiatrist with a grisly history, unusual tastes, and an intense curiosity about the darker corners of the mind. His intimate understanding of the killer and of Clarice herself form the core of The Silence of the Lambs—an ingenious, masterfully written book and an unforgettable classic of suspense fiction.

The Drive-In

Joe R. Lansdale

• 1989 WFA–Novel nominee
• 1988 Stoker–Novel nominee
• Score: 12.39

When a group of friends decided to spend a day at the world’s largest Drive-In theater horror fest, they expected to see tons of bloody murders, rampaging madmen, and mayhem—but only on the screen. As a mysterious force traps all the patrons inside the Drive-In, the worst in humanity comes out. Filled with Lansdale’s razor whit and black humor, The Drive-In is a darkly humorous masterpiece!