Well, she's a 12-year-old girl who Rich believes was being held captive and abused by a Satanic cult, her father a member, her father the owner of the chalet Rich and Karyn were staying at when the murder occurred.

Rich insists to Conor that he was only trying to help Polly. The community is horrified, but from jail Richard tearfully insists to his half brother, Conor Devon, that he wasn't in control of himself when the murder occurred, that he was not in possession of his body or his mind. Using a tire iron, Rich pulverizes the poor woman beyond recognition, breaking virtually every bone in her body. But, for various industry reasons, Abyss folded later in the '90s and my love of current horror pretty much went with it.Ī young woman named Karyn Vale is murdered on a skiing vacation in Vermont by her boyfriend, Richard Devon, in front of a handful of witnesses who are frozen to the spot by the sheer violent intensity of the attack. What they all had in common was a desire to do something new with horror fiction. Brite, but also Tanith Lee, Nancy Holder, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Melanie Tem - and guys like Brian Hodge and Rick R. Women writers were plentiful - the most successful was easily Poppy Z. Most of the authors were first-time novelists, or at least writers with only a few books under their belts, but in the case of MetaHorror (July 1992), an anthology edited by ever-present '80s author Dennis Etchison, the line also featured well-known horror masters. Launched in February 1991 with Kathe Koja's stunningly bleak and unsettling The Cipher, Abyss published one title a month, ending up with more than 40 titles overall. The icon on the spine of its books was a mark of distinction indeed, Abyss even had a mission statement:

The Abyss paperback originals used striking cover design - haunting, creepy, anguished faces and tormented bodies, albeit perhaps sometimes a tad clumsy - to separate themselves from the anonymous bloody skulls, graveyards, and evil babies then on horror covers. This kind of horror was interiorized, found not in a Gothic mansion or small town overrun by vampires but in the blasted landscape of the human mind. The appropriately-named Abyss was intent on publishing works that plumbed dark depths of psychology and the supernatural not for cheap, exploitative, escapists thrills but for more disturbing and revelatory chills. This imprint from Dell Publishing was spearheaded by Bantam Doubleday editor Jeanne Cavelos in an attempt to give the paperback horror genre a boost of originality and conviction - and, of course, a boost in sales - as it had long been plagued by tired cliches and half-hearted imitations of better books and writers. It was 20 years ago this month that the Dell/Abyss line of contemporary horror fiction began publication.

Tunnelvision by R. Patrick Gates