Fans of science fiction/fantasy can, more often than not, be divided into two subgroups: those who worship Joss Whedon as God and enjoy watching poorly-rendered CG animal hybrids (SHARKTOPUS, PIRANHACONDA, take your pick) attack weakly-penned, one-dimensional television actors; and those who enjoy actual science fiction (in short, sci-fi fans and Syfy fans). So what can fans expect of YEAR'S BEST SF 16? Find out after the jump.

Being dead used to be a bad thing, but visionaries have been warning us for decades that we are leaning toward the non-living role model. Of course, everybody wants to be a vampire—it’s great to be undead, look pretty, dress sharp and smell good. We’ll gladly give up our soul, but never our vanity. Being an oozing, groaning, stinking zombie isn’t very glamorous; still, what a massive head rush it must be! Exhilarating, powerful and, yes, cool. That’s what THE BRAIN EATER’S BIBLE (Mythodrome) by J.D. McGhoul with Pat Kilbane (pictured) has to offer.

Victorian England must have been a very scary place indeed. With infamous fiends and secret societies so well documented, we imagine the dark alleyways and nascent industrial slums of London crawling with filth and malevolent characters of every ilk. Confirming this historical portrait is PHOENIX RISING (Harper Voyager), the first volume in the MINISTRY OF PECULIAR OCCURRENCES NOVEL series by Pip Ballantine (pictured) and Tee Morris.

Eden Blackwell is a complicated young vampire. She wants her childhood friends to love and accept her, despite their paltry human attributes and their disgust at her recent choice to become a preternatural bloodsucker. Eden was reborn into an ancient coven, run by the sexy and powerful Lucius, a better looking, undead version of Hugh Heffner, but now she does what she can to exist in the world of mortals.

In today’s world of cookie-cutter entertainers and careers launched via reality TV, it is very rare to find a true Hollywood original—someone who scratched and scraped their way out of obscurity the old-fashioned way, and brought their passion to the masses by sheer force of will. However, there can be no question that one such man is Lance Henriksen, and his story is now officially being told in his autobiography NOT BAD FOR A HUMAN: THE LIFE AND FILMS OF LANCE HENRIKSEN.

Chris Bowsman’S A LIFE ON FIRE (Grindhouse Press) is a terrifyingly bleak story about an average man’s building descent into madness. With his job excruciatingly boring, this lonely guy returns to an empty and quiet home. Nothing at his house is waiting for him, only the monsters in his head. The only thing this recluse can do is let the nightmares take control of him and let his insanity run wild…

Just who was Dr. Thackery T. Lambshead? If editors Ann and Jeff Vandermeer are to be believed, you should already know. As a practitioner of arts both medical and supernatural, Lambshead has gained a relatively substantial cult following amongst sci-fi/fantasy readers ever since his untimely death in 2003—which just-so-happened to coincide with the release of THE THACKERY T. LAMBSHEAD POCKET GUIDE TO ECCENTRIC & DISCREDITED DISEASES.