Evolve: Vampire Stories of the New Undead

Evolve: Vampire Stories of the New Undead
Ed. by Nancy Kilpatrick

Edge Publishing, 2010

Decided to make an anthology about vampires, Nancy Kilpatrick took on a very heavy burden. There are so many books about vampires that make something stand-out is almost impossible. And an author, who writes about bloodsucking creatures, puts himself in bounds: the space is narrowed, the majority of moves is known so the creator of the book or even a story about vampires still writes like in a game setting or novelization. Walls from right and left - either reader will not understand, or publisher will not publish.

Editor of «Evolve» hadn’t expanded customary bounds, too, and hence failed.
In the vast majority of the stories here there are all the same Goths teenagers who want to either become a vampire, or become victims of vampires; vampire hunters and hunters on vampires, bloodsuckers clans; rather spirits and ghosts, rather than vampires; vampires-musicians. Some stories are written better, some worse, but the style does not help the situation when the whole point anyway is reduced to the bite.
However, the book turned out not completely disastrous, if we assume that some stories were better than average. Kevin Cockle in his «Sleepless in Calgary» comes from the premise that to become a vampire can not through bite of a vampire, but only if you want yourself and drink the blood of other people. The author puts the protagonist in front of choice: a boring monotonous life of a person or free, not burdened with the work existence of a vampire. That's just is a bloodsucker worth a trust?

In Bev Vincent's «A Murder of Vampires» someone kills vampires. Nobody wants to help them, but one policeman. He takes this case. The story is not quite carried through (no explain of motives of the murderer), but the relationship between humans and vampires are written in not a trivial way.

Two of the most powerful stories were placed in the final part of the anthology. In «How Magnificent is the Universal Donor» Jerome Stueart there are virtually no vampires (at least those that originate through Stoker's Dracula). The story can be attributed to pure science fiction, and this is the definite plus. After the spread of a mysterious virus BDD, which kills 40% of carriers, to find a man with an almost perfect blood tests is nearly impossible. In the blood of people there is a virus or chemistry to treat patients. Doctors still find one person who has an ideal blood, hoping to use it to heal millions of patients. But the husband of carrier of the ideal blood (it’s a gay couple) does not trust doctors: they have forged the death certificate of his partner and does not let him see the body. This man has to pretend to be a doctor to get into the Medical Corps, where the doctors are going to remove all the blood from the kidnapped. Heroes of the story turned out some cardboard (taken as if straight out of 50's science fiction movies), but the plot did not require realistic characters.

Kevin Nunn in «The Sun Also Shines On the Wicked» tells the surprising story of how a vampire can sunbathe. To do this, he needs only a mirror and an assistant, watching over time. This story is not just a story with an inventive plot, but also a meditation on what is an eternity.

In general, the anthology is not as good as could be.

Tesseracts Thirteen

Tesseracts Thirteen
Ed. by Nancy Kilpatrick and David Morrell

EDGE Publishing, 2009

Annual Canadian anthology Tesseracts, until this collection supplying readers with quality science fiction, in the issue number 13 turned into an anthology of horror and dark fantasy. It might have been expected just by looking at the names of the editors: Nancy Kilpatrick, author of many vampire novels, and Morrell who is not just the author of "First Blood" and the literary father of Rambo, but also a writer, who wrote lots of thrillers with elements of horror.

What Canadian horror writers distinguished in comparison with their colleagues from the United States or Britain to the better side is a gentle approach to the description of the heroes of the story. This collection is inhabited not by the rough casts of characters, not the outline, but full, with the backgrounds and believable motives, characters.

However, solving this problem, many authors of the anthology couldn’t not solve the other, just no less important: to put the characters in such story, in which character’s three-dimensionality would have helped to the creation of three-dimensionality of the described world, where characters are placed. Most of the stories, having good inclinations, did not turn into something extraordinary. In the «Stone Cold» Kevin Cockle realistically described life of invalid, who also always feels a chill - he never gets warm. Unfortunately, behind a description of everyday life the story is lost: it seems get frozen together with the hero. The story of Rebecca Bradley «Kids These Days» has absolutely charming beginning: in the described world, children have lost all the life skills, something struck their brain: they can not themselves move or drink, or even respond to anything threatening their lives. Parents have an extremely hard to cope with their offspring. However, a story that could have been just finished brilliantly as well, the author has brought to the unbelievable horror ending. Such problem and with Susanna Church’s. It «The Tear Closet» unfolds the story of domestic violence from the view of a little girl, but introduced element of fantasy fades from the fact that the author almost sinking her story into melodrama, with one goal - to squeeze out a tear in the reader.

The two strongest stories are in the final part of the anthology. David Nickle in «The Radejastians» doesn’t give away many, so increasing fascination of his story. The story of three men who hard to call friends arrive in another country (another planet? Author hardly gives any hints on where the story takes place: it may be an alternative Earth, and perhaps a different planet.), go to obscure work, and one of them is invited to a certain church, to compare, whether it is better than the one where he visited before (What was that another church and where it was, still unknown). This story is not about God, but about religion, about how to find themselves and then lose. Another gem of the anthology is eerie tale by Mary E. Choo «The Language of Crows». It's a strange story of the family where the husband dies and the wife remains hostage to his whims. While reading this story, crow caw actually fills your ears.

A nice addition to a very good fiction part is review of Canadian horror and fantasy, written by Robert Knowlton.