By Blood We Live

by John Joseph Adams, Neil Gaiman, Stephen King

Book Overview

From Dracula to Buffy the Vampire Slayer; from Castlevania to Tru Blood, the romance between popular culture and vampires hearkens back to humanity's darkest, deepest fears, flowing through our very... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1597801569
• ISBN13: 9781597801560
• Release Date: August 2009
• Publisher: Night Shade Books
• Length: 300 Pages
• Weight: 1.36 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.1" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

Generally Strong Collection Marred by some Vamp Romance Pulp

Adams continues to develop his skills as an anthologist, coming up with an excellent vampire collection to match his earlier post-holocaust and zombie reprint anthologies. BBWL avoids the odd politicization that made "The Living Dead" a bit of a dog's breakfast (no abortion rights or gun control vampire tales here) but falls victim to some extent to the overall problems tainting vampire literature. I speak here of the vampire hunk / babe syndrome, the sexy vampire as object of love / desire. Besides not being very horrific, this worldview produces not only the questionable excesses of Anne Rice, but even worse the romance novel bodice rippers that have slowly cluttered up the horror section of Borders like cholesterol. Adams evidently thought it would be fun to include some of these pulp authors to contribute to this anthology, and as a result he got a few weak pieces in the mix. The Saint Crow and Banks pieces are draining, and the over-anthologized Rampling Gate story by Rice is almost a parody of her usual work, with a shy gentle innocent vampire who wins the heart of our Gothic heroine. There's also an almost literally plotless piece in here from the dubious "sexy horror' anthology "Hotter Than Hell" about some coed vampire seducing some guy she meets in a bar that is really cringeworthy. Bleh. I guess this junk is a noticeable and significant part of the genre, but this doesn't mean it has to be included in serious horror anthologies. Adams also includes a few works by some of the umm, more prolific and less talented science fiction writers like Anderson and Turtledove in here, which also drag a bit, but at least they are short, unlike the Banks & Saint Crow pieces which are purgatorial in duration. We also have an oddity piece, a very short story by the Night Watch Russian dude, which is wafer thin, but OK. Not to discourage you though, there are far more hits than misses here. The stories by Gaiman, Nix, Tanith Lee, Hill, Williams, etc are all excellent. Two standouts are the long and excellent Langan piece and the new author work by Gabriela Lee, featuring a unique Filipino vampire species. All in all, an excellent collection with a lot of interesting work, and you can always skim through the lamer stuff. It's good to see big horror anthologies coming out regularly from Night Shade, and Adams is slowly ascending the ranks of anthologists. He's not quite a Datlow yet, but he's on his way, and readers will benefit from tracking his progress.

A solid collection of vampire fiction.

This book is a solid collection of vampire fiction. It does not follow one particular myth or standard so you get a wide variety of flavors.