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The Best of Dreams of Decadence: Vampire Stories and Poems to Keep You Up Till Dawn
From Angela Kessler, editor and publisher of the premier vampire magazine, Dreams of Decadence, comes an elite selection of prose and poetry as eerie and immortal as the undead themselves. Collected for the first time in one volume, these dark dreams bring to life the irresistible lures and longings of the vampire experience-from the gothic to the modern, the fanciful to the fierce, the icy-veined to the hot-blooded.
Includes contributions from award-winning and notable authors, including:
€ Tanith Lee
€ Lawrence Watt-Evans
€ Sharon Lee
€ Brian Stableford
€ Lyda Morehouse
€ and many others
Includes contributions from award-winning and notable authors, including:
€ Tanith Lee
€ Lawrence Watt-Evans
€ Sharon Lee
€ Brian Stableford
€ Lyda Morehouse
€ and many others
337 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published March 4, 2003
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46 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 6, 2018
a great collection of vampire stories.
September 22, 2010
From Angela Kessler, editor and publisher of the premier vampire magazine, "Dreams of Decadence", comes an elite selection of prose and poetry as eerie and immortal as the undead themselves. Collected for the first time in one volume, these dark dreams bring to life the irresistible lures and longings of the vampire experience-from the gothic to the modern, the fanciful to the fierce, the icy-veined to the hot-blooded.
There are forty-one entries here, including around a dozen works of poetry (yes, poetry). Don't expect forty-one variations of the now tired "super slayer loves vampire" or "super vampire brooding to bits" though - the stories here may just bring back some much-needed variety and fun factor in a subgenre increasingly saturated by Hamilton clones or worse yet, poorly written paranormal romance novels as popularized by that terrible Twilight series.
Every single story gives us some variation on the undead mythos.There's love, there's heartbreak, and there's even a post-apocalyptic story. Vampirism is a metaphor for everything from AIDS to bigotry to death of the imagination/creativity/artistry to self-loathing to declaration of independence from conformity.
Sharon Lee's "Passionato" portrays vampires are creatures who feed on the "passion" in their victim's blood because vampires cannot have imagination and hence they crave it. Witness how an artist is conned into becoming a vampire only to commit suicide when that idiot no longer can do his artistic thing.
Warren Lapine offers another view on the canon in "Mona Lisa": an artist, after realizing that he has multiple sclerosis, decides to die after creating his best work ever, until a vampiress offers him a chance to live and be an artist forever.
Diana Pharaoh Francis's "All Things Being Not Quite Equal" shatters the myth that most vampires are gorgeous and have no problems attracting willing victims, but not Esther. She's ugly. She's a bouncer, mind you, in a club and she's, well, probably the only guys who go for her are those with Amazonian dominatrix fetish. But she's also very powerful and this attracts the attention of the vampire head honcho of the area, with some pretty interesting consequences that result.
Tippi N Blevins' "Presumed Icarus" tells the tale of a vampire who learns the meaning of love and loyalty from an insane old man who rescued him and thought the vampire his son. This one ties in nicely with the Greek legend of the idiot boy who flew too close to the sun, with an ending that makes me sigh rather sadly. Robin Simons Fitch on the other hand presents a bleak tale of a vampire's lover/victim who loves too much in "After The Fire".
Steve Patten's "Colour Vision" is a Hitchcockian tale of crime and murder that explains why villains in Boston's Chinatown disappear after a few months never to be seen again. The hero is a very disillusioned and almost insane fortune teller who finds the rising crime rate of this place very favorable. Read: it's like a cheap sale at the supermarket for this guy. Noir is never this cool.
Sarah A Hoyt's "The Blood Like Wine" is a personal favorite. Here, vampires are truly villainous or dishonorable people who arise after death to face eternal torment. In this case, Sylvie loved an aristocrat during the French Revolution only to leave him to his death and move in with his betrayer. Today, she is a vampiress in a world where someone is murdering her kind one by one. Haunted by her lover's ghost, she goes back to the man who betrayed her late lover - with some very interesting results, I may say. This short but beautiful tale of guilt and self-loathing really works and I wish it is a longer novel. The story and the heroine are too fascinating to be contained within a novella.
Angelique de Terre's "Deathlover" is another favorite. In this story, vampirism is a form of legal euthanasia - you can sign up to die at the hands of a vampire. It's a good way to die: a vampire's bite has orgasmic properties and the vampire will woo and treat you so well you'll feel loved. How this false illusion of love can drive the desperate to sign a legal contract with their soon-to-be murderers is the premise of this story, as a secretary to a vampiric Dr Kervokian relates the case of one particular woman who signed up. Underlying this is a fatalistic unconsummated love story between her and her employer: she is diabetic and her blood is fatal to her employer whom she loves, and he keeps her around because she will be his key to death should he get tired of immortality. Again, a really good story that screams to be made into a full-length novel, and I'm just disappointed that it ends too soon.
Tanith Lee's "Vermilia" is a darkly humorous but eventually depressing tale of a condescending, powerful vampire who meets his downfall in the hands of a silly Anne Rice human vampire-wannabe. It's embarrassing for the silly vampire.
Lawrence Watt-Evans' "The Note Beside The Body" is actually a first-person plea from a vampiress to her victim, asking him to not let her when the hunger consumes her and she comes to his door. (Remember, a vampire can't come into your house unless you invites that fang face in.) They never say no, of course. And she never really wants it to happen, but she is just too hungry. It makes a lot of sense, really: he could've just said no, but I guess the sight of her in that hot red dress is too much to turn down.
L Jagi's Lamplighter tells of a secret Church organization that forms a twelve-step program for vampire victims addicted to the bite. "Feeding The Mouth That Bites Us" is actually amusing and if one wants to read too much into it, it is a nice allegory of how stupid women can be in deluding themselves about the not-nice-at-all men they love. The way vampirism is treated (complete with videos and garlic/belladonna vitamin pills marked "Made with Holy Water") are too cute.
In Brian Stableford's "Emptiness", vampirism is a genetic condition, and a woman finds a vampire baby and soon forms a bond with it, much to the disgust of the daughter and the local KKK equivalent, Defenders of Humanity.
The story that closes the anthology is a favorite of the editor: Charlee Jacob's "Under The Tangible Myrrh Of The Resonant Stars". It's a very good story set in the future when vampires are reviled and openly murdered on the streets - a heavy-handed allegory to bigotry and racism indeed - and our heroine, a vampiress, watches in horror as her husband and son (all vampires) are murdered before her eyes. The story ends with her vowing vengeance on all humankind.
More of Purplycookie’s Reviews @: http://www.goodreads.com/purplycookie
Book Details:
Title The Best of Dreams of Decadence
Author Angela Kessler
Reviewed By Purplycookie
There are forty-one entries here, including around a dozen works of poetry (yes, poetry). Don't expect forty-one variations of the now tired "super slayer loves vampire" or "super vampire brooding to bits" though - the stories here may just bring back some much-needed variety and fun factor in a subgenre increasingly saturated by Hamilton clones or worse yet, poorly written paranormal romance novels as popularized by that terrible Twilight series.
Every single story gives us some variation on the undead mythos.There's love, there's heartbreak, and there's even a post-apocalyptic story. Vampirism is a metaphor for everything from AIDS to bigotry to death of the imagination/creativity/artistry to self-loathing to declaration of independence from conformity.
Sharon Lee's "Passionato" portrays vampires are creatures who feed on the "passion" in their victim's blood because vampires cannot have imagination and hence they crave it. Witness how an artist is conned into becoming a vampire only to commit suicide when that idiot no longer can do his artistic thing.
Warren Lapine offers another view on the canon in "Mona Lisa": an artist, after realizing that he has multiple sclerosis, decides to die after creating his best work ever, until a vampiress offers him a chance to live and be an artist forever.
Diana Pharaoh Francis's "All Things Being Not Quite Equal" shatters the myth that most vampires are gorgeous and have no problems attracting willing victims, but not Esther. She's ugly. She's a bouncer, mind you, in a club and she's, well, probably the only guys who go for her are those with Amazonian dominatrix fetish. But she's also very powerful and this attracts the attention of the vampire head honcho of the area, with some pretty interesting consequences that result.
Tippi N Blevins' "Presumed Icarus" tells the tale of a vampire who learns the meaning of love and loyalty from an insane old man who rescued him and thought the vampire his son. This one ties in nicely with the Greek legend of the idiot boy who flew too close to the sun, with an ending that makes me sigh rather sadly. Robin Simons Fitch on the other hand presents a bleak tale of a vampire's lover/victim who loves too much in "After The Fire".
Steve Patten's "Colour Vision" is a Hitchcockian tale of crime and murder that explains why villains in Boston's Chinatown disappear after a few months never to be seen again. The hero is a very disillusioned and almost insane fortune teller who finds the rising crime rate of this place very favorable. Read: it's like a cheap sale at the supermarket for this guy. Noir is never this cool.
Sarah A Hoyt's "The Blood Like Wine" is a personal favorite. Here, vampires are truly villainous or dishonorable people who arise after death to face eternal torment. In this case, Sylvie loved an aristocrat during the French Revolution only to leave him to his death and move in with his betrayer. Today, she is a vampiress in a world where someone is murdering her kind one by one. Haunted by her lover's ghost, she goes back to the man who betrayed her late lover - with some very interesting results, I may say. This short but beautiful tale of guilt and self-loathing really works and I wish it is a longer novel. The story and the heroine are too fascinating to be contained within a novella.
Angelique de Terre's "Deathlover" is another favorite. In this story, vampirism is a form of legal euthanasia - you can sign up to die at the hands of a vampire. It's a good way to die: a vampire's bite has orgasmic properties and the vampire will woo and treat you so well you'll feel loved. How this false illusion of love can drive the desperate to sign a legal contract with their soon-to-be murderers is the premise of this story, as a secretary to a vampiric Dr Kervokian relates the case of one particular woman who signed up. Underlying this is a fatalistic unconsummated love story between her and her employer: she is diabetic and her blood is fatal to her employer whom she loves, and he keeps her around because she will be his key to death should he get tired of immortality. Again, a really good story that screams to be made into a full-length novel, and I'm just disappointed that it ends too soon.
Tanith Lee's "Vermilia" is a darkly humorous but eventually depressing tale of a condescending, powerful vampire who meets his downfall in the hands of a silly Anne Rice human vampire-wannabe. It's embarrassing for the silly vampire.
Lawrence Watt-Evans' "The Note Beside The Body" is actually a first-person plea from a vampiress to her victim, asking him to not let her when the hunger consumes her and she comes to his door. (Remember, a vampire can't come into your house unless you invites that fang face in.) They never say no, of course. And she never really wants it to happen, but she is just too hungry. It makes a lot of sense, really: he could've just said no, but I guess the sight of her in that hot red dress is too much to turn down.
L Jagi's Lamplighter tells of a secret Church organization that forms a twelve-step program for vampire victims addicted to the bite. "Feeding The Mouth That Bites Us" is actually amusing and if one wants to read too much into it, it is a nice allegory of how stupid women can be in deluding themselves about the not-nice-at-all men they love. The way vampirism is treated (complete with videos and garlic/belladonna vitamin pills marked "Made with Holy Water") are too cute.
In Brian Stableford's "Emptiness", vampirism is a genetic condition, and a woman finds a vampire baby and soon forms a bond with it, much to the disgust of the daughter and the local KKK equivalent, Defenders of Humanity.
The story that closes the anthology is a favorite of the editor: Charlee Jacob's "Under The Tangible Myrrh Of The Resonant Stars". It's a very good story set in the future when vampires are reviled and openly murdered on the streets - a heavy-handed allegory to bigotry and racism indeed - and our heroine, a vampiress, watches in horror as her husband and son (all vampires) are murdered before her eyes. The story ends with her vowing vengeance on all humankind.
More of Purplycookie’s Reviews @: http://www.goodreads.com/purplycookie
Book Details:
Title The Best of Dreams of Decadence
Author Angela Kessler
Reviewed By Purplycookie
Read
December 28, 2010I have a short story in this one. It's my ugly vampire story.
November 1, 2021
Anthologies of different authors can have ups and downs. Some stories I really enjoyed while others were just OK. If you like alternative takes on the vampire trope, these are pretty enjoyable.
February 26, 2013
I really enjoyed this selection of vampire stories. they were all very different in many of them were very unique
September 25, 2012
Junk food.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews