Single White Vampire Seeks Same

by Martin H. Greenberg (Editor/Contributor), Mickey Zucker Reichert (Contributor), Kristine Kathryn Rusch (Contributor)

This collection of original short stories by 13 of today's top fantasy writers offer their take on the "personals", of supernatural creatures hooking up through personal ads for love, romance -- and blood-letting.

Genres: Fantasy, Anthologies, Vampires, Fiction, Romance, Short Stories, Horror

317 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Martin Harry Greenberg was an American academic and speculative fiction anthologist. In all, he compiled 1,298 anthologies and commissioned over 8,200 original short stories. He founded Tekno Books, a packager of more than 2000 published books. In addition, he was a co-founder of the Sci-Fi Channel.

For the 1950s anthologist and publisher of Gnome Press, see Martin Greenberg.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fun anthology of a dozen urban fantasy/ romance stories unified with the theme of what unusual things might happen when you answer one of those personal dating ads. Some of them border a bit on the dark side, but most are light and funny. There are a couple of duds, but on the whole it's a better than average selection of original stories. I remember particularly enjoying the stories by Esther M. Friesner, Gary A. Braunbeck, Tanya Huff, Tim Waggoner, and Charles de Lint.

[Julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got this for the Newford story by Charles de Lint “Trading Hearts at the Half Kaffee Café.” Lyle and Mona meet each other through Lyle’s personal ad. Their friends tell them not to be honest with each other on the first date, but when Mona tells Lyle that she draws a cartoon, Lyle tells Mona that he is a shapechanger, a werewolf. Mona gets freaked out, Lyle saves her from others of his kind and things are better. Tanya Huff’s Henry Fitzroy places an ad and a succubus answers it, in “Someone to Share the Night.” They enjoy each other’s company, solve a murder together, but at the end Henry is still alone. “Secret Identities” by Nina Kiriki Hoffman is about three teenagers answering the ad of a wizard. It turns out one of the teens is quite a magic wielder of her own. I had a ninth grade student read this story before she got reassigned to the regular English class.

[Molly · Rating 3 out of 5]

As with any anthology of short stories, most people will have some stories that they favor, and some that they regret wasting time on, this anthology is no different. My personal favorites were "Fireflies" and "Wereotica," my least favorites were "Deja Vu" and "Secret Identities." But I won't waste time critiquing such a varying array of stories, authors, and methods of tale-telling. No, instead I intend to critique the editors. The editors did an absolutely horrible job of doing their job. The book was littered with misspellings and I do not mean colloquial misspellings such as color v. colour, but honest misspellings such as ohone instead of phone...and no, the tail wasn't simply cut off the 'p' because the 'o' was perfectly rounded instead of being partially flattened as the 'p' is want to be. Other crimes against editing found were periods mid-sentence (and not the type used to add emphasis) as well as tense changing mid-sentence. The editing job done was really and truly lazy.

[Susan]

♦ "Someone to Share the Night" (Henry Fitzroy) by Tanya Huff collected in Relative Magic and Blood Bank - read 4/5/2001 reread 2/28/2015
♦ Secret Identities by Nina Kiriki Hoffman collected in e-book Wild Talents- read 4/6/2001
♦ Trading Hearts at the Half Kaffe Café (Newford) by Charles de Lint collected in Tapping the Dream Tree and available FREE at Tor.com - read 5/7/2001

Personals Wishes • shortstory by Mickey Zucker Reichert
Folk Lure • novelette by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
A Kiss at Midnight • novelette by Russell Davis [as by R. Davis ]
Starless and Bible Black • novelette by Gary A. Braunbeck
Fireflies • shortstory by Bradley H. Sinor
Bernard Boyce Bennington and the American Dream • novelette by Peter Crowther
Werotica • novelette by Esther M. Friesner
Fixer-Upper • shortstory by Tim Waggoner
Déjà Vu • novelette by Michelle West
re-read Nov/Dec 2012

[Aleta · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fun collection of paranormal romance short stories with the personal ads as a unifying theme.

[Renee · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 tech.

[Angela]

I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/11880310

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

The stories were fun but not exactly what I was looking for from this anthology.

[S117 · Rating 3 out of 5]

På en måte gått litt ut på dato på grunn av personal ads. Men ellers var historiene litt tidløse.

[Lisa Keipp · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eh.

[Nicole · Rating 1 out of 5]

Made it through two of the short stories and then I couldn't bare it any longer. The stories had no depth and the writing was horrible. PASS!!!!