Canavan’s Comments (group member since May 15, 2018)

Canavan’s comments from the Spells, Space & Screams: Collections & Anthologies in Fantasy, Science Fiction, & Horror group.

“One Among Millions”, Yvonne Navarro

Although competently written, this one left quite the bad aftertaste. (view spoiler)[In this story the vampire serves as stand-in for the male sexual predator. And while their female victims may say “no”, they really mean “yes”. Eww. (hide spoiler)]

✭

“Aftermath”, Janet Berliner

I came away from this story with an acute sense of disappointment. I thought the setting and ideas Berliner initially presented to the reader were intriguing and (especially for this anthology) relatively unique, but I was ultimately confused as to precisely what the author was trying to tell us.

✭½

“Services Rendered”, Louise Cooper

I’ll characterize this story as a near miss. (view spoiler)[In many ways what Cooper has done is to craft a soap opera in which one side of the triangle just happens to be a vampire. Whether one finds such plots interesting or not may be a matter of personal bias, but, speaking only for myself, what I found most outlandish about the tale wasn’t the existence of vampires, but rather the thoughts and actions of the characters, both mortal and immortal.

Final thought: I wonder whether the description of Penny in the story’s final passages (sitting cross-legged with knife with fixed smile) is a tip of the hat to Karen Black’s character in the final segment of the 1975 horror movie, Trilogy of Terror. (hide spoiler)]

✭✭½

“Prince of Flowers”, Elizabeth Hand

This is a vampire yarn of a sort...I suppose. Whatever it is, it’s fairly well written (especially for a first sale) and interesting. Paradoxically I found the initial (non-supernatural) part of the tale more absorbing; perhaps it’s because I once worked in environments like the one Hand describes and was acquainted with individuals like Helen who were similarly damaged.

✭✭✭½

“Just His Type”, Storm Constantine

(view spoiler)[According to the foreword, this story stemmed from the author’s research postulating that the vampire myth may have evolved from precursor myths about fallen angels. Sounds kinda sketchy to me, but the story itself is competent enough. (hide spoiler)]

✭✭✭

Randy wrote (in part):

Canavan, I think you nail it concerning rage. It fits noir story-telling to a degree -- think Mickey Spillane -- but while it reminded me I have Sunglasses..., it also made me wonder if I really want to read it.

Mickey Spillane — that’s a really good comparison.

I just looked through my bookshelves and find that I actually own a copy of Sunglasses After Dark . I didn’t think I did. Who knows, one day I may actually read it.

“Vampire King of the Goth Chicks”, Nancy A. Collins

This is yet another story which features a recurring character, Sonja Blue. The Wikipedia article for the author provides a citation describing Sunglasses After Dark , which marked the first appearance of Sonja Blue, as “one of the most influential vampire novels published after 1970”. That may be so, but I wonder whether that is necessarily a good thing. (view spoiler)[While reading the final passages of this story describing Blue’s behavior, I recalled an old interview with the late Burt Reynolds in which he wryly described a television character he once played as having two emotions, mad and madder. (hide spoiler)]

✭✭

“The Raven Bound”, Freda Warrington

This was another story that was a bit of a miss for me. My reaction was prompted, I think, by the way in the author addressed her theme. (view spoiler)[I didn’t particularly care for the hit-the-reader-over-the-head symbolism which closed out the story. Second, Warrington’s use of this symbol is scarcely necessary given that the she announces the story’s theme loudly, clearly, and repeatedly. Enough already, I get it. (hide spoiler)]

✭✭½

“Miss Massingberd and the Vampire”, Tina Rath

Randy referred to this one in his post as fluff, and while that may be a fair characterization, if I’m being honest, this is nonetheless my favorite story in this anthology to this point. (view spoiler)[I wasn’t familiar with it, but found it typical of some of the author’s more whimsical tales. It manages to capture some of the tropes of the vampire story while imparting a gentle twist. I liked the line, “And Miss Massingberd, having learned the trick of it, fell in love all over again.” (hide spoiler)]

✭✭✭✭

Randy said (in part):

Up to this point I'm finding the stories kind of light-weight which may be why I'm not anxious to dig in some more. Have to admit, I didn't expect that from what I've read of Jones' other anthologies.

Yeah, I’ve been a little underwhelmed to this point, which is a bit surprising since I typically find Stephen Jones a competent anthologist. I’ll keep plugging along, however; for one thing I nominated this book, so I feel a certain obligation to continue. And the stories may improve. And, of course, it goes without saying that just because I’ve found the first handful of stories a bit lacking, others will necessarily feel the same way.

“La Diente”, Nancy Kilpatrick

I found this to be one of the better written pieces thus far encountered in the anthology, but I’m still fumbling around a bit trying to ascertain my reaction to it. (view spoiler)[The underlying message, at least as I understand it, is quite frankly a bit of a downer: We live in a zero-sum world in which the strong (represented in part by the vampire) exist at the expense of the weak. I thought the story’s last lines in which Remedios expresses the view that it makes “much more sense...to live off the strong rather than the weak” to be a bit of a cop-out meant to make her a more palatable narrator. As a matter of history the powerful typically prey on those least able to defend and protect themselves, viz., the powerless. And Remedios’ new-found credo seems at odd with events earlier in her life, specifically the rather distressing scene in which the throat of a dog (“The weakest, her grandmother said”) is sliced open. (hide spoiler)]

✭✭✭½

“The Vengeful Spirit of Lake Nepeakea”, Tanya Huff

I really disliked this one. It didn’t help that it’s part of a larger series (featuring Vicki Nelson, a vampire P.I.) that I’m completely unfamiliar with. Thus, Huff repeatedly tosses off vague references to prior events and relationships in a way I found increasingly annoying the further into the story I got. But I suspect that even had I been more familiar with these characters, I would have found the story just as dull. The writing struck me as flat and sometimes confusing, the characters came off as bland, and the plot was predictable and uninspired.

✭½

“When Gretchen Was Human”, Mary A. Turzillo

I found this story rather unsatisfying. (view spoiler)[In the story foreword the author talks about using the vampire concept as a framework through which to discuss our simultaneous need for and fear of love. I guess, but I found that rather than illuminate this proposition, the story kinda danced around it in a muddled fashion. (hide spoiler)]

✭✭

Randy said (in part):

In his earlier stories in Wormwood: A Collection of Short Stories there was a tendency to romanticize male homosexuality -- and I don't mean that as a criticism; Wormwood is a terrific collection showing the progress in craft of a very good writer -- and I wonder if how "Homewrecker" fits in with that, if it does at all.

I wish I could say I had read all of that collection, but Brite is another of my many blind spots. I’ve read only three of those stories.

“Homewrecker”, Poppy Z. Brite

I’m still processing my thoughts about this one. (view spoiler)[I don’t think this is literally a vampire yarn. Rather the idea of vampirism is briefly introduced as part of a larger statement about the way in which a female interloper destroys gay relationships. I found some of the language used by Brite to describe the effects of these intrusions a bit distressing; thus, in the aftermath of Verna’s interaction with our narrator, the latter describes experiencing “nasty” thoughts: “...the smell of dank sea coves and fish markets, the soft squish of a body encased in a layer of fat, with big floppy globes of it stuck on the chest and rear like cancers. And the thoughts were like a cancer in me.” Yikes.

Brite has been pretty open in writing about his personal gender-related issues. (According to Wikipedia, the author started hormone therapy in 2010 and subsequently expressed the wish to be referred to by male pronouns.) But I’m not really sure how (or if) his thoughts on gender and sexuality inform the ideas found in this story. (hide spoiler)]

✭✭½

“The Master of Rampling Gate”, Anne Rice

Let me say up front that I’ve never been a fan of Rice. I tried to read a few of her novels back in the 80s and only managed to complete her first one. I didn’t particularly hate Interview ; it was more that I found it puzzling.

(view spoiler)[“Rampling Gate” is an example of the vampire tale told through the gauzy lens of an overwrought romance novel where everyone falls deeply and madly in love at the drop of a hat. I found it a bit irksome for Rice to incessantly characterize her vampires here as sad and wise innocents, although they never seem to behave in a manner that would justify any of those labels. For all of their supposed innocence, for example, at the end of this tale Julia and whats-his-name are headed off to London in order to gad about town and feast on the necks of their comely victims. (hide spoiler)]

✭✭

Introduction, Ingrid Pitt

The intro to this anthology was penned by the late Ingrid Pitt. It falls into two parts, a relatively short, perfunctory (and frankly not very insightful) treatment of the literary vampire preceded by a lengthier, more informative resume of her acting career. She makes brief mention of her early work in more prestigious films, notably Where Eagles Dare, a 1968 WWII thriller based on an Alistair MacLean novel. Pitt will, however, always be best remembered for her appearance in a handful of horror films produced by Hammer Film in the early 70s, particularly the 1970 cult favorite, The Vampire Lovers, loosely based on the 1872 J. Sheridan Le Fanu novella “Carmilla”. Having quite recently attempted to re-watch some of these movies, I have to admit that, while they boast a small army of fans and admirers, I have never been one them one. Still, I found Pitt’s recollections of the filmmaking shenanigans fairly entertaining. Her account is characterized by an almost innocent insouciance that I found appealing (even when describing the frankly creepy behavior of some of the Hammer producers). Quite clearly it was a different era.

Lena said:

Nicolas Cage stars in an embarrassing rip off of Mortal Combat and Predator. Sigh, it does look like a fun movie you watch with friends, pizza, and shots.

I know I shouldn’t prejudge movies based solely on trailers, but, wow, this looks terrible.

Lena said:

I think the kamikaze fighting lead the US to consider extremes in dealing with Japan. Glad they passed on the carpet bombing, what was done was landmark enough.

Apologies for responding so late to this sub-thread. The take-away message seems to express the idea that the U.S. did not engage in large-scale bombing of Japan prior to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That’s not really the case. U.S. bombing of Japan started to greatly ramp up in November of 1944 with the availability of airbases in the Mariana Islands. Initially many of these missions were high-altitude, daylight raids aimed at knocking out Japanese industrial targets. For a number of reasons results were mixed. March of 1945 signaled a change in tactics as Curtis LeMay commenced the large-scale firebombing of major Japanese cities. The results were pretty ghastly and the morality of the attacks has been a topic of debate ever since. Casualty estimates (mostly civilian) resulting from the bombing campaign range from 241,000 to 900,000. After the war, LeMay expressed the opinion that if the U.S. had lost the conflict, he would probably have been tried as a war criminal.

I’m also working with an edition published by Robinson with Ingrid Pitt on the cover.

I took a closer look at the ISFDB and see that you are indeed correct, Randy. There is a 2017 Skyhorse edition which, according to the notes, omits one story (i.e., “Outfangthief” by Conrad Williams under the pseudonym of Gala Blau) from earlier editions and includes two others (although the only one added that I can identify is the one you mentioned, “The North Stair” by Angela Slatter).

Stupid me, it did not immediately click as to why Skyhorse might have made this editorial change until I realized that, duh, Williams isn’t a woman.