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Monday, October 12, 2009

Books I Recommend This Book

Posted by Paul Constant on Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 4:34 PM

I don't review books for the print edition of The Stranger unless I've read the whole thing, from cover to cover (or if I've given up reading the book because it's so bad, but that only happens rarely, and then I'll admit to that in the review of the book). And so that means I'll never be able to review The Vampire Archives for the print edition of The Stranger, but it's still a book you should know about.

Archives is a collection of dozens of vampire stories, from Bram Stoker and Anne Rice to D.H. Lawrence and Harlan Ellison. It clocks in over a thousand pages, and I simply don't have time to read the whole thing and read all the other books I have to review, too. But it's really an astounding collection, representing all manner of vampire stories. There's subtle literary fiction and über-nerdy horror stories, too. If you're looking for some scary Halloween reading, or you want to be introduced to a new author or two (or ten, or twenty), this is the book for you. I hope this is the start of a series; I'd love to read The Wolfman Archive, The Spaceman Archive, The Mummy Archive, and all the other possibilities, too. Give it a look the next time you're in a bookstore. They don't make huge, satisfying collections like this anymore.

Comments (7) RSS

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Came close to buying this on the Hammer Horror cover alone. Also, I'm a big Kim Newman fan. This thing is enormous.

Posted by mint chocolate chip on October 12, 2009 at 5:21 PM

The Spaceman Archive would mostly comprise of stories by Ray Bradbury.

Posted by arts&letters on October 12, 2009 at 5:55 PM

Wait, wait... H. P. Lovecraft did a vampire story...? Bella recognized a monstrosity! At long last, the resplendent sparkly skin of the mysterious, thoroughly revered Edward was revealed!

Sold.

Posted by Joe Szilagyi

on October 12, 2009 at 10:25 PM

Oh man ... I would pay sooooooooo much money to see Twilight re-written by H.P. Lovecraft.

Posted by Billy Nilly

on October 13, 2009 at 8:27 AM

@4: I dunno, the Urple Prose in Twilight was bad enough.

but again, Lovecraft does it better

Posted by Shini on October 13, 2009 at 1:24 PM

Thanks, great recommendation!

Posted by car on October 14, 2009 at 8:54 AM

I would've guessed that Lovecraft's story was "The Shunned House", but it turns out that it's "The Hound". There are four mentions of "vampire" in "The Shunned House" but none in "The Hound"...

Posted by Donovan K. Loucks on November 2, 2009 at 3:53 PM