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.