|
|
Post by dem bones on Jan 29, 2008 15:06:32 GMT
Byron Preiss (ed.) - The Ultimate Dracula (Dell, October 1991)  Envision/ Frank La Bua
Anne Rice - The Master Of Rampling Gate
Dan Simmons - All Dracula's Children
Ron Dee - A Matter Of Style
Ed Gorman - Selection Process
Heather Graham - The Vampire In His Closet
Steve Rasnic Tem & Melanie Tem - The Tenth Scholar
Philip Jose Farmer - Nobody's Perfect
Edward D. Hoch - Dracula 1944
Janet Asimov - The Contagion
Karen Robards - Sugar And Spice And ...
Dick Lochte - Vampire Dreams
Kevin J. Anderson - Much At Stake
Lawrence Watt-Evans - The Name Of Fear
W. R. Philbrick - The Dark Rising
Tim Sullivan - Los Ninos De La Noche
John Lutz - Mr. Lucrada
Mike Resnick - A Little Night Music
John Gregory Betancourt - In The Cusp Of The Hour
Kristine Kathryn Rusch - Children Of The Night
Leonard Wolf - Selected Filmography
Illustrations by David Johnson
On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the original motion picture. Dracula, some of the world's best-known authors of the fantastic and the mysterious explore the legend of Bram Stoker's classic and seductive monster.
From Dan Simmons's extraordinary portrait of life and torture in modern Romania, to W. R. Philbrick's chilling story of a doctor who meets a vampire in need of a cure, to Karen Robard's glimpse of the life of the smallest vampire of them all - here are spectacular new vampire stories transcending time and space. Above average all new Dracula selection. Includes: Mike Resnick - A Little Night Music: Promoter Murray Barron reflects on his encounter with the mysterious pop sensation Vlad and the Impalers. These are pale, skinny Vlad Dracula himself and "three Chic's in white nightgowns" with perma-love bites on their necks. They also have an associate named Renfield. Vlad flatly refuses to play boats or churches but don't run away with the idea that they're anti-touring. Saigon, Beirut, Chernobyl, Soweto, Kampala ... Kevin J. Anderson - Much At Stake: On the set of the Universal Dracula, Bela Lugosi injects morphine and, crossing the papier mache flagstones of the Hollywood castle, finds himself transported into the nightmare vineyard of stakes, impaled on each the writhing, screaming form of a Turkish prisoner. The Wallachian Prince at first mistakes his visitor for an angel. Ed Gorman - Selection Process: Contract killer Rearden is given one assignment he wishes he hadn't: to pour gasoline over a little girl in her bed and set both alight. Who would contemplate ordering such a hit and why? John Gregory Betancourt - In The Cusp Of The Hour: Beware the old people in polyester clothes who hang out at the Mall! Steve Rasnic Tem & Melanie Tem - The Tenth Scholar: New York City. When her mother died "some lady in a shawl came and hammered a nail through her forehead." Now aged 16, Marie Bathory, pregnant and living in the streets, applies to join the exclusive Scholomance ran by that nice Transylvanian gent. The outstanding pupil gets to spend eternity with him. Marie is determined it's going to be her. John Lutz - Mr. Lucrada: When her family move to Fort Lauderdale, sixteen-year-old Marie bemoans the fact that the entire male population are at or above retirement age. So it comes as a shock to her brother when he catches her necking with a medallion man who doesn't know the meaning of growing old gracefully. Janet Asimov - The Contagion: As the planet died, the last descendant of Dracula was frozen inside a refrigeration unit and shot into space. Revived at the Galactic Medical Centre, he is interviewed at length by psychiatrist Dr. Mina, his one remaining fellow earthling (of sorts) and the seeds of revolt are sewn versus sterile cybernetic civilisation. "Sex! Telepathy!"
|
|
|
|
Post by franklinmarsh on Aug 5, 2013 11:13:01 GMT
Mwah -ha! Found a BCA edition of this at t'weekend. The Anne Rice one has a good Gothic atmos, but, as you may expect, is Mills & Boon.
Dan Simmons effort is deeply unsettling, but mainly because of his descriptions of the horrors of post Ceausescu Romania.
Ron Dee's A Matter Of Style is hilarious. The perils of being able to come back in any shape or form to hunt as a vampire, and getting it oh so wrong.
Dem's covered Ed Gorman's tale. It's good.
Heather Graham's is pretty good too. Nothing startling so far, but some interesting variations.
|
|
|
|
Post by franklinmarsh on Aug 8, 2013 20:14:48 GMT
The Tenth Scholar - OK.
Nobody's Perfect - not quite what I was expecting even from PJF, but a most novel way of dispatching a vampire.
Dracula 1944 - if only they'd put an AD in there (but the collection is celebrating the Lugosi version). Really enjoyed this 'un. Like the Dan Simmons, this points up that the ...er...horror of Dracula pales into insignificance beside historical horrors such as Nazi concentration camps.
Isaac's Mrs churns out a sci-fi spoof which can't reach the heights of ultra-duff film Dracula 3000.
|
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Aug 15, 2013 17:44:12 GMT
Mwah -ha! Found a BCA edition of this at t'weekend. The Anne Rice one has a good Gothic atmos, but, as you may expect, is Mills & Boon. Dan Simmons effort is deeply unsettling, but mainly because of his descriptions of the horrors of post Ceausescu Romania. Ron Dee's A Matter Of Style is hilarious. The perils of being able to come back in any shape or form to hunt as a vampire, and getting it oh so wrong. Dem's covered Ed Gorman's tale. It's good. Heather Graham's is pretty good too. Nothing startling so far, but some interesting variations. Happily the Anne Rice effort is a complete blur to me now - Richard Dalby revived it for Vampire Stories the following year - though i remember detesting it. A rematch should be .... I don't know. Will also try find time to reread Dan Simmons' All Dracula's Children, too (was very impressed on first acquaintance). Ron Dee - A Matter Of Style: Fledgling vampire and Famous Monsters fan Neville tries on several "seductive" personalities, both male and female, to lure victims, but his success rate is feeble and, at this rate, he'll never cut it as an undead. So Nev takes to copying his favourite screen Dracula's. A disastrous turn as Bela Lugosi leads to his undoing. Think Graham Masterton's Changeling with fangs and you're getting warm. Lawrence Watt-Evans - The Name Of Fear: Vlad Tepes, enjoying a nice meat dish with his horrified court in the forest of impaled corpses. A century-undead vampire watches from the shadows. The vampire envies the Prince the fear he instills in friend and foe alike. It had been the same with him until the peasants and priests realised how vulnerable were his kind to garlic, crucifix and running water. If only he and Tepes were to exchange places .... Karen Robards - Sugar And Spice And ...: Very Pan Book Of Horror Stories goes to the USA. Peter, six, is not best pleased when Mom and Dad adopt a Romanian orphan for Christmas. The toddler, Sylvia Frances, even chews on one of his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. According to his odious cousin Rick, the nine month old is not as other little girls, she's a vampire, and he'd best do something about it before she destroys the family!
|
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Aug 19, 2013 11:30:52 GMT
Edward D. Hoch - Dracula 1944: "Life is very cheap here. Your body would make fine food for the pigs."
Essentially, Manly Wade Wellman's The Devil Is Not Mocked relocated to a Concentration Camp, or at least that's what it reminded me of. Among the latest batch of slave labourers to arrive at Bergen-Belsen, a band of gypsies. Olga, a frail old woman, informs Captain Shellenberg that one of their number, Vlad Tepes, has an illness prevents him working during the day. The Captain unwisely pursues the matter after reading Dracula in it's entirety during a lunch break.
W. R. Philbrick - The Dark Rising: "I have been dying for centuries. It's what I do best." An American physician turns his back on a privileged lifestyle to open a clinic on Haiti. Six months into the mission, he's almost lost the will to breathe. The mysterious wasting illness has reached plague-like proportions when a stranger, Christophe, requests he accompany him to the home of a sick friend. Dr. Jones knows how foolhardy it is to travel off the island by night, but his despair is such that he doesn't care. Eventually they arrive at a cave where a hideous mass of tumors vaguely resembling the most cadaverous man ever rises from beneath a bundle of rags to greet his latest 'volunteer'. Dr. Jones has by now gone off the idea of death, but no longer has any say in the matter. "The Monsieur' is the most evil Dracula in the book to date, though naturally, living in a corrupt dictatorship, he doesn't see it that way.
|
|
