Alan Durant - Vampire And Werewolf Stories (Kingfisher, 1998)
Illustrated by Nick Hardcastle
Barbara Leonie Picard - The Werewolf: A French Legend
Frederick Cowles - The Vampire Of Kaldenstein
Anthony Masters - Freeze-Up
Richard Matheson - Drink My Blood
Roger Zelazny - Dayblood
Winifred Finlay - Terror In The Tatras
William F. Nolan - Getting Dead
Arthur Conan-Doyle - The Adventure Of The Sussex Vampire
Clemence Housman - The Werewolf [extract]
Jane Yolen - Mama Gone
Carl Jacobi - Revelations In Black
Saki - Gabriel-Ernest
Joseph Payne Brennan - The Horror Of Chilton Castle
Woody Allen - Count Dracula
Angela Carter - The Werewolf
August Derleth - The Drifting Snow
Alan Durant - HowlSurvive Mr. Hardcastle's Humphrey Bogart clone and dog on the cover and this isn't a bad collection at all. A mix of genre classics and more recent yarns aimed at the young adult market. Judging by the bloodsucker content, Mr. Durant is not entirely unfamiliar with Peter Haining's
The Vampire Omnibus, but if this book inspires just one youngster to delve further into the works of Cowles, Brennan and Co. then it will have performed an admirable service.
Includes:
Anthony Masters - Freeze-Up: Matt and his geologist parents are living and working at a base in the Antarctic. One day an iceberg drifts their way and, encased inside, a wolf. Professor Lomas is keen to thaw it for a quick study - he doesn't live to regret it. Young Matt - who discovers the mangled corpse - suspects that the wolf is in some way responsible but his father is sceptical: "How can a creature like that, frozen in ice for centuries, reanimate? It's just a coincidence that the carcass has disappeared." Yeah, right. Of course it is, you stupid adult! Soon the beast is shredding and eating more minor characters but then Matt remembers what he's read about werewolves in his graphic novels. A silver tea service is melted down to create bullets but will his hunch pay off?
For one glorious moment I thought Masters was going to let the wolf triumph. He doesn't, but at least a lot of people get eaten up so it's not as bad as all that. Masters was responsible for three of my favourite books: The 'non-fiction'
The Natural History Of The Vampire, a splendid anthology
Cries Of Terror (Arrow, 1976) and, as 'Richard Tate', the celebrated vampire versus film-crew classic
The Dead Travel Fast!
Woody Allen - Count Dracula: The King Vampire pays the baker and his wife a visit, intent on drinking their blood. Unfortunately, what he takes to be the nighttime is actually a midday solar eclipse and he has to hide in their closet until the sun goes down. His hosts get impatient, open the door, and ... he's blasted to dust. Not all that.
William F. Nolan - Getting Dead: Beverly Hills, 1991. Count Arnold, mortified by his inability to commit suicide despite innumerable attempts over 6,000 years, eventually consults Anything Inc. - "Come to us if all else fails. For the proper fee, we'll do anything." The solution the bald guy behind the counter comes up with isn't entirely satisfactory.
Frederick Cowles - The Vampire Of Kaldenstein: Derivative of
Dracula, and reads like a story board for the Hammer films of a quarter of a century later. It is, of course, brilliant!
The narrator, traveling in Germany in 1933, arrives at the hamlet of Kaldenstein. There he encounters the usual dour locals at the inn, who cross themselves at the mention of Count Ludwig Von Kaldenstein, warn him against visiting the castle, etc., etc. A local priest of similar ’superstitious’ bent likewise begs him to give it a miss, but the foolish Englishman won’t be told.
August Derleth - The Drifting Snow: Aunt Mary insists the curtains remain drawn after sunset. When Henry decides to open them, he sees two beckoning figures outside. It transpires that a servant girl froze to death on the Western slope after being dismissed from the house during a snowstorm.
Richard Matheson - Drink My Blood: Jules is obsessed with vampires. He tells of his ambition to become one in a composition which he reads aloud to his teacher and terrified classmates (it reads like the outro to the Mothers of Invention’s
Who needs the Peace Corps? if Zappa had been targeting phony Goths as opposed to phony Hippies) : “I want to live forever and get even with everybody and make all the girls vampires. I want to smell of death … I want to have a foul breath that stinks of dead earth and crypts and sweet coffins”.
Eventually he kidnaps a bat from the zoo, names it ‘The Count’ and nicks his finger to feed it blood. His devotion is ultimately rewarded.
