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Post by dem on Jan 30, 2008 22:16:05 GMT
Martin H. Greenberg (ed.) - Dracula: Prince Of Darkness (DAW, Sept. 1992) Jim Warren Introduction - Stefan R. Dziemainowicz
F. Paul Wilson - The Lord's Work Warner Lee - Cult Wendi Lee & Terry Beatty - The Black Wolf Rex Miller - Blood Drive Bentley Little - Hard Times John Shirley - Lot Five, Building Seven, Door Twenty-Three Matthew J. Costello - Deep Sleep Douglas Borson - Voivode Richard Laymon - Dracuson's Driver John Lutz - After The Ball P. N. Elrod - The Wind Breathes Cold Daniel Ransom - Night Cries Wayne Allen Sallee - Blood From A Turnip W. R. Philbrick - The Cure Brian Hodge - Like A Pilgrim To The ShrineFrom the blurb: Indulge your taste for fear with these blood-stealing, all-original tales about the master of terror ..... From Dracula's traditional stalking grounds to the heart of such modern-day cities as New York and Chicago, the Prince Of Darkness will cast his spell over his helpless prey in a private blood drive from which there is no escape!
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Post by dem on Mar 21, 2012 19:43:08 GMT
Richard Laymon - Dracuson's Driver: Pete works the graveyard shift at the Wanderers Rest Motel. It's not such a bad job as Pete gets to spend most of the time ogling female customers - he's fixed all the curtains in the lower floor chalets so that they won't close. Tonight his luck's really in. A gorgeous blonde in this real tight chauffeur's uniform books in. Ok, so she's driving a hearse and insists that the client's coffin be transferred to her room for safe-keeping, but Tess is the best thing that's happened to Pete since that unfortunate business with the school pig, Beth Wiggins, after the Senior's Ball last summer.
When he's sure Tess is asleep, Pete steals into her room. It's kind of creepy that he should find her lying in the coffin but this ain't the time for being too particular. He repeatedly slugs her across the head with his flash-light until she has little left by way of a face, then gets down to business ...
After he's done, Pete gets to thinking that Tess should be good for at least another couple of goes so he takes the Hearse out to an abandoned barn and returns to his room for a well-earned shut-eye. Imagine his joy when that evening he wakes to find a nude Tess, her battered face miraculously restored to its former glory, stood over his bed ....
Douglas Borson - Voivode: Hollywood screenwriter Eric Payne is in Bucharest location-spotting for a Dracula remake when he's befriended by at the station by a local youth, Stefan, who offers to show him the real grave of Vlad Tepes. Payne accompanies his guide through an underground passage to a hidden crypt. Where Stefan prizes open an impressive coffin, who should leap out at them but another Romanian dictator of far more recent vintage! Payne escapes - Stefan's sister, disgusted at her brother providing the undead Nicolae Ceaușescu with an endless stream of victims, had insisted he wear a crucifix - but the vampire and his acolytes are not ones to let their enemies walk free ....
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Post by dem on May 29, 2018 8:12:14 GMT
F. Paul Wilson - The Lord's Work: New Jersey, two years on from the Vampire Apocalypse; Sister Carole consults The Anarchist's Cookbook for bomb-making tips. The young Nun, only survivor of the attack on St. Anthony's Church, has turned vigilante, stringing up and mutilating the vampires' human collaborators as a warning to others. Murder is a mortal sin for which, her conscience torments her, she will pay for all eternity, no matter that Carole believes she is doing the Lord's work. Al, Artie, Stan and Kenny are four 'Cowboys,' daily hunting down their fellow man on behalf of the Undead. This time they've hit the jackpot - the pregnant woman and child they snatched off the street are sure to please their master, Gregor.
Sister Carole exchanges the habit for her work clothes. It's going to be a bloody, busy day.
Warner Lee - Cult "Sarah La Dulca felt cold, lifeless. Had the cult members come down here to drink poison like their fellow nut cases had done in Guyana?"
Long is hired by Miguel La Durca to rescue his wife, Sarah, from the clutches of the Church of Seven. His instructions are to abduct her during the day when the cultists are dead to the world. Long and a fellow Viet vet duly abduct Mrs. La Dulca from the lakeside compound, but the sunlight plays havoc with her complexion. They get Sarah to hospital, but, by then, as her husband planned, she's too far gone to benefit from medical attention.
Wayne Allen Sallee - Blood From A Turnip: Dracula, having by now adapted to modern life, finds gainful employment as a debt collector. He's the best in the business.
John Lutz - After The Ball: Madame Vyette willingly surrenders to the vampire. Re-read this but still could make no sense of the reveal. Is Madame a hermaphrodite? The Lord's Work and Cult are more fun.
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Post by andydecker on May 29, 2018 16:41:39 GMT
A few years Sallee was present in every avaiable anthology, a regular in the small small press. I often liked his stuff. Is he still working?
I think I have this book, as I used to like Vampire stories before it got overexposed. Greenberg was a one-man-industry. But I can't remember one story. Not even the Sallee.
I have maybe 4 or 5 Greenbergs. I kow that his Miscatonic University was a disappointment back then. (A few days ago I browsed the newish anthology Miscatonic Dreams, one of those Lovecraft flood. I guess compared to this Greenberg will shine, if I re-read it. These Lovecraft original anthos have become a mire of mediocrity and worse. I wait for Toe rag of Cthulhu. No seriously )
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Post by dem on May 29, 2018 20:14:13 GMT
(A few days ago I browsed the newish anthology Miscatonic Dreams, one of those Lovecraft flood. I guess compared to this Greenberg will shine, if I re-read it. These Lovecraft original anthos have become a mire of mediocrity and worse. I wait for Toe rag of Cthulhu. No seriously Donald A. Wollheim might have used that as a strap-line for The Horror Out Of Lovecraft in Magazine Of Horror #17 (May 1969). Way back in 1972, James Wade remarked "the probable disappearance of a market for new Cthulhu Mythos material consequent to Derleth's death." How wrong can you be? I find Greenberg's anthologies hit and miss, especially those comprised of all new stories. So many fade from memory with the last line. That said, The Lord's Work has stayed with me for years, just couldn't remember the author or title until yesterday when I dragged down Prince Of Darkness from the shelf for first time this century. Far as I know, Wayne Allen Sallee is still going strong - here's his blog. WAS once wrote us a very kind email thanking us for commenting on his various contributions to KEW's Years Best Horror Stories.
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Post by dem on May 31, 2018 8:02:37 GMT
Rex Miller - Blood Drive: Gang warfare, vampire style. Who do the government bribe to clean it up? Mr. Big, aka the drugs-blood lynch-pin whose card reads 'Dealer S. L. Vilicuva.' Count Dracula sells out the children of the night to provide for his old age (turns out this is far, far worse for vampires than it is humans, which explodes one myth). Matthew J. Costello - Deep Sleep: Suave 'Monsieur Farrard' boards a luxury liner bound for New York and sets to seducing the female passengers until ..... disaster! Why it might not be such a great idea to raise The Titanic. Bentley Little - Hard Times: Dracula, who is nothing if not image conscious, is incensed that his name has been cheapened by association with bad art, much of it cinematic, the 'Count Chocula' breakfast cereal being the final insult. Time for him to take control of Hollywood. John Shirley - Lot Five, Building Seven, Door Twenty-Three: Dracula as reclusive, monstrously bloated Buddha figure, presiding over the Spiritual Freedom Church. A very John Shirley story. Metaphysical strangeness, good versus evil, "Van Helsing was a pederast", plenty of gore, etc. This anthology is reading suspiciously like Under The Fang: The Out-takes.
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Post by dem on May 31, 2018 20:52:43 GMT
P. N. Elrod - The Wind Breathes Cold: Epilogue to Dracula. Wolves drag what we took to be the corpse of Quincey Morris from the Harker camp. Deep into the woods, the Count instructs him on his new Unlife. Seems the blood transfusion Quincey gave Lucy Westernra coupled with a sexually adventurous relationship with a girl in South America has turned him Nosferatu, though, the King Vampire advises him, he still has a soul. This is Dracula as the misunderstood, thoroughly reasonable guy we met in Fred Saberhagen's The Dracula Tape. Brian Hodge - Like A Pilgrim To The Shrine: "Whoever creates the greatest public outcry without the taking of a single life ... is the victor." Dracula concedes the King Vampire mantle to Kraeken, one of the new breed, a product of the CBGB's punk and junk scene. Kraeken, all black leather trousers and nihilism, was turned in a room at the Chelsea Hotel shortly before Sid Vicious stabbed Nancy at same premises. A decent story to see out a none too shabby collection.
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Post by helrunar on Jun 1, 2018 12:00:04 GMT
As always, Kev, I love reading how you describe these tales.
It's strange to feel, at least in some respects, that the old Count is a rather cuddly, cozy character, compared to the leaders of the US and the UK in the present age... Who would have thought depravity and decadence could be so damned dull and DUMB.
cheers, Steve
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Post by andydecker on Jun 1, 2018 17:58:27 GMT
As always, Kev, I love reading how you describe these tales. It's strange to feel, at least in some respects, that the old Count is a rather cuddly, cozy character, compared to the leaders of the US and the UK in the present age... Who would have thought depravity and decadence could be so damned dull and DUMB. cheers, Steve They only get dull after you reach 40. But in the case of those two I guess the paintings in the attic were destroyed. Or manipulated by the FSB.
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Post by andydecker on Jun 1, 2018 18:07:30 GMT
P. N. Elrod - The Wind Breathes Cold: Epilogue to Dracula..
I always thought Elrod deathly dull. Read a few of her Vampire Files and Red Death, another historical, which was especially boring compared to Les Daniels. These were the cuddly vampires.
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Post by dem on Jun 1, 2018 21:40:42 GMT
P. N. Elrod - The Wind Breathes Cold: Epilogue to Dracula..
I always thought Elrod deathly dull. Read a few of her Vampire Files and Red Death, another historical, which was especially boring compared to Les Daniels. These were the cuddly vampires. A similar anthology of Don Sebastian adventures could be interesting. At least that way we might finally get to learn of his WWI exploits. I read a couple of P. N. Elrod's early Vampire Files too, but, like so many post-'70's v**p*re novels, they're a blank to me now. Chelsea Quinn Yawnbore's Saint Germain novels left me comatose - almost as tedious as all things Anne Rice, and I'd not have believed such a thing possible.
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Post by helrunar on Jan 11, 2019 13:43:43 GMT
OK, so I read this thread and enjoyed it immensely... further confirmation that I'm living the life now of a semi-amnesiac. Hell's Bells and party down. I see that the infamous Richard Laymon is featured here with a tale that evidently had a very happy ending. Well, for the lady in question at least.
cheers, H.
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