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Summary: Eight stories of speculative vampire fiction
Review: Not a collection of stories by Isaac Asimov himself, but eight stories by various authors, all previously published in the periodical ASIMOV'S SCIENCE FICTION. Like all good speculative fiction, these stories ask the question "what if?"What if a vampire went to London to join the 1940s war effort? "Jack" by Connie Willis portrays a vampire using his unusual abilities for the good of humankind. The horrors of bureaucracy make the horrors of war look almost inviting by comparison. What if vampires are a separate species that keeps tabs on the human race? Other writers have done it, but seldom with the grace of David Redd in "The Old Man of Munington." Two young girls and the Old Man himself follow a younger vampire's plans to eliminate a possible risk to the human race the vampires watch and guard. Perhaps the most chilling question and answer comes in "My Brother's Keeper" by Pat Cadigan: What if vampires support inner-city drug abuse because they have something to gain? These are vampires at their most terrifying -- not tuxedo-clad fiends in some isolated Carpathian castle, but men and women who look like the rest of us, nesting right in our midst and drawing their power from the things we fear most. Other stories include Tanith Lee's haunting "Winter Flowers," a story of vampire mercenaries who encounter a castle of creatures even stranger than they; "A Surfeit of Melancholic Humors" by Sharon N. Farber, a charming and somewhat medical tale of vampires in seventeenth-century plague time; and Susan Palwick's "Ever After," which picks out the darkness of fairy tale conventions and blends it into the darkness of the vampire mythos. All the stories are good; some are excellent. All balance vampire fiction conventions with enough of the unexpected to keep us guessing -- pleasantly so.
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