Evolve: Vampire Stories of the New Undead

Evolve: Vampire Stories of the New Undead, Nancy Kilpatrick (ed.), Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing, 2010

This is an anthology of new stories from Canada all about vampires, that mainstay of horror literature.

In the 21st century, Vampires are people, too (so to speak). They go on Oprah, they have teenage daughters (with a unique set of problems in school) and they run for public office. They are jazz and blues musicians, and they have to deal with the fathers of some of the women they have killed. Their bodies can filter out a major blood disease that is ravaging mankind. They breed humans for their flesh, and siphon their blood. When they are born, they need to feed on human flesh, usually the mother's.

They go to clubs, looking for victims, and sometimes run into bored young people who think that being bitten by a vampire will turn them into a vampire, which is not the case. They construct sets of mirrors that allow them to be exposed to the sun, and actually get a tan, without worrying about burning up. Sometimes, they have to deal with demon-hunters, complete with wooden stakes (an occupational hazard for a vampire), who don't always know what they are doing. Occasionally, they appear to bored city workers on public transit (no one else can see them) and convince them that, to become a vampire, they have to murder someone and drink their blood, which is also not the case. There are also vampire vigilantes, who help out people in trouble at night, but who have their own ulterior motives.

Here is a first-rate bunch of stories. I am not much of a horror reader, so I was glad to see that the horror part of these tales was not overwhelming. This is very much worth reading.