Surprisingly crisp and inventive vampire tales about sisters with fangs. Editors Hambly (Traveling with the Dead, see below) and sf- fantasy-mystery anthologist Greenberg hit on a happy idea when asking 14 writers, including Hambly, to write about ``the woman as vampire: loving that absorbs and destroys the lover; the moth going willingly to the flame. The immortal beloved who lives on the blood of a thousand mortal men.'' As it happens, the theme most common to these writers treats of homelife among the undead, and three study the vampire as mother. Thus there is a lot of cooking, agonized family chat, and even a PTA meeting. All are told with straight faces that undercut satirical intent, though satire is clearly meant here and there. The album kicks off with its best story, ``Empty,'' by M. John Harrison, which may well be a classic in the genre, its inspired slapstick payoff set in a bathtub. Perhaps ten of the 14 choose the right tone, while the others are overwritten or simply dullish or flat, including Larry Niven's overlong sf hackwork, ``Song of the Night People,'' or else depend on a tossed salad of mystery/fantasy jargons, as in George Alec Effinger's ``Marid and the Trail of Blood.'' The collection's absolute standouts are Kristine Kathryn Rusch's ``Victims,'' a very clever political tale about vampires coming out of the closet like gays, running escort services, and influencing elections; and Steve and Melanie Tem's ``Mama,'' the story of a cancer-ridden mother now dead and buried but to whom Dad takes trays in the back bedroom. Being dead gives Mama lots of power: ``Before anybody in the family did anything they first had to figure out how it might affect Mama.'' Blood in the bank.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-446-67143-6
Page Count: 288
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1995
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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