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Fantasy Mystery Romance Comics Non-Fiction

Blood Lite

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Blood Lite (2008) edited by Kevin J. Anderson

This anthology came out in hardback last year, but considering the theme, I was more than content to wait until it came out in paperback. Which it recently did.

As with most anthologies, there are good stories and bad stories, but there weren’t too many stories that I hated, though there also weren’t too many stories that I adored. So I’d say it all came out in the wash.

Jim Butcher‘s story, “Day Off” was one of the best in the anthology. The start of the story was fabulous, but I’ll leave it at that for those who have not yet read the story. As far as the rest of the story, Harry has the day off, but just like his life, things end up spiraling out of control quite quickly. I was reminded of something I read, and I can’t for the life of me remember where, so I’m paraphrasing “when you take each action individually, it’s completely reasonable,” and that’s where Harry is. Any single individual thing would be fine, but (as with life) everything always seems to happen at once, which is what makes things so difficult.

I also quite liked Charlaine Harris‘ story, “An Even with Al Gore.” Her non-Sookie stories are hit and miss with me, but this one was definitely a hit. It’s a look at what happens when a wealthy couple and their friends watch “An Inconvenient Truth” and decide to do something about it.

The story “The Eldritch Pastiche from Beyond the Shadow of Horror” by Christopher Welch was quite amusing, and also made me think of my friend Eric, who is a fan of Lovecraft and horror. I’m sure there were plenty of jokes that went over my head since I really do not like horror, but I was amused all the same.

Kelley Armstrong‘s story, “The Ungrateful Dead,” was the first story in the book, and although I didn’t think it was as good as Jim Butcher or Charlaine Harris’ stories, I did enjoy it, and thought again about picking up another series by Armstrong.

I also like Mike Resnick’s story, “A Very Special Girl.” It was different in tone from the other stories in the book, and although it felt like these characters belonged in a longer story than this, it was both fun and interesting.

There were some stories that I didn’t like at all, I thought “Mr. Bear” was particularly awful, and I didn’t like “A Good Psycho Is Hard to Find” either. But over all, the stories were pretty good, and the series was worth reading. I would have been annoyed if I’d bought this in hardback, but it’s not a bad buy as a paperback.
Rating: 6/10

 

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