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more tales from The Vampire Omnibus
May. 23rd, 2007 06:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
joysilenceLJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY dfordoom)
Peter Haining's really has come up with some odd, fascinating and obscure stories in his anthology The Vampire Omnibus. Some stories from this volume that I’ve read in the last couple of days:
Frank Norris’s Grettir at Thorhall-Stead, written in 1903, has an unusual setting – Iceland. And it has the feel of a Norse saga.
The Blood Fetish by Morley Roberts also boasts a setting unusual for a vampire story, in this case Africa (although the story concludes in England). Published in The Strand Magazine in 1908, it combines a rather mordant sense of humour, a delightful atmosphere of Edwardian Englishmen encountering Darkest Africa, and a very original idea – a vampiric severed hand. Roberts was apparently a rather prolific writer, although I hadn’t previously heard of him.
Mary Cholmondeley is another author I’d not heard of. Her story Let Loose is another off-beat vampire story, a very effective story of ancient evil.
Gustav Meyrink’s The Land of the Time-Leeches, dating from 1920, is even more unconventional, dealing as it does with the vampires of waiting and hope that drain away Time from us. I might add, since we were just talking about doubles, that this story also involves a concept of doubles, although gain handled in a highly original manner. A quirky and rather disturbing story.
x-posted
dfordoom)Peter Haining's really has come up with some odd, fascinating and obscure stories in his anthology The Vampire Omnibus. Some stories from this volume that I’ve read in the last couple of days:
Frank Norris’s Grettir at Thorhall-Stead, written in 1903, has an unusual setting – Iceland. And it has the feel of a Norse saga.
The Blood Fetish by Morley Roberts also boasts a setting unusual for a vampire story, in this case Africa (although the story concludes in England). Published in The Strand Magazine in 1908, it combines a rather mordant sense of humour, a delightful atmosphere of Edwardian Englishmen encountering Darkest Africa, and a very original idea – a vampiric severed hand. Roberts was apparently a rather prolific writer, although I hadn’t previously heard of him.
Mary Cholmondeley is another author I’d not heard of. Her story Let Loose is another off-beat vampire story, a very effective story of ancient evil.
Gustav Meyrink’s The Land of the Time-Leeches, dating from 1920, is even more unconventional, dealing as it does with the vampires of waiting and hope that drain away Time from us. I might add, since we were just talking about doubles, that this story also involves a concept of doubles, although gain handled in a highly original manner. A quirky and rather disturbing story.
x-posted
