Customer Reviews

The Darkest Thirst: A Vampire Anthology

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Now, this is how an anthology should be done. The current trend toward hyper-specialized anthologies has resulted in a whole slew of books that contain one or two good variations on exact same theme and 10 or 12 crappy ones ("15 original stories about lesbian zombies in turn-of-the-century New Orleans" or "12 shared-world science fiction tales about John F. Kennedy's left nipple" -- I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to come up with good titles for those two; if you can, you're welcome to pitch them to White Wolf). The Darkest Thirst, on the other hand, apparently had only one editorial requirement: tell a good vampire story. The result is one of the best horror/dark fantasy/whatever-you-want-to-call-it anthologies in years. All the stories are good; the best one of the lot is William R. Trotter's Bram Stoker Award-nominated "The Bleeding of Hauptmann Gehlen" -- in fact, it's the best short vampire story I've ever read. In addition to being a twice-nominated horror writer, Trotter is also a respected, award-winning military historian, and he's very good at working loads of convincing details into a story without ever falling prey to the dreaded "look-how-much-research-I-did" syndrome that torpedoes so much historical fiction. The result is that "The Bleeding of Hautpmann Gehlen," set in World War Two Romania, feels more convincingly real than most present-day vampire stories. It's great stuff. If you're a member of the Horror Writers of America and will be voting on this year's awards, read this story -- or your unshriven soul will languish forever in Hell. Seriously. Oh, and most of the other stories are quite good, too.

The book The Darkest Thirst was an amazing book. The thing I like about it the most was the fact that it was a collection of stories and didn't have one specific author. I find I liked that a lot because then you never know what the next story is going to be like. Most books about vampire that I have read have their low and high spots, where this book was totally interesting from beginning to end due to the fact of the different authors. IF you are a lover of vampire novel like myself you probably have a certain "kind" of vampire story you like. This book is divided five sections: Dark Histories, Obsessions, The Haunted, Redemption, and Arts and Letters. Each section has its strong and weak stories. A few example of the strong ones that I liked where "Waiting for the 400" about a female who convinced her obsessed lover to kill someone who she claimed was a vampire, when it turns out SHE was the vampire. One of the weak stories in my opinion was "Before a Fall" about a mother who was attached by vampires and kill the leader to save her son.

All in all, the book was really well written. I think the variety between the different stories of this book is what made it what it is. You can buy this book to read it for a specific section or read it all and enjoy every minute of it. I was high pleased with this book and I think everyone else will be.

This is a pretty good vampire anthology, with a collection of stories that range from the "fantastic! this is why I read these books!" to "really strange, but pretty good, I guess." Some of the highlights were "Before A Fall," "Waiting for the 400," and "The Alberscine Vigil." A few others were not quite as good ("The Debauched One" and "On Line" come to mind). The final story, "For the Love of Vampires," wraps up this anthology nicely. The stories are all a good length, long enough to be fully developed, short enough to be still considered "short stories." All in all, I was quite satisfied with this collection.

I think Anne Rice better watch out. She's got competition in this collection, stories that look at vampires through fresh eyes and with the creative energy absent in Ms. Rice's recent work. "The Alberscine Vigil" is elegant and alive, "Waiting for the 400" is a beautifully described story of obsession and the powerful images in "The Covenant of Il Vigneto" linger in your mind long after the book is closed. "How Brando Was Made" and "The Bleeding of Hauptmann Gehlen" are action packed with lots of plot twists while "The Boy Next Door" and "For The Love of Vampires" remind us we don't know our friends and neighbors as good as we think. "Mercy" pulls at our heart strings. I hope to see more from several of these authors.

I loved this anthology! The writing was just wonderful, and the variety of angles very refereshing. There were several stories that I would love to see made into full length novels. Highly recommended!

Yawn. I was expecting SO much more with the way the publisher advertises this book.Not nasty or erotic horror like I was expecting. Quite boring.

The Darkest Thirst: Sixteen Provocative Tales Of The Undead is an horrific anthology of vampire stories, filled from cover to cover with chilling tales of evil desires, bloodlust, yearning, savagery, and the vileness lurking within stages of history and seeming propriety. A darkly enrapturing read from Margaret L. Carter's "Merry" to Deborah Markus' "For The Love of Vampires", The Darkest Thirst is very highly entertaining and recommended reading for fans of the horror fantasy genre in general -- and vampire tales in particular.

I enjoyed reading this one very much. By far, one of the best stories in this volume is Trotter's "The Bleeding of Hauptmann Gehlen." Vivid and chillingly realistic, it recounts the story of German troops and their encounter with a mysterious enemy during WWII. The ending still gives me the shivers, but you'll have to read it to know what I mean. Other good stories are Marffin's "Waiting for the 400," reads exactly like a mystery noir; and Strauch's "Alberscine Vigil," a short but poignant story that I've read over and over. Overall, an enjoyable read well worth your time and money.

I received THE DARKEST THIRST as a birthday gift and was less than thrilled. I read very little horror and an anthology of vampire stories was not exactly what I was hoping for. But I was wrong! The stories in this book were, for the most part, great. I particularly liked the stories by Robert Devereaux and Kyle Marffin. But the story I enjoyed most was "On Line" by Rick R. Reed. This cyberspace tale of lesbian love was one of the most darkly humorous stories I've ever read. The "instant message" type exchanges between the sexy vampire siren and the dowdy banker had me alternately laughing out loud and feeling my own chill as I feared what would happen to the main character. I hadn't heard of this book before, but I'm glad someone else had the good sense to give it to me.

Finally something new! Instead of the increasingly formulaic contributions of Anne Rice & Co, a new (and occasionally skewed) perspective. Let's face it, one doesn't expect to fight vampires in a trailer park, but in this book, someone does. The variations on the themes are invigorating, both to the reader and to a mythic archetype in need of fresh blood, both literally and figuratively.