Number 61 - Creatures of the Night - Clark, Kennedy, Rollo

 I was sent a free ARC copy of this in return for a fair review.

This book is made up of three long stories/novellas by authors whose names I'd heard but never got around to actually reading any of their work yet. So I was quite pleased to sample their work.

First up- Return of the Blood-feeders by Simon Clark. Apparently this story fits into his Vampyrrhic series of books.  

When his lover is abducted by strange creatures from the cellar of the hotel they run together, our narrator joins forces with an old drunk regular customer to track her down and save her.  

She has been kidnapped by Viking vampires who don't conform to any of the usual rules. There's blood, guts, chainsaws and mayhem galore in this short and amusing story.

It's all totally ridiculous, but so much fun I didn't care.

Next up was Perspective by Kevin J Kennedy. 

This one is narrated by a vampire. Once again, the regular rules are eschewed to good effect. These vamps can walk in daylight and stakes won't necessarily work. He's turned in the opening chapter and spends the rest of the story on something of a kill rampage. Whilst touring Europe with his girlfriend, the vamp that turned him, he runs into a pair of werewolves and the four enjoy some gratuitous slaughter. 

When the two vampires receive a mysterious summons to what may well be the gates of Hell itself, the for of them will need all their violent abilities to survive and maybe save the world.

This is another great fun read. The final battle is so over the top it needs to be read to be believed. 

 

A first for me in this story was seeing Aldi used as a location in a horror story. As silly as it is, that scores extra points from me  :) 

We finish with Beneath Still waters by Gord Rollo.

This is the longest of the three and my personal favourite. It opens with an effective prologue describing the destruction of a gypsum mine by flooding. Years later, we find that something in the mine has survived, and it's feeding on the unfortunate swimmers in the the lake. This has some of the best use of shreddies that I've seen in years.

This is yet another variant on the traditional vampire- in this case it lives and hunts underwater. All three variants are suitably nasty.  No sparkly vampire romances going on here. These are nasty creatures that you would not want to meet in broad daylight, let alone in a dark alley. It's good to see authors making them scary again.

This is a great mini-collection and you need to buy yourself a copy. I will certainly be ordering a real copy for myself.