An interesting selection of short stories plus a script for one of the episodes of the TV program Blood Ties, about a Vampire living in Vancouver (in Toronto on the TV program) and a female private detective (turned vampire in the book) living in Toronto.

Some of the stories are about Henry the Vampire, and others are about Victoria the private detective vampire, and Celluci the police detective. The connection between Victoria and Henry that is so tantalizing in earlier Tanya Huff books is not included in a more than passing reference type of way in the short stories, so that is a bit of a let-down.

The TV episode script is a nice addition to the book, but the bonus edited blog description of the process of writing the episode for TV is the fascinating part of this book. ( )

The collected short stories about Vicki, Mike and Henry, some of which I'd managed to track down in other anthologies, but all of which I was happy to read. I love the interactions between them all, and it was cool to read more about Vicki after she was turned into a vampire. I'd followed Huff's posts to her blog about the conversion to a tv series, but it was neat to see the updated post in print, as well as one episode's shooting script. ( )

A collection of short fiction about the characters who first appeared in Tanya Huff's BLOOD PRICE - Vicki Nelson, a cop-turned-PI; Mike Celluci, her former partner; and Henry Fitzroy, the vampiric bastard son of Henry VIII. In addition to the nine stories, Huff has also included her notes on writing an episode of Blood Ties, the television show based on these books, along with the final shooting script for the episode.

Personally, I think the Blood Books peaked with the third volume. BLOOD LINES was tense and exciting and danger-filled and seven hundred other great things. I had a blast with it. After that, things kind of went downhill. I enjoyed each subsequent volume a little less. The books were still good, but they were all pretty firmly in seller territory. I read 'em. I liked 'em well enough. I was happy to let my mother claim sole ownership of our shared copies when I was done.

This is more of the same. I read these stories. I liked 'em well enough. And Mumsie can add this to her library with no complaints from me.

Most of the Henry-centric pieces--a couple of which are historical--really worked for me. Most of the Vicki-centric ones--which are contemporary paranormal mysteries--didn't quite make the cut. I think this is largely because of what Huff herself admits in her introduction: the main series revolved around the relationships between the characters, and those relationships are now resolved. These are quick, amusing fictions featuring Vicki, Henry and Mike, but there's not much more to them that than. The Henry stories were interesting in that we learned a bit more about his past and got to hang out in another time period. The Vicki ones were mostly just your standard short mysteries. The only one that really added anything to her character was "So This Is Christmas."

Which leaves us with the television stuff, which I found really interesting. Huff's account of the time she spent writing the episode was fascinating, and the shooting script made me think that I ought to check and see if my library has Blood Ties on DVD.

Since most of the short stories take place after the fifth book, I'd recommend that you save this until after you've read the rest of the series. It's far from essential reading, though, so don't feel bad if you decide to skip it.

(A slightly different version of this review originally appeared on my blog, Stella Matutina). ( )

(Amy) It's been some years since I read any of the Blood books, and now that I think about it, they were probably the first "urban vampire" books I read. While I have a fairly hefty distaste for the vast majority of that little subgenre, I have fond memories of those, so I picked up this story collection out of a sort of nostalgia. Turns out I'd already read over half of the stories in various anthologies over the years, and the ones I hadn't read were not really particularly compelling, so overall, it was a disappointment.

The collection does include a script for an episode of the TV show Blood Ties, based on the characters from the Blood books, which I may or may not get around to looking into at some point. The odds are so strongly in favor of it being absolutely horrible that I'm a little reluctant, but I have the Speculative Fiction Visual Media Fan's eternal-springing hope that maybe, just maybe, this time there'll be a show that Doesn't Suck.

It does happen, from time to time. Just not often enough for this optimism to be in any way rational...

( http://weblog.siliconcerebrate.com/ze... ) ( )

This is a collection of short stories set in the Blood Ties universe. The last item is the script for one of the episodes in the Lifetime TV series written by Huff. The other short stories are set during different times in the book series. Most of the stories are good, 4 of them are outstanding, two humorous and two not. If you like the series you'll like these stories. ( )