Nancy Kilpatrick (1946–2025)

I was expecting this book to be full of Poe pastiche but was pleasantly surprised to find that it was mostly stories inspired by and influenced by Poe's works. With the exception of Robert Lopestri's "Street of the Dead House", which tells "Murders in the Rue Morgue" from the POV of the orangutan, the works I liked the least were the ones that stuck closest to Poe's original stories, namely Nancy Holder's "Annabel Lee", which retells Poe's poems from the title character's POV, and Tanith show more Lee's "The Return of Bernice", which has Bernice coming back as a vampire. Despite the few clunkers, I really enjoyed this collection.

Favorite stories: "Street of the Dead House" by Robert Lopestri, "The Masques of Amanda Llado" by Thomas S. Roche, "The Deave Lane" by Michael Jecks, "The Drowning City" by Loren Rhoads", and "The Inheritance" by Jane Petersen Burfield. show less

Whatever is ahead for humanity, how will vampires react? Will they continue to suck our blood, or will we learn to work together? This anthology attempts to give the answer.

In present-day Mexico, a street kid meets a female vampire and gives her some of his blood. She is on the run, because her kind is being hunted by the Mexican government, drug gangs and nearly everyone else. The night before liftoff, a male astronaut has a romantic encounter that ends with him being bitten by a vampire. show more What do you think will happen to the first manned mission to Mars?

A very high-class mausoleum, which involves preserving the dead and letting them float around inside a hollowed-out asteroid, allowing families to visit, is not what it seems. A jury has to decide if a young woman, who was beaten to death, was, or was not, a vampire at the time. A woman is truned into a vampire, and is forced to leave her husband and daughter; the temptation is just too strong. Decades later, the hunting of vampires has become established and part of society. In a world where the ozone layer has pretty much disappeared, blisters will form on unprotected skin within a few minutes. People are ripping vampire fangs right out of their mouths, because, when ground up and mixed with blood, it supposedly makes the ultimate sun-block.

This is an excellent group of stories. They are original stories that explore all parts of the vampire world. Individually, they are well-written, and, collectively, this is very much worth reading (even for those who are not vampire fans). show less

Come il precendente capitolo di questa saga ci troviamo di fronte ad una scrittrice che rivolge la sua attenzione unicamente ad un target di lettori adulti ed amanti di un genere di fantasy dai torni forti. Finalmente un libro che mi mostra realmente la complessità di questi esseri che, supper fantastici, vengono spesso erroniamente descritti unicamente dal un punto di vita 'umano' dimenticando che, in realtà, questi sono degli esseri non più umani, degli assassini in fondo che poco show more possono comprendere la sfera sentimentale degli uomini. Nel primo questo elemento è stato esaltato in modo brutale, in questo libro ritroviamo una nota più 'dolce' rispetto al solito tono aspro e duro della Kilpatrick ma non per questo meno bello e coinvolgente. Spero di poter leggere presto il terzo volume e che questo sia ai livelli dei primi due.
Consigliato ad un lettore adulto. show less

Nancy Kilpatrick and Caro Soles bring us: nEvermore!: Tales Of Murder, Mystery & The Macabre - Neo-Gothic Fiction Inspired By The Imagination Of Edgar Allan Poe. This collection was like discovering Poe for the first time all over again. And I'm shocked to find myself stating such a thing.

Poe is one of my most beloved authors, first discovered as a very young man, and that was some time ago. I expect most of us who love Poe share the experience of discovering this at a very young age. After show more all, if one has ever taken an English class, then one has been introduced to Poe. And also like me, I expect most people have found it very hard to recreate that joy of first discovery. Not that I haven't discovered many great authors and their works since, because I certainly have (some have stories in this volume), but Poe's works have a very unique and special feeling to them that I've never found anywhere else. Perhaps some of this comes from the fact that I was so young when I discovered him, at least this is what I always thought up until now.

There have been any number of Poe theme'd anthologies over the years, and a near infinity of authors whose publishers trumpeted them as the next Poe. So I am always extremely wary when something new comes along invoking the name of this great writer. Needless to say, I approached this anthology with great caution. However, the line-up of contributing authors is such a list of luminaries that I had to give it a try.

Nancy Kilpatrick and Caro Soles have been loose on the reins with the authors. Each story starts with an introduction to the story by the author where they explain their own experience of Poe and why they've chosen a particular aspect of that experience to create their story. I think this way of doing things has created a magic formula of sorts. Every reader has their own very personal experience of Poe, and by letting these authors tap into their own personal experience, the result is a collection that feels deeply intimate. I believe it is this shared experience that invokes the anthology reader's own personal history with Poe. It felt like I was reading a newly discovered cache of lost Poe stories, like a continuation of what I first felt so many years ago.

I will make no attempt to breakdown the stories or to rate and rank them. Dissection would be a disservice, perhaps a sacrilege. There is only one way to read this anthology: jump in, submerge, return to that misty and half-forgotten realm of youth and experience the joy of discovery once more. I can't recommend these stories highly enough. show less