The Vampire Archives

Penzler's second massive anthology for Black Lizard (following 2007's The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps ) collects an astoundingly thorough and enjoyable set of 86 vampire tales, poems and true stories. Classics such as Le Fanu's “Carmilla,” Poe's “Ligeia” and Stoker's “Dracula's Guest” are nicely interspersed with lesser-known older and newer works. Fredric Brown's “Blood,” an old-school sci-fi short-short, is a hoot, and D.H. Lawrence's “The Lovely Lady” is a witty satire that in many ways harks back to Polidori's “The Vampyre.” Other standouts include Lisa Tuttle's “The Replacements,” a gothic feminist tale, and Gardner Dozois and Jack Dann's “Down Among the Dead Men,” a chilling story set in a Nazi concentration camp. Neil Gaiman's introduction and Daniel Seitler's superb 100-plus-page bibliography of vampire fiction round out the anthology. (Oct.)