Just Couldn’t Finish Reading: Bite (FP: 2005)

It’s a truism I’ve often stated here that books of short stories tend to be of variable quality. There are, I find, a great way to be introduced to new authors but there’s a risk involved. If the authors appear to be able to throw 30-40 pages together can they throw 300 pages together and still make it a good story? I’ve been burnt like that a few times.

This particular volume however had a different problem to contend with. On the face of it the author line-up was pretty good. I did have low expectations of the first story by Laurell K Hamilton who I really liked until she went all sexually weird and loved up in her Anita Blake series. The story, such as it is, concerns Blake getting back together with her vampire boyfriend and is about as interesting in watching paint dry. Actually I think the paint would be far more interesting! The second story, by Charlaine Harris was much better. It was a ‘True Blood’ Sookie Stackhouse tale and I was impressed by how well written it was (especially as I didn’t really enjoy the few episodes I saw on TV). So after a poor start my hopes where definitely raised. The third story by MaryJanice Davidson started out OK and was fairly amusing but rapidly went downhill towards the end. I really started to get a bad feeling at this point – 1 out of 3 decent stories with only 2 remaining. The fourth story was, pun intended, the final nail in the coffin. It was, not to put too fine a point on it bloody awful. I can’t actually remember reading, or in this case starting, anything quite that bad in many years. I did honestly struggle to understand why it was even published. But that was it as far as I was concerned. One decent story in 300 pages. I did wonder if this was the state of vampire literature today and then I remembered the earlier books by Kim Newman and Charlie Huston which where both very good indeed. The only comfort I can take from this rather unpleasant experience is that I can prevent people, or just one person, from reading this utter tripe. AVOID.