Vampire Stories – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Published: 1 October 2009
Publisher: Skyhorse
Pages: 288
Series: Stand Alone
Format Read: Audible
Duration: 9h 9mins

Blurp:

Who would suspect that the same mind that created the most famous literary detective of all time also took on the eternally popular genre of vampires? Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a contemporary of Bram Stoker, gave us some fascinating works of vampire fiction. From the bloodsucking plant in “The American’s Tale” to the bloodsucking wife in “The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire,” he reveled in the horror created by creatures who survived on the blood of men and women.

As the bestselling Twilight series has dominated bookstores, it’s the perfect time to offer the first-ever compilation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s vampire tales. Get ready to sink your teeth into this heart-stopping anthology. Each of these twelve short stories has been pulled from obscurity and hand selected for this collection. Conan Doyle’s famous friendship with vampire king Bram Stoker is thought to have influenced these many blood-sucking tales, including “The Captain of the Pole Star,” about a medical student on an arctic voyage haunted by a heat-draining Eskimo vampire and “The Three Gables,” in which vampirism is cunningly used as a metaphor for capitalism.

Featuring an introduction by world-renowned vampire expert, Robert Eighteen-Bisang, this is a must-have anthology for all vampire lovers, and for any Arthur Conan Doyle enthusiast.

Thoughts:

Guys and gals, it is your old pal Salty here. Happy to be here for another mixed bag review. Do not be alarmed it is in many cases more positive feedback than a ranty review. Dave has been realy kind to me of late it seems. We all know how passionate I get about VAMPIRES, for those that need a memory refreshed, you can go read up on my reviews for I am Legend and Vampire State Building Vol. 1. Probably not the most kid friendly reviews, but Dave really shafted me with those ones. I am Lengend pissed me of more because the movie lead me to believe it was supposed to be zombies and not Vampires like in the book… 

Before I start my review, please do allow me to utter a few expletives though… Go put the kids away and then come back to read here. Or skip this next paragraph, it is not for the feint of hart… Ready? How dare a fuck wit of self import call himself a VAMPIRE expert and try make a quick buck because fucking “Twilight” was a thing? Have you seen how shitty Hollywood made that out to be? Glittering vampires? Really? Fuuuuck ooooooooofffffff…. No seriously. This whole Goodreads book blurp just set my ticker of. If people go out of their way to tell the world how clever they are and smear some bullshit about their self importance over some one else’s hard work and try gain credit for it, they can all do me a favor and fuck off. One does not fuck about with an author both Dave and I can enjoy. Dave could sadly not sit in for this read and review as he is still cowering in a corner after his most recent Horus Heresy read. Give the boy some time. I believe we might be in for a mach five scorcher review. The guy recently started mumbling in his sleep, something about leapards and purrs, not too sure. I am concerned about him… With that little side line all over, let us look at Vampire Stories by Sir A.C Doyle shall we?

I love the cover that is displayed for this edition, even though the contents inside might piss off the die hard Vampire fan. Vampire stories had everything in it but actual Vampires. There was a time that Doyle was into things like Spiritualism and he was facinated by the feats of Houdini, the guy actually had a good relationship with the guy until things went sour and Doyle all but poured that out in some of his writings. Even in some Sherlock stories. Knowing that made going through this book a lot easier for me personally. Vampire stories is a collection of A.C.D’s lesser known stories that deals with some sort of supernatural entity. The traditional Vampire will not be had in here, but the why it was planned out was pretty neat. To me at least. It also contained quite a few Holmes stories in it. A perfect example is an outing that Holmes has with Brom Stoker and Van Helsing, it was the only story that actually contained the essence of the word Vampire, but I was happy for it as I now understand why Holmes and supernatural stories go so well together. If the original author wrote one where Holmes went along on a case with the author of Dracula, that just made me exited to read some more Holmes vs monster type of books. I bet Dave shares the same feelings. Shame, that guy is positively in a very bad state at the moment. I’ll have to go check on him in a bit.

If you ask Salty if this book will be for you, I’d say give it a go. If you are a Doyle fan and feel like reading “other” sorts of stories penned by his hand, by all means, please do. Doyle was a master wordsmith and while some stories were a little rough around the edges I had quite an oke time with it. Do not expect too much blood sucking and sexual tension like the BS stuff that go for VAMPIRE novels today, be open minded about the term Vampire and have the time of your life with this one. One of my main gripes with this collection at the start was that it was horribly miss leading and marketed to people that liked Twilight, if you were one of those people, stay away from this, no daimond skin glittery shit with some girl that cannot decide if she is into necrophelia or beastiality to be had here. I wish I had had made notes of each particular story like Dave does when he writes short story reviews, but I had my hands full at the time, Dave was so distraught he was crying on my shoulder for days. It was quite a sight to behold, poor guy.

Vampire Stories got a 3 and a half star rating from me. It is not your conventional supernatural Vampire story collection, but it has some merit. If I had to pick a favorite it would be the one where Stoker and Van Helsing joined for one. It nealrly made me spit out some good coffee when it happened as I was not expecting it to come from Doyle himself. It was also free on Audible thanks to Daves amazing wife. Now, if you will excuse me, I really have to go check up on Dave now, I fear there is a another tear fit coming on, damn, and I just put on my favorite shirt for this review… Oh well…

Till next time folks!

Salty out