Teeth_ Vampire Tales - Ellen Datlow [0]
VAMPIRE TALES
EDITED BY
ELLEN DATLOW & TERRI WINDLING
The editors would like to thank Anne Hoppe, Merrilee Heifetz, Jennifer Escott, Heinz Insu Fenkl, Howard Gayton, Ellen Kushner, and Delia Sherman for their assistance with this book.
For the fantastic Merrilee Heifetz
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Introduction - by Terri Windling & Ellen Datlow
Things to Know About Being Dead - by Genevieve Valentine
All Smiles - by Steve Berman
Gap Year - by Christopher Barzak
Bloody Sunrise - by Neil Gaiman
Flying - by Delia Sherman
Vampire Weather - by Garth Nix
Late Bloomer - by Suzy McKee Charnas
The List of Definite Endings - by Kaaron Warren
Best Friends Forever - by Cecil Castellucci
Sit the Dead - by Jeffrey Ford
Sunbleached - by Nathan Ballingrud
Baby - by Kathe Koja
In the Future When All’s Well - by Catherynne M. Valente
Transition - by Melissa Marr
History - by Ellen Kushner
The Perfect Dinner Party - by Cassandra Clare & Holly Black
Slice of Life - by Lucius Shepard
My Generation - by Emma Bull
Why Light? - by Tanith Lee
About the Authors
Other Anthologies by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling
Copyright
About the Publisher
Introduction
by Terri Windling & Ellen Datlow
Okay, let’s admit it: Vampires are hot. Not only hot as in “irresistibly attractive,” if your amorous taste runs to dark and dangerous (or, in the case of Twilight’s Edward Cullen, rock hard and glittery), but also hot as in “spectacularly popular” in all forms of media today. There are vampire films, vampire TV shows, and so many vampire novels on the shelves that some bookstores now give them their own special section. There are vampire bands, vampire styles, vampire internet forums and journals, and even a fringe subculture of people who claim to drink human blood. Magazines tout the “new vampire craze” that has “suddenly” taken teen culture by storm. Fact is, this craze is nothing new—it’s been raging for at least two centuries, ever since Lord Byron and his friends (who were in their teens and twenties themselves) created the first “vampire bestseller” . . . and in the process gave birth to the genre of English Gothic literature.
But first, let’s look at the vampire’s origins in the ancient tales of myth, for in this form, Edward Cullen’s ancestors are very, very old indeed. Although the word “vampire” derives from the legends and folk beliefs of the Slavic peoples, vampirelike creatures can be found in the oldest stories of cultures all around the globe. Bloodsucking spirits of various kinds populated the early legends of Assyria and Babylonia, for example. Some of these foul creatures were human in origin: They were the souls of the restless dead, condemned by a violent death or improper burial to haunt the lands where once they dwelled. Others were supernatural, such as Lilitu, whose tales were once known throughout Mesopotamia. Lilitu had been a sacred figure in Sumerian goddess mythology, but over time she devolved into a fearsome demon, famous for seducing and devouring men. Hungering insatiably for the blood of infants (especially those of noble lineage), she prowled the night in the form of a screech owl, hunting down her next victim.
Likewise, the vampires of Central and South America were usually female figures. Sometimes dangerously seductive, and sometimes birdlike and hideous, they were generally the ghosts of women who had died childless, or in childbirth, and who now haunted the landscape thirsting for the blood of living children. Many of the tribes of Africa also had stories about vampirelike beings with a penchant for blood that was young and fresh. The adze, in the tales of the Ewe tribe, could appear in the form of a firefly or as a misshapen human with jet-black skin. It lived on palm oil and human blood; the younger its victim, the better. The obayifo, in Ashanti tales, was a malevolent spirit who inhabited the bodies of seemingly ordinary men and women, causing them to hunger obsessively for the blood of children. They hunted at night, when they could be detected by the