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| Evolve by Nancy Kilpatrick (Review by Chuck Gould) |
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With each new story, each new novel, comic, film, television series, and video game, the vampire evolves. Like a centuries-long game of Broken Telephone, each generation tells and re-tells the folktales, altering the creatures, resurrecting them, keeping them alive like the immortal beasts they are. This mythicized beast is enveloped in pulp paper, celluloid, and digital data. The mythos builds. The monsters evolve.
In Evolve: Vampire Stories of the New Undead, Nancy Kilpatrick allows us a glimpse of what a 21st century vampire might look like. Unrecognizable from the mindless corpses of a few hundred years ago, far removed from the hideous monsters of the early 20th century, this is a whole new creature. They're not always beautiful like the undead of last generation, not necessarily relegated to the night, and not content to suffer the status quo. Instead, they might work to improve their lot in unlife, or perhaps experiment with ways to retrieve their mortal freedom bit by bit.
The most striking difference, and the one that might be hardest for a reader to swallow, is the idea that vampires be shuffled in amongst us, allowed to openly exist side by side with mortals. While this ultimate evolution might require the reader to indulge in the greatest suspension of disbelief, and more often than not must be read as a sort of experiment in alternate reality, it is this evolution that is possibly the most interesting to entertain. What if the reality of vampires was exposed? Would they be accepted? How would they be treated under a mortal rule of law? Kilpatrick's Evolve is filled with twenty-three stories and one poem exploring a variety of such possibilities.
Far away from majestic castles of the Carpathian Mountains or the sweltering summer nights of New Orleans, Kevin Cockle offers up a different sort of backdrop for a vampire tale: a wintry city in the middle of the Canadian prairies. Sleepless in Calgary captures well the spirit of this city, with David, a lonely workaholic, meeting a possibly illusory vampire who comes with a bit of well-meaning advice – or is it self-serving manipulation? Sometimes it's so hard to tell.
The Greatest Trick by Steve Vernon takes a look at a wise-cracking vampire politico and his equally waggish campaign manager as they blaze the campaign trail. With an alluring gimmick in his blood-sucking undead-ness, a complete lack of scruples, and a Machiavellian scheme, he knew he couldn't lose. Wait – did these traits really make him so different from any other politician?
A haunted and haunting story, Rio Youers' Soulfinger is one that is sure to stick with you. Working on a piece about the legendary bluesman, a journalist drops in on Soulfinger's haunt to learn more about the musician and his rumoured deal with the devil. Only hoping to learn a little about his subject and perhaps catch a set, our protagonist discovers that getting away from the bedevilled artist might prove more difficult than tracking him down. This is an enthralling story full of wonderful imagery sure to keep you thinking for a time afterwards.
Call it a core sample of vampiric possibilities, or a macabre buffet of the future undead. Call it what you will, but if you've any interest at all in vampires be sure to get your hands on this book. Open Evolve's gorgeously designed cover and allow Nancy Kilpatrick to lead you on a tour of the future of Vampires. This collection is capable of entertaining a current obsession, beginning a new one, or resurrecting an old, albeit modified one – much as our bloodsucking cousins are sure to evolve generation after generation for all eternity.
Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: Edge (September 15, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1894063333
ISBN-13: 978-1894063333
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