Naomi de Bruyn wrote this review.
Some people spend their entire life looking for love and never, ever find it. Love is elusive, and oft times very fickle; it can be an impossible task to find one’s “soul-mate.” And that is what this book is about, looking for love that is enduring, breaking down and hunting for it in the personals column, the place where those who have begun to despair of ever finding that special person try to find their hearts’ desires.
If you open the paper on any given day, the personals column is always quite large. Opposite sex seeking one another, same sex looking, too. It is rather humbling to realize that so many are seeking a little happiness, some warmth and meaning for their lives, and to wonder how many of them ever really find it.
Of course there are others, the few who are seeking solely sexual fulfilment. Their lust drives them to find release in any manner that they can, including in the pages of the personals. These people prey on the young and the innocent, and the downright desperate in our society. And then there is yet another type of seekers, the ones who are not quite human, who seek to fulfill their cravings for blood, souls, and emotions.
These predatory monsters have become too tired or uninterested to hunt their prey as they once did. They now rely on the personals column to do their hunting for them, and how convenient for them. No stalking, no endangering themselves, just a message in the paper, then wait for the responses. They can pick and choose their victims as they wish … a giant fishbowl of humans to pick from. And the victims are only searching for love …
Single White Vampire Seeks Same holds them all tightly within its covers: the hunters and seekers, the predators and the prey. And there is some fantastic reading here, as well as some of the more painful human truths we all tend to overlook. We do have failings, none of us are perfect, and we have to be reasonable in our expectations.
It’s really hard to pick out a couple of tales to spotlight, as they were all so good! The first story in the book caught me completely off guard and had me chuckling, yet it also had me thinking very hard on the ramifications. “Personal Wishes” by Mickey Zucker Reichert has Cupid putting away his trusty bow and arrows, and trying something new. The Godling of love riding around on a subway is just too priceless a picture to let go of! Yet he is still doing his best to bring couples together with their ideal others.
Tanya Huff’s “Someone to Share the Night” hit a chord as well, but for entirely different reasons. The tale is a delightful one about a succubus and a vampire coming together in Vancouver, Canada. The terrain was far too familiar for me not to have an increased enjoyment of this story. Tanya shows us how important trust is to a relationship, even when the couple is not human.
“Werotica” is another gem from Esther M. Friesner, whom I’m sure some of you will recognize from the “Chicks in Chainmail” series. It’s hard enough to take the first step of placing an ad, but what happens when the responder has the wrong idea about you, and you are far too enthralled to set her straight? It might mean losing her, after all. This one takes some really interesting twists and turns before the end, and is extremely entertaining.
The other authors to contribute to this delightful anthology are Kristine Kathryn Rusch, R. Davis, Gary A. Barunbeck. Bradley H. Sinor, Peter Crowther, Tim Waggoner, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Michelle West, and Charles de Lint. Each of them has added a tale that will touch your heart strings, but only you can say in what manner.
I really enjoyed this anthology – couldn’t put it down, to be honest. Perhaps there is a part of myself that still seeks the elusive perfect match? I don’t know, maybe I just want to believe that for each of us there is someone perfect out there. Hard to say, but if you are one of those searching, I wish you all the luck in the world – from what this book shows, you may need it!
(Daw, 2001)
