Book Review: Blood Lite

Ed. Kevin J. Anderson, 2008, Simon & Schuster

One of the biggest problems facing authors of both humour and horror is that both genres are extremely subjective: every individual reader has their own, specific opinion on what constitutes funny or frightening, and if a piece of writing doesn’t tick the boxes for a given reader, then it’s a lost cause. By extension, putting together a complete anthology of either horror or humour is an extremely brave move on the part of the editor. And to anthologise a collection of humorous horror pieces...well, to put it extremely diplomatically, that’s a damn big gamble.

Fortunately, in the case of Blood Lite, it’s a gamble that definitely paid off: by which I mean, of course, that both the humour and the horror therein certainly hit my funny- and fright-bones.

Blood Lite comprises 21 works of short fiction by members of the US Horror Writers’ Association – including Jim Butcher, Sherrilyn Kenyon, D. L. Snell, and other well-known names – and is ably edited by Kevin J. Anderson. The humorous content runs from punning and over-the-top pastiche to sharp satire and some extremely black humour. On the horror side, we have vampires, werewolves and zombies, as well as homicidal slashers and demons, with the atmosphere of these stories ranging from completely jokey – merely poking fun at the conventions and tropes of horror – to completely chilling.

While I’ve never been a particular fan of the ‘light and slapstick’ horror tale, I was pleased to find that even the lightest of these pieces were enjoyable and entertaining, and most at least attempted to introduce an element of true horror. Some of the standouts in this category include Matt Venne’s ‘Elvis Presley and the Bloodsucker Blues’. Lucien Soulban’s ‘Hell in a Handbasket’, and Wil Ludiwgsen’s ‘A Good Psycho is Hard to Find’.

The real gems, though, were the tales that either ran chiefly with the horror element, and allowed the humour to develop organically from the resulting situations, or which started off humorous before descending into blackness. For example, Joe R. Lansdale’s ‘Mr. Bear’ – which was the highlight of this collection for me – is one of the most genuinely disturbing tales I’ve ever read, but which nonetheless made me laugh out loud due to the author’s deft use of dialogue, plotting and situational absurdity: it involves the nightmare journey (literally and figuratively) of an everyman who finds himself seated next to a strangely-familiar bear on a plane. And yes, you read that right. Others of this ilk include D. L. Snell’s ‘Love Seat Solitaire’, Nancy Holder’s ‘I Know Who You Ate Last Summer’, and ‘An Evening With Al Gore’ by Charlaine Harris.

In a nutshell, this is a very worthy anthology. Even if not every story makes you both laugh and scream, I can guarantee you’ll at least alternate between the two extremes from one story to the next.