Book Review: Vampiric: Tales of Blood and Roses from Japan Edited by Edward Lipsett

Vampiric: Tales of Blood and Roses from Japan Edited by Edward Lipsett

236 pages

Expected publication: December 2019 by Kurodahan Press

I am always excited when I get a new book by Kurodahan Press and very thankful to be sent an early promo copy of this book. If you are not familar they are an independent press that brings translations of otherwise obscure Japanese science fiction and horror to an American market. Very cool stuff! Just the basic concept of this one is something I am instantly sold on. A collection of Japanese Vampire tales is all you needed to tell me. I knew like all anthologies there would ups and downs, the good news is that it mostly ups.

As the author of a novel about Chinese vampires (my 2011 release Hunting The Moon Tribe), I have read and researched much about Chinese Vampires. I love hopping Chinese vampire movies but bloodsuckers from the island of Japan and their writers is something I was not familiar with. I assumed there is a tradition as in all other cultures as the vampire is the DNA of almost all cultural DNA.

So, in general, this is a well put together anthology the selection of stories is top notch even my least favorite of the stories had something to grasp on to. There were a few neat touches in the contributors' bios there were random characters from various important Vampire like Van Helsing and Robert Neville of I Am Legend. That was a fun touch. The stories all have excellent translations, that help bring out a Japanese feel despite being in English. The stories range from the early 20th Century to modern with two excellent essays on the impact of Vampire fiction in Japan. Those essays totally sold me on several of those novels and I Kurodahan brings us some of those - I mean Bloodlines of Stone sounds amazing, and the idea of Japanese feminist Vampire novel in Ephemera the Vampire by Mariko Ohara sounds fascinating.

The only weakness here are minor but things that could have really strengthened the book for me. One of my favorite stories in the collection was the odd story One Legged Woman by Okamoto Kido. By reading the bio in the back of the book I learned he was an early 20th-century playwright who was an actual Samurai early in his life. I started to think that I needed just a little more information with each story. Even just having the year of publication with the title would have given more context. I think I would enjoy having the bio with the title page of each story.

That is a minor detail I loved this book, besides the One-Legged Woman my other favorites the bizarro The Husk Heir by Kaijo Shinji, whose Science Fiction novels I really want to check out, and the cosmic "Crimson Cloak" by the Japanese Lovecraftian master Asamatsu Ken. Each story brought something. I think this is a must-read for serious vampire fiction fans, but also for readers who want to read speculative and horror fiction from other cultures. Kurodahan Press delivers another important cross-cultural bridge in the form of super entertaining vampire tales. Big thumbs up!