Review: Gifts of Blood by Susan C. Petrey

A couple of weeks ago I wrote an entry ("Two Varkela Stories") about the fiction of a talented author who died way before her time. I read two of her stories about the Varkela - her variant on vampires - and was impressed enough to track down her collection of short fiction.

Petrey left behind a very slim body of work that was collected by her friends and colleagues after her death. The book is titled Gifts of Blood, and I encourage anyone who is a fan of "ethical vampires" to seek out a copy. Gifts of Blood contains nine stories - all but two of them involve the Varkela.

The stories I blogged about previously, "The Healer's Touch" and "Leechcraft," turned out to be my favorites in the book, and were the most mature of the Varkela tales. Those two stories featured Vaylance, a young but wise "leechman" who sought to expand his knowledge of healing by interacting with the "civilized" world; the remaining five tales focused on Spareen, his wilder and more impulsive sibling. All of the tales demonstrated Petrey's imagination and gift for storytelling. I am certain that I will revisit these stories again in the future.

The two non-Varkela stories show Petrey trying her hand at science fiction and contemporary fantasy, with interesting results. "The Neisserian Invasion" involves an attempt at deliberately infecting an invading alien race with venereal disease. The story is hilarious, but Petrey tells the story completely straight-faced; Petrey let the outlandishness of the material itself speak for itself. The final story in the book is "Spidersong," a musical fantasy that I feel could be the basis for a fantastic stop-motion short in the vein of Henry Selick or Tim Burton. It is a whimsical story about a spider who takes up residence in a lute, but darkness creeps in at the edges.

Wonderful tales.