Vampires. Almost every culture in the world has a variant thereof. Some are ugly; many are beautiful. Most drink blood. Some can be killed with a stake to the heart, some with silver, almost all by decapitation.

Despite the variations, however, one thing is consistent: vampires are eternal.

They’re also, for the most part, unchanging. They lurk in castles, in the dark, in the shadows. Those castles may have morphed into high rises, but the principle is the same. Many dress the way they did when they were made… or as closely as possible. They eschew modern technology to the extent possible unless it’s to watch a sunrise and cry. When they do reinvent themselves, they move to a new place and start using a new name, but they remain, fundamentally, the same person they were when they became a vampire.

Not so in Vampires Never Get Old: Tales with Fresh Bite, edited by Zoraida Córdova and Natalie C. Parker.

(Listen to our conversation with Zoraida Córdova here.)

In this anthology, we’re introduced to vampires birthed in, and by, the modern era, along with older vampires who have made it their business to adapt as the world changed around them – vampires who have decided to live their immortality rather than simply exist in it. There are even those who are (rightfully) punished for refusing to accept change.

In these pages, you’ll meet vampires who sire coven members based on their artistic potential. Vampires who refuse to use preferred pronouns and find themselves at an incredibly justified disadvantage for it. Vampires who join Instagram just to see what will happen. Vampires who communicate in blog entries.

I could go on, but where’s the fun for you?

Those of you who have been visiting The Roarbots for a while know that I’m pretty picky about anthologies and that to consider one worth the purchase price (yes, I did actually buy Vampires Never Get Old, it isn’t all ARCs up in here), I need to like at least 60% of the stories enough to finish them, and  I need to really enjoy about 40%.

I finished all 11 stories in Vampires Never Get Old. I even read the introduction and the lore pages by Zoraida and Natalie included between stories (informative and hilarious, btw). I would rate 90% of the stories as super solid and say I loved about 70%, which, let me tell you, is high marks from this anthology curmudgeon.

I do want to shout out my two absolute favorites, because, in a book of standouts, Samira Ahmed and Dhonielle Clayton outdid themselves with “A Guidebook For the Newly Sired Desi Vampire” and “The House of the Black Sapphires,” respectively.

In Ahmed’s tale, a newly turned vamp wakes up alone in an abandoned warehouse. Alone but not without assistance, for lo! Their phone has been loaded with a new app: Vampersand. And Vampersand connects this newly sired nightwalker to an entire network of beings exactly like them, beings who have already experienced what this baby vamp is going through and are ready to guide their new sibling through the complexities of their new life. Vampersand’s most important lesson: the colonizers still think they have rights in our country? They think they can turn us into monsters on a whim? Fine. Let’s show them what we think of that by putting them on the menu. Eat your colonizers.

Hell. Yes.

Clayton’s world is, on the surface, softer and more genteel than Ahmed’s. On the surface. The Turner Women of the House of the Black Sapphire may be Eternals, but they will dress appropriately and they will be well mannered and they will do as their mother Evangeline directs. As the story opens, she has directed them to leave a happy life in Charleston, South Carolina, to resettle in her home town of  New Orleans – a place to which she has never expressed any desire to see again, let alone live in. Upon reaching the city’s Eternal Ward, the girls help Evangeline refurbish the long-abandoned family apothecary, and it appears all will be business and sanguine beignets.

Until the youngest son of Shadow Baron Jean Baptiste Marcheur’s youngest son (who happens to share the same name) arrives to deliver a party invitation.

Evangeline’s daughter Bea knows she shouldn’t wander the Shadow Baron’s mansion alone during the party but, of course, she does. And of course, handsome J.B. finds her in the Carrom parlor. He challenges her to a game and she agrees, confident she’ll win and deny him his victory token: a kiss. And even if she does lose, how dangerous could one kiss be? (Looked into Voodoo lore at all? If you have, you know the answer.)

What caught me about Clayton’s story is the fact that she managed to fit an entire novel’s worth of tension into 26 pages, which… whew. I needed a few minutes.

Vampires Never Get Old has a little bit of everything: suspense, romance, longing, absurdity, giggles, and legit scares. It’s a perfect anthology for spooky season, and, I mean, just look at that fabulous cover! Bonus: the majority of contributors are either authors of color or LGBTQIA+ (and some are both), groups whose voices in horror have long been neglected.

So go. If your local bookshop is open, there’s probably a copy waiting for you. If not, hit up your favorite online retailer. The book doesn’t bite.

Probably…