Reviews
A few days ago I had a nice email from author Rhonda Parrish asking if I would review her upcoming short story "Sister Margaret" which she described it as a story of a vampire hunter and a half-incubus swordsman. I was a bit wary only because vampire books (beyond Dracula) aren't my normal fare but I said yes and was in for a very pleasant surprise. "Sister Margaret" is in deed about a vampire hunter and his hired swordsman who may very well be half-incubus. They are sent to kill a local "leech" (vampire) who is demanding protection money from the local temple girls who have been saved by Sister Margaret from a life on the streets. The story is set in Haven, one of those fantasy metropolises like Ankh-Moorpork or the Bazaar on Deva. The vampires therefore are just one of many different species living in the city and are not presented as the mysterious lust-worthy nobility with a dark side as they so often are these days. Instead, they are desperate creatures who are superstitious and from the hunter's point of view, predictable but dangerous. "Sister Margaret" reminded me favorably of any number of fantasy short stories I've read in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Her story mostly reminds me of these stories in terms of tone and setting: Catamount by Marc Laidlaw and Dance of Shadows by Fred Chappell.