This week I ventured onto Tor.com to take a look at some of their original short fiction, since the last couple short stories I read in the S.O.S. anthology haven’t been so impressive. I had no idea that Tor even offered original fiction on its website—thanks to the lovely people at Spells, Space & Screams for turning me onto that! I’d heard some positive mention of “meat+drink” previously, so that story jumped out at me immediately. Read it here for free if you’d like…

I really enjoyed this story!!! I mean, it’s vampires, so what’s new, right? 😛 But actually, everything feels new in this story. These are not your typical vampires, just close enough to the edge of humanity to make them sexy. They do not sparkle or glitter—they are instead predatory meat, the memories of their previous lives addled by the vampiric transition, on the hunt for flesh (that’s us humans). (Side note that I haven’t seen the word “flesh” dropped so many times since I read the Interface series by _9MOTHER9HORSE9EYES9.)

It’s really the tone of the story that sets it apart from other vampire fiction, though. The MC has a matter-of-fact, this horror happened then that horror happened type of voice, leading us steadily through a few days in the life of these vampires. It’s sort of a paranormal slice of life, a window into what it’s like to be a monster living in the Baltimore slums.

Oh, and there’s no capitalization, because capitalization is a human construct, I suppose? Or something. I do think the stylistic choice aids in making the narration feel flatter—a good thing for this story. Everything’s a good thing when it comes to this story. Love it—so go read it!