Coffins: The Vampire Archives, Volume 3

Vampire Archives #3

by Otto Penzler (Editor)

A chill inducing and masterful collection of vampire tales, culled from the dark recesses of the nefarious and world renowned Vampires Archives .
 
Coffins , the third volume in the mass market series, contains some of the best of the best of vampire fiction. Including Harlan Ellison, Robert Bloch, Edgar Allan Poe, and F. Paul Wilson, it takes its readers deep inside the crypts of the living dead, in all their supernatural splendor.
 

·        Heart Pounding Shrieks
·        Blood Soaked Moonlit Hunts
·        High Stakes Adventure
·        Evil Assignations

Genres: Vampires, Horror, Anthologies, Short Stories, Fantasy, Paranormal, Audiobook

512 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published November 23, 2010

About the author

Otto Penzler is an editor of mystery fiction in the United States, and proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City, where he lives.

Otto Penzler founded The Mysteriour Press in 1975 and was the publisher of The Armchair Detective, the Edgar-winning quarterly journal devoted to the study of mystery and suspense fiction, for seventeen years.

Penzler has won two Edgar Awards, for The Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection in 1977, and The Lineup in 2010. The Mystery Writers of America awarded him the prestigious Ellery Queen Award in 1994, and the Raven--the group's highest non-writing award--in 2003.

Reviews

[Gustavo Krieger · Rating 1 out of 5]

I can´t recommend this book. Some stories are just plain terrible. Some are ok, fine, nothing impressive... and some of them have barely any relation with vampires... just a weak similarity.

But the main problem is another thing. As an editor, Mr. Penzler did very little beside choosing the stories. The introduction is useless, and there is no information whatsoever about the authors. When I read a book like that, I expect that I could at least know when the story was originally published, and hopefully where it was published. Some authors here are very unknown, so a couple of pages explaining where did they come from etc. would help. I know who Maupassant is. But for the casual reader, you will get a gothic story from the XIX century alongside a pulp yarn alongside a modern tale from a friend of Mr. Penzler without any context.

[Candra Hodge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent collection of gritty vampire tales.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

By this third Archive, I’m starting to recognize the conventions of vampire stories (and, tbh, getting a bit bored of them, so the ones that stand out are the ones that break those norms most). I greatly enjoyed: Dracula’s Chair, The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire, The Man Who Loved the Vampire Lady, Wailing Well, The Men & Women of Rivendale.

Content warning: possible antisemitism, definitely spoilers: I didn’t like Midnight Mass. While I’m not thoroughly studied on antisemitism by any means, the whole thing came off as probably problematic to me. I think there’s other directions a story that discusses how crosses repel vampires could go that doesn’t require a whole bit on how vampires did a better job than Nazis at murdering Jewish people. Like? What?? And then having the Jewish character, Rabbi Zev, be the “savior” figure at the end. It just seems off to me. I found the Father Joe to be paternalistic (pun unintended) toward a character (Carl, whose linguistic representation seemed inauthentic and distracting to me) which made me dislike Joe, but I think we were supposed to like him and be rooting for him. The whole story didn’t sit well with me and I kinda wish it hadn’t been the last of the collection.

[Shannon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my favorite of the 3.

[Maxi Bolongaita · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually think this books deserves 5 stars. But why on earth did I only put 4? It was because of that goddamned introduction. I love you, Mr. Penzler, but when you noted that Stephanie Meyer as a legitimate vampire author, I wanted to burn the damned book.

I'm glad, however, that the selection of stories within the actual book didn't have a hint of sparkle, so I was immensely relieved. So, yeah. Five stars but a 4 star rating.

Gah. Stephanie Meyer? Really?

[Jo Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eh. Some really badly written short stories featuring vampires, with maybe three pretty good ones and two excellent one--Duty by Ed Gorman and Midnight Mass by F. Paul Wilson. Most of the stories felt like they were phoned in. Time to give vampires a rest, hmm?

[Jenny Clifford · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the third collection of vampire short stories in this anthology series, and the stories vary a bit in quality. As there must be thousands of vampire stories in the world, that is no surprise. It was a good read, and I like the short story format.

[Metagion · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great choice of stories here, but some I've read before (like "The Horla", for instance and "Ligeia" for another) but other than that some true gems. Browse through a copy if you can :)

[Isabella Blaco]

I enjoyed this one though I've always been a fan of books with multiple stories. There were one or two that bored me to tears but all in all it's worth reading. Great travel book!

[Christian James Dumaguing · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of adult bedtime stories. haha

[Melanie Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great collection! I skipped a couple of stories though. I must say that the last story was a great closer for the volume.