Hunting Vampires Over the Ages

The Vampire Hunters' Casebook by Peter Haining
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Standing at about 363 pages this book has sections of different vampire stories giving the reader an anthology of sample to peruse and read. Stories are excerpted from the likes of Bram Stoker, Anne Rice and Robert Block. THe most famous Vampire hunter is always Abraham Van Helsing.He features in several stories fighting off the undead. I think in one version he loses it to a pretty girl. Van Helsing is not always fighting against Dracula. Sometimes is is new vampires. Not bad for an old man.

Some of the stories are pulled from Camilla and Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles. Camilla is a female vampire that has been around for ages until she finally meets her match. In Rice's little section. Rampling Gate is a caste in the English countryside with a town set up around it. The father wanted it destroyed for some strange reason.In the end they do not destroy it but let it and the vampire living there remain. Guess not all vampires are bad. Some stories involve reincarnation. One lady was turned into a vampire thus freeing her soul into reincarnation. When she comes back during the 70's she cofronts the vampire who stole her body centuries ago. Another story involves espionage with the German Government putting Vampires in London to create an army of the undead to undermine Great Britain's army as young men of fighting age are turned to vampires. A nice fight happens in the German consulate. Still another story involves the deat of a werwolf witch who comes back as a vampire.

To say the least the stories are interesting and in most cases hard to find. If you are a hardcore fan of vampire literature then this book is for you, it will give you an avenue leading to some older vamp literature.Old lit shows the newbies how it should be done Vampires were not always these sexy hot guys and gal with fangs. They were the undead who smelled like a rotting corpse. They never went about in daylight and they certainly did not sparkle like diamonds. Holy water, crucifixes and garlic still kill these guys. Oh yeah and the vampires of old can shapeshift into animals, mist and what not. They can even control animals. Vampires have changed a lot since the old days. I like the old ones better.

A note before I go. Vampires share many characteristics with shamans, wizards and even faeries. Shamans and wizards can shapeshift into the form of different animals. They can even control animals while some have been known to levitate. Faeries cannot stand iron and neither can vampires. The Shamans of Europe believe that we had an astral body of sorts that could travel about separated from the physical body. Tthe old lore of vampires believed that the astral body sometimes hung around after death to keep itself intact it fed off blood. Think of the succubus and incubus who seduced people in their sleep and drank their blood.


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