A look at the death of some part of ourselves as we move into marriage, having children - being adults and being stable. But, seen through the sharpened eyes of Vlad the vampire who may or may not be the ORIGINAL Vlad, the count - he of the impaler tendencies.

Everything Vlad is, he needs to hide for fear his son will not be able to assimilate as a half vampire in a world of plebbs. it is draining living in a half-life and not being who you have always been. His son sees a mirage of the father and the father wants to be what the son needs which he and his wife (a vampire hunter?) Think is the opposite of vampire.

Enter the teacher who also represents the sheer banality of life sometimes. She presents this amazing front in class and to her peers and the students and their parents but the moment she is out the door, something in her is in despair and utter solitude. If this isn't a commentary on our world today, on why this feels familiar even to me, then I don't know what is.

The ending, with father and son and their shared realization that they are more a like than different and that flicker of joy and flying baseball - this ending is actually wholesome. ( )

He wants to be her monster.

I really liked the way this story played out. ( )

Found this through a tumblr post about not-well-known creepy stories for Halloween. ( )

This was such an unusual story from the way it was written to how it ended. I must say I found it utterly brilliant. So much so, I will definitely keep my eye out for more of Max Gladstone's work. The premise is 'What if Dracula had to live a normal family life'. Pretty cool, eh? It addresses things that you would expect, while adding some nice surprises. I'm purposely being vague because you really want to experience this story firsthand. Pick it up. You won't regret it. ( )

At first this seems as if it's a story about a vampire guy having a mid-life crisis, but it's actually a really sweet story about a vampire, his slayer wife, and their son. It's kind of awesome how it goes from one to the other, and Gladstone is seriously a master of descriptions. ( )