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LONGING FOR BLOOD, by Vilma Kadleckova Review by Jeff VanderMeer Once, several years ago, I visited my father's house on a day when he was entertaining a Czechoslovakian scientist (my dad is an entomologist). This foreigner had brought with him an incredible elixir: a bottle of honey mead. The bottle itself was an exotic object—wicker brocade surrounded it like a forest of vines, while the red wax seal with its imprinted letters in a foreign alphabet intrigued me even more. After allowing us suitable time to admire the bottle, and all the while telling us how incredible the mead tasted, he slit the seal and poured a dark gold liquid into our glasses. It glimmered in the light. It was thick and sticky, the honey-scent mixed with another, undefinable, smell that made my mouth tingle with anticipation. We raised our glasses, made a toast to health, and drank. The taste...the taste was muscular and delicate simultaneously, sweet and strong. I've never had anything quite so intoxicating. I feel much the same way about "Longing for Blood" by Czechoslovakian writer Vilma Kadleckova. Her marvelous novelet also glimmers like dark gold; it too is thick and muscular, sweet and delicate. It too brings me to place I have not been before. The story weaves familiar and unfamiliar strands of fairy tale together in a unique tapestry of dark borders and dark obsessions. Written in the form of the 600's A.D. diary of the Taskre princess Ashterat, "Longing for Blood" follows Ashterat's efforts to guard the World Outside (a world of indescribable beasts) from the World Inside (our world). Her father has been turned into a clock as a result of this struggle and her mother lies on a perpetual deathbed. Ashterat offers a potion to any man who manages to find her palace. If the potion does not kill these adventurers, it will stop the hands of the clock that is her father and the lucky man will become immortal, giving Ashterat a champion to keep the beasts at bay. Already this constant struggle against the World Outside has driven Ashterat's sister into the madness of vampirism. The novelet enters more familiar ground with the introduction of Ashterat's foster sister Shina, or Cinderella, and yet the way in which Kadleckova uses the Cinderella fairy tale is so adult, so wise that it is barely recognizable, especially embedded as it is within Ashterat's own narrative. Kadleckova manages to transcend recent, lesser attempts by Felicity Savage (in F&SF a couple of years ago) and even the great Angela Carter (in her collection American Ghosts and Old World Wonders) to rework the Cinderella tale. The utterly adult progression of the narrative, the marvelous texture of the prose, the stark composure and heroism of Ashterat and, especially, the deep characterization of Cinderella's eventual husband-king—all of these pleasures combine with a very foreign sensibility to make "Longing for Blood" an early contender for best dark fantasy of the year. I may never again encounter that honey mead, but with any luck I can become drunk on Kadleckova's work instead—she has plenty of other stories, mostly science fiction novels, just waiting to be translated into English. I hope some enterprising publisher reads "Longing for Blood" and realizes just how rich a vein of mature, intelligent material waits to be mined...
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