Introduction to Fangs and Angel Wings

Karen Taylor is a wonderful writer.

Well, now, let me re-word that just a tad. Given that no one can match her at writing stories of erotic horror, maybe I should have said that Karen Taylor gives great tale.

She’s been giving us one great tale after another for quite some time now. This is not a flash in the pan, this Taylor. Her novels include Blood Secrets, Bitter Blood, Blood Ties, Blood of My Blood, The Vampire Vivienne, Resurrection, and From the Ruins. Everyone knows about them.

But not everyone knows she’s just as skilled at short fiction, probably because she doesn’t write as much of it. In fact, you now hold in your hands her lifetime’s production of short fiction, which is almost as much of a tragedy as the fact the she choose to live on the East Coast rather than come to Cincinnati and become an Official Mike Resnick Auxiliary Wife.

I urge you to check these stories out; they’re really quite remarkable. And don’t take my word for it. Look at the record. “Mexican Moon” was a Bram Stoker finalist, and you can’t get much better than that.

You can’t get much better than Karen, either. Redheaded, vivacious, outgoing, with enough curves to satisfy even the most jaded introduction writer, her constant willingness to think the unthinkable through to its logical conclusion (as John Campbell used to say) has been the hallmark of her work. I assigned her one of the stories in this book, for an anthology of science fiction tales about dinosaurs. As I did so I remarked, jokingly, that having just finished reading a couple of her more erotic novels, I expected nothing less than a sex scene between a human and a dinosaur.

Campbell would have been proud of “Romeo Falling.”

But why are you reading Resnick when you could be reading Taylor? Stop standing there thumbing through the pages, take the book up to the cash register, shell out your money, and hurry home to one of the more unique reading experiences you’re going to have this year.