Title: Safe and Sound
Author: Jeff Abott
In: Death’s Excellent Vacation (Charlaine Harris & Toni L.P. Kelner)
Rating Out of 5: 5 (I will read this again and again and again)
My Bookshelves: Humour, Paranormal fantasy, Vampires
Dates read: 7th November 2020
Pace: Fast
Format: Short story
Publisher: Gollancz
Year: 2010
5th sentence, 74th page: Blank.
This journalist is just looking for a big, amazing story. But what she finds with her underhanded ways instead… well, somebody is Safe and Sound.
Little known fact – when I finished high school and was thinking about what I wanted to do with my life, I seriously considered journalism. But, already at that point, I felt like it was a field more about sensationalizing a story, rather than telling the truth. This short story was a great reminder of that feeling – how the media often just picks the story that is going to get the most attention, just because it will get the most attention. Truth and honesty be damned.
The vampire angle in this story was completely fun and brilliant. It was also entirely predictable, but I did love the way that vampires filtered into a story about the media and a missing boy. I also loved how there was a total comeuppance to the story using the vampire as the angle. They’re not normally the good guys – and in this story they still certainly aren’t. But at least the vampire delivered some poetic justice.
This short story made me think of all of the people that go missing and the stories that are never told. It left me feeling a little melancholy, but in the end, I thoroughly enjoyed it.
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