Home Improvement: Undead Edition

INTRODUCTION

We tried writing an introduction using a labored analogy between building a house and assembling an anthology, but it just felt wrong. This is our fourth collaboration, and the process of collecting and editing an amazing assortment of stories is still great fun. We love making up our “dream team,” sending out our invitations, and seeing who accepts and who has a previous engagement.

When we first began working together—on Many Bloody Returns—we didn’t know how successful these books would come to be. We were nervous about asking a strange mixture of mystery and urban fantasy writers to take a leap of faith and send in stories that combined two random elements. In that case, it was vampires and birthdays. Since then, we have dreamed up some more combinations that seemed interesting and fun to us: Wolfsbane and Mistletoe, about werewolves and the holidays, and Death’s Excellent Vacation, about creatures out of their normal habitat.

Home Improvement: Undead Edition came about when we both had teeth-gritting, jaw-clenching experiences arranging for mundane repairs around our own homes. After an orgy of consumer hand-wringing, we began to wonder how a supernatural creature would handle the same problem.

Each story we received is a unique vision of a situation that has arisen since the first mud hut sprung a leak in the rainy season, or the first cave needed a level floor. We’ve all been there. We hope you enjoy the creative ways writers have found to solve some common problems: fencing, housing inspectors, kitchen flow, water in the basement, security systems, vandalism, and, oh yes, resident ghosts.

CHARLAINE HARRIS

TONI L. P. KELNER