Bottom line (at the top), if you want some good vampire fiction where they get scared of the boogiemen, you can't go wrong with The Strix Chronicle Anthology.

It's surprising that the anthology starts so weakly. However, for the price the stories in the latter 2/3 of the book are more than worth it. "Lullay, Lullay" was my absolute favorite, and I would recommend buying this Anthology for that story alone.

The reason this is not 5 stars is not because of the weak stories. I can overlook those for the brilliant pieces that overshadow them. It loses a star because I felt the editor allowed too many Vampire the Requiem Proper Nouns in the anthology with little meaning to the reader. I even know what the Proper Nouns mean (First Estate, Haunt), and I just didn't see them get used very well except in a few cases ("Lullay, Lullay" with Gangrel/Savage and "Second Chance" with Invictus/First Estate).

Overall though this really drives the Strix themes hard, especially in the second half of the Anthology. The stories are very well done in that regard.