I've recently discovered the Anita Blake series by Laurell K. Hamilton.  I've read them all in order so far, up to Incubus Dreams which I'm reading right now, but it feels like I'm missing something.  I know that there are 4 Anita Blake short stories published in 4 different Anthologies/Collections (Out of This World, Cravings, Bite and Strange Candy).

Wikipedia describes the Anita Blake short story in Cravings as simply the 1st 3 chapters of Incubus Dreams, so I skipped it, but I'm getting the feeling that I shouldn't have.  Has anyone read the short and Incubus Dreams to know any better?

I know the two stories aren't exactly the same, but for the life of me I can't remember if it was that big of a deal.

I would suggest going to the forums for LKH and asking there: http://forum.laurellkhamilton.org/  Some of the people there are crazy knowledgeable about the series.

From what I remember they were exactly the same. I actually skipped ahead to where the short left off after reading a little ways into the book because I had read it before.

Thank you...I'll go ahead and skip it then and assume that the slight changes just happened "off-scene".  I'm probably being a little hyper-sensitive to the character changes because I'm reading the full series straight through with no breaks between books. 

Courtney, I didn't even know that forums like that existed.  "Crazy Knowledgable" is one way of putting it :)  It was a fun tour, though and they all seem to know as much about Anita Blake as LKH, herself.  I'll know where to go from now on if I have another question...lol.

It's pretty much the same thing.  I think the short was actually a bit more detailed than the first 3 chapters but you aren't missing anything.

Not missing anything...in fact I remember reading the anthologies and being quite miffed that the short stories weren't much different than the books!  As some one else said there might a bit more detail...but certainly aren't worth wasting you time over!

Actually, that short is just PART of the first few chapters.  It sticks just to the love parts of the scene.  It skips the whole murder investigation.  So read the whole book, don't skip the chapters.  Skip the short!