March 31, 2011 Are you sick of mainstream vampire stories, and can you recommend one that isn’t?
Question:Please, for the love of God, if you’re going to respond to this freaking out because you love Twilight or Anne Rice, spare me. You’re free to love whatever you want and I’m not going to make fun of you for it, just as I’m free not to like it. For the rest of you:
Do you think the vampire has been overdone in literature? It seems like everyone these days has written a story about a vampire and a plucky heroine, and they usually follow along the lines of “Girl has some sort of incredibly desireable/unique ability/quality that makes her LEAK awesome, vampire spends much time fighting other vampires for her honour”. I blame writers like Christine Feehan and Laurell K Hamilton for completely domesticating a once terrifying folk legend and turning them into curly-haired depressed men in velvet robes looking for true love. It’s like putting a pink bow on a wolverine after you’ve drugged it up and dressed it in baby clothes.
I’m not saying the whole chick/vampire thing is automatically terrible. “Sunshine” by Robin McKinley flirts with the same old tired story elements, but saves it by crafting a unique spin on the vampires and the world as a whole.
But I guess what I’m asking is, do you remember when vampires are scary, and don’t you miss that? Part of the reason I enjoyed “30 Days of Night” so much was because it was such a departure from the usual vampire stories — these were creatures to be feared. Even Stephen King’s “Salem’s Lot” takes vampires right to the edge of respectability. They USED to be something to be afraid of, not something you wrote sappy fan fiction over, and I guess I miss that. It’s only in the last fifteen years or so that this has really come out.
I tend to automatically roll my eyes now every time I see a book that involves vampires because I’ve started to expect they’re all the same and I’m sure I’ve missed out on some good ones. Can you please recommend to me any (recent) vampire stories that are honest-to-God horror stories?
I don’t have to justify my reason for not liking an author’s work, nor should I be shamed for it. It’s a matter of personal taste. For the subject matter and for the style of writing, I do NOT enjoy the Anita Blake series, but I can see why some other people do. My opinion that her work helped to domesticate the vampire in popular media is just as valid as yours is that she did not because we’re working from different viewpoints. Read her stuff and enjoy it, because I don’t.
- 4 comments
- Posted under Christine Feehan
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Kk
said
I cant recommend you a horror story. And I’m sure as hell not going to recommend that twilight type crap.
But a series I liked alot was ;
The house of night by PC Cast and Kristen Cast.
The series changes the vampire story slightly because this story involves elements of wicca and magic but the added elements make it very good.
Another good series is:
The morganville vampire series by Rachel Caine.
The series is suspense full and does have slight horror elements. It keeps most of the vampire fear alive in this series.
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devinamaria2
said
Anita Blake Series – Laurell K. Hamilton
and actually Bram Stoker domesticated the vampire, by writing a Dracula that could fall in love…that is vampire they were once human so we are not instantly terrified, but more intrigued. You may want to read some folklore about Succubi and Incubi or vampire or hulijing. Do your research before you put down an authors art work…
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The Pirate Alien
said
There is no such thing as an abused subject, books are very repetitive. Go to the fiction section of any book store, pick ten random books and I bet that about seven of those are going to deal with either a murder plot, or a missing person with the main character being a successful business man, usually a detective, or an attractive female, maybe a lawyer. And they all have troubled pasts that relate to the main topic.
Though I do agree with you on the lack of good vampire books. I adore Anne Rice, and her vampires are my favorites, but I do love and miss the classic scary vampire. I love vampire novels, but I can never find any anymore. Which is why I cant really recommend any vampire books.
Twilight has especially brought upon the downfall of the classic vampire. I hear a lot of people complaining about vampires now, calling them stupid characters…just because of the recent portrayal of them.
But it isn’t just the vampire books suffering. Almost every book I see now is some mushy love crap based around some manly man and some wimpy girl.
I miss good literature ;_;
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LJ K
said
If you’re ready for a long read, and like to delve into actual (fictional) history, ‘The Historian’ by Kostova is pretty good; not much on ‘the vein’ you dislike. Not that new, not so old. A bit too drawn out for me.
I’m sure you’ve read ‘Dracula.’ Not ‘new’ anyway.
Good horror writers seem to be not much scent by vampires these days. Agree that it’s an extremely saturated [hmm] field and one now extremely diluted.
One of my fave horror books remains ‘Ghost Story’ by Peter Straub, though that one is more along shape-shifting lines. Older book.
I enjoyed ‘Bloodsucking Fiends’ by Christopher Moore because he uses wit and satire, with a dash of compassion. Add plenty of blood, horror, suspense, and viola… a good vamp book. You might consider it too old though; first copyright is ’95.
His book ‘You Suck’ is older still.
It’s on the titles page of his newest book ‘Fool,’ a really, REally different take on King Lear and quite good. Not at all one for anyone into ‘chick-lit.’
Too many books are surrounding me at present to find ‘You Suck’ for the copyright; or perhaps I just had one glass too many of my of too-rich circa ’68 blood-red wine.
ADD: Robin McKinley so often manages a great spin on things in her books. We appreciate her around here. Have avoided so many newer vampire books specifically because of Meyer and Rice. Rice was pretty good with her first book on them but went off-course fairly quickly, in my opinion.
Re: more vampires:
Did try ‘fledgling’ by Octavia Butler, because she’s also done some good work, but somehow didn’t make it through. It’s newish, within the past 15 years at most.
You may want to check it out. The first chapter was both kind of horrible and confusing at the same time. I prob’ly didn’t give it a chance. Title is spelled like that, lower case.