Vampires, vampires, vampires…

Updated on June 12, 2009 By Ken Begg 45 Comments

One series gets hot, and a thousand imitators pounce. Laurell K. Hamilton started the Anita Blake books, which helped kick off a rush of fairly traditional supernatural investigator series (Harry Dresden, Simon Green’s series). However, when she started putting heavy emphasize on sex in the Blake series, it really took off. Now there are a thousand series–well, OK, but without exaggeration there are dozens–about female characters involved in the supernatural who kick ass but mostly have tons of sex with hot vampires, werewolves, warlocks, etc.

There are also series that are a bit more romantic in nature than purely sexual (with this number of knock-offs you allow for variation), like the Charlaine Harris books that inspired HBO’s current True Blood program, starring Anna Paquin as the books’ heroine Sookie Stackhouse.

For teen girls, the effect of the Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight books can barely be overstated. We’re signing up for the library’s various summer reading clubs today, and I’ll been sitting the desk in the young adult loft. In the span of twenty minutes, I not only had one girl asking for a copy of Twilight (published in 2005, we have 32 (!) copies in the library, and ALL of them are currently checked out, and there’s still a waiting list on the book), but for books from the Vampire Diaries and Vampire Kisses skeins.

I can’t say I’m a huge fan of the direction vampires have taken over the years, and I suspect Meyer isn’t as a good a writer as, say, J.K. Rowling. Still, I’m not going to knock anyone who gets kids to read, and I appreciate that Meyer has clearly hit some sort of sweet spot for young teen girls. (Plus, I doubt reading her books make you want to take a shower, like Hamilton’s books can these days, what with all the S/M goblin sex and such.) More power to her.

I’ll stick with Christopher Lee, though.

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  • Meyer is a housewife who writes badly and says “OMG Look at me, this is so EASY N FUN!” She has absolutely zero actual integrity, so the sky is the limit for her as far as selling out. Thus, we have another out-of-the-blue success story mommy. Only mean jerks would dare to criticize her!!!

    Seriously, the world needs another “writer” like Meyer like it needs a swarm of cancer-spewing flaming sky snakes.

  • brandywine

    “a swarm of cancer-spewing flaming sky snakes.”

    But how *awesome* would that be?

  • Well, if she’s just untalented then she’s not a sell out, pretty much by defination.

    It’s hard for me to come down on somebody who writes for jr. high schools, and successfully gets them to read. I could name half a dozen very successful ‘adult’ authors who suck probably just as bad. And it’s not like I haven’t read and enjoyed quite a lot of crap in my time, as long as it was in my wheelhouse.

    I mean, I wouldn’t suggest Meyer to an adult patron, but I’m not sure that’s enough reason to really go after her. She appears to be serving her market well, and that isn’t to be sneezed at.

  • brandywine
  • Pilgrim

    I haven’t read the books myself (not a huge vampire fan to be honest) but from everything I’ve seen it sounds about as well written as you’d expect from a teen vampire romance.

    But my favorite book genre is terrible sci-fi so I guess I shouldn’t talk.

  • I’m with you, Pilgrim. I was reading a lot of good stuff at 14 (Conan Doyle, Hammett, Stout), but I’m sure I read an unholy amount of garbage, too. And it’s not like I’ve dedicated my life to plowing through the Great Books. I don’t know, if 1% of Meyer’s readers go on to read Jane Austen, surely that’s a good thing.

    But then, I work a lot in the YA Loft, and girls like stuff like Lurlene McDaniel’s two hundred books about teen girls dying of cancer.*

    [*I exaggerate for comic effect. Ms. McDaniel hasn’t even written 70 books, and the girls in them die of lots of things, not just cancer.]

  • Having read (gasp!( Twilight, Meyer seems to me as a competent storyteller whose prose doesn’t get in the way of the story she tells. And as it’s first-person from the point of view of an intelligent but insecure high school senior, I think she strikes the voice very well. (I haven’t read the sequels nor the Host, so I can’t confirm whether that’s the only style in which she can write.)

  • Vampires are on their way out, man, and zombies are getting there.

    If you want to get on board with the next hot new trend, it’s obviously stories about dreamy teen frankensteins.

    Money in the bank!

  • ZDykstra

    It’s not so much so the quality of the writing that I find problematic, although it’s far, far, far from great. Rather, it’s the fact that the main relationship in the book is profoundly disturbing. It reads like a romance between a girl with mental problems and her emtionally abusive boyfriend. This is made for distirbing by the fact that Meyer actually seems to think that her characters have a perfect,timeless love. I honestly don’t know if I could ever recommend the series to anyone.

  • Try reading Bridges of Madison County some time.

  • I should note that the first time I read that the heroine’s name was “Bella Swan,” I burst out laughing aloud.

  • it’s easy to mock the books of genres you don’t like. Personally, I find a boring or hateful movie far more reprehensible than a book which is sucky. If a movie is bad, I usually feel obliged to sit through it anyway, but I can put down the book without shame.

  • JoshG

    I noticed a book at my local library titled Vampirates: Demons of the Sea. I’ll have to check that out sometime.

    I actually stumbled across a young adult book on Amazon that’s a throw back to the old pulp fiction of the 30’s and 40’s. It’s called Doc Wilde and the Frogs of Doom, really how can you go wrong with that?
    http://www.amazon.com/Doc-Wilde-Frogs-Doom-Byrd/dp/0399247831/ref=tag_dpp_lp_edpp_ttl_in

  • Bruce Probst

    I find it interesting that in the “horror” genre, vampires are, you know, dead things; they smell bad. They’re cold. You really don’t want to hang out with one.

    In the “vampire romance” genre, vampires are just super-cool dudes who are fast and strong and all that stuff. The fact that they’re also dead never seems to come into it; nor why the protagonist would want to get it on with a cold, smelly dead thing in the first place.

    So why are they “vampires”? Why aren’t they some other kind of supernatural being, where the author doesn’t have to gloss over the dead, smelly bits?

  • John Nowak

    I think it’s kind of neat that in the film Son of Dracula, a human / vampire romance was set up as something rather horrible and sick.

  • Bruce, I agree vampires are generally cold, but I’m not sure they smell. They don’t rot like zombies, but are in a permanent state of physical stasis. They should have no inherent smell at all, since they don’t sweat or anything. So as they bathe and brush their fangs, they should be entirely sans odor.

    Vampires have largely been wish fulfillment characters, like superheroes, ever since Anne Rice hit the scene. (This is why vampires suddenly became able to have sex all of the sudden, despite the fact that’s there’s no biological call for them to do so.) I will admit I find this generally boring.

  • Ericb

    Vampires are Mr. Danger taken to the next level, the ultimate “bad boys.” I guess “nice guys” would be zombies.

  • Blackadder

    Meyer is about the same level of badness as Nora Roberts. That general area.

    Oh well, I agree with Ken. At least the kids are reading.

  • Jim Roberts

    Vampires smell because, in horror, they sleep in coffins, feast on the living and have bad personal hygeine. I mean, the vamps in 30 Days of Night are, in the movie and in the graphic novel, portrayed as being just utterly filthy, and one assumes that a fair amount of that filth is leftover human.

    I really didn’t like the book “Twilight” and the only reason I didn’t walk out of the movie is that I was sitting next to my wife. The vampires are sparkly. That’s the lamest addition to the vampire pantheon ever. I mean, ever. Sparkly vampires. Look at a picture of Maxwell Shreck and say that out loud. Sparkly vampires.

    I’m all for reinvention, but, really, why not just give all the vampires the ability to turn into ponies and poop chocolate ice cream while we’re busy being twee.

  • Petoht

    Well, vampires also have powers of mind control and mesmerizing. Remember Lucy in Dracula as she tried to mojo her suitors. Or even how she got the ole’ brain lock from Dracula.

    Take this, plus the self-insertion and wish fulfillment fantasies, and you essentially have a rape fantasy (it’s not my fault that it happened, so it’s okay) without needing to use the yucky ‘r’ word.

    And since this is all happening in a land of sunshine and puppies, the corrupted, parasitic soul of the vampire finds out he really loves, blah blah blah.

    Yeah, it gets the kids reading, but it would be nice if it wasn’t such an icky and sleazy road they’re taking.

  • Peholt: I see what you’re saying, but you could say the same thing for Buffy and Angel, and then you’d be killed by Whedonites.

  • ERicb

    The rape thing would only really be applicable for cases where the vampire uses his mind control mojo to seduce his victims, which from what little I know of the series doesn’t happen with the main protagonists of Twilight.

  • Petoht

    Ken: Yes. Yes I could. On the other hand, Buffy is probably less a self-insertion character.

    ERicb: Very true, and a fair counter. While I haven’t seen or read Twilight, it certainly seems that there’s an unhealthy amount of obsession and manipulation going on. Not supernatural, but certainly icky.

    And that’s nothing compared to the downright horrifying concepts explored in the fourth book. High octane nightmare fuel indeed.

  • Blake

    Is it me, or do some of us geeks have a tendency to be far too cynical (speaking of Meyer), and thus see something that might have sincere in the author’s mind is distorted into something icky and creepy.

  • Ericb

    I don’t know, but the idea of a 200 year olde vampire sneaking into a teenage girl’s bedroom and watching her all night seems a bit creepy to me. If he was mortal that would be Law & Order SVU fodder.

  • KeithB

    The Agony Booth has a full takedown of the Twilight Movie by someone who hated the books (their appears to be some wierd Mormon references in the books) but likes the Movie (a rare case of a director improving the source material). The fact that it a slightly positive review has caused weeping and gnashing of teeth in the discussion boards.

    Some other Book stuff:
    There is a new online Stross Laundry story at
    http://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=story&id=61

    Also, I saw a review for a Lovecraftian police procedural on this page:
    http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2009/03/ephemera-2009-7.html

    The review for the “Translated Man” is abut halfway down. You can read the first chapter on Hulu.Com. It is poorly edited, but I thought it was a great read. I bought it for a long plane trip to China, but I could not put it down (shut it off? What is the equivalent ebook phrase) and finished it before my trip!

  • Keith — Thanks! I’ve read various Stross books, but his Laundry stories are easily my favorites.

  • Reed

    “Peholt: I see what you’re saying, but you could say the same thing for Buffy and Angel, and then you’d be killed by Whedonites.

    Ken Begg said this on June 14th, 2009 at 2:58 pm”

    I actually have said exactly this thing about Buffy and Angel. Any way you slice it, it’s necrophelia. However, since he’s a hot bad boy with a heart of gold…

    I don’t pretend to know what’s in the minds of teenage girls anywhere. I don’t have children of my own, and my experience talking to the daughters of friends of mine has shown me that I truly do not understand the current generation. However, I do remember my own steady reading diet of crap as a youngster. I remember reading many stories that excited me while I was going through puberty that I look at now and go, “Yuck! What the hell was I thinking back then?” Perhaps a similar thing is in effect for the girls.

    Would any adult woman like to jump on and comment on whether the vampire lover is still a viable fantasy figure?

  • Ericb

    I’d hope that in a real world situaction once a woman realises that the cute vampire isn’t an available Robert Smith (the goth star not the football player) but an undead creature that craves human blood their attraction to him would wane a bit.

  • (their appears to be some wierd Mormon references in the books)

    Not in the first book, anyway. I’m pretty good about catching sly Mormon references, having practiced on Orson Scott Card.

  • “Would any adult woman like to jump on and comment on whether the vampire lover is still a viable fantasy figure?”

    Well, as somebody who works in a library, I can tell you that there are a hell of a lot more adult vampires romances (and erotica) sold than there are for teens, even including the Twilight books. Paranormal romances, mostly with vampires, even have their own review section–I’m pretty sure–in the monthly magazine Romantic Times Book Reviews, which must review hundreds of books every month.

  • Hmm. Is Mormanism actually mentioned, or are we talking more religious subtext, like with the Narnia books?

    I suppose I should read Twilight just to be conversant with it, although since our 30 plus copies are perpetually checked out, I’d actually have to put a hold on it.

  • KeithB

    Well, I am not an expert, but in the wikipedia article it says:
    “Meyer, a Mormon, acknowledges that her faith has influenced her work. In particular, she says that her characters “tend to think more about where they came from, and where they are going, than might be typical.”[6] Meyer also steers her work from subjects such as sex, despite the romantic nature of the novels. Meyer says that she does not consciously intend her novels to be Mormon-influenced, or to promote the virtues of sexual abstinence and spiritual purity, but admits that her writing is shaped by her values, saying, “I don’t think my books are going to be really graphic or dark, because of who I am. There’s always going to be a lot of light in my stories.”[12]”

    And the Agony Booth review mentions that the Vampire family has a mormon vibe to it.

  • Reed

    “There’s always going to be a lot of light in my stories.”

    Well, that explains the sparkly vampires!

  • Ericb

    “And the Agony Booth review mentions that the Vampire family has a mormon vibe to it.”

    Perhaps, but Friendly Neighborhood Vampires are a common enough trope that that doesn’t have to be the case.

    http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FriendlyNeighborhoodVampires

    Also, if the nice vampire family represents Mormons what would that make the more vicious vampires in the story?

  • The Rev. D.D.

    When the girl-child got interested in the books, the lady of the house read them after her. Naturally g-c loves ’em; loth said that overall the writing quality is pretty poor, and she really disliked the main character, especially as any sort of role model for girls her age. She did say that the story got interesting about halfway through the third one though, and she rather enjoyed that one. I don’t recall what she said about the last one, but I don’t remember her saying anything positive so I assume she thought of it what she thought of the first two–overrated and far inferior to the Harry Potter books.

    The fact that g-c never finished the HP series and has reread the Twilight series at least twice fills her with much rage.

  • I’m not saying that how Meyer was raised and what she believes doesn’t influence what she writes; my objection was to the overt “Mormon references” thing. There are none in the first book — nothing blatant, and nothing sly that only Mormon readers will get. (Compare that to Orson Scott Card; I can’t remember a novel of his I’ve read where there hasn’t been something that Mormons will understand more than most.)

    As to the “vampire family” being recognizably Mormony: They aren’t, at least in the first book. They’re a family that’s dedicated to each other, gets along with each other despite differences, and enjoys spending time together. If those have become exclusively Mormon traits, heaven help us all.

  • Ericb

    Well if I were a tween girl I’d probably like Twilight better too since the protagonist would be more like me. Fat chance I’d have of going to Wizard School.

  • JoshG

    Knock, Knock

    “Hello, can we talk to you about vampirism?”

  • GalaxyJane

    OK, as the requisite “adult woman” someone was asking about, I am personally long done with the whole Vampire Porn genre, but I can also state that that puts me very much in the minority among my female friends. So I would say that the idea of the vampire lover still resonates, especially in our youth-oriented culture where the worst thing a woman can do is age gracefully. And I think it will always have a special resonance for teenagers, who are torn between feelings of invulnerability and the first real awareness that they too will age and die. And while I am sick to death (ha ha) of supernatural romance these days, I was also once a teenage girl who wore out her taped off HBO copy of The Lost Boys watching it every single weekend for a year or so.

    I did borrow the Twilight books from a friend, just to see what the fuss was about, I suppose I was hoping for another Harry Potter, something that had caught the public imagination for very good reasons. Frankly, they really are dreadfully written, Sueish, repetative and vaguely anti-female, but no worse than (and frankly not nearly as bad as some of) a million other paperback romances.

    And I am not sure Anne Rice is entirely to blame for the whole “vampire as sexy superhero” trend. Her vampires were sensual, but not truly sexual beings. Chelsea Quinn Yarbro’s St. Germain, who appeared about the same time as Lestat, is a frankly sexual creature, though also clearly the hero of all her novels. Then again, Yarbro always seemed much more interested in exploring history than vampirism. To me, St. Germain and Roger the ghoul always seemed to serve the sole purpose of giving the reader consistent viewpoint characters in a series of novels spanning everything from ancient Egypt and Rome to the Black death, to the Spanish Conquistadors, to the Russian Revolution and even the modern era. Not to mention a bunch of times and places inbetween. I probably learned more history (not always good history, mind you) from those novels then from any number of more scholarly tomes.

    Wow, I think my 2 cents turned into more like a buck-ninety-eight, sorry about that.

  • John Nowak

    I’d say there were three major steps to the sympathetic vampire.

    1967 – Barnabas Collins added to Dark Shadows
    This was a daytime soap opera that was, uniquely, a gothic horror series. Barnabas was originally a monster, but when he became popular he ended up dominating the story like Popeye took over Thimble Theater. Probably the first really sympathetic, angsty vampire. Unfortunately, I don’t know much about him.

    1976 – Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire is published.
    I can’t say for sure about the other novels … but really, I don’t think Lestat’s sympathetic in the slightest. He’s got an element of bad-boy cool, but I don’t think anyone would really want to meet him.

    1978 – Chelsea Quinn Yarbro’s Hotel Transylvania is published.
    The first St. Germain book doesn’t even state, explicitly, that the main character’s a vampire; that’s a plot twist in the first novel.

    Although the series became sadly repetitive as time goes on, I think Galaxy Jane’s right to say that the chief appeal is seeing the same characters in different historical eras. Typically, St. Germain is the “good guy” in each of his books.

    I’d be very worried about someone who said he admired Lestat. I can imagine someone who said he admired St. Germain.

  • GalaxyJane

    John,
    Lestat becomes the (literal) rock-star hero in the second book. If I remember correctly, the second book shifts to Lestat’s first-person viewpoint, retells most of the events of the first book and claims that Louis was an unreliable narrator and that mostly he only killed villains who deserved it, etc. etc. Frankly “Queen of the Damned” still ranks as one of the plain silliest damned things I’ve ever read and as a lifelong SF buff my reading list has been known to cover a whole lot of silly ground.

    Admittedly I never actually threw it across the room in disgust, which was what I did 20 pages into the last Anita Blake book that I started. I would have done something more extreme for the pain it caused me except it was a library book and the joy that tossing it in the wood-chipper would have given me wouldn’t have been worth having to actually pay for the stinker.

  • John Nowak

    > If I remember correctly, the second book shifts to Lestat’s first-person viewpoint, retells most of the events of the first book and claims that Louis was an unreliable narrator and that mostly he only killed villains who deserved it, etc. etc.

    Good lord — that’s horrible. I mean, it’s wrong for me to judge a book without reading based entirely on the plot synopsis but … that’s just awful. Lestat made an excellent villain and monster, in my opinion.

    The only thing I could think of that would be worse is if George Lucas were to make those three prequels to Star Wars and turn Darth Vader into a bratty kid, or if they had brought Spock back after Wrath of Khan.

    Then again, we are talking about the person who wrote The Mummy: Rameses the Damned, which, quite frankly, had some fascinating ideas but was so badly executed that I’ve never read Rice again.

  • Matt B

    I said it back in the 90s when White Wolf was running amuck in the 1990s, and I’ll say it again now: I would love to see someone film Skipp and Spector’s “The Light at the End”, which is one of the most unromantic vampire books in the last 20 years.