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[lesbiassparrow]

I feel a bit horrified to admit this (and yet I will admit it, because apparently I have no SHAME): I have been reading cracktastic novels with vampires in them. I don't even really find vampires that sexy but apparently I will still read about them. It all goes back to Stairway to Heaven; I think it broke my brain what with its amnesiac heroine who got cancer from a car crash caused by her evil step-sister trying to kill her and who was, to top it off, hotly pursued by her stepbrother. And they made her blind at one point. Good times.

But back to the vampires. Based on meganbmoore's celebration of its cracktasticness and a friend in RL burbling on about it when I described the cover and then falling into that awful silence that says clearly 'I have admitted far too much about the crap I read,' I decided to give Lover Eternal a go. It has a guy who is cursed with an 8 foot dragon that pops out of him! A lusty band of sort of brother vampires who go around being hyper manly! And other things that deserve exclamation points!



So. As I haven't read a romance in years the amazing amount of sex that people had was a bit shocking. Plus there was also the fact that AN 8 FOOT DRAGON BURSTS OUT OF THE HERO AT REGULAR INTERVALS. However, I have to admire the writer who clearly thought 'Fuck it. I'm writing about vampires and the women they love, so why even bother holding back? It's not like I'm ever going to win any prizes or anything' and just went so far overboard that you couldn't get her back with a lifebelt attached to a 100 ft rope. Anyway, there were vampires, some woman named Mary who had cancer and the vampire that falls for her. Plus a bunch of stuff involving curses, a whacked out goddess called the Scribe Virgin (!) who ruled over this uber-macho society and who should be probably thunked on the head a lot. And a good time was had by all but not perhaps enough to make me want to read the rest.



I also, thanks to some nifty insomnia, read the first two Blood Ties books.



It rather cemented my opinion of Henry from the TV show. He's not dreadful or anything but I find him a bit annoying and boring. I think it's all the flashbacks about his life in ye olden tymes when he was the bastard son of Henry the VIII, etc, which just interrupt the story too much. What is it with vampires and flashbacks? Do they spend all their waking hours brooding over historical events they have been involved in and thinking about dead lovers? It's not that interesting especially if you are following a story in the present to which they are not connected at all. I DON'T CARE ABOUT THAT LOVER YOU INEVITABLY LOST TO THE INQUISITION.* I enjoyed the books rather in spite of Henry, Mr. Royal Vampire, than because of him.

But I finally put my finger on what I don't really like about vampire stories/romances: it's the whole way they are always these figures who automatically exert huge magnetic authority on people around them. In Henry's case, he's not (to me) that interesting or written well enough that I want to buy that he merely looks at mortals and they are overpowered by him. And it's also a huge problem in romance narratives. Of course, in these the heroine sees her vampire-partner-to-be and no matter what she is immediately drawn to him even when any sane person would run screaming for the exit. I spend an inordinate amount of time wondering if the feeling is real or just vampire mo-jo that would wear off if you spent enough time away from the person. In any case it doesn't feel like a real emotion, more like an extended case of hypnosis, which, when you think about it is sort of creepy.

*Every vampire apparently has one of these.

Comments

[calixa.livejournal.com]

I can't help but be jealous of you and Megan, who both seem to be reading/watching extremely entertaining things with vampires or amnesiac gangrene while I am drowning in schoolwork and no headphones.

At least I still have fanfic.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

If it makes you feel better I get a pile of papers to grade tomorrow...

But mainly it's the insomnia. Apparently my brain thinks that if I medicate with vampires this will do the trick.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

to be fair, of the 3 i've read, Lover Eternal is possibly my least favorite...

Aside from the pure "OMG! VAMPIRE ROMANCE!" readers, these are for the "CRACK! Crackcrackcrackcrackcccccrrrrrrrrraaaaaacccckkkkkk!" people burned out on the genre. Actually, I suspect the author herself is such a reader...

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

Well, I picked it for the 8 foot dragon. And she certainly didn't disappoint. None of this metaphorical rubbish for her. He's cursed with a dragon and a dragon we get. I have a sneaking admiration for the writer for that alone.

[morwen_peredhil]

AN 8 FOOT DRAGON BURSTS OUT OF THE HERO AT REGULAR INTERVALS

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! For real? Are you sure it's not a penis?

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

According to the books, those are quite impressive, too.

She left out the part where Mary thinks the dragon is a good pet and doesn't mind that the dragon also has the hots for her...

[morwen_peredhil]

!!!

"A good pet" and "has the hots for me" are mutually exclusive in my world!

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

Well, in her defense the thing is living inside her lover so if she wants to keep him she also has to keep the dragon. And...yeah, I got nothing.

[morwen_peredhil]

I just may need to read this sweet, sweet crack for myself!

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

It' when you just run around screaming "CCCRRRAAACCCKKK!!!!"

Like I said...it's tailor made for those of us fed up with the cliches of the vampire romance genre.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

mine too. i guess it's ok for her since the pet and her husband are in the same body.

i realized in the first book when the heroine was watching her name get carved into the hero's back as part of the wedding ceremony and wondered why her name couldn't be "mary" or "sue" instead of "Elizabeth" that all one could do was accept it for the crack it is and enjoy it for that.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

FOR REAL. That was the point at which I realized that clearly the author was just bathing the book in crack and then tossing some more in for good measure.

[caerbannog.livejournal.com]

Okay, I have to ask. Where exactly on the hero is the dragon bursting out? Because not knowing is causing some scary mental images.

I find vampire fiction embarrassingly addictive, so I'll have to check out the Blood Ties books. Uh, after I finish reading Eclipse. Is there a lot of manpain in them?

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

The details were a bit hazy. It's tatooed on his back and then he just sort of transmogrifies. I was a bit overcome by the fact there's an actual dragon involved that I got a bit hazy in there.

Blood Ties thus far has very little man-pain. Henry's got some but I don't really care about it very much as he's not that interesting. But there is woman pain of a sort...

[ide-cyan.livejournal.com]

Blood Lines has got a lot of woman pain.

I feel I should reread the books. I still crack up with evil, evil laughter remembering what happens to Henry in Blood Pact.

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

But I finally put my finger on what I don't really like about vampire stories/romances: it's the whole way they are always these figures who automatically exert huge magnetic authority on people around them.

I think this what made me bleah at the end - "Blood Ties" is all about Henry's indescribable appeal. I liked Henry in the TV show as he was so scrummy that I could see where the appeal is coming from. But all this hypnotic nonsense about the way ALL women are just drawn as butterflies because he is a blood-sucking thing? It is if EVERY woman wants to be bitten and blood sucked and feel quite sexually aroused by it. HMMMMMMMM! That and the bad writing, of course..

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

Yes! I feel exactly the same way. I much prefer Henry on the TV show because a) they dial back on that and b) he's actually someone you can see having a real charm and being quite desirable. And it's rather problematic in the books because Vicky is so otherwise hard-headed it's hard to work out why she's lured in by him all the time when there otherwise doesn't seem to be a lot going on.

[lovinlorne.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised the hero(?) hasn't started yelling "GET OUT!!" to the 8 FOOT DRAGON IN HIS CHEST. Because, as we all should know by now, that is THE SURE FIRE WAY to get unwanted entities out of your life for good.

Or maybe it's the Dragon who should be yelling at the vampire? Which one is to be considered TEH EVOL in this thing?

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

The vampire is the hero. And maybe the dragon too. I don't know really as both got quite a few pages. When the dragon wasn't there the vampire certainly spent a lot of time worrying about it.

Clearly he had not seen enough movies about possession. Here we see the tragic consequences of not watching enough pop culture.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

thought 'Fuck it. I'm writing about vampires and the women they love, so why even bother holding back? It's not like I'm ever going to win any prizes or anything' and just went so far overboard that you couldn't get her back with a lifebelt attached to a 100 ft rope.

Oh my. I need this book ASAP.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

It may well be the single most cracktastic thing I have ever read (though, mind you, I am new to the vampire fiction thing). By about chapter 4 I just let go and switched most of my brain off. Meganbmoore assures me that the rest are even more over the top but I am not sure I can handle that much WTFness.

[ide-cyan.livejournal.com]

Oh, I agree that the flashbacks in the Blood books are weak. (And also in the TV show -- I didn't much care for "Heart of Fire" because of them.) I suspect they were a gimmick Huff threw in when she decided to write a vampire franchise for the money. Luckily, there's fewer and fewer of them as the series progresses.

I spend an inordinate amount of time wondering if the feeling is real or just vampire mo-jo that would wear off if you spent enough time away from the person.

That's a question for Tony Foster, whose emancipation from Henry is a big theme in the Smoke books.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

I thought that maybe Huff flung them in because she thought otherwise Henry might not seem that interesting. I don't know why she couldn't just believe that we would work out that Henry at 450 years old had a Mysterious and Exciting Past.

The thing is that I think Henry would work better if she'd just let herself go with Henry Fitzroy, Romance Novelist, and run with the incongruity of people's expectations versus what the reality, instead of all the insistence on his general ability to crush the human will and be a leader of men. Well, even that element isn't as irritating as the scenes where he actually thinks 'I am Vampire. Nightwalker, Prince, etc.' and that make him annoying. Who thinks in capitals?!

However, I still really enjoyed the books and had fun reading them, it's just that the bits I enjoyed were the ones without Henry. I must prefer him in the show.

But I did love the one where he spent a chunk of time locked in a box. Pity it didn't dent his self-confidence.