Vampires. And the women who love them.
Feb. 4th, 2008 09:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Clearly someone decided that vampires were to be included in everything now written and of easy reading consumption. With the exception of Dracula, a book which still manages to creep me out when I reread it, I'm not that interested in vampires. But still as a villain I think they're an excellent idea: they look human, should have something in connection with us, but they are predators which upsets all the notions of our own superiority and status on the food chain.
Anyway so far my total of vampire reading includes J.R. Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood series (so bad but somehow I can't stop reading them no matter how dreadful they are), Tanya Huff's Blood Ties, Charlaine Harris' Dead Until Dark, and Robin McKinley's Sunshine. Leaving aside Ward, because I frequently try to pretend I've never read them, I feel compelled to rant a bit about Huff and Harris. But not McKinley, because that book was awesome.
The thing is that in most of these vampire stories there comes a point where the heroine asks the vampire if they killed people and they say yes. I feel very strongly that if you are a normal human being your reaction to someone telling you they have killed people should be more than a shrug of the shoulders. Normal people in the world these books are being marketed to don't kill people. And they don't eat people. Yes, people kill people in war and in other circumstances but those are marked off as (hopefuly) abnormal circumstances. So unless you are part of a different world or somehow have issues then you should be not that, er, sanguine about that confession. AND I JUDGE YOU HARSHLY IF YOU ROLL WITH IT. Plus, how stupid are you that the next thought that crosses your mind is not 'Hmmm. If he ate other people, maybe he might eat me?' Really stupid, that's what.
In the Harris book, Sookie, the heroine, not only doesn't seem to really blink at this, but is all annoyed that her co-workers are a bit appalled at her dating one and that one doesn't want him around when Sookie is baby-sitting. HONESTLY. You know, if you had a reformed man-eating tiger at home and said to people 'hey, I'll have him around while I look after your kids! But don't worry! He doesn't eat people any more!' I think that they would be justified in not trusting you with their children. It just made me think that Sookie was about as dumb as people thought and also incredibly self-absorbed. (Even worse, the vampire tells her that he's killed people in a voice that we are told says to her 'deal with it.' DEAL WITH IT! And this from someone who is supposedly trying to integrate into human society. I can forsee how well that one will go.) But I did like that there was a reason given why the heroine would want to date a vampire as she is a psychic and can't 'read' vampires (though at some point it seems like she can when it's convenient for the plot).
Same thing with Tanya Huff. I really liked Vicky, but it seemed highly unlikely that someone who has been a cop and has control issues would be happy partnering with someone who had not only killed people but could also either easily physically over-power you or do vampire mojo on you. There's something which works better on the TV series than the books because they've toned down her issues a lot and also it's somehow easier to skip over the whole 'hey, I've eaten people!' thing. Seriously, if your job has been putting people who do horrible things in jail, I can't imagine you will easily work with someone who presumably done his fair share of horrible things at some point
But Sunshine was just a really good book. It got the revulsion and fear of being around things that are not only infinitely more powerful than you but also see you as food and the heroine's own issues with the decisions she made. And it was an interesting world: enough like ours that you could connect but creatively reworked. I was really glad this was recced to me because I'd never have read it otherwise.
ETA: Oh god, how could I forget! I also read Twilight. Well, as much of it as I could get through but vampires who want to repeat high school and sparkle are not really my cup of tea.
Anyway so far my total of vampire reading includes J.R. Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood series (so bad but somehow I can't stop reading them no matter how dreadful they are), Tanya Huff's Blood Ties, Charlaine Harris' Dead Until Dark, and Robin McKinley's Sunshine. Leaving aside Ward, because I frequently try to pretend I've never read them, I feel compelled to rant a bit about Huff and Harris. But not McKinley, because that book was awesome.
The thing is that in most of these vampire stories there comes a point where the heroine asks the vampire if they killed people and they say yes. I feel very strongly that if you are a normal human being your reaction to someone telling you they have killed people should be more than a shrug of the shoulders. Normal people in the world these books are being marketed to don't kill people. And they don't eat people. Yes, people kill people in war and in other circumstances but those are marked off as (hopefuly) abnormal circumstances. So unless you are part of a different world or somehow have issues then you should be not that, er, sanguine about that confession. AND I JUDGE YOU HARSHLY IF YOU ROLL WITH IT. Plus, how stupid are you that the next thought that crosses your mind is not 'Hmmm. If he ate other people, maybe he might eat me?' Really stupid, that's what.
In the Harris book, Sookie, the heroine, not only doesn't seem to really blink at this, but is all annoyed that her co-workers are a bit appalled at her dating one and that one doesn't want him around when Sookie is baby-sitting. HONESTLY. You know, if you had a reformed man-eating tiger at home and said to people 'hey, I'll have him around while I look after your kids! But don't worry! He doesn't eat people any more!' I think that they would be justified in not trusting you with their children. It just made me think that Sookie was about as dumb as people thought and also incredibly self-absorbed. (Even worse, the vampire tells her that he's killed people in a voice that we are told says to her 'deal with it.' DEAL WITH IT! And this from someone who is supposedly trying to integrate into human society. I can forsee how well that one will go.) But I did like that there was a reason given why the heroine would want to date a vampire as she is a psychic and can't 'read' vampires (though at some point it seems like she can when it's convenient for the plot).
Same thing with Tanya Huff. I really liked Vicky, but it seemed highly unlikely that someone who has been a cop and has control issues would be happy partnering with someone who had not only killed people but could also either easily physically over-power you or do vampire mojo on you. There's something which works better on the TV series than the books because they've toned down her issues a lot and also it's somehow easier to skip over the whole 'hey, I've eaten people!' thing. Seriously, if your job has been putting people who do horrible things in jail, I can't imagine you will easily work with someone who presumably done his fair share of horrible things at some point
But Sunshine was just a really good book. It got the revulsion and fear of being around things that are not only infinitely more powerful than you but also see you as food and the heroine's own issues with the decisions she made. And it was an interesting world: enough like ours that you could connect but creatively reworked. I was really glad this was recced to me because I'd never have read it otherwise.
ETA: Oh god, how could I forget! I also read Twilight. Well, as much of it as I could get through but vampires who want to repeat high school and sparkle are not really my cup of tea.
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Date: 2008-02-05 06:53 am (UTC)I'm glad you liked Sunshine. McKinley is such a fantastic writer. If you haven't read any of her other stuff, I'd recommend it! Spindle's End is one of my favourite books.
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Date: 2008-02-05 06:58 am (UTC)The Sookie books, well I can see what people might like in them, but she just seems really dumb to me. I know the book keeps saying she's smart but all of her choices seem so stupid for someone who must know that people hide a lot themselves under a facade. Plus the bit where she was made at the coworker for not wanting her kids there when her vampire lover was around just annoyed me. And she seemed curiously unconcerned about *any* of the dead people.
The thing is the more vampiric that vampires are the more you have to explain why the heroine would work would one and the Harris novel just glossed right over that while trying to say they were really scary. And potentially deadly.
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Date: 2008-02-05 07:03 am (UTC)I feel like the author isn't smart enough to write Sookie smart. If that makes sense? Like she wants her to be a down-home spunky Southern girl who is smart and sassy and she just comes off as a sort of flaky idiot. That being said, I did like the book where Eric(k) lost his memory. V. enjoyable.
I agree that's a problem in most vampire books. Laurell K. Hamilton does some weird sort of THEY ARE COUNTER CULTURE. EVERYONE FEARS THEM LIKE THEY FEAR TEH GAY/BDSM/FREAKY IN BED PPLZ. But I think she just likes to write wildly anatomically impossible sex scenes.
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Date: 2008-02-05 07:10 am (UTC)I only read the one so no Eric loses his memory for me! It was all Bill and Sookie and their love. Plus people getting killed but that was just background.
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Date: 2008-02-05 07:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-05 07:19 am (UTC)Bill was just plain annoying. And all of his 'this woman is mine!' stuff was still irritating even if did stop her from getting eaten.
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Date: 2008-02-05 07:25 am (UTC)Ughhhhh you didn't even get to the book with the weird-ass inbred werewolves. Don't get me started on DIS WOMYN MYN!!!1
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Date: 2008-02-05 07:34 am (UTC)I think it's a problem with a series that if you are going to sell your main characters as being madly in love with each other/desperately drawn to each other in one, it's going to be a bit of a problem when you move them on. It probably works better with older people for some reason (for me at any rate). People can fall in and out of love at astonishing rates but you would imagine that at some point all the passion would be tiring and you'd like a rest. Plus it does make you doubt the sincerity of passion it is a bit short-lived. Better just to have them just sleeping with people in that case, IMO, rather than having deep relationships.
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Date: 2008-02-05 07:40 am (UTC)I agree with what you're saying completely. I just feel like the time that these books are encompassing is, like, three months. I wouldn't even be sure if I liked a HORSE in 3 months, let alone go rocketing through these oh-so-serious and consequence filled relationships. Then again, I am not, for lack of a better word, retarded.
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Date: 2008-02-05 07:47 am (UTC)The problem is that the whole vampire thing isn't going to work unless there's something remotely human involved at some point. I'm hardly going to be that interested a thoroughly alien society if there's not connection at all to something that's a bit familiar. Which is where your human comes in.
Plus everyone knows that vampire mojo madly speeds up everything. And closes off the bits of your brain that make you sane or aware of any danger. THERE'S A REASON THAT DEER DON'T DATE COUGARS, YOU KNOW! A clever book would have a blast working around that, but most books can't be bothered.
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Date: 2008-02-05 07:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-05 07:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-05 07:21 am (UTC)McKinley also writes a lot of restructured fairy-tales and folklore. "The Door In the Hedge" is a collection of novellas with 3 or 4 stories in it. "Spindles End" is a novel about Snow White. "Beauty" and "Rose Daughter" are both retellings of Sleeping Beauty but are NOT connected except in their reference to the original tale. "The Outlaws of Sherwood" retells Robin Hood. I'm not sure I read "Deerskin" and I haven't read her newest book.
She generally writes very good fantasy that contain a lot of elements of "our" world in them. Very parallel universe type things.
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Date: 2008-02-05 07:22 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2008-02-05 01:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-05 06:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-05 07:01 am (UTC)Though I think Sunshine did show that if you do it well then it can really work.
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Date: 2008-02-05 07:10 am (UTC)It's that story tension of the threat dance between characters that many find hot. In our era bikers in leather are too mundane to create that tension but to say my grandmother swoon baby, so we reved up the scale a little with other worldy creatures that you have an illusion of control with but high vulnerability. Taboos sell.
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Date: 2008-02-05 02:36 pm (UTC)I also have always felt that a vampire might have REALLY bad breath - you know, drinking blood and all (like the way that large cats, with bits of nasty rotting meat in their mouths, have very bad breath!)
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Date: 2008-02-05 05:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-05 08:38 am (UTC)I wonder what your take on the Laurel K. Hamilton books would be, but they are so very bad, I can't wish them on anyone.
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Date: 2008-02-05 12:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-05 05:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-05 05:18 pm (UTC)And I liked all the baking conversation. It should have seemed odd in context, but it didn't. And I really wanted to be able to visit that bakery. Without being eaten by anything hanging around outside, of course.
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Date: 2008-02-05 08:14 pm (UTC)Or anytime really, because I could use one now.
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Date: 2008-02-05 01:08 pm (UTC)Vampire-focused fiction is some of the worst stuff out there. UGH. Someone should take after Mark Twain and write an essay on "Laurell K. Hamilton's Literary Offenses." The only things I can recommend...there's an alternative history called Anno Dracula that came out about ten years ago that's fairly good in my recollection. And a Dan Simmons book (yeah, I know) called Children of the Night (bad title, sigh) that's also kind of interesting, though primarily because of its Romania-at-the-end-of-Communism details. But in neither of those are vampires Teh Sex.
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Date: 2008-02-05 05:21 pm (UTC)The problem is that if you want something supernatural or fantasy it seems like vampires have just taken over the market. I call this blatant discrimination against ghouls, goblins, ghosts and other things that begin with g.
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Date: 2008-02-05 01:17 pm (UTC)I still stick around for the Sookie books because I love love love Eric and would read about him all the time. As a matter of fact, they could take Sookie and Bill out and just leave me Eric. Yum.
I also really like the Undead series of books, just for the sheer fact that they're written from the perspective of a dead valley girl turned vampire queen overnight. I think they're cute. Plus, you can finish one in about half a day. Perfect in-flight reads.
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Date: 2008-02-05 05:25 pm (UTC)I didn't mind Eric at all but Sookie just really irritated me. You don't expect much of vampires, after all, but you do expect your heroine not to be really too stupid to live. And she was. Especially given what she saw of vampires and what she was supposed to know lurked under the surface of people who were reasonably decent human beings, why would she trust Bill not be off killing people randomly? She knew about half-way through the book he'd killed two people. They may have not been nice, but you'd think that would still give you pause.
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Date: 2008-02-05 05:59 pm (UTC)There's a lot you have to ignore when reading the Sookie books. Makes me wonder what HBO is going to do with them.
You should read the Undead books. I love Betsy.
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Date: 2008-02-05 01:22 pm (UTC)Sunshine sounds interesting, though: ta.
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Date: 2008-02-05 05:31 pm (UTC)I would think Bale would make an excellent vampire. But for a change I'd like to see an evil one. Apparently, these days they're all emo. Or if they've killed people we need to get past our human prejudices.
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Date: 2008-02-05 05:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-05 05:46 pm (UTC)As for the Sookie books, I just hang my disbelief up on a hook behind the door and enjoy them. But yeah, if you think too closely about this stuff, it's all just nuts. (I like Bill, though. Sorry.)
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