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[personal profile] lesbiassparrow
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.

Date: 2008-02-05 06:53 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] oxymoronassoc.livejournal.com
Sookie's always bothered me for some reason, but I keep reading them and feeling vaguely disappointed. That being said, a lot of people like those books. I think she's too hick for me.

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.

Date: 2008-02-05 06:58 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com
I really liked Sunshine and plan on reading a lot more of her stuff. It wasn't just 'this isn't bad for a vampire/fantasy book' but this is a really good book. I will check that one out.

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.

Date: 2008-02-05 07:03 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] oxymoronassoc.livejournal.com
Check out "The Blue Sword" and "The Hero and the Crown". They sorta go together. You'll find a lot of her stuff in YA lit for some reason. She is seriously an amazing writer. She, like, paints pictures with words. I guess she's really hardcore about the writing process/craft. My aunt's met her.

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.

Date: 2008-02-05 07:10 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com
The Sookie book also tried to do a 'this is like interracial dating' thing in the one I read but that just annoyed me. Because clearly it's not at all. One's based on racism and small-mindedness and the other is based on very real danger and the fact that this is a predator who might very well eat you (and how is that for indignity! Being eaten seems like the final insult to me!).

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.

Date: 2008-02-05 07:12 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] oxymoronassoc.livejournal.com
Bill annoyed the crap out of me. Actually, the more I think about it, the more the books (and most of the characters) annoy me. I get really fed up with vampire serials. I might get fed up with serials in general, but I only read vampire ones. They just get so jumping-the-shark-y and I can't handle my characters behaving that way!

Date: 2008-02-05 07:19 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com
Well, at some point you have to wonder how many more vampire-human-what have you relationships they can come up with without breaking your mind. Plus you can't really imagine vampires doing the long-term domestic thing.

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.

Date: 2008-02-05 07:25 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] oxymoronassoc.livejournal.com
The women always seem, to me, like sort of sluts. Or easy. Or whatever. I mean, I'm not that much younger than the heroines often are and I haven't even had ONE serious relationship let alone however many they cycle through. It sort of bothers me. I mean they moan about their ex-bfs, but their relationships seem very throw-away with other characters.

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

Date: 2008-02-05 07:34 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com
My big problem is that the vampires, etc. always seem to be madly, well, oversexed. I guess that's normal in a romance with lusty men, but sometimes you wonder how they ever get around to the blood-draining (maybe it doesn't take too long?) or world-saving.

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.

Date: 2008-02-05 07:40 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] oxymoronassoc.livejournal.com
Yeah. When did they amass their empire if they get that sideswiped by some young hot piece of ass? MAKES NO SENSE. Also, they never found their TWU WUV is bullshit. I mean if humans can find someone they at least tolerate for a 45 year marriage, some immortal dude has pretty good odds. Also, why not go for, you know, A CHICK WHO WON'T KICK IT IN 70 YEARS?

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.

Date: 2008-02-05 07:47 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com
My strong feeling is that literary vampires, for people who live (potentially) forever, do not do the long-term planning that well. Or maybe they just have the power to suppress the memory of that last tragic relationship. On the other hand, they clearly have mad financial skillz.

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.

Date: 2008-02-05 07:12 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com
Also thanks for the McKinley recs. I'll certainly check more of them out as I thought the book was excellent. Is it part of a new series? It read like the first book in a series.

Date: 2008-02-05 07:20 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] meganbmoore.livejournal.com
"The Blue Sword" is set a long time before "The Hero and the Crown" The events are mentioned, iirc, but they're a legend. Honestly, I think it works better if you read the second book first, but they deal with different characters altogether, they're just set in the same world.

Date: 2008-02-05 07:21 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] oxymoronassoc.livejournal.com
She doesn't really write series. "The Blue Sword" and "The Hero and the Crown" go together insofar as they occur in the same world. "The Hero and the Crown" is the prequel to "The Blue Sword", so read it second. It sort of fills in gaps from the previous novel and fleshes out the legend that is introduced. I always sort of placed the world of "The Hero and the Crown" as a sort of alternate Victorian-era England because they had trains but still used calvary for armies.

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.

Date: 2008-02-05 07:22 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] oxymoronassoc.livejournal.com
Oh, and she's said she "knows more of Sunshine's story" but basically that nothing has struck her profoundly that she needs to write about it. So it's just a stand-alone.

Date: 2008-02-05 02:34 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] queenofthorns.livejournal.com
I really like The Hero and the Crown a lot better than The Blue Sword (I think I may be alone in that, but hey ...) Also, I think Deerskin, which is semi-based on Perrault's "Peau d'Âne", and is both creepy and beautiful (with one of the loveliest canine characters I've ever read about) is brilliant.

Date: 2008-02-05 01:05 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cbackson.livejournal.com
AHHHHHHH the Blue Sword. Oh, I love that book so much.

Date: 2008-02-05 06:58 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] sucrelefey.livejournal.com
I think vampires are now the politically safe replacement for all those old racist stereotypes of exotic bad men that ravish white virgins in erotica adventure.

Date: 2008-02-05 07:01 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com
You may be right. But at least those men of former years no matter how bad were not likely to eat the heroine. I know it doesn't much matter in the end if you're dead, but somehow a person who not only wants to kill you but also eats you and your kind just seems more horrific as a potential lover than anything.

Though I think Sunshine did show that if you do it well then it can really work.

Date: 2008-02-05 07:10 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] sucrelefey.livejournal.com
Savage jungle cannibals would nibble. ;)
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.

Date: 2008-02-05 02:36 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] queenofthorns.livejournal.com
a person who not only wants to kill you but also eats you and your kind just seems more horrific as a potential lover than anything.

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!)

Date: 2008-02-05 05:16 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com
Yes! And how would you ever go to sleep without wondering if they got hungry in the night maybe they'd like to snack on you. Besides, being bitten through the skin is quite painful and not at all erotic IMO. I don't care if it keeps being sold to me as some mad pleasure, I refuse to believe it.

Date: 2008-02-05 08:38 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] caerbannog.livejournal.com
I really like McKinley's Beauty and The Outlaws of Sherwood (an especially good Robin Hood retelling.) The other nice thing about Sunshine, imo, is all the talking about baking.

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.

Date: 2008-02-05 12:15 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] chelseagirl47.livejournal.com
Ditto re. Hamilton. A group of friends and I used to pass them around to marvel at their badness, but finally the person who was actually buying them just couldn't take it anymore, and none of the rest of us were willing to encourage her with book sales just in order to get a good laugh.

Date: 2008-02-05 05:33 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com
I feel that I too do not want to contribute to Hamilton's royalties. Nor really to the expansion of vampire fiction. It's like this creeping weed that I never noticed before and suddenly it's EVERYWHERE.

Date: 2008-02-05 05:18 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com
I don't think I could take Hamilton. Everything I've heard has made me really wary and I don't want to add to her sales.

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.

Date: 2008-02-05 08:14 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] caerbannog.livejournal.com
I think the baking works because if you have to deal with something as upsetting and off-putting as vampires who want to eat you (and I agree that it ought to be upsetting), then you really do want something comforting like cinnamon rolls.
Or anytime really, because I could use one now.

Date: 2008-02-05 01:08 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cbackson.livejournal.com
I loved Sunshine, and I wish she'd write a sequel but McKinley (one of my favorite writers ever--and she's on lj!) seems congenitally opposed to sequels.

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.

Date: 2008-02-05 05:21 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com
I don't think I could take Hamilton. It just sounds like all the worst bits of the books I've read with a lot of sex added. Maybe I shall take a break from vampires and explore the equally large world of werewolf stories. Or perhaps not. I am sure they are also dreadful.

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.

Date: 2008-02-05 01:17 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] escap1974.livejournal.com
Twilight didn't bother me... but I think I went into it with really, really low expectations.

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.

Date: 2008-02-05 05:25 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com
I forgot, I did read one of the Undead books and it was good. But mainly because it mocked a lot of vampire conventions, including the 'you is my woman now for I am male vampire, yo!' element.

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.

Date: 2008-02-05 05:59 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] escap1974.livejournal.com
Heh. I'm pretty sure I would pause. At least for 5 minutes or so.

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.

Date: 2008-02-05 01:22 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] pontisbright.livejournal.com
A kind friend told me I'd love Twilight. I quite wish to excommunicate her now. Dear god, what a festival of crap. (And no, I couldn't finsh it either.)

Sunshine sounds interesting, though: ta.

Date: 2008-02-05 05:27 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com
Sunshine was really good. And Twlight...well, I hate to say this, but at least the vampires in that were emo over being the undead creatures of the night. I'd trust that more than the one who didn't feel guilt over eating people (Bill and Henry in the Sookie and Huff books respectively). But, still, I couldn't finish it. The sparkling did me in.

Date: 2008-02-05 02:54 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] calixa.livejournal.com
*makes comment about human piousness just so she doesnt feel left out, having read about 3 vampire books in her life*

Date: 2008-02-05 05:28 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com
Until recently I had read Dracula and a few others where they were the bad guy. I am not sure (apart from Sunshine) I would recommend venturing any further into the genre. Doesn't anyone stake vampires any more?

Date: 2008-02-05 04:03 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] library-of-sex.livejournal.com
Obviously, you've never met me because I kill people. Everyday. And I don't want their blood either! Now, let's see if you throw me off your flist or just shrug your shoulders at that revelation! BTW, Christian Bale? Would make a hot vampire. Not that it matters, but he totally would. Just think about it.

Date: 2008-02-05 05:31 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com
I shall brood over the revelation and then come to terms with it in a suitably dramatic fashion. Which is more than most of the heroines of these books bother with: they just come to terms with it with astonishing speed. It makes you wonder about the authors and their view of the value of human life.

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.

Date: 2008-02-05 05:33 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] library-of-sex.livejournal.com
If you can't deal with someone being a killer, that's YOUR problem! God, some people are so narrow-minded!

Date: 2008-02-05 05:46 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] nutmeg3.livejournal.com
I adored Sunshine. It was genuinely creepy and yet sexy, even though my skin was crawling. And I loved her world, because it was all her own and also consistent. I've never read anything else by her, but I can see that I need to.

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.)

Date: 2008-02-05 05:57 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com
The thing is that with Bill at least I understand why he's not bothered by the killing thing: he is, after all, a vampire and they kill to live. I don't expect a tiger to worry about eating deer. However, I do think that it is slightly unhuman not to be a bit unhinged by having a boyfriend who has killed to eat and also has killed within your knowledge. I am sure even deer, who have comparatively fewer brain cells, can work out that hanging around with something potentially deadly is not the best idea in the world. But Sookie...well, if I was supposed to think she was an idiot, it would work. But clearly I'm not so it all sort of unravelled. I think it might have been the bit where she was offended that her co-worker didn't want Bill there while she baby-sat her kids where I realized that she was not going to work as a heroine for me.

Date: 2008-02-06 02:47 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] nutmeg3.livejournal.com
I think I just suspend a lot of disbelief. And I guess I sort of look at it like turning vegetarian. So yes, in real life it would be freaky and scary, but in books I just accept it as a convention and move on. The truth is, you're completely right and I have no good defense. *g*

Date: 2008-02-06 03:59 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com
Well, I read JR Ward's books so I can hardly speak of having any defense at all. I swear they must dust those things with crack or something. :)

Date: 2008-02-05 05:58 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com
Plus Sunshine just did the whole thing so much better. It probably didn't do Harris any favours to read them back to back.

Date: 2008-02-06 02:48 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] nutmeg3.livejournal.com
That was me reading Elizabeth George and Patricia Cornwell back to back. Cornwell didn't stand a chance.

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