Vampires. And the women who love them.

[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.

Comments

[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!

[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.

[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

[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.

[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.

[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.