Crime, Horror, Pulp | Editor’s Highlights | Opinion and Analysis
5th Jul 2010
My Three Favourite…Vampire Novels
Thanks to Stephanie Meyer, the presence of vampires in fiction (teen fiction especially) has seen something of a surge in the last few years. You can’t move in the Fantasy aisle of a bookshop or take the tube at rush hour without bumping into the gloomy font and black cover that seems to characterise vampire novels. But I’m not complaining; morbid adolescent that I was, I’ve long been a fan of that genre. Vampires are fascinating beings with compelling personalities and an excellent excuse for sex scenes. What’s not to love?
But with Twilight fever taking over (cheers, Hollywood), it’s easy to forget that not all vampire fiction is so heavy on the hormonal teens. Vampires appear in pretty much every genre of fiction, from historical to sci-fi and good old-fashioned gothic horror. And as much as I love him, most are a damn sight more exciting than Edward Cullen. My three favourite vampire novels prove that the catalogue of horror fiction isn’t complete without a bloodsucker or two.
The Sookie Stackhouse Novels by Charlaine Harris
Now better known as the TV series True Blood, the ten books follow beautiful young barmaid Sookie in her home town of Bon Temps, Louisiana. She’s an ordinary girl living (yep, you guessed it) an ordinary life but that changes when she meets the swoonsome vampire Bill Compton and his supernatural cohorts, who are fascinated by her ability to read minds. Suddenly Sookie’s life isn’t so dull.
Though The Sookie Stackhouse Novels are filed under the Paranormal Romance genre, it’s action and a good ol’ fashioned murder mystery that’s at the heart of each story. Yes there’s a love plot but, unlike Twilight, the novels don’t revolve around a fairytale relationship and declarations of eternal love. Supernatural shenanigans aside, Bill and Sookie are actually no different to your average couple. And that’s what makes the novels so absorbing. Harris manages to blend the extraordinary seamlessly into Sookie’s very ordinary life; her vampire boyfriend might swing by the bar that she works at for a glass of synthetic blood, and it’s completely normal. Now isn’t that a world you’d like to live in?
Get The Sookie Stackhouse Novels for £29.97 from Amazon.
Predictable maybe, but I couldn’t write about vampire novels without acknowledging the massive influence that Bram Stoker’s most successful book has had on all things vampire-related. 103 years later and the protagonist of this book is very much a household name. Who hasn’t heard of Count Dracula? And there’s a reason for that – he’s the vampire upon which all other vampires are based.
Keeping that in mind, don’t expect anything revolutionary from this story. The Count is suave, lethal and fatally attractive to women and the story moves from Transylvanian castles to moonlit forests and lunatic asylums. Victorian much? And that’s not the only old-fashioned thing about Dracula; Stoker’s progressiveness leaves much to be desired, with the female characters being either weak and virginal mortals or wanton and lustful vampires. Whilst the male characters are able to resist the influences of the Count, the mortal women are easily dominated and used in his dastardly plans. The typical Victorian sensibilities of the novel might make it frustrating for modern readers but look past that and you’ll enjoy one of the best horror stories ever written.
Get Dracula for a bargainous £2 from Amazon.
Anyone doubting the influence of The Twilight Saga on teen fiction need only read Blood Sinister. This teen novel was published in 1996 – pre-Twilight and therefore a few years before vampire romance became so popular. Consequently there’s no vampire love interest, no devastatingly beautiful beings and no moral side to these vampires – they’re villainous and evil to the core.
Young Ellen Forrest is suffering from a mystery illness that leaves her lethargic and low on blood. Whilst convalescing at her grandma’s home in Highgate, North London (conveniently close to a certain cemetery), she discovers a trunk full of diaries belonging to her great-great-grandmother and finds that reading them is a perfect way to pass the time. In the leather-bound pages of the diaries, Ellen discovers the charming and mysterious Count her great-great-grandmother met and the brutally-murdered bodies littering the streets of Victorian London. As Ellen delves deeper, a more immediate danger begins to creep into her life. What are the odds of the two being linked?
The story alternates skilfully between Victorian London and the modern day, with Rees perfectly capturing the voice of a young Victorian lady and modern day adolescent. It’s not the most perfectly-written book in the world; some of the characters are under-developed and it ends with a ‘group of teens saving the day’ scenario that seems clichéd. But it’s saving grace is the fact that it’ll have you hooked from the first page.
Get Blood Sinister for £5.49 from Amazon.
Post by Alex Sheppard
(Image via I Can Haz Cheezeburger. Because finding Creative Commons images of vampires is hard. And because we like bloodsucking kitties.)
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Alexandra Sheppard and Alexandra Sheppard. Alexandra Sheppard said: RT @forbookssake: Read about @alexsheppard's 3 favourite vampire novels and tell us yours. Also, there's a vampire lolcat: http://bit.ly/aUaE79 [...]
Doctor Who’s Vampire Science. The a morally ambiguous eighth Doctor chasing the bloodsucker across San Francisco.
It’s all about Poppy Z Brite for me! Vampires with dyed hair and pierced nipples who drink absinthe and eat sweets. My kind of chaps!
Thanks LizSara, I hadn’t heard of the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series before, but they sound right up my street so will definitely have to investigate! As far as saying that the Sookie Stackhouse novels are better known as True Blood, I assume Alex meant that with all the hype around the TV series, most people have know heard of True Blood, whereas maybe not everyone will know about the books (I didn’t, for example). Ta for the comment!
@LizSara – good points! I don’t agree with any of them though and here’s why:
1 – Of course vampire novels were about before Stephanie Meyer came along. But there *has* been an increase in vampire/paranormal romance novels recently and I think the phenomenal success of Twilight has a lot to do with that.
Also, Meyer’s vampires are undead beings who need blood to survive. That’s a vampire, right? She may have not have stuck to the ‘rules’, but isn’t that her right as an author? I think it makes it more exciting, but then again I’m not fussy when it comes to what determines a vampire novel.
2 – I discovered the Sookie Stackhouse Novels thanks to the True Blood TV series. So for me, they are linked. They’re not exactly the same but most of the characters and portions of the TV script are taken wholesale from the books.
3 – I didn’t mean “don’t expect anything revolutionary” as an insult or negative point! Dracula is brilliant and one of my favourite novels *ever* for precisely that reason. Like you said, it pulls together hundreds of years of lore and mythology into a single book. I’m just looking at it with modern eyes.
I’ve heard good things about Anita Blake before so I shall pop that on my wishlist. Thanks for the tips!
I like the Mary Janice Davidson books featuring Betsy Taylor. Very fluffy as vampire fiction goes, but very funny! I loved the Vampire Diaries as a teenager, but rereading them 15 years later they’re not as well written as I remembered. Enjoyable nonsense though!!
I was a vampire fan ages ago! It started I guess with Buffy when I was 13, and being quite the bookworm that led to me trying to find vampire fiction. My favourite writer back then was LJ Smith. Her series The Vampire Diaries is now turned into a TV show; I adored those books back then!
She also did The Nightworld series, our world but with vampires, witches and shapeshifters walking among us. She did 9 books, each book focusing on a different couple. There was supposed to be a 10th book, but it never got written… until this year. Still super excited for it, I’ve been waiting 13 years for this book!
Another series I love is the Dark Hunter books from Sherrilyn Kenyon. These mix vampire lore with Ancient Greek mythology.
It still annoys me that a lot of Twilight fans think Twilight came first regarding vampire fiction. I still don’t get why this 1 series became popular above all these others.
I’m with Jane all the way on the Poppy Z Brite chartreuse and eyeliner infused vamp-fix.
My first introduction to vampires (and it was to become a bit of a teenage obsession) was a kids version of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and then getting my mitts on an unedited one. I still love(and revisit)it to this day.
Anita Blake Vampire Hunter is amazing. Granted I’ve only read the first three, and apparently they got a *lot* dirtier…never mind Team Edward, Team Jean-Claude baby all the way!
Hi all,
realy enjoyed the aritcle/review thingy. Am a huge fan off all things vampYre.
Having managed to plough my way through the entire 17 set Anita Blake books, I have finally passed them on, in entirity to a mate.
In a world where vampire, weres and all sorts of beasties are living openly and honestly, Anita Blake is especially unusual. She is an animater – a raiser of the dead, and is desperate to hold onto her humanity.
A passionate fan for the first say 10 books, I’ve found the degeneration into ‘Adult Entertainment’ to take from the action and story lines, instead focusing on increasingly unbelievable characters, of unbelievable physical attraction getting it on – lazy writing. If the books were to put some clothes on, leave the bedroom/car/bath and go out and fight some bad guys, I’d be a lot happier.
One of my favourite series at the moment, and one I’d recommend to anyone is ‘The Saga of the Noble Dead’ by JC and Barb Hendee. This is a set of six books, following a half vampire, half human hybrid in her quest to find the truth about her past, with her best friend, Leesil (an elf) and a magical dog named Chap.
Ok, I’ve described it wrong, it’s realy really good – I just don’t want to give anything away! It’s action packed, set in a Europe I know very little about and with a constantly evolving storyline. This isn’t a set that you can read out of order!
There is a follow up series but I havn’t managed to grab hold of them yet!
I also enjoy Kim Harrison’s The Hollow series – though I have to admit, this is in part due to the naming convention (A witch in time; dead witch walking; the good, the bad and the undead, and so on). They aren’t brilliant literature, but they are fun, sexy and set in a comtemporary environment.
Anyhoo – quite enough out of me!
Thanks AvidReader! So many fab suggestions to add to my reading list
Also, have to do a shout out to the House of Night series by PC and Kristen Cast. These are books set in a school for young vampires, who are ‘marked’. I have only read about half of the fiorst one, because this really really isn’t my thing. However they are insanely popular in the college library I work in, and are also really good in that they have openly gay characters, which don’t have plot lines revolved around them coming out or being in musical theatre, an oddity in YA fiction I find. There are about 700 of them so far.
@BookElfLeeds – I got 20 pages into the first House of Night novel before giving up. They just did’t grab me and I can’t see what the fuss is about!
neither can I…I think it must be a generational anyone over 22 thing…
Two more novels to throw into the mix are ‘I Am Legend’ (Richard Matheson) and ‘Vivia’ (Tanith Lee).
The former is a fantastic twist on the vampire story, transitioning beautifully from a classic psychological survival story into something much deeper and more philosophical.
The latter is a slightly more typical vampire tale, Lee’s writing is rich and dark and fantastical, transporting the reader into her haunted world with ease. Whilst not directly vampire related, her Books of the Paradys series are worth seeking out for a similar dark, mythic feel.
Oh, a third – ‘Twelve’ (Jaspar Kent) is another good twist on the vampiric tale. Set during the 1812 Napoleonic invasion of Russia, this is a decent read that proved oddly enjoyable despite its more brutal overtones.
I wonder if somebody needs to bring more of the horrific and savage back into the vampire story, they don’t quite feel the allegory for our deepest and darkest fears that they used to…
Thanks José, I haven’t read any of those, so definitely a few new additions to my Amazon wish list there!
Great list . I love ANNE RICE!
Thanks Kaye! This post was definitely a talking point. I’m yet to be swayed by the support for Twilight and remain resolutely an Anne Rice girl
I know this is a really old thread, but I just read it again and realised I forgot to mention The Historian when I originally posted, and nobody else has! I thought it was brilliant, well written and an interesting look at the history and mythology of vampires, Dracula in particular. Wasn’t thrilled with the ending but maybe that’s just me!
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