Mein gott, I expected that to be a fun and interesting read, but it was about the most boring thing I've ever had the misfortune of stumbling across.
This thread was about a brazillian times better.

Extra points for the Hellsing reference. Mmm.

UnrepentantApostate: JoeJitsu: Clicked the article hoping for White Court/Red Court/Black Court references but came away disappointed.

/Dresden Files vampires are almost never mopey.

Indeed. Nice to see another Jim Butcher fan out amongst the Farkers.

Seconded.

Let me throw in the House of Night series which was started by three words: "vampire finishing school".

Alternate universe where vampires were always a part of history. Genetic factor causes some teenagers to begin the change (although some of the kids don't make it to full adult vamp and wind up dying).

A lot more 'meat' on the bones than the Twilight books with gods, fallen angels... the whole good vs. evil battle. Five books out of a planned nine. Oh, and there is a report that a couple of Hollywood directors are putting up their own money to option the series.

Aaannnnd... They got the "Angel" mythology wrong from the very beginning. If you're gonna do something this dumb, at least do it right.

/nerd.
//proud of it, too.

EMCGuy: gshepnyc: hugheric: I thought there were only two, the world of sad fat girls and the world of sad gay teenage boys. who am I missing?

How lucky you are to have not been either. Maybe.

Actually, the hottest chick in my office is all about the Twilight books.


Two of the chicks in my office are obsessed with them. They took a vacation to Vancouver to try and find the set of the next movie(they did).

/ Still nailed them both

Nice. I like guys and I still want to hear more of that story.

Commissar_Murphy: These girls like this book because it has ... VAMPIRES *GASP*, but they are little moralized fantasies of how I guess evangelical teens want to see their cultural badasses.

I doubt it. Browse any message board pertaining to it (or, like in my experience, it overflows into entirely non-related threads) and often the first thing any teenage girl who hasn't read it yet will ask is where's the sex.

Basically, like any romance novel, it's "pr0n for her". Romance novels can be very explicit. Except like a burger with everything on it yet very little actual meat, "Twilight" tosses in abstinence for the evangelicals (so teen girls AND THEIR MOMS in wingnut areas don't have to hide their copies) and vampires with no drawbacks for the spoiled emo types. You know, which is all fine and good. Highly intelligent women may enjoy "Twilight" like any high intelligent man may enjoy a campy violent flick. Nothing wrong with having a vice or two. On the hetero male side, I enjoy Frank Miller, who can't seem to make a graphic novel without graphic violence and graphic nudity. It's enjoyable stuff, but the first word I'd use to describe his works is "hyperbolic", not "masterpiece".

And that's where "Twilight" deserves its mockery. It's blatantly "pr0n for her", but Twilight fans want it taken seriously as a work of literature. Now, paper-thin plot and gratuitous violence & sex are common themes in Shakespeare, but I guess ol' Will is ranked far higher because his prose is masterful, whereas "Twilight" is written with all the finesse of a 6th-grader in heat. And again, that'd be fine if its fans weren't so driven to see the work respected.

It's red meat for people who either don't want to think (escapism) or are physically incapable (retardation). Indulge in it, enjoy it, but call it what it is if you don't want to be laughed out of the conversation.

did anyone notice that the photographer for Stephen Moyer is named Jaimie Trueblood (new window)

Commissar_Murphy: Best. Premise. Ever.

Get bitten while a virgin = Full vampire license
Get bitten after you pop yer cherry = crappy shareware version of the vampire OS

Just add guns, bullets from melted down cathedral crosses, Vatican-produced immortal soldiers, quicksilver, Nazi zombies, and the good ol' vampires-can't-cross-water thing and we get the most awesome modern vampire tale.



Oh yeah, there's a set of rocking vampire knockers. I think they distracted the man in the big red hat at some point.

The problem I have with that is it ties sexuality into the vampire mythos. Not that that alone is the issue, but too many authors take it way too far and turn the 'vampire' into some weird personal take on their own daddy/boyfriend issues.

If it is done, then you need to keep it as simply 'color' for the story. Not as some motivational force.

Too many potentially good stories are ruined by turning the vampires into immortal orgyists, which works I suppose if you are writing a porn, but it just makes for very boring stories.

Gothnet: Van Helsing - Vampires seem to reproduce through some sort of egg-like phase. Again, nobody cares because the story is crap and there's Kate.

Wrong, there were mutants. Vampires normally don't reproduce, at least not in that version, but Doctor Frankenstein was helping Dracula to crate an army of creatures, they weren't true vampires.

Commissar_Murphy: A-men. Speaking of different vampire myths, did you ever read this vampire/paranormal thriller, that's written in the form of journal entries, where this guy inherited this estate in eastern Europe, had to go check it out etc. Then people start randomly dying and it turns out he is murdering townsfolk to feed the departed spirits of his family. or something. I remember it being short, creepy and suprisingly realistic. All I can't remember is the name.

Whilst I have read quite a lot of vampire fiction, that doesn't ring any bells. It has been a few years though, I moved onto devouring any/all sci-fi about 6 years back.

I do remember reading a Poppy Z. Brite edited vampire anthology back then (I think "Love in Vein") that contained a lot of less orthodox vampire tales, including one about vagina dentata that was quite amusing.

WTF?

Where are the Kate pics?

Latinwolf: Wrong, there were mutants. Vampires normally don't reproduce, at least not in that version, but Doctor Frankenstein was helping Dracula to crate an army of creatures, they weren't true vampires.

Really?

I got the impression that those were some sort of babies he was having with his vampire wives. They were born dead and Frankenstein was trying to come up with a way to give them life.

I may have been concentrating on Ms Beckinsale though

Latinwolf: Gothnet: Van Helsing - Vampires seem to reproduce through some sort of egg-like phase. Again, nobody cares because the story is crap and there's Kate.

Wrong, there were mutants. Vampires normally don't reproduce, at least not in that version, but Doctor Frankenstein was helping Dracula to crate an army of creatures, they weren't true vampires.

Again, "nobody cares".

Jubeebee: Gothnet: "the three vampire worlds"

The three?

FAIL.

There are many, many more. What about "Interview with the Vampire"? Which is like the "Angel" version without the ugly?

Or, of course, the original "Dracula", in which being bitten is enough, but it takes place over days or weeks and is more like a long seduction to the dark side?

That's just scratching the surface. There are vampire D&D type games that have volumes upon volumes of different vampires. Plus the vampires that seem to show up in every other urban fantasy novel, Nosferatu, etc.

This might be the most detailed book on Vampires, including those in media. I have an earlier edition from a decade ago and haven't got around to getting the most updated edition. If anyone's interested on the different kinds of vamps, this book is a place to start. The Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia of the Undead (new window)

Bartleby the Scrivener: can someone provide an explanation/educated guess for the current popular appeal of the vampire genre (twilight, true blood, etc)

I have no clue. My mother was a serious vampire movie fan and I grew up on the stuff, so most vampire movies would normally appeal to me, yet I haven't any interest in watching the Twilight series, and I saw only the first episode of True blood and didn't like it. I did watch Angel and the version of the vampire shown there, vampire turning ugly when he's ready to bite someone, was started in the movie "Fright Night".

Latinwolf: This might be the most detailed book on Vampires, including those in media. I have an earlier edition from a decade ago and haven't got around to getting the most updated edition. If anyone's interested on the different kinds of vamps, this book is a place to start. The Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia of the Undead (new window)

Hey cool, it's even got Jack Bauer on the cover!

Or I should just say, Vampires with no drawbacks is boring.

The vampires in Twilight should be running the world. Easily running the world.

They aren't weak to any of the traditional vampire foibles.
They are absurdly fast, absurdly strong, don't appear to get damaged, and have some 'mutant ability' like telepathy that is unique to each one.

Regular humans have nothing to stop them. WEll, up until now. I suppose a tactical nuke or a guided missile could bring one down. But up until the invention of explosive artillery I don't think that there would have been a single thing that even an army of humans could have done to stop them.

The author made them TOO powerful. They weren't diseased unholy creatures. They were Greek Gods that just decided to waltz around on a vacation from Mt Olympus.

And it isn't just the Twilight books that fall into this problem. It's any author that falls too much in love(lust?) with their version of vampires and builds them into gods.

Didn't the comics have a problem like that with Superman? What suspense or interest can you have in a character that has been so elevated beyond the emotions of man and is so powerful that you have to invent enemies that are threats to the universe itself.

Characters MUST have some sort of flaw. Hell, even the freaking Bible in the Old Testament gives God flaws in the form of his desire for vengeance and wrath.

If your character development is worse than the Old Testament then that is a good indication that your story is trash.

TheWizard: The problem I have with that is it ties sexuality into the vampire mythos. Not that that alone is the issue, but too many authors take it way too far and turn the 'vampire' into some weird personal take on their own daddy/boyfriend issues.

Sexual innuendo in vampire fiction goes way back to Bram Stoker. Methinks your problem is just an overall decline in literary finesse. It's possible to be erotic without being shamelessly explicit. Explicit works for pr0n, but a delicate "not to little, not too much" dose of eroticism in fiction is tough to pull off and thus comparatively rare.

TheWizard: What suspense or interest can you have in a character that has been so elevated beyond the emotions of man and is so powerful that you have to invent enemies that are threats to the universe itself.

Tickling a superficial fantasy? No one reads pulp for detailed causality. So again, enjoying "fast food fiction" is fine. Making it out to be something better than it is is what's laughable.

Gothnet: Latinwolf: This might be the most detailed book on Vampires, including those in media. I have an earlier edition from a decade ago and haven't got around to getting the most updated edition. If anyone's interested on the different kinds of vamps, this book is a place to start. The Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia of the Undead (new window)

Hey cool, it's even got Jack Bauer on the cover!

LOL, you're thinking of the episode where he bite some guy. the same week that episode aired, some cable station also aired "The Lost Boys".

ArcadianRefugee: Latinwolf: Gothnet: Van Helsing - Vampires seem to reproduce through some sort of egg-like phase. Again, nobody cares because the story is crap and there's Kate.

Wrong, there were mutants. Vampires normally don't reproduce, at least not in that version, but Doctor Frankenstein was helping Dracula to crate an army of creatures, they weren't true vampires.

Again, "nobody cares".

And yet there are so many replies in this thread.

Twilight is smut. Actually, most vampire stuff(especially if it's written for women) is smut. If you accept it as smut, then I have no objections. If you try to tell me how it's an amazing piece of literature/movies, then I have problems with you.

I'm a girl who loves her smut, but Twilight just doesn't do it for me. Anne Rice works, good vampire smut. Vampire Knight, also good vampire smut. Twilight? Not so much. That's just crap.

Hellsing is good stuff, but I prefer Abel.



Vampire of vampires. Excellent.

/Also, not a big fan of Joss Whedon. Talk about crappy smut.

Gothnet: Latinwolf: Wrong, there were mutants. Vampires normally don't reproduce, at least not in that version, but Doctor Frankenstein was helping Dracula to crate an army of creatures, they weren't true vampires.

Really?

I got the impression that those were some sort of babies he was having with his vampire wives. They were born dead and Frankenstein was trying to come up with a way to give them life.

I may have been concentrating on Ms Beckinsale though

My problem with Van Helsing is that it could have been a freaking awesome movie. It was basically a shot at having Castlevania the movie.

I actually groaned when I saw the director use what I am finding to be his signature move; 'Creature roars with dislocated and CGI distended jaw'.

Unless you are dealing with a Lovecraftian horror, you aren't allowed to use non-euclidian geometry to describe the overbite of your monster. Sorry, those are the rules.

TheWizard: The author made them TOO powerful. They weren't diseased unholy creatures. They were Greek Gods that just decided to waltz around on a vacation from Mt Olympus.

And it isn't just the Twilight books that fall into this problem. It's any author that falls too much in love(lust?) with their version of vampires and builds them into gods.

Didn't the comics have a problem like that with Superman? What suspense or interest can you have in a character that has been so elevated beyond the emotions of man and is so powerful that you have to invent enemies that are threats to the universe itself.

Anne Rice fell into this trap with Lestat, which is why she had to invent things like the Body Snatcher (one of the weaker books, IMHO) and then wisely moved on to telling tales about other vampires and humans that got involved with them.

It's also a Whedonism - He loves all his characters too much, gives them special powers and special treatment to the extent that after a while you can't really believe in any peril they face. By the end of Buffy pretty much everyone was magic in some way or other.

(Yes, I realise both of these things are trash, but I enjoyed them)

Latinwolf: And yet there are so many replies in this thread

I think he just means nobody cares because it's a crappy movie but it's got Kate in it so the plot is irrelevant :)

dragonchild: TheWizard: The problem I have with that is it ties sexuality into the vampire mythos. Not that that alone is the issue, but too many authors take it way too far and turn the 'vampire' into some weird personal take on their own daddy/boyfriend issues.

Sexual innuendo in vampire fiction goes way back to Bram Stoker. Methinks your problem is just an overall decline in literary finesse. It's possible to be erotic without being shamelessly explicit. Explicit works for pr0n, but a delicate "not to little, not too much" dose of eroticism in fiction is tough to pull off and thus comparatively rare.

That's what my complaint was. If you are going to bring in some sort of sexuality to your monster's motivations, or use it to prey on our sexual fears/desires, you need to be VERY careful in how you approach it.

The best authors can bring that into their stories without even including any sex at all. Just the nuances of the story that make our subconscious think about it without our conscious mind even realizing it. I'm not referring to crappy symbolism either which you can flip back a few pages and point to and say "This means exactly that". But when the symbolism is used so lightly that it brushes your mind so faintly that even looking back on it you can't be quite sure that it was even there.

Bartleby the Scrivener: can someone provide an explanation/educated guess for the current popular appeal of the vampire genre (twilight, true blood, etc)

Pure guess, it allows for the fantasy of becoming "special" or "better" without really having to do anything (except being bitten or whatever).

TheWizard: Hell, even the freaking Bible in the Old Testament gives God flaws in the form of his desire for vengeance and wrath.

You say that like it's a bad thing, like humans aren't wicked beyond measure and deserving of the wrath of a Holy and Perfect God, for continually breaking his commandments, sacrificing their children on the burning arms of Molech, and playing the harlot with Asheroth and Ba'all.

Bhasayate: the burning arms of Molech, and playing the harlot with Asheroth and Ba'all.

I don't knw what you;re talking about, but that sounds hawt...

/sign me up!

Gothnet: Latinwolf: And yet there are so many replies in this thread

I think he just means nobody cares because it's a crappy movie but it's got Kate in it so the plot is irrelevant :)

Considering he hadn't made any other replies in this thread, it's questionable what he was actually replying to.

dragonchild: TheWizard: What suspense or interest can you have in a character that has been so elevated beyond the emotions of man and is so powerful that you have to invent enemies that are threats to the universe itself.

Tickling a superficial fantasy? No one reads pulp for detailed causality. So again, enjoying "fast food fiction" is fine. Making it out to be something better than it is is what's laughable.

You can get into fantasy, and still have a good story. But it takes a good author to do that and still give the audience a sense of peril. Superman did ok because the premise of superman is that he IS supposed to be a super man. It's also a comic book, which allows for a whole slew of crossover potential so that he remains 'matched' against opponents. I used it as an example of how a character can grow beyond challenges and as a result leave the author with a problem of having the character then leave behind the story.

Perhaps I could explain it in this fashion.

In stories that include one person with superhuman abilities, if the author increases the abilities of that person, they are writing themselves into a corner if those abilites cause the challenges that the characters face to outpace the world the author has created.

The author now has the problem that the other characters have fallen behind in the 'arms race'. If you built up Mary Jane co-star as a strong supporter of the main character, but then give the main character abilities that result in him facing challenges that the co-stars can't face in a meaningful way, then you have destroyed that character as a 'strong supporter' and instead turned them back into the 'helpless damsel' that needs to be continuously saved. Many authors respond to this by revealing that Mary Jane Co-star had some latent ability that was awakened and is now back up to par with the lead character. This process often continues until the whole damned cast are now super-human characters.

I like the 30 days of night version myself. Intense adversion to sunlight, and shotgun blasts to the chest only slow them down. Nothing short of decpitation stops them.

Alebak: I like the 30 days of night version myself. Intense adversion to sunlight, and shotgun blasts to the chest only slow them down. Nothing short of decpitation stops them.

That was a good movie.

You're all forgetting, maybe on purpose, John Carpenter's "Vampires"

Vampires were created by some sort of Catholic ritual/spell gone wrong. They don't catch fire as easy, it takes a few days to turn into a vampire, during which time you're sort some sort of half-breed.

Other usual vampire stuff.

I think there's like one uber powerful 'first vampire', but I forgot. That movie isn't all that.

No Sookie pics? :(

TheWizard: In stories that include one person with superhuman abilities, if the author increases the abilities of that person, they are writing themselves into a corner if those abilites cause the challenges that the characters face to outpace the world the author has created.

The author now has the problem that the other characters have fallen behind in the 'arms race'. If you built up Mary Jane co-star as a strong supporter of the main character, but then give the main character abilities that result in him facing challenges that the co-stars can't face in a meaningful way, then you have destroyed that character as a 'strong supporter' and instead turned them back into the 'helpless damsel' that needs to be continuously saved. Many authors respond to this by revealing that Mary Jane Co-star had some latent ability that was awakened and is now back up to par with the lead character. This process often continues until the whole damned cast are now super-human characters.

The last five books of the chronicles of amber suffered this flaw. Have super powers, defeat enemy. find new stronger enemy get new super power. rince and repeat.

The worst things about vampire mythos are the demolishing of ancient legends and mythos that are interesting in their own right. Lestat and the egyptians, twilight and native american legends, trueblood and gone with the wind.

I liked Dan simmons vampire book, children of the night. The vampires were almost normal people with almost plausable "powers".

Commissar_Murphy: Bartleby the Scrivener: can someone provide an explanation/educated guess for the current popular appeal of the vampire genre (twilight, true blood, etc)

I can tell you Twilight is ridiculously popular partially because it is tapping into the Christian music crowd. The entire message of the series is "TRUE LOVE WAITS and MEN ARE BETTER THAN YOU". Girls love Edward, I guess, for the reasons I find him creepy. He watches Bella sleep ALL THE TIME. He keeps being such a tease, saying he has to save Bella from her carnal temptations. And he SPARKLES *Grr ARghgaragara*

I'm sorry, what was I saying ... I am terrible sorry ...
Oh yeah, the people who love Twilight are the same people who would love to read the self-indulgent dreck you would find in a romance novel, where bland female protagonist (obvious tool for the reader to project herself into the story) is inserted into the story as soon as possible, where she meets Mr. Perfect. Only in this story, Mr. Perfect keeps lecturing her on abstinence and refusing to slip her the tongue before their wedding night. These girls like this book because it has ... VAMPIRES *GASP*, but they are little moralized fantasies of how I guess evangelical teens want to see their cultural badasses. *Sigh*

As for True blood .... southern accents. That's all I got.

Almost true. Its not really the Christian crowd though. The Twilight books are rife with middle aged Mormon lady wet dreams. Link (new window) This has some of the parallels.

What about the world of Vampire Pitchmen?

All right, pussy, pussy, pussy! Come on in pussy lovers! Here at the Titty Twister we're slashing pussy in half! Give us an offer on our vast selection of pussy, this is a pussy blow out! All right, we got white pussy, black pussy, Spanish pussy, yellow pussy, we got hot pussy, cold pussy, we got wet pussy, we got smelly pussy, we got hairy pussy, bloody pussy, we got snappin' pussy, we got silk pussy, velvet pussy, Naugahyde pussy, we even got horse pussy, dog pussy, chicken pussy! Come on, you want pussy, come on in, pussy lovers! If we don't got it, you don't want it!

Commissar_Murphy: I can tell you Twilight is ridiculously popular partially because it is tapping into the Christian music crowd. The entire message of the series is "TRUE LOVE WAITS and MEN ARE BETTER THAN YOU".

I don't know about it tapping into the Christian crowd, other than it was written by a Mormon and nobody has sex unless they're married. But its popularity is more because it's an epic fantasy for lonely girls. Mousey-looking Bella has a hot-looking werewolf, a hot-looking vampire, and all the hot-looking popular guys at school chasing after her. At the end of the series, she gets everything she ever wished for.

It's an awful series to slog through. The most obvious case of Mary Sue-ism I've ever seen.

TheWizard: The vampires in Twilight should be running the world. Easily running the world.

There's a vampire governing body in the books that prevents any other vampires, under penalty of death, from showing their true nature.

To me, a better book would be more along the lines of Vampire: The Masquerade. 2 factions of vampires, some supporting the Masquerade of trying to hide from humans, and others trying to tear it down. Constant wars, cover-ups, power plays. Much more intriguing than sparkly vampires.

I was always a fan of the Count Magnus style vampire from Vampire Hunter D. Ancient, almost invincible, and tired of everything. It's a good counter to the "character is too powerful and flawless" trap. Once you become omnipotent, you lack the will to use the power.

hellolove:
/Also, not a big fan of Joss Whedon. Talk about crappy smut.

The mere fact that Joss Whedon gave life to Firefly is nothing short of a miracle, considering how much I loathe Buffy/Angel.

Which kind was Jim Carey turning into?

MadAmos: Almost true. Its not really the Christian crowd though. The Twilight books are rife with middle aged Mormon lady wet dreams. Link (new window) This has some of the parallels.

True enough. I try to limit myself to directly bashing Mormons online (I do way too much IRL), but I have to say the prize-winning formula for Myers' success is how she tells a Vampire legend through her Mormon-tainted looking glass, immediately tapping into her crowd, while simultaneously going after every "good little Christian girl" who wants the emotional pornography of a good ol fashioned bodice-ripper without the scandalous sexy time.

/Well played chap *tips the ol hat*

Nothing stops vampires like these guys:



/like all things vampire, not mine

I read TFA ... and it sucked!!! Must be "vampire journalism" (Rick Romero with fangs).

Cue the 'I'm so Goth I crap Bats' fat kid pic

The O.G. for Gen X:



WTF Took you slackers so long?

Daaaaaaamn....

/hot like sunlight...

really no love for the 'World of Darkness'? Honestly they had some of the smartest mythical creature systems around, but then they switched to some new system that just kind of sucks.

Vampires? Man, we all know what the real danger is...



/Hot like evil witches