Cythraul: And I agree with her.

As do I. At least the first 3. And the Witching Hour.

They are much better

Cythraul: Pocket Ninja: I look at people who love and admire Anne Rice's vampire stories while at the same time loathing the Twilight version as being an abomination to the spirit of true vampires very similarly to the way I look at people who loathe Wal-Mart and everything it stands for and get excited about the latest deals at Target.

Anne Rice's works aren't literary treasures to be placed on the same shelf as Twain or Hemingway, but it should be obvious that there is a difference in quality and credibility from her vampire fiction and that of Twilight.

Not to mention the fact that the reason vampires work as great fictional tools is that they're equally seductive and lethal. The main twilight vampires are essentially neither. They're mormons with pointy teeth and superhero powers.

Which is like pointing out that Bert and Ernie are much, much cooler than Elmo.

And yet they all bow before Bram Stoker and his Victorian Penis Euphemism.

Mercutio74: Cythraul: Pocket Ninja: I look at people who love and admire Anne Rice's vampire stories while at the same time loathing the Twilight version as being an abomination to the spirit of true vampires very similarly to the way I look at people who loathe Wal-Mart and everything it stands for and get excited about the latest deals at Target.

Anne Rice's works aren't literary treasures to be placed on the same shelf as Twain or Hemingway, but it should be obvious that there is a difference in quality and credibility from her vampire fiction and that of Twilight.

Not to mention the fact that the reason vampires work as great fictional tools is that they're equally seductive and lethal. The main twilight vampires are essentially neither. They're mormons with pointy teeth and superhero powers.

Now let's be fair here, Sparkly Eddie and Co. are most definitely tools.

cgraves67: Victorian Penis Euphemism.

I have a theory that there's one good band name or album title in any fark thread over 100 posts... this one came out early.

Pocket Ninja: I look at people who love and admire Anne Rice's vampire stories while at the same time loathing the Twilight version as being an abomination to the spirit of true vampires very similarly to the way I look at people who loathe Claire's and everything it stands for and get excited about the latest deals at Hot Topic.

Fixed that to make it a better analogy.

WIth all due respect, Anne: You started this shiat.

Interview was a good book, and then you got fruitier and delved deeper and deeper into the ridiculous idea that vampires form clans and families, hang out in nightclubs being pretty, and otherwise turned into beautiful, immortal elves that drink blood (sometimes!), rather than being the undead, decaying, vile, skulking creatures of folklore.

Personally, I lump everything Anne wrote after Interview in with Twilight as being the same thing, but written better. I have no great love for the Twilight series, as it's poorly-written and wholly derivative. At least Anne was somewhat original, but she did indeed start us on the path toward completely ruining the vampire as a literary character.

White Wolf really finished the job you started, though. . . They screwed up vampires long before Stephanie Meyer came along.

Of course, I respect Meyer for finding the marketable formula that made her rich, even if she did expose millions of teenage girls to a warped reality where being abused and terrorized while remaining dumb and emotionally pliable was sold as "romance".

All this really tells me, as a writer, is that I will probably never bother writing those vampire stories I had in mind, because the genre and the archetype has been soiled by the trinity of Rice-White Wolf-Meyer.

Oh, yeah, and Underworld put the last nail in the coffin. Vampires are worthless, uneven cliches now. Best to create a new monster and stop using vampires in literature for about twenty-five years.

Nihilist's Guide to Reticent Entropy: All this really tells me, as a writer, is that I will probably never bother writing those vampire stories I had in mind, because the genre and the archetype have both been soiled by the trinity of Rice-White Wolf-Meyer.

There. FTFM.

And I call myself a writer. Dammit. I'm used to having an edit button.

Pocket Ninja: I look at people who love and admire Anne Rice's vampire stories while at the same time loathing the Twilight version as being an abomination to the spirit of true vampires very similarly to the way I look at people who loathe Wal-Mart and everything it stands for and get excited about the latest deals at Target.

And I agree with him.

SavageWombat: Which is like pointing out that Bert and Ernie are much, much cooler than Elmo.

None of them can touch Grover.

/Near
//Far

EatHam: I know if I were basically immortal and all powerful, I'd be spending my time in high school.

I leave it as an exercise for the reader to apply sarcasm, or not.

He's also hundreds of years old and could pass for a college student but still cruises high schools for chicks. It's so magical.

I read several of the Anne Rice vampire books back when they were newly printed in paperback and thought they were good. But just last week I was bored and between books and pulled Interview With a Vampire off the shelf to give it a second look. I only got part way through the first chapter and put it down. It wasn't as good the second time.

Twilight: Vampires are gay (in the sense of "lame").

Anne Rice: Vampires are gay (in the sense of "men having sex with each other")

Either way, vampires pretty much suck in both of these authors' works. They pussified vampires into whiny biatches.

If you want to read a good recent book with vampires in it, read "The Passage", even though it has much more in common with the zombie apocalypse genre.

SavageWombat: Which is like pointing out that Bert and Ernie are much, much cooler than Elmo.

Maybe you didn't see the video of Elmo and Mr. Ricky Gervais

I read what she posted and laughed. Yes, Anne Rice has flaws, but overall her books aren't that bad, I enjoyed them, and there is no "message" to them, they're not great fiction, they're enjoyable smut. Twilight however is Mormon abstinence propaganda disguised as a romance novel, aimed at teen girls who are vulnerable to this kind of shiat. The whole "He treats me like shiat and acts like a possessive loony stalker cause he loves me!" just makes me cringe. Teen girls aren't exactly smart, I know, I was one. It just seems like a recipe to allow abusive assholes to mistreat these confused kids.

odinsposse: EatHam: I know if I were basically immortal and all powerful, I'd be spending my time in high school.

I leave it as an exercise for the reader to apply sarcasm, or not.

He's also hundreds of years old and could pass for a college student but still cruises high schools for chicks. It's so magical.

High school chicks are easy to impress and you don't have to deal with any of that empowerment shiat they get into in college. Plus they're less likely to be stinky unwashed hippies.

Tax Boy: Anne Rice: Vampires are gay (in the sense of "men having sex with each other")

They're not gay, vampires can't have sex in her books, it just doesn't work. It's more like "What if we took sex out of the equation entirely and just fell in love with someone for themselves." I thought that was pretty cool as a teenager.

dryknife: SavageWombat: Which is like pointing out that Bert and Ernie are much, much cooler than Elmo.

None of them can touch Grover.

/Near
//Far

That's neither here nor there.

EatHam: I know if I were basically immortal and all powerful, I'd be spending my time in high school.

I leave it as an exercise for the reader to apply sarcasm, or not.

Well, you both keep staying the same age...

Anne Rice STOLE EVERY ASPECT of her vampires from the ones in "I Am Legend" by Richard Matheson. Anne Rice is the sleaziest thief on the planet.

I was not a fan of Rice's vampires at first but they grew on me. Compared to the Twilight "vampires" they're positively horrific. In a good way.

I dunno, I like my vampires truly monstrous. Stoker's Dracula is a nice start, but for me it runs like this:

Lumley > Stoker > Rice > D&D Ravenloft > Eric Northman > The Rest of True Blood > Sesame Street's Count > Count Chocula > Twilight

H.P. Lovecraft definitely does NOT approve.

Link (new window)

...and Buffy would kill them all before breakfast.

Mugato: Whoa, really? I haven't read the books and have only seen two of the films through Rifftrax but Mormonism, really? Now THAT'S scary.

Meyer is a devout Mormon. I hate them, so much, not in an abstract way either, they brainwashed my sister in her mid teens and she married an abusive dickbag and refuses to stand up for herself or listen to reason because god said it was how it was supposed to be.

Mr. Coffee Nerves: I do blame Anne Rice for the past sudden influx of "Lo, for even though I am a five thousand year old vampire I am imprisoned in the body of this husky teen girl setting up a sock display here at JC Penny's in this suburban mall. Fear the everlasting dread that I embody in the arrangement of these Champion six-packs of tube socks. The Blue Light is only special as it mirrors the melancholy that has imbued my ageless soul. Pray that I do not claim thee as my minion of sorrow whilst I await Charon's ferry -- my Mom in the Windstar."

But, in retrospect, that's several trillion orders of magnitude less annoying than the Twilighters

You just got faved, baby.