Tag Archives: Being Human

What Do You Do With Forever On Your Hands? by Victoria L. Szulc

24 Saturday Mar 2018

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For her guest post, Victoria is looking at eternal life – the problems that come with it. She comes up with some interesting thoughts, though in all her discussion of stories where ‘vampires living normal lives’, she seems to have forgotten Being Human 🙂

A Wry Look a Living an Undead Life

In my own vamp series, one of my characters asks his hundreds year old friend a similar question. What do you do with too much time on your hands? Vampires, if managing to avoid the standard stake in the heart, incredible sunburn, or beheading, can live incredibly long lives. These situations make good storylines for writers of the undead.Victoria L. Szulc

Holding on to History

Can you imagine how much history a vampire has witnessed, let’s say, since the Dark Ages? Perhaps since 1200? The rise and fall of kingdoms, eras, and nations could be daunting. Is there temptation to get to involved in changing the natural course of evolution? To start or stop wars?

Witnessing the advances in energy, from horse power to steam, electricity, gas, and solar power, which they probably wouldn’t want to use, has to be challenging. Accidentally leaving a window open and having sunlight reflect off a mirror could be a last day on earth for an undead.

What about technology? Transportation for one, having to adapt from riding horses to driving cars, or heaven forbid having to use public transit? How do you not want to eat your fellow passengers? Booking only night flights could be a real challenge.

And communications? Maybe you’d pine for the days of the telegram, where if someone wanted to reach you, they’d have to go a few miles into the largest town to send you a message. Now you dread your phone blowing up from telemarketers. Would smart phones be able to read your fingerprints?

How would one handle the basic needs? How do you feed? How do you eat? In the old days, if you were wealthy, you could sleep in your castle all day, have one of your servants pick out a lovely farm girl or fat peasant for dinner. I suppose in today’s world, you could do it gangsta style and just pick off random people at night. Or be the ultimate undead superhero like Blade, and only take out the bad guys.

Just running a flat with undead roommates could be too much to bear. In the comedy “What We Do in the Shadows”, the vampires have a bit of a scuffle which causes the police to arrive. You can see them sweating it out, quite humorously, as the officers check the apartment for a “funny smell” and noise disturbances.

And just how do the kids of Twilight just keep changing schools? Eternal education has to suck.

thumbnail3Making a Living at Being Undead

Let’s say you’re a phenomenally good looking vampire. Changed at a young age and hotter than hell. It’s certain to bring you lots of opportunities, but also recognition. Perhaps a little too much attention?

In the indie film “Only Lovers Left Alive”, Adam is a hip vampire musician hiding out in the worst neighborhood in Detroit. When his music is released in an underground club without permission, word leaks out where he leaves, and fans start showing up and ringing his bell. You can see his panic as he realizes he might have to move.

So what kind of profession would best suit a vampire? Anything in a medicinal environment with easy access to blood would be ideal. If you worked in a hospice facility, you could be an angel of death and not feel so guilty about sending someone home a little early, especially if they were suffering. You’d probably want to steer clear of saw mills and any woodworking facilities.

Then again, you could be a nightclub owner, just making sure to keep the patrons from becoming too rowdy and getting everyone out before dawn so you could make it home before sunrise.

Which brings us to


Eternally Yours

Or not? The amount of exes for a vampire could be massive. The world is a smaller place now and the chances of running into an undead former flame are pretty good unless you agreed to divide up the world into territories.

What about permanently partnered? How do you keep those home fires burning without killing each other?

And what about new love? Heaven forbid, you’re a really lovely lady that has been fancied for centuries. There’s a steady stream of blood daddies perhaps, put under fantastic spells while you feed. But won’t they eventually go to their physician and get diagnosed with a mysterious anemia?

Maybe you’d mastered the art of getting a lady out of a corset long ago, using your fangs no less. And you are absolutely thrilled that they are back in style. You are way better in the sack than Lestat and Louie combined. But now you have no clue how to remove one of those new criss-cross halter leather brassieres. Or being asked to wear a condom? You hadn’t gotten anyone in the “family way” since 1220, when you were still human. Is vampire sperm still viable?

Perhaps love isn’t for the undead. Or maybe, like Dracula, you’re able to find that one human that “you’ve crossed oceans of time to find”. Now that’s someone you could really sink your teeth into.

Victoria L. Szulc is a multi-media sci-fi/steampunk artist/writer who regularly displays her work at 1900 Park Creative Space in the historic Victorian neighborhood of Lafayette Square in St. Louis, MO. Her first Steampunk art installation was there in June 2014. She spearheaded and curated the first Steampunk Broken Hearts Ball Masquerade and Art Show in St. Louis and directed the first Steampunk Fashion Show at the Big River Steampunk Festival Masquerade in Hannibal, MO in 2017. Victoria’s third steampunk novel, “A Long Reign” was in competition for the 2017 Amazon UK Storytellers contest and was an Amazon/kindle bestseller, reaching number 7 in Time Travel and number 9 in Steampunk on the Amazon bestsellers lists. Volume 11 of the Vampire’s Little Black Book Series is set for release March 31, 2018. Victoria is currently working on the third part of the Society Trilogy, “Lafayette to London”. This new book and related visual works are scheduled for release in June 2018.

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[Vampire Month] Elizabeth Morgan interview

10 Tuesday Mar 2015

Posted by in Musings, Vampire Month

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This week the Vampire interrogation chair welcomes Elizabeth Morgan, author of Cranberry Blood to answer its brutal and probing questions, which it asks with all the pain and suffering of a Klingon Hug Dungeon…

I first met Elizabeth last year at the Leeds Steampunk market and will be sharing a stall with her at the upcoming Yorkshire CosPlay Con in April… if you are in the area pop by and say hi! Click the links to find out more details about these events…Elizabeth Morgan

Now, over to Elizabeth…

1)      What is the earliest memory you have of writing? What did you write about?

Gosh, earliest memory of writing. When I was in primary school I remember my year sixth teacher reading out, god I think it was like a paragraph of some little story I wrote for some assignment in English. He was very impressed. Can’t remember what the story was about, but I think there was snow involved. As you can imagine it was a long time ago, but writing started off for me in my English lessons. If I was told we had to write a story, I would gladly do so and aim to write something good.

2)      When did you decide to become a professional writer? Why did you take this step?

It was 2009 when I decided I wanted to write a book with the aim of publishing it. During my last year in college – 2006 – I started writing scripts – I studied Musical Theatre so I was very in to acting and shows etc – I did this up until 2008 until a friend of mine suggested I try and write a book. I was always very detailed with my scripts, too detailed for scripts really. So yeah, it took me a year to come up with something that I wanted to write and once I had the story I just dived right in.

I’ve wanted to act since I was about four – part of me still does now at the age of 26 – but during my final year of college it dawned on me that as much as I loved performing, and I did, I had an imagination that was constantly throwing ideas out at me and it seemed like such a shame to waste those ideas; to waste my imagination. So, that’s why I started writing with the aim to be a professional writer.

[Guest Post] What is Horror? by Rebeka Harrington3)      What would you consider to be your greatest strength as a writer? What about your greatest weakness? How do you overcome this weakness?

I don’t really feel that I have a strength. I would like to say my stories are interesting, funny, different, and sexy or that I at least have a good voice, strong characters… but I honestly don’t know.

Weakness is easy, and I am utterly ashamed to admit it, but grammar isn’t my strong point. I’m terrible at editing, which I suppose is a good thing because my editor would be out of a job if I was great at tidying my messy writing up. Naturally, it comes down to practice. I’m better than I was when I started writing. You pick things up as you go and notice those bad habits you have.

*Hangs head in shame*

I feel like a bit of a fraud; a writer who isn’t very good with grammar? Terrible. I have an imagination, though. I feel it’s a pretty damn good imagination. I can write a story, tell a -hopefully – good story, but I definitely need my editor to whip everything in to shape before it is ready for the public’s eyes.

4)      Tell us about the place where you live. Have you ever derived any inspiration from your home or from anywhere you have visited?

I have lived in a terrace cottage in Cheshire for the last five years. It’s a lovely house, and the area is pretty, but no, I have not yet had any inspiration from this area. If I’m totally honest, although all my stories are set in different locations I haven’t had any inspiration from areas I have visited. Usually when I have an idea and I get the feel for where it could or should be set I go on google map, and then on to street view. I don’t really travel very much, which is a shame. I’m sure I would be inspired if I ever had the chance to venture out.

5)      Which book, if any, would you consider to be your greatest influence and inspiration?

I wasn’t a big reader as a child. I know, it’s dreadful. I enjoyed my mother reading to me, but I didn’t really read a lot. And then during my first job at the age of 16 my colleague/friend lent me Mooncalled by Patricia Briggs…. I haven’t stopped reading since. I love books. I love stories. I’m ashamed that I didn’t start sooner, but as my friend said, it’s finding the right genre(s) and as crazy as it sounds I wasn’t really aware of how many genres there were until my friend got my hooked on books. That seems so stupid, but like I said I wasn’t a big reader. So Patricia Briggs book Mooncalled. Read it, loved it, read the next book in the series and so on. This was around the time I was writing scripts, around the time my other friend suggested I try writing a book of my own and well, after being introduced to Urban Fantasy I just fell in love with the genre, the possibilities and yeah, my mind was made up.

So, I guess you could say that Mooncalled was the book that inspired me to write my own stories.

6)      What drove you to write about Vampires?

I’ve been dreaming about Vampires since I was a child. I would constantly dream they were chasing after me and my family; they would kill us off one by one and I would always be the one remaining. Yeah, I had issues lol

I’ve always been fascinated by Vampires and the way they have been portrayed through books and films, and well, I decided to pay attention to a very good piece of advice; write what you know and what you love.

I love Vampires. So, I just decided that if I was seriously going to write a book then I might as well write about one of my favourite creatures, so I did.

7)      What do you think is the attraction for Vampire fiction? Why is it such a popular topic?

Personally, I believe the attraction is that they are altered, magical, and limitless version of ourselves. They are the impossible. Humans “aren’t” supposed to survive after death; they “aren’t” supposed to live forever, and they “aren’t” supposed to remain ageless, or possess great power, or strength. They’re primal and dangerous. They live by their own rules, but there is so many ways you can write these creatures, evil, tortured, good, but their nature will be forever held against them – who doesn’t love to read about inner turmoil. They can be the monster you would run from, or the bad boy/girl you desire, or even the boy/girl next door with a few hidden secrets, but you love them any way and will route for their happy ever after.

They are a more mystical and powerful version of ourselves, and at some point in all of our lives we will wonder what it would be like to be a vampire, or at least wonder what it would be like to be that mysterious and appealing.

8)      In a fight between all the greatest Vampires of fiction, who do you think would come out on top?

Oh, tough question. You know, I’m going to go with the prince of darkness, Dracula. I’m sure every other vampire in fiction would fight well and give it their all, but Dracula is… well, the man. The undead man, but he’s epic. I’ve got to believe he will live up to his title.

Team Dracula! *cheers*

9)      What about in some other contest such as sexiness or dress sense? Who would win that one?

Sexiness, well Mitchell played by Aidan Turner in the TV series, Being Human. Irish Vampire, yes please. And yet I still have to say I do find Dracula sexy, he’s the prince of freakin’ darkness, how is that not hot?

I tend to find that most Vampires have rather good dress sense, so I wouldn’t be able to pick anyone out, but Selena from Underworld; totally rocks the leather cat-suit.

10)   How well do you think one of your characters would fare against the winner(s) of the above?

I think any of my characters would give as good as they got. Everyone is capable of being defeated. So, I think they would stand a good chance. I think Heather would be able to kill Mitchell – though it pains me to say that – he was never really a fighter. Selena uses a gun and my Heather uses a sword, so if they were going hand to hand…. well, at present Selena and Dracula would probably beat Heather, but I have faith in my girl and after the U-turn her life is about to take, well, the odds might be more in her favour. 😉

Pageflex Persona [document: PRS0000038_00064]11)   Tell us the basic premise behind your latest novel.

My current WIP is still without a title – I have two titles in mind, but I can’t decide which one I prefer at present – so it is currently known as Blood 2. Blood 2 is the second book in my Blood Series, and follows on right where we left off from Cranberry Blood (Blood Series: Book One).

Heather Ryan has gone over to Italy to hunt down the second generation Vampire Marie in the hopes of discovering where the ancient, Marko Pavel is so that she can finally kill him. She is also hoping to discover where the three members of the UK Werewolf Pack – whom were kidnapped at the end of book one – have been taken too, but she is in the territory of the Italian Pack who are having a hard time believing that the Vampires are experimenting on Infecteds, Loup-Garous, and Werewolves with the goal of creating a hybrid.

We’re in new territory, we meet interesting new characters, and as I mentioned above the story is really just continuing from where we left off. So, more Heather and Brendan, more sarcasm, humour, action, blood, and the discovery of a few secrets, which will tie up loose ends from book one.

Blood 2 currently stands at 23,500 words. The aim is 60,000, but it’s just a very casual goal. The story could be longer, but I will know once I get to that point. Otherwise the aim is to have Blood 2 released this summer 2015.

For more information on the Blood Series or any of my other titles:

Where to find Elizabeth Online:

Website: www.e-morgan.com Blog: http://www.xxxxmyworldxxxx.blogspot.co.uk Twitter: @EMorgan2010 Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/ElizabethMorgan Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/elizabeth.morgan.944 Blood Series Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/TheBloodSeries?ref=hl Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/elizabethm2012/boards/ TSU: https://www.tsu.co/ElizabethMorgan Blog: (Shared with Dianna Hardy): http://notjustastiffupperlip.blogspot.co.uk/

Thanks so much for joining me, and thank you for letting me take part in Vampire Month, David. J

About the Author:

Elizabeth Morgan is a multi-published author of urban fantasy, paranormal, erotic horror, f/f, and contemporary; all with a degree of romance, a dose of action and a hit of sarcasm, sizzle or blood, but you can be sure that no matter what the genre, Elizabeth always manages to give a unique and often humorous spin to her stories.

Like her tagline says; A pick ‘n’ mix genre author. “I’m not greedy. I just like variety.”

And that she does, author of erotic ménage horror, Creak, paranormal erotic horror and UK, US & Australian Amazon best seller (Gay/Lesbian, Fiction, Lesbian), On the Rocks, erotic romance, US, UK & Spanish Amazon bestseller (Erotica Short Story) Truth or Dare? And sweet contemporary romance, UK & US Amazon bestseller (British/Drama & Plays) Stepping Stones.

She also has her hand in self-publishing. Look out for more information on her upcoming releases at her website: www.e-morgan.com

Away from the computer, Elizabeth can be found in the garden trying hard not to kill her plants, dancing around her little cottage with the radio on while she cleans, watching movies or good television programmes – Dr Who? Atlantis? The Musketeers? Heck, yes! – Or curled up with her two cats reading a book.

[Vampire Month] Review of Being Human SE5 Ep5

06 Wednesday Mar 2013

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Appropriately enough for Vampire Month, over on Cult Britannia you can now read my latest review of Sunday’s Being Human episoide.

http://www.cultbritannia.co.uk/tag/being-human-no-care-all-responsibility-review/

Pop over there and have a look and then come back here for Aaron Smith’s Guest post, due to go live in 30 minutes….

[Vampire Month] Introduction

01 Friday Mar 2013

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So, another year, another Vampire month. Last year’s offerings were epic and I think this year’s will take that level of epicness and redefine it. And, as everyone knows, one way to make something epic is to have Christopher Lee involved in it somewhere. So, here is a photo of him to create the illusion that he is involved.Vampire

The Vampire has been a presence in literature for quite some time and has mutated into many different forms over the years. In fact, I believe that this mutability is what keeps the Vampire genre in such good shape. Had writers stuck to the concepts popularised by Stoker it was likely that the Vampire would have become staid and dull. Instead, like any immortal must do to survive, the Vampire has changed with the times in a number of different ways.

Whether you are talking about Stoker’s Dracula, Hammer’s Dracula, The Lost Boys, Underworld, Twilight, White Wolf’s Storyteller game, Night Watch, Being Human, Doctor Who’s Haemovores or some of the weird stuff you see in Manga you will see a different interpretation of what is essentially the same mythological creature. Vampires have dressed in Victorian garb, Regency velvets, PVC catsuits, 80’s New Romantic frills, shellsuits, police uniforms and Crusader armour. They’ve been lords, ladies, punks, assassins and homeless. Some of them stalk, some of them fly through windows in a floaty way, others hop. They have been obsessed with counting rice and lost socks but they all have that same, all consuming addiction to blood. There is a lot of choice in there. Which makes sense when you consider that your pool for recruiting new blood is the entirity of humanity over the whole of history.

So, this month we intend to celebrate the diversity of the Vampire in all its many forms with a host of writers who all have an interest in the genre.

This year sees a slight change to the format of last year’s Vampire Month. Last year we had four writers with a week each. This year we have six writers who have sent in articles. So, there will be three posts a week – Monday, Wednesday and Friday – throughout the month.

If you are interested in taking part in next year’s Vampire month event or know someone who might be, please feel free to contact me on dalascelles-writing@yahoo.co.uk I am, by the way, still waiting for Ann Rice or Rachel Caine to get in touch…

So, without further ado, I hereby declare this, the second Vampire Month, officially open!

[Review] Being Human: Puppy Love

12 Monday Mar 2012

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A little late this week (I blame solar storms…) but here is my review of yesterday’s Being Human episode…

http://www.cultbritannia.co.uk/2012/03/12/being-human-puppy-love-review/

Feel free to pop on over there and comment. Or comment here… either way I’m happy.

Oh, and this does count as part of Vampire Month 🙂

[Review] Being Human 1955

13 Monday Feb 2012

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My review of this week’s Being Human episode (Being Human: 1955 which so sounds like it should be a spin off series…) is now up for all to read on the Cult Britannia website. Feel free to pop over there and leave a comment saying what you thought of the episode or leave a comment or two here.

After a couple of comments on last week’s review, you may like to know that this week’s is guaranteed spoiler free. It is, however, still high in polyunsaturated comedy ritual magic which studies* have found may be linked to some disease or other. I suggest a diet of fish high in Omega 3s to overcome this.

*Well, vague, wibbly wobbly concerns turned into tabloid hysteria. Comedy ritual magic may also have caused the current ‘snowpocalypse’ according to some bloke I met in the pub yesterday. If a second bloke confirms it, I’ll be sure to let the Daily Mail know…

Review – Being Human: Eve of the War (SE4 Ep 1)

06 Monday Feb 2012

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As you are all well aware by now (well, at least I hope you are…) I’ve done regular reviews of self published books over at the epublish a book site. I also occasionally on this blog comment on films, TV and other SFF stuff that I hear about and have an opinion on. Well, now I have expanded that small empire of reviewage into something a little bigger. A sort of medium sized, semi detached empirette with a bigger garden and room for an extension…

In other words, I am now doing reviews for Cult Britannia, a website all about British cult TV, and my first review can be seen if you click the direct link below:

http://www.cultbritannia.co.uk/2012/02/06/being-human-eve-of-the-war-review/

As things currently stand, I will be doing reviews of the first two episodes of Being Human series 4 at least. I may be doing reviews of other episodes in the series and possibly reviews of other shows and general opinion articles as things progress. Feel free to pop on over there and see what I had to say about episode one and leave a comment if you disagree with me (or even if you agree with me…).

The Hobbit

21 Wednesday Dec 2011

Posted by in Film

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Today it seems as if the internet has been infected with a fairly bad case of ‘Tolkienitis’ as the trailer for the Peter Jackson version of the Hobbit has hit it quite hard and is spreading all over the place. We even have a release date of the 14th of December 2012! Which is annoyingly almost a whole year away…

For those who haven’t seen it yet, here is the trailer:

I have to say that there is a special place in my heart for Tolkien. The Hobbit was the first ‘proper’ fantasy book I bought and read. In fact, I bought it with a gift voucher I got from school for ‘being good at History’ which was annoying because I wanted it for ‘being good at Biology’ but someone else got that. Luckily, I did get the Chemistry prize in a later year so my scientific credentials were confirmed (though I cannot for the life of me remember which book I bought with that…). The only reason I remember getting the Hobbit with the History voucher (because you know, my memory is terrible…) is because I still have the actual book on the shelf behind me, still with the bookplate from the voucher stuck into it.

I also, bizarrely enough, also have a copy of it in German. Despite not being able to read German all that well or ever having been to Germany. You can find some weird things when browsing charity shops in University towns and I have a love of seeing books I have read in English in foreign languages (I also have a copy of Neil Gaiman’s ‘Death: The High Cost of Living’ in French from when I visited Paris a while back).

Anyway, because of my love of the original source and the fact that Peter Jackson has proven himself worthy by doing such a great job with Lord of the Rings, I am quite looking forward to this release. Not only because it will relive a classic story but because, from the buzz I have heard in and around the internet, they are planning to add extra material to the story – padding it out to two films. Some may say this is a bad thing – tampering with a classic, daring to assume something about Tolkien’s great vision! However, I am of the other opinion. While I enjoyed the Hobbit as a child, I remember thinking about the bit where Gandalf buggers off midway through the book.* It seemed to me to be a bit of a cop out, especially when he reappears and talks about ‘fighting the Necromancer’ with his other wizard chums. I was thinking ‘What? WE missed that! I want to see Gandalf and a bunch of other wizards fighting a Necromancer!’. While Bilbo wandering around in Mirkwood and finding the Ring and tricking dragons was interesting, I still felt cheated that we never got to see Gandalf’s encounter with the being we now know was Sauron. Jackson is promising to give us that scene and a lot of extra stuff to boot.

There are other misgivings out there in fanland. News that Orlando Bloom was back to play Legolas had some up in arms. Legolas does not appear in the Hobbit! Was the cry that went up. To be honest, the cry could probably be translated as ‘we don’t like Orlando Bloom!’ because there are actually good reasons for why Legolas could be in The Hobbit. He is, after all, the son of Thranduil, the King of Mirkwood, and there is nothing to say that he is not present among the numerous, nameless elves. Ok, he didn’t *do* anything in the book but I personally have nothing against him being there and I like the idea of riffing around the concept rather than word for word repeating a story from a novel. I’d have more of a problem with John Rhys Davies playing Gloin (which could have happened, his character Gimli in LOTR was the son of Gloin and there’s a chance of a family resemblance) because that is just a tad too cheesy for my liking. Overall, I am actually quite hyped about the cast list because it has some very nice actors in there – including Sherlock’s Benedict Cumberbatch as Smaug and the Necromancer, Being Human’s Aidan Turner as Kili and Doctor Who’s Sylvester McCoy as Radaghast the Brown.

So, suffice it to say I am quite enthused by this trailer and feeling confident that this will be as good a film, if not better, than any of the Lord of the Rings films…

*The roleplayer in me, even then, put this down to the fact that Gandalf was a high level PC and Bilbo and the Dwarves were only low level and the challenges ahead were clearly for a lower level party so Gandalf had to go otherwise he would munchkin the hell out of all the spiders and wood elves and thereby remove all conflict and tension….