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[Vampire Month] Victoria L. Szulc interview

18 Sunday Mar 2018

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Victoria L. SzulcSo, as we move into the third week of March, we get to our third Vampire month victim. This week we have Victoria L. Szulc, author of The First Ten Bites. After her interview today, she will tell us all about her hints and tips for how to live forever…

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

 

I remember telling a lot of stories, when I was about five or six years old, about a girl (who later became a princess) and her animals to my best neighborhood friends. I had a pretty wild imagination. I starting cartooning them, all over my school folders, scraps of paper, and whatever else I could find.

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

 

In my twenties, I started writing professionally as part of advertising, marketing, and creative jobs. I was already an artist and writing became another tool in my arsenal of creativity. By the time I reached forty, I realized I had a lot of stories to share that weren’t covered in my visual art.

  • What would you consider to be your greatest strength as a writer? What about your greatest weakness? How do you overcome this weakness?

 

The greatest strength, without a doubt is imagination. I have some crazy storylines and plot twists that I just rejoice over. I love hearing readers’ reactions to them. Weakness? I swear I have ADD creativity. Sometimes I’m working on a project and the wrong muse comes calling, like the need to draw, or other stories in the planning stages. I almost hate when I’ve got a storyline ready for a character and realize that it belongs in a totally different story.

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

 

I’m from St. Louis, Missouri, USA which is almost dead center of the U.S. I write a lot of Steampunk as well, and during the Victorian/American Guilded Age, St. Louis was the third largest city in the country. Fortunately, unlike a lot of American cities, many of those historic homes, parks, and areas remain here. I’m definitely inspired by the architecture and my hometown history.

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

 

I’d have to say, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis. I started reading the series when I about ten years old. I was captivated by these children and their adventures. Oh and Turkish Delight. I always wondered what the heck it was and wanted to try it.

  • What drove you to write about Vampires?

 

I was working for a Halloween/costume shop part-time to make extra money. Steampunk was just beginning to take hold as a genre and I used to chat with one of my coworkers about characters I was developing. I thought about bringing in a vampire. An undead who, despite living a long time, was struggling with human realities. “What do you do when you have forever on your hands?” William, the vampire, eventually became his own series of short stories.

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

 

I think the idea of living forever, having great strength, and power is very appealing. Sometimes in a negative light. So much so that people that “suck away” anything from you, emotionally, physically, are called “vampires” in modern slang.

On a positive side, it’s very erotic. The idea of being with a lover for eternity. There’s a ton of psychological sexual nuances. Being “punctured”, feeding off someone, the ability to change forms to please and attract someone else. That’s a lot of fodder for fantasy and stories!

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

 

Good question and hard to answer. I know that Blade is more of a comic than literary character, but he is bad ass. Then again, you have Dracula, the oldest and the one who started it all.

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

 

I’m going to separate male and female if that’s okay? Lestat (Ann Rice) has just been incredible. Fragile but classically handsome. I think it’s his human qualities that make him sexy. And again, not from literature, but Selene from the Underworld series is incredibly beautiful and deadly. Strong and smart is very sexy to me.

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

 

I have vampire who is a trained assassin in the undead world, Anna. She knows vampire history and is fully educated on living in the modern world. She has a reputation, but is brilliant at disguising herself. She could be a housewife, a CEO, or a club kid. I think she could be the last man (woman) standing.

  • Tell us the basic premise behind your latest novel.

 

“I Died Here”, v.11 from my “Vampire’s Little Black Book” short series is about William, my main character, and how he finally handles an old enemy, Stephen. But in this conflict, he is both in love with a human woman, Caroline, and Anna, a vampire assassin he’d sired long ago. Everyone is caught in the crossfire, as Stephen is bent on revenge in any form he can get against Will. Will is torn between his new love and Anna, who has since moved on to a human lover of her own. There’s underlying themes of death, resurrection, and how we handle or don’t come to terms with life events. The first ten shorts of this series were about Will’s naughty and turbulent past and how he’s tried to change. These were compiled into “The First Ten Bites”. Without giving too much away, the next ten stories continue to explore that past but focus on Will’s rediscovered anger after losing so much. I haven’t set the release date, but it should be before the end of March. It’s been fun to write about Will again. It’s been almost three years since I’ve had a chance to put out new vampire material.

Social Media Links:

Blog: https://mysteampunkproject.wordpress.com

Amazon author page: www.amazon.com/author/victorial.szulc

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MySteampunkProject

Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/thecountesssp

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/steampunkcountess/

Tumblr: https://thesteampunkcountess.tumblr.com

Etsy Store: http://www.etsy.com/shop/TheHauteHen

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC98VXA1LQVGE-_rqLV6XLdQ?view_as=subscriber

[Vampire Month] Lucy Felthouse interview

24 Friday Mar 2017

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Today the Vampire Interrogator entertains Lucy Felthouse with fiendish conundra about her writing, her life and whether her character could defeat Lestat.

What is the earliest memory you have of writing? What did you write about?Lucy Felthouse Vampire writer

 

As a child I was an avid reader, and was often described as always having my nose in a book. This translated through to a love of writing. When I learned to write, I then started making up stories and putting them down in notebooks. It was so long ago that I literally can’t remember what I wrote about, but given one of my most read authors was Enid Blyton, it was probably along the lines of fairies, imps and magic. I really wish I had those notebooks now—I think it’d be both fascinating and cringe-worthy to see what I wrote about.

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

 

I didn’t really decide. It just kind of happened. I first wrote an erotic story on a dare, and discovered I enjoyed it. A couple more naughty stories down the line and I plucked up the courage to submit one to a magazine. It was accepted—and they paid me! From then, I was hooked.

What would you consider to be your greatest strength as a writer? What about your greatest weakness? How do you overcome this weakness?

 

My greatest strength is probably producing nice, clean manuscripts for my various editors. My greatest weakness is getting distracted. I find it incredibly difficult to work if there’s noise around me. So when I seriously need to knuckle down, I close the curtains, put in earplugs and shut out the world.

Cosplay romance by Lucy FelthouseTell us about the place where you live. Have you ever derived any inspiration from your home or from anywhere you have visited?

 

Not specifically where I live. Nothing exciting ever happens around here. Or certainly nothing worth writing about. As for places I visit, a huge yes! Places I’ve visited are probably some of my biggest influences. I’ve written about places I visit on day trips, or weekends or longer holidays. The Peak District, London, Paris, Rome, Amsterdam, New York City… the list goes on, and on…

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

 

I wouldn’t say a specific book has ever influenced me. I just write whatever comes into my head. In terms of inspiration, again, I haven’t been inspired by particular books—more inspired when reading awesome books to create my own and hope that people read them and enjoy them.

What drove you to write about Vampires?

 

I’ve long been a fan of paranormal books and films, so it was a natural topic for me to tackle.

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

 

I suspect escapism is a big part of it. Stories might be set in a recognisable world, but at the same time, when you’re talking about supernatural creatures, it’s completely different to real life, so there’s a level of disconnect from reality.

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

 

Hmm… I think it’s a toss-up between Dracula and Lestat.

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

 

For both sexiness and dress sense, it’d be Lestat.

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

 

Terribly. He’s Lestat, after all!

Tell us the basic premise behind your latest novel.

 

My latest release is novella length, and isn’t a paranormal story. I write a huge variety of stuff. Paranormal is just part of it 😉

So my latest book, A Different Kind of Cosplay is an erotic romance novella based on a guy trying to do something special for his girlfriend’s birthday. She’s incredibly difficult to buy for, so he ends up coming up with something pretty wacky. I don’t want to say too much more and give the game away, but let’s just say the title is a pretty big hint.

Bio:

Lucy Felthouse is the award-winning author of erotic romance novels Stately Pleasures (named in the top 5 of Cliterati.co.uk’s 100 Modern Erotic Classics That You’ve Never Heard Of, and an Amazon bestseller), Eyes Wide Open (winner of the Love Romances Café’s Best Ménage Book 2015 award, and an Amazon bestseller) and The Persecution of the Wolves. Including novels, short stories and novellas, she has over 150 publications to her name. She owns Erotica For All, and is one eighth of The Brit Babes. Find out more about her writing at http://lucyfelthouse.co.uk, or on Twitter or Facebook. Sign up for automatic updates on Amazon or BookBub. You can also subscribe to her monthly newsletter at: http://eepurl.com/gMQb9

 

 

http://lucyfelthouse.co.uk/published-works/a-different-kind-of-cosplay/

[Vampire Month] Martin Tracey interview

15 Tuesday Mar 2016

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The third victim for Vampire month this year is Martin Tracey, author of Beneath the Floodlights, a book combining Vampires with Football (that’s Soccer for our American readers). Here he answers the questions and Wednesday he entertains us with a blog post.

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

As a young schoolboy I won 2 back to back national story writing competitions, one was about the dangers of playing on building sites and the other was keeping safe when crossing the road. The latter saw me creating a magic ice cream van which appeared like a superhero offering safety advice, so from an early age I was destined to write about supernatural elements.103_0397
2) When did you decide to become a professional writer? Why did you take this step?

My debut novel Beneath the Floodlights was released in 2011 and it was vampire themed. Building on my answer to question 1, my writing creativity evolved into song writing and becoming a pop star was more on my agenda than becoming an author. I had some musical success via supporting the Fine Young Cannibals & securing my song Raging Bull on the album Old Gold Anthems – The Songs of Wolves, but then as ‘stardom’ seemed to be passing me by as I reached the ripe old age of 30 plus, I remembered the story writing success of my younger years and that famous cliché ‘everyone has a book inside them’. However, I haven’t stopped at one book because I simply love the novel writing process.

3) What would you consider to be your greatest strength as a writer? What about your greatest weakness? How do you overcome this weakness?

My greatest strengths are: working within a framework rather than a rigid plan which enables me to explore many twists and turns and subplots in order to keep the reader engaged; writing in a style that comes over as honest and therefore believable even when writing about the paranormal – I have a knack of telling great stories as opposed to being a literary genius like the ‘classic’ writers of yesteryear. My weakness is definitely trying to devote enough time to my craft. Other writers are far more prolific with their output than I am, and I find juggling life with writing extremely challenging. I am trying to discipline myself to find more time.

41grui6y21l-_sx311_bo1204203200_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 live in Birmingham and Birmingham and the surrounding areas feature heavily in my books. In Beneath the Floodlights I use Sutton Park as the training base for the footballers and I have the world’s first vampire buried there. Sutton Park is centuries old and soaked in history. It is amazing to think that this piece of unspoilt land is in Birmingham, but such historical points to note are King Henry VIII using the land to hunt deer and a Roman road still exists within the park. Both references are utilised in Beneath the Floodlights.

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

That’s a tough one. Not the book itself but more the concept around the book and its character has inspired me which is Dracula by Bram Stoker. Sorry to be a bit obvious there but if writing about vampires its influence can’t be ignored, much like the influence of The Beatles can’t be ignored in the music world. A vampire book that I also found inspiring is The Travelling Vampire Show by Richard Laymon. In terms of inspiring authors, I like Peter James as he manages to weave supernatural elements into very believable and entertaining stories, Martina Cole for her straight-talking style and Dan Brown for leading the way for mixing fact with fiction. All of these authors can be seen as inspiring my work.
6) What drove you to write about Vampires?

Since an early age I’ve always been fascinated by werewolves, ghosts and of course vampires. My original idea for Beneath the Floodlights was to use werewolves but then I felt that vampires had more scope with the plot and the two films of The Lost Boys and From Dusk till Dawn were a huge inspiration

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

That’s a great question and perhaps a very subjective debate could be had. However, for 000_0003 (2)me I think it opens up temptation in the mind. ‘Lust’ and even ‘Love’ seem to always be connected to the ‘sexy’ vampires and the reader falls into that world of, ‘well I shouldn’t but I probably would!’ There is a magnetic quality about vampires -they have the X Factor.

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

Count Dracula. Bram Stoker’s creation set it all in motion so respect is due.

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

I think Anne Rice created something a bit different with her vampires so her vampires win in that department for me. After all Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt played her vampires in Interview with The Vampire. Le Stat is a cool creation. Enough said!

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

Professor Cezar Prodanescu would give the Count a run for his money. Cezar is from the bloodline of original master vampires. He is wise, cruel, manipulative, magnetic and good at what he does – killing for blood and recruiting for his vampire nest.

11) Tell us the basic premise behind your latest novel.

I’m giving vampires a rest for now. The project I’m currently working on is a haunted house novel. A failing rock star buys a haunted house in the Peak District. Mind you I may yet weave a vampire into the mix!

Biography:

Martin Tracey is an author who likes to push the boundaries of reality. Weaving fact with fiction he likes to explore elements of the supernatural but aims to keep his novels relatable, ensuring that he is able to connect with the reader in a gripping fashion. Martin has had several interviews to showcase his work on BBC radio and attended several book signing events. A short story, Divine Inspiration was published in Words magazine. Martin’s first novel Beneath The Floodlights remarkably brought together the worlds of vampires and soccer. Martin Tracey lives in Birmingham and is married with 2 daughters.

Website:

www.martintracey.co.uk

Blog:

https://martintracey.wordpress.com/

twitter:

https://twitter.com/martintracey1

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/Martin-Tracey-Author-162311767171904/

Amazon page:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Martin-Tracey/e/B009ANTBWG/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1456595773&sr=1-1

Beneath the Floodlights on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/BENEATH-THE-FLOODLIGHTS-MARTIN-TRACEY-ebook/dp/B005FQK84M/ref=pd_sim_sbs_351_1?ie=UTF8&dpID=413Swz0eCuL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR100%2C160_&refRID=03AJDW4AZYEPXYMXEEHR

 

 

[Vampire Month] Ambrose Hall Interview

08 Tuesday Mar 2016

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Our second victim in the Vampire Month interrogation chair is Ambrose Hall… find out more about their life in the questions that follow…

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

 

I did a lot of writing and drawing as a kid. I think most of my writing was fantastical orBFD Wool Exchange magical in some way. I remember being obsessed with witches, as well as Narnia and Robin Hood. I think I was a bit of a goth, even then. I had a secret magic club in my mum’s garden shed, which I shared with my friend. I wrote a lot of poems as a kid, and in my teens, but I’ve lost my bottle for it as an adult.

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

 

I studied English and media with the intention of writing professionally, in journalism or political communication, but graduated during a recession, so I ended up teaching instead. By my mid-thirties, I’d done a lot of jobs that I hadn’t really found very rewarding. I wanted to do something that was creatively and intellectually stimulating. Then I had a family crisis, which caused me to take stock of a lot of things. As I needed to take a break from working anyway, I had a chance to reassess what I wanted to do with my life, and I started putting a lot of time into my writing. It’s still early days. Hopefully this will work out, as I feel like I’ve finally found something I love.

  • What would you consider to be your greatest strength as a writer? What about your greatest weakness? How do you overcome this weakness?

 

I’m good at coming up with ideas, and I can be very focused when I want to be. In the past, I was a terrible perfectionist, and found it very difficult to get useful critical distance from my work. I joined an online writing community, which has helped me a lot with learning to revise and edit my work, and getting that critical perspective I need.

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

 

I live in Letchworth Garden City in Hertfordshire at the moment. I’ve not really lived here very long, so I don’t think it’s had a chance to get under my skin yet. I originally come from Bradford, in West Yorkshire. Being surrounded by post-industrial decay, and the remains of a Victorian boom, has definitely influenced my gothic tendencies. I’m fairly obsessed with the idea of decay, and write dystopian fiction, as well as gothic. I worked on a dystopian noir novel last year, set in Bradford. I’m just trying to shop it round agents at the moment. I’d say the Yorkshire countryside has influenced me as well: the ruggedness of it, and of course, people going mad on moors, Wuthering Heights style.

Love is the Cure is set in London. I’ve got a bit of a love/hate relationship with the city, as a northerner, but I’ve spent a fair amount of time there over the years. It’s a place of extremes, which suited this story.

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

 

loveiscrowtreeI’ve taken influences from a lot of places. I’m a pretty avid reader. My biggest influences are probably Chandler, Camus and Conrad. Heart of Darkness is definitely an important one for me. I love empty spaces, howling holes and rotten hearts in stories, and characters that are strangers to their emotions.

  • What drove you to write about Vampires?

 

I played a lot of vampire roleplay games in my late teens and early twenties, so the genre is one I’ve always been interested in, but I avoided writing vampires for a long time, for fear of churning out something derivative. Then a friend in my writing group suggested a Halloween vampire challenge, so I thought I’d give it a go. It was great fun seeing all the very different takes on vampires. I started out with a short story, but it kept growing. Soon enough I had a six part novella, told from different points of view. I got really into the challenge of portraying the very different voices, with their different historical influences and personalities.

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

 

I suppose, as gothic monsters, they represent our fears and desires, and those can come out in different ways, depending on the writer. The idea of human monsters is a fascinating one—vampires allow us to explore a lot of different facets of humanity and morality. They tend to be larger than life characters, so you can amp everything up to an almost mythic level of intensity. Immortality is both attractive and tragic, and something that people have written stories about as long as people have written stories. One huge advantage of these potentially very old characters is it gives writers an excuse to plunder history for goodies.

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

 

I have a feeling it would be Dracula. He’s the original badass, and he’s so steeped in violence. He’s also completely ruthless.

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

 

Anne Rice’s Lestat. He’s a pretty irresistible bad boy.

LestatandLouis-1

Ann Rice’s Bad Boy, Lestat De Lioncourt

 

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

 

I have two very ancient vampires in Love is the Cure, and they’re both powerful. Bren, who is first introduced as the Crow King, reads others’ minds like they’re open books. He’s amoral, and takes whatever he wants from people without much thought. He embodies death and decay, and patriarchal arrogance. His one time lover, Ena, is very different. She’s the spirit of fire and anarchy. She’s more moral than Bren, but she’s trapped in a cycle of vengeance. I think either of them would give Dracula a run for his money, if they stopped fighting each other.

Only one of my vampires, Sebastian, is concerned with appearance, but he’s also a little stuck in the 1920s. His mortal days represent a golden time for him. Based on reader feedback so far, he seems to be most popular character. I had a lot of fun writing him. He’s a bit of a fop, extremely arrogant, and with a taste for re-enacting Hellenic myths.

  • Tell us the basic premise behind your latest novel.

 

Love is the Cure is a six part novella, told from different points of view. Although the different fragments fit together to tell a story, it’s unified more by common themes. I explore how the very different vampires cope, or don’t cope, with immortality, as well as ideas about power and consent. At the heart of the story is Kerrick, a vampire created in the late Victorian period. He had a particularly violent creation, and still bears the emotional scars from that. He’s desperately lonely, but his own violent nature always acts as a barrier to finding companionship. In trying to keep his newly created child alive, he stumbles into an ancient feud between Bren and Ena.

There were a few things I wanted to do with the story. I wanted to explore the idea of these creatures all being monsters of one kind or another, however human they were, or appeared to be. I was interested in the idea of them being locked in cycles of behaviour, determined by their creation. I wanted to be conscious of the way their power is exorcised, as a few people had said to me that one of the things which made them uncomfortable about some vampire fiction is that vampiric powers are used as a way to override or dismiss the need for consent. So I decided to try and confront that idea head-on. One of the main bones of contention between Bren and Ena is that he takes without asking.

It’s not all serious. I’ve played around with ancient mythology, and history, in some pretty cheeky ways. Although it’s not paranormal romance, it’s very homoerotic. Most of the characters are unambiguously gay or bisexual, which I guess is my antidote to the lack of pay-off during my teenage years reading Anne Rice. It’s definitely larger than life. I wanted to show extremes, from petty criminals and rent boys, to baroque splendour and depraved aristocracy. One of my early readers said the story made them think of Caravaggio. I guess that’s a win.

Biography

Ambrose Hall is a speculative and literary fiction writer who currently lives in the South East of England. He originally comes from Bradford, in West Yorkshire, where he fell in love with gothic decay and wild moors. Ambrose has had flash fiction published in Crannog and A cappella Zoo magazines, and recently published a gothic vampire novella, Love is the Cure, available on Amazon. You can find out more about his work, and read some free short stories here: https://mrvolpone.wordpress.com/

This is the link to my book on Amazon UK: Buy Love is the Cure on Amazon

[Vampire Month] R.A Smith Interview

17 Tuesday Mar 2015

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This week we have R.A Smith in the chair, being expertly probed with Vampire mesmerism and ‘love bites’. He is the author of the Grenshall Manor series of books. Oblivion Storm and Primal Storm are out now and he is currently working on book 3 which also has Storm in the title but I am not going to reveal it in full yet…

R.A Smith at the 2014 World Book Night at FAB cafe

R.A Smith at the 2014 World Book Night at FAB cafe

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

A solid memory comes from an English class, in which I got the best news ever in that our assignment was simply, “Write a story.” Not being a hugely keen on homework pupil, but brimming with ideas, I went away and worked on one for just about the entirety of the weekend. There were aliens involved, is about all I can remember, and it was in secondary school. We got back in on the Monday and our teacher happened to be in a bad mood, and decided, at length, to give the entire class a dressing-down. He spent longer with some of us than others, however, and I was called out in front of the entire class for having written “seven sides of rubbish.” To this day, I haven’t forgotten. I tend to remember harder when I need motivation the most.

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

A combination of unemployment and some unfinished business from my M.A. course got me started with what eventually became Oblivion Storm. It was a strange thing to be busier in out-of-work patches than I have been in 9-5 days, but set me on a path from which I’ve never truly stopped.

What would you consider to be your greatest strength as a writer? What about your greatest weakness? How do you overcome this weakness?

I think I have two big strengths: a love for writing a good action scene and a willingness to continue to learn new things about my craft. I love working out action scenes work and putting them into action. On the second point, I like the ‘research’ elements of reading in multiple genres, watching films and listening to songs and finding inspiration in these things. Sometimes it is a simple, “how would/should I approach this?” and other times just an appreciation of how wonderful a scene/character is to me.

Weakness? As usual, these things tie into strengths nicely. I can struggle for focus in slower scenes which are nonetheless essential either for exposition or another story purpose. You know the bits where things aren’t really happening but a conversation, flashback or even a painting which happens to be important to the tale can just feel like a grind at times. I handle it the same way as I do any other scene though, try and bring myself into the atmosphere a little with music or other ambience (within reason). Or, you know, I just double up on writing session snacks.

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

I currently reside in Manchester, but was born in Croydon, much further south in England. My home town has definitely had a part in my work before—specifically, a pub I grew up passing just about every day called The Half Moon. It closed down years ago but that actually kind of made it all the more useful for a fictional urban fantasy section. It was as it was rather than as I remembered it, having been way too young to go into it when it actually existed! There’s another venue before my time, a much more famous one, that I will be incorporating into my WIP, but its exact geography is almost a point in itself…

As for Manchester, well, it’s where Kara, an ever-present in the Grenshall Manor Chronicles so far, hails from. It’s another I’m hoping to delve into a little further in the next work.

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

This is what I like to call an evolving question. It’s amazing how I’ll change my answer to this from one week to the next, or depending upon where I am, who I’m talking to and/or what about. Because this is Vampire week, and because it comes up a lot, I’m going to choose Bram Stoker’s Dracula here. Just how much has been spawned from this one book? I find it incredible, and very inspiring.

What drove you to write about Vampires?

I’m kind of cheating here, in that I haven’t officially released a vampire novel as such. I have a scruffy manuscript at home on an idea I really want to come back to and develop one day, but I’m not ready to make it what I want to yet. It has very much been a spin-off tale from the Dracula universe though, I can tell you that much.

That said, certain aspects of the vampire novel live in certain Grenshall Manor Chronicles characters, in particular Lady Mary Grenshall and Aurelia Raine. They are very opposite sides of the coin in their inspiration though, with Raine’s main traits very firmly entrenched in the predatory aspects that only an adversary with her resources can. Wealth, status and access to raw supernatural power make her a foe to be reckoned with in Oblivion Storm.

The new cover of Oblivion Storm

Mary’s own power is as much a curse as a blessing, which I very much equate to the vampire’s necessity for blood to survive. It doesn’t work quite like that, and she won’t be biting necks any time soon, but in Oblivion Storm and Primal Storm, the reader will see her struggling with the significant price her powers come with. You’ll notice that if she cuts loose with everything she has, she is utterly formidable, but every power has a consequence. She can gain inhuman strength, but has to drain another mortal’s life energies by touch to do it [editor note: This is actually a good definition of a vampire – gaining power from the lifeforce of others]. She can extract memories from others by the same means, but she can’t just ditch them once she has them. If she really wants to, she is capable of raising the dead. BUT.

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

I find vampire fiction tends to gain popularity in cycles. It is often easy to equate to current social trends, to which I must point you at one of the greatest Cracked.com articles ever written in my opinion [link here: http://www.cracked.com/article_19402_6-mind-blowing-ways-zombies-vampires-explain-america.html ]

Also, since we decided there is a genre for just about everything going from A-Z, it’s a measure of the strength of bloodsuckers in our culture (allegorical or no) that they can be found under several headings. Gothic? We were there from day one, man. Urban Fantasy? Pretty much a staple along with their hairier counterparts (and often foes). Horror? You betcha! Comedy? Sometimes. Children’s stories? Plenty. The rules may change, but the game remains the same.

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

Despite Anne Rice’s Lestat being an epic-level vampire, I’m going to continue being a terrible Stoker fanboy and going for Dracula again. However I have the firmest possible reasoning. Count (pun intended) the number of times that Drac has been destroyed that you can recall. Now see how often he stays dead. Even BUFFY couldn’t keep him slayed! Should tell you everything!

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

Pam from True Blood. One of my favourite characters anywhere, let alone one of my favourite vampires. Her wit is sharper than any vampire’s dress sense, and those bloodsuckers are dapper as hell.

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

I doubt most vampires would want to go anywhere near any of the self-labelled New Musketeers. However, if I had to pick a champion, Lady Mary Grenshall is any vampire’s worst nightmare. She’s poor nourishment for them for a start, and can guarantee any one of them a bad night just by turning up.

The old (first edition) cover of Oblivion Storm

The old (first edition) cover of Oblivion Storm

Tell us the basic premise behind your latest novel.

My latest released novel is Primal Storm. It follows a year on from Oblivion Storm and shifts the focus from high-octane adventures with the undead to an action adventure in the living world—and beyond. Jennifer Winter, one of Mary’s new friends from book one, steps up to her own tale and we start with her attempting to get herself fighting fit almost a year after sustaining grievous injuries at the hands of one of the main villains there (note I am working hard to avoid spoilers to those who haven’t read Oblivion Storm). Though Jennifer, being way beyond normal human physical capability, needs to push herself a little harder. She takes up parkour and runs around London, straight into a daring robbery attempt upon the British Museum! What initially appears high-tech turns out to be something else entirely, and her interference sets her on a path which delves into her own origins, some of which she doesn’t know herself! Jennifer must endure a harsh voyage of self-discovery in an entirely new world before she and her friends can face their new enemy. Discover the prophecy of the Face of War and who or what is truly behind the robberies right here!

 

Bio

R.A. Smith

Russell is a displaced Londoner, now living in Manchester, and is writing in the hope of funding his car addiction. He lives with his girlfriend, two kittens, a small army of bears and two larger armies of miniatures.

An avid gamer, he is happy mashing buttons on a Playstation pad but happier mashing his mates in a field at weekends or slaying demons with dice, a pencil and paper.

He has held an eclectic collection of jobs, including editing a student magazine, several stints as a Tudor soldier and a mission in Moscow. He still does hold a Masters in Creative Writing, which he took to force himself to finish at least one novel. The plan worked better than expected.

Feel free to stop by on Twitter: @RASmithPSL or the blog site projectshadowlondon.wordpress.com. There’s also the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Mister.R.A.Smith.

[Vampire Month] Five Ways to Attract a Vampire by Jen Ponce

05 Thursday Mar 2015

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For her second post for Vampire Month, Jen Ponce offers us her dating tips…

5 Ways to Attract a Vampire

Who wouldn’t want to have a powerful, immortal vampire as a lover? Perhaps you read the Vampire Lestat as a teenager like I did, and found yourself yearning for a long-lived French blood sucker who also sings rock-n-roll. Maybe you watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer and lusted after Spike, hoping Buffy would go fall in a grave so you could grab him and give him a big, fat smack on the lips. (And then beg him to bite you.)

Instead of sitting around sighing, follow these five steps to attract a vampire and you, too, could be sucking the blood out of perfect strangers in no time!

1. Cultivate clumsiness
Vampires are predators. The clumsier you are, the more attractive you are as food. The whole point is to lure the vampire in close enough for you to have the opportunity to fascinate them. According to legends, you can toss rice on the ground at your feet and the vampire will be forced to count every grain before he can leave. This will give you the chance to fall down in a gracefully clumsy way, thus attracting the vampire’s acute adoration.
JensHead2. Don’t eat garlic, onions, or silver shavings
Really? You would eat any of these things and still call yourself a vampire lover? Everyone who knows anything about vampires will know that garlic is an anathema to the fangers. Only two people (and they both live in Transylvania) know why vampires hate garlic, but the why isn’t important. Just know that vampires don’t like stinky food. I mean lovers.

Vampires also don’t like silver. At first it was just werewolves, but then vampires had to get all, “Omg, we need to be allergic to silver too,” and that was that.

3. Eschew pointy wooden objects
That white picket fence you have out front? That’s like a chastity belt. You might as well smother yourself in garlic and sunbathe, that’s how likely you are to meet a vampire with a fence like that.

You also might want to stop using pencils. There are plenty of other writing utensils in the sea. What about the pen? The quill? A laptop? Your phone, for the love of all that’s unholy. There’s no excuse for pencils in a vampire lover’s home.

4. Come to love the night
Vampires don’t like sunlight or skin cancer. Invest in some heavy curtains and sleeping pills, because you’re going to need them in order to readjust your sleep schedule to accommodate your vein-drainer. It’s a no brainer. Say no to sunlight. Say goodbye to Vitamin D.

5. Enjoy pain
No, this isn’t a sly 30 Colors of Silliness reference. Vampires bite. It’s what they do. If you still scream when the doctor needs a blood sample, you really need to rethink your desire for a vampire lover.

Now, some vampires can mesmerize you so that you don’t feel pain. DoBlood Curse 2.0 Front Onlyn’t count on getting this kind of vamp though. You could very easily get one that has a mouthful of sharp teeth instead of the two civilized fangs. Vampire dating is a crap shoot. It’s all worth it, though, right? Nothing says romance like lurking in shadows waiting to feed on an unsuspecting human with your vampire lover. “Would you like the first bite?” “No, no, you go first, please.” “You’re so kind.”

There you have it, five ways to attract a vampire. If you have any luck, drop me a line over at my website and let me know: www.JenniferPonce.com

If you’d like to read my dark fantasy/horror novels with vampires, check out my Devany Miller series here:  http://bit.ly/BazaarBoxedSet1-3 and my book Blood Curse here:  http://bit.ly/BloodCurse.

Bio for author Jen Ponce

I’m a voracious reader and growing up, I constantly looked for heroic female characters. To my disappointment, so many of the women in the genre fiction I was reading were doormats, weak-willed, boring, incapable, or even downright dumb. That’s why my fiction features strong women. Women who are heroic, women who don’t fall in love and forget who they are, women who fight for what they believe in. If you are looking for character-rich stories that drive you relentlessly toward the big finish, then you just might like my books. Keep in mind I’m a big fan of blood and horror too. Do you like to be scared while you watch a kick ass woman save the day? My books might be just the thing to keep you up all night long.

I’m a writer, a mother of three boys, a cat herder and zombie apocalypse aficionado. I also love vampires, so if you meet one, send ’em my way, okay? I would appreciate it.

If you’re interested in my Kick Ass Woman’s Manifesto, please visit my website here: http://jenniferponce.com/kick-ass-womans-manifesto/ and follow my blog if you like what you see.

Happy reading!

http://www.JenniferPonce.com

http://www.Facebook.com/JenPonceAuthor

http://www.Twitter.com/JenPonceAuthor 

 

[Vampire Month] Jen Ponce interview

03 Tuesday Mar 2015

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Today we meet the first of this year’s Vampire Month authors – Jen Ponce. I first met Jen through the Dragon’s Rocketship Facebook group and am welcoming the chance to learn more about her here. You can find out more about her on http://jenniferponce.com/about-jen-ponce/

1. What is the earliest memory you have of writing? What did you write about?
I wrote a lot, but the first thing I remember writing and getting an audience response from (which was epic, by the way) was a play I wrote and then performed with my Animal puppet. I was ten. I remember futzing over that little script for days, wanting it to be perfect. My older sisters (both in college), my brother-in-law, my nephew, and my mom were in the audience. I squatted behind the couch and let Animal do the talking. I remember it was a play about the Fourth of July, but I can’t remember much else about it except that my audience all laughed when they were supposed to laugh. That moment made me a writer.

JensHead
2. When did you decide to become a professional writer? Why did you take this step?
The moment I decided to become a professional writer was the moment I decided I was going to sit down and finish a novel. I’d written several with friends, but I’d never finished an entire book myself and I burned to do that. I set myself a goal and dangled tantalizing bait at the end: the DVD set of A & E’s Pride and Prejudice. I knew I’d never be happy with myself if I didn’t hold a book in my hands with my name on it. I knew that I wanted to be a professional writer ever since that moment I made my family laugh with something I wrote.
3. What would you consider to be your greatest strength as a writer? What about your greatest weakness? How do you overcome this weakness?
I think my greatest strength would be the ability to build suspense and my characters. I write by feel: does this chapter feel like it ends on a high note? Does this sentence feel scary? It’s kind of a weird thing but I think I’ve read so many books that the pace and rhythm of novel structure has settled into my muscle memory.

My greatest weakness would be settling into the story long enough to show what’s going on. I sometimes have a tendency to set the pace, to drive toward the end, that I forget some people like to know what the setting looks like, what the characters look like, etc. … I’ve been working on slowing down my prose long enough to settle readers firmly into the place of the book, into the physical body of the character. It helps to have writer friends with those strengths, who can point out places where my setting is thin so I can fix it. I’ve found that being more detailed is fun, though I’m still a “go go go” kind of writer.

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 live in the Panhandle of Nebraska, which is a very homogeneous culture. Whenever I go places, I’m so grateful for diversity it’s silly. Nebraska is a beautiful place and it’s home to people with a great capacity for independence and self-sufficiency.
One place that I visited that inspired the creepy setting of one of my books, Bug Queen, was a coffer dam in Cisco, TX. It used to be the hub of all things social and fun: a gigantic pool, a small zoo, a skating rink. It was an extremely busy place … until there was no more money to keep it running. When my friend and fellow writer Kathy took me there long ago, it was a silent and eerie place. The pool water was covered with green and the remnants of one of the ladders for the diving board still jutted from the murky depths. It was the perfect spot for my alien fungus to drive its victims, to store them, and to let the fungus wriggling inside them grow.

5. Which book, if any, would you consider to be your greatest influence and inspiration?
That would be hard to say. I read and write in several genres. Stephen King’s It is probably one of my favorite books of all time, if I had to pick one. I am still awed by its complexity and the way he wove in the past and the present, all those characters, all those stories, into a novel that still sucks me in when I start reading it, even after many read throughs, even after all this time.

BazaarFrontCoverSkull6. What drove you to write about Vampires?
The Hammer Brothers films started me loving vampires. Those films gave me delicious nightmares when I was a kid, (and if you know me at all, you know I love nightmares—that’s where a lot of my stories come from.) The thing I always wished for was the vampire to live and was disappointed time and again that the vampire would get staked and the world would turn back to normal. Who wants normal? Love At First Bite gave me a good ending—the vampire gets the girl and they fly off into the sunset. Yay! And then the Vampire Lestat came along. If I wasn’t hooked already, I would have been. Anne Rice opened up a wider world view for me and made me hunt for more books about vampires. Some were hits and some were misses, but it was all story fodder.

7. What do you think is the attraction for Vampire fiction? Why is it such a popular topic?
For me, vampires are the promise of something magical. This world is so mundane that we humans are always inventing things to make it more fantastical. (Think Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy.) Why do we have these things? Why did our ancestors believe in jorogumo, fairies, daemons? Partially because there were gaps in our scientific knowledge, sure, but also because it makes life easier to think that just around the corner there could be a leprechaun we could catch to win some gold, or a genie to grant us wishes. I’ve always wanted to become a vampire and gain immortality—think of all the books I’d have time to read! Vampires give us magic and they give us sex and they give us darkness. There are things we don’t want to experience in real life that we enjoy reading about. We don’t want to murder (most of us, I hope) but we settle ourselves into the skin of a vampire main character and murder people. We relish the blood, the violence, the power, and then we go back to our fairly safe, mundane lives. Vampire fiction gives us an outlet, it’s a waking dream. Then we close the book and become human once more.

8. In a fight between all the greatest Vampires of fiction, who do you think would come out on top?
I’m liking Leo Pellissier, from Faith Hunter’s Jane Yellowrock series. I considered Lestat, but he does a lot of navel gazing and pondering the numinous, and I considered Akasha, but of course, Lestat does defeat her, so probably Leo. “Go Leo!”

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

Eric Northman from the Sookie Stackhouse series would win sexy male. (Sorry Leo and Lestat, you’re cute too.) Ivy from the Rachel Morgan series would win sexy female. I crushed on her hard the whole time I read those books. Kisten too, but my heart is still sad over him.

10. How well do you think one of your characters would fare against the winner(s) of the above?
Lady Catherine would win against Leo. She is evil and sadistic and worse, it takes a specific person’s blood to even kill her. She’d have Leo’s head off and he’d be deader than a doornail in minutes. I don’t think anyone in their right mind would think she was sexy though. Evil has a way of shining through and hers is a very base kind of evil.Blood Curse 2.0 Front Only

11. Tell us the basic premise behind your latest novel.
Blood Drunk is the sequel to Blood Curse (featuring the evil Lady Catherine.) It’s the story of Claudia, a vampire focused on revenge against Patrick Montgomery, one of three brothers who figured out how to use vampire blood to lengthen their lives without turning. She thinks him responsible for the horrors she experienced at the hands of the Marquis de Chaval. (I based him on the notorious Marquis de Sade. I figured I should get something out of the horrors I experienced reading his books. Eep.)
Before Patrick became a vampire hunter, he was a pirate, and he was the one responsible for Claudia’s husband’s death. But of course, all is not as it seems, and as the story unfolds, the truth comes to light.
The main characters of Blood Curse, Lorelei and Issala, return in this book, as do Patrick’s brothers and Lorelei’s insane twin, Morganna, who seems to be following in Lady Catherine’s dainty footsteps. I’m planning two more books, each one focusing on a different set of characters and their individual stories against the backdrop of a larger, more complicated story line. Blood Curse sat for a short while at #1 on Amazon in the lesbian horror category and it consistently sits in the top 100. Since the next book’s focus is not on Lorelei and Issala, it’ll be interesting to see how it fares.

Bio for author Jen Ponce

I’m a voracious reader and growing up, I constantly looked for heroic female characters. To my disappointment, so many of the women in the genre fiction I was reading were doormats, weak-willed, boring, incapable, or even downright dumb. That’s why my fiction features strong women. Women who are heroic, women who don’t fall in love and forget who they are, women who fight for what they believe in. If you are looking for character-rich stories that drive you relentlessly toward the big finish, then you just might like my books. Keep in mind I’m a big fan of blood and horror too. Do you like to be scared while you watch a kick ass woman save the day? My books might be just the thing to keep you up all night long.

 I’m a writer, a mother of three boys, a cat herder and zombie apocalypse aficionado. I also love vampires, so if you meet one, send ’em my way, okay? I would appreciate it.

If you’re interested in my Kick Ass Woman’s Manifesto, please visit my website here: http://jenniferponce.com/kick-ass-womans-manifesto/ and follow my blog if you like what you see.

Happy reading!

Find Jen on Facebook and Twitter

 

  

 

IN THE SHADOWS, A VAMPIRE LURKS… by Megan Cashman

13 Thursday Mar 2014

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Today we have a guest post from Megan Cashman, author of The Dark Proposal. Here she speaks about the social isolation of vampires.

IN THE SHADOWS, A VAMPIRE LURKS…

                Vampires are often portrayed as living apart from the human world. They have to avoid sunlight, and humans are their blood source. These creatures of the night tend to rarely interact with humans on a personal level, and if they do, their motivations may not be so kind.Image

Which makes one wonder: how would a vampire see the human world? They live detached from it, sometimes for many centuries. Even a newborn vampire would have to eventually let go of their emotional connection to humans so they can adjust to their new existence.

So what does the human world mean to vampires, aside from being sources of nourishment? I would think they obviously see us as being physically weaker, and maybe that would inspire a vampire to see themselves as superior, at least physically. That doesn’t seem avoidable.

What about our intellectual level? If a vampire has been around for ages, then it has consumed enough knowledge and possibly intelligence to outdo many smart humans. Now if that vampire is a dimwit, then it is a question if that can be cured after many centuries.

How about our emotions? I’m sure vampires feel empathy for their own, but it will be hard for a vampire to have much empathy for its source of blood. How many of us think of cows or pigs when we eat beef or pork? You might if you were a vegetarian or vegan. But if a vampire drinks from humans, then it could have the same attitude that we have toward the animals we eat.

This is why vampires can be such frightening creatures. They are definitely stronger, possibly smarter, and less emotionally inclined towards us. Depending on the vampire’s age, there’s a chance that spending centuries living apart from humans has decreased any empathy levels the vampire might have. It certainly doesn’t help if humans are its source of blood, and it certainly doesn’t help that a vampire has more strength and life experience to likely look down at humans. So, I would not be so surprised if a vampire is callous and even brutal towards humans.

If it were compassionate toward humans, I would wonder its age. Is it a few years into its vampire existence? Then it’s still holding on to its humanity. A few decades old? Then its probably being nostalgic. A few centuries? I would say that compassion is an act and I would advise anyone to think twice of ever spending a few minutes with that vampire. Unless, of course, it has enough age and experience to trick anyone into thinking it is not a vampire, and one with ulterior motives.

If you are interested in learning more about Megan, feel free to explore the following links:

Blog: megancashmanbooks.wordpress.com
Twitter: @MeganCashman
Facebook: Facebook.com/megancashmanbooks
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6519000.Megan_Cashman
Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009AL4RKE
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/276775

[Vampire Month] Interview with Isabella Favilli

08 Saturday Mar 2014

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Here we have an interview with Isabella Favilli, a former graphic designer turned fine artist turned photography editor turned graphic novel artist…

1) What is the first thing you remember drawing or painting?
A horse, I was four and everyone was kinda impressed, my mom still has it.Isabella
2) When did you first think you might be able to make a living as an artist?
When I was choosing my high school at fourteen, the idea was to become a graphic designer but after graduating after 5 years I realized that it was not the kind of art I loved the most; Fine Art was more what I loved and althought I was not quite sure I could make a living out of it, I still loved to paint and draw, but it stayed as a hobby for a long time, there was not much work to be found back in Italy.

3) What would you consider to be your greatest strength as an artist? What about your greatest weakness? How do you overcome this weakness?
My greatest strength is something I have been told more than realized myself.
People often tell me that the people (fantasy or real) that I make a portrait of have eyes with a soul, they can communicate real emotions, which I think it is a good thing.
My weakness? I sometimes think I might not be anything special to stand out.
As for how I overcome my weakness, I try to listen to my heart and how it feels when I look at my art work, and I also listen to what other people feel about my work, see if they receive the message I was trying to put into it; sometimes we are our worse critic, but what’s more important to me is that my work makes someone feel something, even if it isn’t what I was trying to say, any interpretation is as valid.

Figurative Art is a bit like music, it can take people to their personal place and it does not matter if it is not the same as the one that inspired the artist, once it is out, it’s for everyone to see in it what they like. It’s not good to be stuck to your own interpretation.

Petrov

Petrov

4) Tell us about the places where you have lived. Have you ever derived any inspiration from your home or from anywhere you have visited?
I was born in Rome, Italy and lived there till i was twenty six, when I moved in Manchester, and after I had my daughter in 2009, I moved in Yorkshire.
I have visited many regions in Italy, Tuscany is one of my favourite and I spent a very long time in it, I found Prague very inspiring and Paris. I particularly enjoyed seeing The Impressionists in Jeux De Paume in Paris, because together with Caravaggio they are my favourite painters.
Being born in Rome has surely given me an input when it comes to the variety of Art I got to see live, but my favourite subjects are people more than places; I have however painted a scene which was inspired by ancient roman ruins, it is still one of my favourite paintings and my best friend has proudly hanged it in her living room, when I look at it I can almost smell the air of my home town.

5) What would you consider to be your greatest influence and inspiration?
I find my heart’s darkest places to be the greatest influence, pouring that darkness out has often helped me overcome the toughest times of my life.

6) What appeals to you about Vampires?
The are beautiful, immortal and merciless but some humanity still lingers in them. I like that battle behind their eyes: between their hunger and their feelings.

7) What do you think is the attraction for Vampires? Why are they such a popular topic?
I think there is something very erotic in them, and that battle I was talking about is often present in us humans. The instinct of our nature often battles against our feelings or our society conventions. I see my own struggles in them sometimes, I am sure many others do to.kiSS
And just imagine, being immortal and powerful, with great power of seduction, I think there is a lot to be attracted to.

8) In a fight between all the greatest Vampires of fiction, who do you think would come out on top?
Lestat: no one has killed him yet. He has been burnt, switched body, taken to Hell, taken to Heaven, loved, killed… he is around, as glorious as he has ever been.

9) What about in some other contest such as sexiness or dress sense? Who would win that one?
Dracula, from the movie Dracula 2000 by Wes Craven. I
have never seen a sexier vampire than the Dracula that walks in the Virgin
Store  in Dracula 2000. Gerard Butler totally got the sexiness of his character, even the Scottish accent suits him! Ok, I do have bias in this case tho…
Gary Oldman also did an amazing job as Dracula, the moment in the movie that he introduces himself to Mina is a total swoon, it is also my favourite Dracula movie, I have seen it more times that I can count and know it by heart.

 

10) How well do you think one of your characters would fare against the winner(s) of the above?
I am afraid my characters would not stand a chance between the most powerful and the most ancient vampire, but then again they would probably be willing victims. I think my characters secretly dream to be Lestat or Dracula’s eternal companion.

11) Tell us about your latest work.
It’s a vampire kiss, only the mouths are visible, are they gonna bite? Are they gonna kiss? There is a suspension there, open to everyone’s fantasy.

I also drew the characters from a novel called The Last Of The Blood, they don’t look particularly vampirish, but they are none the less vampires. I liked the story, written by Ninfa Hayes, and felt inspired.

[Vampire Month] Still a better love story than Twilight

29 Friday Mar 2013

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‘Still a better love story than Twilight’ seems to be a common refrain on the internets at the moment. Twilight has been a book and film series that seems to have polarised geekdom, turning many against the idea of Vampire fiction while, at the same time, bringing a horde of teenage girls into it.

Many misunderstood Ridley Scott’s reimagining of Romeo and Juliet

Geeks are a weird bunch. We hate change. We like routine and things to be as they have always been. We recall the ‘good old days’ like dear old grannies recall the casual racism and horrors of the past – through spectacles so rose tinted we are practically blind. We remember how great things used to be without recalling some of the really awful things – shoddy special effects, awful dialogue, overacting. When something new comes along claiming to be ‘geek’ we hate it and the ‘johnny come lately’ fans that come with it. They aren’t real geeks, we complain. They weren’t there, man, in the trenches in the days when they cancelled Doctor Who, they call themselves Vampire fans and they don’t even know who Christopher Lee is. I mentioned Lestat to them and they looked blank. THEY HAVEN’T EVEN READ DRACULA!

Of course, in 20 years time those same teenage girls who are the target of all this ire, will be there themselves –  hating on some other new trend. Sneering at some young newcomers at a con and complaining into their brown ale that these new Vampires don’t sparkle and that this entirely detracts from the whole angsty drama of the inherent horror of the vampiric condition because it juxtaposes the darkness of their soul with the light on their skin thereby providing a visual contrast the reader can identify with. This is how it goes in the cycle of geek. By then, of course, I will be an old man laughing at both groups, knowing that I am still far more geek than either and safe in the knowledge that the previous generation of geeks is not in any position to contradict me.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that Twilight is good. There are many flaws in it and these do not include the ludicrous ‘glowing in sunlight’ nonsense which seems to be one of the main foci for attack. The heroine is far too passive, for example, which gives the whole love story angle a stalkery feel and, as the indoctorwhotwilightternet has reminded us repeatedly, undermines almost 40 years of feminism by convicing a new generation that all they need to be happy is to find an older man to look after them. This, above all others, is the main reason why the phrase ‘still a better love story than Twilight’ has been applied to a number of crazy pairings. The very fact that Fifty Shades of Grey started out life as a Twilight fan fic should tell you the inherent nature of the relationship here.

So, Twilight is certainly not flawless but I am not sure that the level of hate is quite to scale here. I think it is largely because it is such a big target – a massive fanbase who are intensely fantatical, the amplification of that fanbase through the films and a number of glaring flaws that even the dumbest geek can spot. At the moment it seems as if the entirety of geekdom is kicking into the franchise with big bovva boots because they have nothing else to do. And, yeah, I’ve done my share of that too. In geekdom the roles are reversed. It’s the big kid who gets attacked. And while I am not sure it deserves all the hate, it is equally undeserving of all the popularity.

However, it is worth considering what Twilight has actually achieved. Just as Interview with the Vampire and Buffy the Vampire Slayer before it, it has yet again put the Vampire in the forefront of publishing. Like the creatures themselves, it seems the vampire phenomenon is a hard one to kill – just as interest wanes something comes along to ressurect it. It is, I feel, a fitting concept. Plus, as Harry Potter did for fantasy, there is also the fact that more children/teenagers/adults reading is a good thing. Even if they begin by reading Twilight, many move onto to other things and the Vampire renaissance has led to such things as the Morganville Vampire books, which are in my opinion superior in many many ways. If only because they feature an insane, Welsh, medieval alchemist character by the name of Myhrrin who really should be played by David Tennant when they make the movie.*  So, maybe we should let the Twilight franchise alone for a little bit. It’s over with, the last film has been released. There is sure to be another thing we can enjoy hating along very soon.

*Yes, I have in fact written the cast list for the Morganville Vampires series in my head. It’s what I do. It also, by the way, includes Olivia Williams and Anthony Stewart Head as Amelia and Oliver. Please do not judge me in my insanity…