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Lurking Musings

~ Musings of a newly published writer

Lurking Musings

Tag Archives: Rachel Caine

Missed Opportunities: An obituary for Rachel Caine

02 Monday Nov 2020

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Obituaries

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Morganville Vampires, Rachel Caine, Soft Tissue Sarcoma, Vampire Month, Vampires


I recieved the sad news today via both Facebook and email that Rachel Caine, author of the Morganville Vampires among other tales, had sadly passed away. She had been battling with a particularly rare and aggressive soft tissue sarcoma and had announced not too long ago that it had become impossible to treat and it was only a matter of time. The full announcement can be seen here on her fan page.

I never met Roxanne Conrad, the author who used the name Rachel CaineRachel Caine - Home as her pen name, but she had an influence on my life and my writing work in more than one way. In the height of ‘Twilightmania’, she was publishing novels about vampires that were refreshing and unique. The town of Morganville was something akin to what could exist in White Wolf’s World of Darkness – a place ruled by vampires – and it contained a bunch of entertaining characters and stories that I could not stop reading. It represented for me the epitome of urban fantasy writing. Few authors have the nounce to not only make Oliver Cromwell a character but also to hide him under an assumed name and leave it up to readers to work out who he actually is (by working it out from his birth date given in one of the books…). Oh and not to mention one of the characters might possibly be Merlin… sort of…

I read some of her other works (Ink and Bone, the Weather Warden Series and the Revivalist series) and saw a great talent in her work. She twisted tropes, played with concepts and seemed to have a never ending pool of great ideas that she seemed to churn out at an alarming rate compared to my pedestrian writing speed. However, it was always the Morganville series for which I will always remember and thank her for.

In the past year, I had become aware of her on Quora where, like Mercedes Lackey, she had been making a name for herself as someone who gave sensible advice to upcoming writers. I was even honoured on a number of occasions to have had an upvote from her on some of my answers. For a fan that is an epic form of recognition.

Glass Houses: The bestselling action-packed series (Morganville Vampires)  eBook: Caine, Rachel: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle StoreThe missed opportunity I mentioned in the title was that I have always said that I would have loved to have had her doing a piece for Vampire month. Sharing her ideas about vampires and urban fantasy in general. I never had the guts to ask and now I will never get the chance. I guess this is an appropriate time to remind you all to carpe diem while you can because things can change so quickly and chances disappear.

Anyway, I urge you to check out her books if you haven’t already. You can find them all on Goodreads/Amazon right here… And if you have any interest in Vampires at all and are sick of all the many tropes about them, I strongly suggest you check out Glass Houses, the Morganville Vampires book 1.

 

[Vampire Month] The sun rises

31 Friday Mar 2017

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Musings, Vampire Month

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Tags

Ann Rice, Gods of the Deep, Photography, Rachel Caine, Transitions, Vampire


Gods of the DeepWell, it has been a more erratic Vampire month than usual this year, scheduling hiccups and my time being eaten up by that vampire that is work. However, despite all that we managed to pull it off and release a limited Vampire month line up on time. I hope you enjoyed this year’s offerings and come back next year to see what we have in store for you then.

As a photographer I have obviously been exploring vampires quite a bit recently and I intend to keep up that interest. There is also the possibility that I might be thinking about looking at Vampires in fiction. If I get a good idea for a story involving vampires I may delve into it and see what comes out. I do feel that Helen, my hero from Transitions and Transformations, is overdue an encounter with a blood sucking fiend of the night. After all, she has bested the ghost of a Roman soldier and been almost seduced by a shapeshifting Fey so how will she cope with a charming older being? Or maybe Everyn from Gods of the Deep might meet one… I will be sure to keep you all informed of any developments.

In the meantime, if you know someone who should be featured in Vampire month, feel free to let me know. We welcome any and all applicants. Just be aware, Ann Rice and Rachel Caine get first dibs…

See you all next year!

 

 

 

[Vampire Month] Here we go again…

01 Tuesday Mar 2016

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Musings, Vampire Month

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Ann Rice, Dracula, R.A Smith, Rachel Caine, Vampire, Vampire Month, Vampires, writing


Another year, another Vampire month. This feature is like the mythical creature it is named after, difficult to keep down. It certainly seems one of my more popular features with several articles from past years cropping up in my views stats on a regular basis. So, until such time as I run out of author/artist/academic victims to mercilessly interrogate in my spikey Vampire Month Questioning Chair, we won’t be putting a stake into this feature or serving the garlic sauce. Especially not after the wonderful R.A Smith (who I finally allowed to feature in last year’s event) said he was jealous of it…Vampire

Also, I am still waiting patiently for Ann Rice or Rachel Caine to get in touch…

For those new to this feature, Vampire month is where we dedicate the whole of March to all things Vampire. The usual format is to give over a week each to four people with an interest in Vampires and in that week two posts are produced. One is an interview so you can learn all about them, the second is a guest post on the topic of their choice. You can browse the previous years to see what has been posted before (just type Vampire Month in the little search box above) and prepare yourself for a month of interesting posts and interviews.

As ever it is never really possible to predict the response to the call for posts I put out. Sometimes I despair of filling all the slots (though managed it somehow every year so far) whereas others I end up with more than I need. This year seems to be the latter as there are (at the last count) five authors on our line up… so there may have to be some wrangling of the normal schedule to fit them all in… Stay tuned to find out who they are and what they have to offer us.

Morganville – SDCC trailer

02 Saturday Aug 2014

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Film, Publicity

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Tags

Anthony Stewart Head, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, David Tennant, Executive Producer, Kickstarter campaign, Morganville Vampires, paranormal romance, Rachel Caine, Robert Picardo, Vampire, Vampires


As you should all know by now, I am a big fan of the Morganville series of novels by Rachel Caine. So much so that I became a backer for the Kickstarter campaign that aimed to produce a Webcast show of the series. I guess that makes me a producer (I am opting for the title of Chief Executive Producer in charge of giving over a small amount of cash to help make this happen). Anyway, the trailer for this series was released at San Diego Comic Con and while I was not there to see it myself, I did get sent an exclusive link to see it because of my backer involvement… so here it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwUtF-P6cqs

Of course they did not follow my casting picks. I guess David Tennant was not available to play Myrnin and Anthony Stewart Head was not able to play Oliver. However, looking at the trailer you can see some stellar choices made. In particular you may recognise Amber Benson of Buffy fame as Amelia and Robert Picardo (yes, THAT Robert Picardo of Voyager fame in a grey wig) as Oliver.

So it is all looking promising and reasonably close to the source material. About the only thing I have spotted so far that is possibly different is that if this series is following book 1 they are introducing Myrnin too soon but since he is awesome I cannot see an issue with that…

So, yes, in my opinion (as Chief Executive Producer in charge of giving over a small amount of cash to help make this happen) you should totally check this out when it airs… especially if you like Buffy, Vampires or Voyager.

D.A Lascelles is the author of Lurking Miscellany, Transitions (Mundania Press) and Gods of the Sea (Pulp Empires). He lives in Manchester UK. You can sometimes see him writing about Zombie porn on https://lurkingmusings.wordpress.com/ but he mostly blogs about books, vampires, science fiction and Terry Pratchett. He is inordinately proud of the fact that one of his Pratchett articles was referenced on the French version of the author’s Wikipedia page.

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

Twitter: @areteus

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[Vampire Month] Still a better love story than Twilight

29 Friday Mar 2013

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Vampire Month

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Alien, Ann Rice, Anthony Stewart Head, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Christopher Lee, David Tennant, Doctor Who, Dracula, Geek, geek culture, Interview with the Vampire, Lestat, Morganville Vampires, Olivia Williams, Rachel Caine, Ridley Scott, Romeo and Juliet, Still a Better Love Story than Twilight, Twilight


‘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…

[Vampire Month] Introduction

01 Friday Mar 2013

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Vampire Month

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Ann Rice, Being Human, books, Bram Stoker, Doctor Who, Dracula, guest blogging, guest posts, Haemovores, Hammer Horror, Manga, Night Watch, Rachel Caine, Storyteller System, The Lost Boys, Twilight, Underworld, Vampire: The Masquearde, Vampires, White Wolf


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!

Vampire Month – Seeking fresh blood

22 Tuesday Jan 2013

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Guest posts

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Tags

Ann Rice, books, Bram Stoker, entertainment, guest blogging, guest posts, Jason Petty, Joss Whedon, literature, Ninfa Hayes, Rachel Caine, Rebeka Harrington, Skyla Dawn Cameron, Stephenie Meyer, Vampires


It has been an age old tradition of this blog, dating back all the way to March 2012 (yes, all those many months ago), for the month of March to be assigned ‘Vampire Month’ and to be taken up with guest posts and interviews by writers who work in genres involving nightstalking bloodsuckers. Last March we had some wonderful posts by Diana Hardy, Skyla Dawn Cameron, Ninfa Hayes and Jason Petty covering subjects ranging from muses to book buying and now it is almost time to get things organised for this March…Vampire

So, with this in mind, I am putting out a call. I need fresh blood to fill the pages of Vampire month this year.

If you are a writer of something which could be construed in some way to be ‘vampire fiction’ or you know a writer who is and can contact them without stalking them I would be very interested in speaking with you. Contact me via this blog, Twitter, Facebook or my email address (dalascelles-writing@yahoo.co.uk) and tell me all about yourself or the author you think you can contact for me.

Of course, while I’d love to be able to get Ann Rice, Rachel Caine, Stephenie Meyer and similar on board for this (or even Jos Whedon or Toby Whitehouse) I am equally happy to accept less famous writers so long as you can do an interesting blog post and answer some interview questions. I would not, of course, say no to any of the above. However, if you contact me claiming to have exclusive access to Bram Stoker, I’d tell you to put him back where you found him and that Grave Robbery is so 1800s, darling…

Zompocalypse update…

24 Thursday May 2012

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Musings

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

addendum, Amazon, books, protagonist, Rachel Caine, zombie, Zombies


I have been quite impressed by the response to my Zombie post from two days ago. It seems to be a popular topic and a lot of people seem very interested in the concept of zombie’s as protagonists. Well, enough to have made yesterday the day of the largest number of views on this blog and get me some great comments both on the blog and in private.

There is an addendum to add to what I wrote however… I actually missed a zombie main protagonist/main character which I failed to mention. I actually remembered this almost seconds after I’d hit send… And what is embarressing about this is that it is by one of my favourite authors – Rachel Caine.

Yes, I had entirely forgotten about Caine’s Working Stiff, part of a new series she seems to be working on in which the main character (and I don’t think I am making any spoilers here…) is dead and reanimated.

Of course, the character in this is not a shambling zombie. In fact, she isn’t even at risk of rotting like many zombies (as I said in the previous post, zombies that want to stay looking good have to invest a lot of time in keeping themselves from decaying). The drug that keeps her alive also stops her from decaying. Her problems only occur when she is unable to take the drug on a regular basis for whatever reason because at that point she dies… The character is basically a normal human with normal human issues (she still needs to eat, still feels emotions, all that stuff) with the added issue that she is dead.

So, is she a zombie? If not, what is she? I am not sure I can quite decide for myself so I will leave it up to you to make your own mind up…

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