Modern Good Reads discussion

Same as the zombie topic? What is our fascination with the vampire? Why have they remained so popular?

The fascination for vampire fiction is that I see them as a damned gifting of super powers. You end up dying to become a vampire, and you have to drink blood to survive only at night, but you also have all these incredibly enhanced senses, speed and strength and sometimes other powers. That's the attraction, but they've been so overused that it's so refreshing to see a different take on the genre once in a while.

I love a new take on the Vampire mythology. I agree with Athanasios, the "damned" element is an important one; I take more winning over if this piece of the puzzle is left out. The Vampire Diaries is a good example - God, Demons, Souls... they don't seem to get much of a mention. The TV series is an ongoing tangle of plot twists and character turns though, so I have a soft spot for how inventive they've been in other areas.
Small self-plug - I have written a vampire novel too; one reviewer said "With the whole cannon of vampiric literature being so pervasive it is rare to find a story that avoids all the usual clichés, but this book manages to do just that." Which is nice...

I honestly think that people have ran out of ideas, hence the glut of stories about Vampires, zombies (and to a lesser extent) werewolves.

R.M.F wrote: "I honestly think that people have ran out of ideas, hence the glut of stories about Vampires, zombies (and to a lesser extent) werewolves."

There are a LOT of them about. But I don't think everyone has run out of ideas, I think a lot of writers are pushing the cliches until they get something interesting; it's a nice challenge - take this potentially over-written scenario and produce something new with it. Not everybody does, but occasionally someone finds an untapped vein and produces something golden.

Charlie wrote: "R.M.F wrote: "I honestly think that people have ran out of ideas, hence the glut of stories about Vampires, zombies (and to a lesser extent) werewolves."

There are a LOT of them about. But I don't..."

True, but for every nugget of gold, there is ten tonne of coal! Sometimes, you feel sorry for the trees that were hacked down for half those books.

Charlie wrote: "R.M.F wrote: "I honestly think that people have ran out of ideas, hence the glut of stories about Vampires, zombies (and to a lesser extent) werewolves."

There are a LOT of them about. But I don't..."

As a vampire author myself, I can say that I tried very hard to walk the line between avoiding the usual cliches of the genre while still creating vampires that would satisfy most readers' definition of such.

There are a lot of run-of-the-mill vampire novels out there, I agree. However, I find that most of them are obvious in their write-ups, so it's not that hard to find some that sound original. How well an original concept is pulled off is up to the skill of the author.

To me, the attraction of the vampire is both its recognizability (if that's a word) and its versatility. Vampires make great metaphors. They're like people, but not quite people, so you can explore all kinds of ideas through them. I particularly love the immortality of the vampire and the ability of examining characters from earlier time periods in the modern day. How much have they changed? How successfully have they adapted? To me, that can make for wonderful characterization.

In my own work, one of the challenges I set for myself was to make my vampires make sense. I wanted to create transformed human beings without resorting to "magic" as an explanation. Granted, I wound up employing a good bit of pseudo-science instead, but I really enjoyed the challenge of explaining the everyday details of a vampire's life. I like that, because most authors just gloss over all those details and concentrate on the super-powers. For me, the fun was taking the concept of the vampire and making it feel like they could really exist in our world.

Congratulations on your novel, Charles, I'll have to take a look at that. I'm always eager to find those gold nuggets among the coal!

Brian wrote: "Charlie wrote: "R.M.F wrote: "I honestly think that people have ran out of ideas, hence the glut of stories about Vampires, zombies (and to a lesser extent) werewolves."

There are a LOT of them ab..."

Thanks Brian, I'll be sure to return the favour! I tried not to read any new Vampire novels while I was writing mine, I was terrified that I would discover someone else had already used the ideas I'd had! But I'm working on a sequel now, and a bit more relaxed and confident in the world and mythology I've created.

Part of the reason the immortal monster keeps cycling into our literature over and over is *I'm going deep* our fascination with death, we romanticize it, poke fun at it, and Vampires, Werewolves, and even Zombies represent a way to cheat death, though zombies get the short end of the stick on that one, what with bits falling off and everything. Vampires myths have been in our culture forever, though I think Stoker set the ball rolling for the romanticized vampire. Dracula was a monster, but he was passionate and civilized, a motif which has been repeated to varying degrees since then.

I think it is a lot of different things which make them popular: Life after death, super human powers (in some cases), and immortality, among others. I have vampires as minor characters in my first novel, but enjoyed giving them a fresh spin.

I suppose Vampires and Werewolves offer a lot of room for conflict. One of the first things I was taught at college was "drama is conflict", so if you have a conflicted character then you've plenty of room for nice spoonfuls of drama. Maybe that's the secret to a badly drawn Werewolf or Vampire: one that's written with no inner conflict at all... Zombies are less conflicted, generally... Although the film "Warm Bodies" gives a zombie a fading consciousness, so there's always room for a new approach to an old idea.

Brian wrote: "Charlie wrote: "R.M.F wrote: "I honestly think that people have ran out of ideas, hence the glut of stories about Vampires, zombies (and to a lesser extent) werewolves."

There are a LOT of them ab..."

You could say the same about taxmen. Human, but not quite human! :)

You could say the same about taxmen. Human, but not quite human! :)

You may have found the next great horror archetype! That and lawyers! Though "Angel" used that idea quite well!

Brian wrote: "You could say the same about taxmen. Human, but not quite human! :)

You may have found the next great horror archetype! That and lawyers! Though "Angel" used that idea quite well!"

Add accountants to that list as well!

Maybe I'm being pessimistic, but publishers and movie makers do tend to stick to formulae that have worked in the past and been commercially successful. There's a reluctance to change and dare to try something different. And some authors will be tempted to jump on the bandwagon ... until something new or different comes along and proves a hit with readers and movie-goers.

H.M. wrote: "Maybe I'm being pessimistic, but publishers and movie makers do tend to stick to formulae that have worked in the past and been commercially successful. There's a reluctance to change and dare to t..."

You're not being pessimistic, you're being truthful!

I am not a vampy person, but I will jump in anyway.

I like the struggle between huamnity and inhumanity. The problem with vamp fic, especially what I have read of Anne Rice's work, is that the vamps are not human enough or not alien enough (also too much porn). Ironically, there is an erotic vamp series that actually did a great job of exploringcthe humanity and alienation issue.

Me, I like my vampire as monsters. They may masquerade as elegant creatures...but they are monsters.

Michelle wrote: "I am not a vampy person, but I will jump in anyway.

I like the struggle between huamnity and inhumanity. The problem with vamp fic, especially what I have read of Anne Rice's work, is that the va..."

Thanks, Michelle! All opinions are welcome!

Vampires, the ideas of them have been beaten to death, figuratively. We have the same Protagonists and the same Antagonists wrapped in different names and situations. The originality of their existence has gone missing. The indie writers have to unearth a new spectacular monster around a story to keep my interest. I stopped buying these type of books a few years ago!

Erich wrote: "Vampires, the ideas of them have been beaten to death, figuratively. We have the same Protagonists and the same Antagonists wrapped in different names and situations. The originality of their exist..."

I agree with this to some extent; unfortunately the people who are pretty much re-hashing the same characters and relationship conflicts are spoiling the vampire fun for the rest of us. I know that the people who are sick of Twilight, True Blood, Vampire Diaries, who have had quite enough of the love-lorn sparkles and dark brooding, will probably not give my book a chance, even though there is zero glittering, brooding or love-lorning. There is toothpaste. There are cowpats. And there is feeding on human blood, but come on - you can't toss the baby out with the bathwater.

It's weird how people seem to feel about vampires though... Every agent I approached with my book said that the genre was pretty much dead on its feet and I should try another direction, whilst TV writer John Warburton was asked to insert them into his entirely non-supernatural new sitcom... (http://m.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/ju...)
Clearly the non-creative TV types still feel there's some life in the undead yet... And I do too - I just wish that the books getting the coverage and the support were doing a bit more to mess with the cliches.

Meanwhile I am going to work on that new and spectacular monster you mentioned. I have one lurking in the back of my mind. He's pretty awesome.

Bring me a new monster, lurking or slithering, I will wait for it and read it. The way of Africa's Cannibals is eating the flesh and drinking the blood. So be awesome in your writing.

Brian wrote: "Same as the zombie topic? What is our fascination with the vampire? Why have they remained so popular?"

As humans we are obsessed with immortality...the idea that you can cheat death *thoughtful look*...mmm...

Remember the times as children, we were so deliciously scared of ghost and monsters. Remember when everyone started the Vampire era, Bela Lugosy, the master of te blood suckers. The one point a writer of Vampire stories has, he does not have to base or incorporate the story into a specific era. All he needs is a fantasy willing to conjure up a sequence of events. No matter that the Protagonist or Antagonist is a Vampire. Imagination based on previous stories is readily available. There is a reader for everything, there is also a life expectancy for everything, even any genre that has been in circulation.

R.M.F wrote: "I honestly think that people have ran out of ideas, hence the glut of stories about Vampires, zombies (and to a lesser extent) werewolves."
Oh please, it's obvious people are jumping on the band wagon, not running out of ideas.

I think it's the sexual and animal nature of vampires in general. Ravishing, blood lust, living forever, never aging...it's taboo to love it, and everyone loves taboo.

In recent history it seems that people are very very focused on the hyper sexual nature of the vampire myth. TV shows and movies use a vamp character as an excuse to have gratuitous nudity and sex every 5-10 minutes. I feel much differently personally. I have always enjoyed them because of the fear they can illicit if treated properly. An elegant, pitiless killing machine that is so fast and so quiet you'll never know when its about to sneak up and chew your face off.

It's their certain traits that set them apart as supernaturals/or unnatural beings speed,strength, (depending on which vampire stories you read), the various super powers etc. but aside from all that it's the qualities that we share...that in some cases vampires do better than humans...expression of humanity, heightened capacity of love and equally hate, over protective nature towards their loved ones and as a result they harbour vengeful and vindictive qualities.

Yes I think it is a craze as well, but it will always come in and out of fashion. As long as there is a good vampire story out there on the market the vampire myth will continue to entice fans/readers.

I can say how vampires are seen in symbolic terms, seen through theories such as Post-Colonialism, Feminism, Psychoanalytic Criticism and Marxist Criticism.

Let's think about the perspective through which vampires were born, the 'real, original vampire Count Vlad, known in Literature as Dracula: what Literature made of this real historical character, a man who fought on the side of the very literary tradition that them transformed him into a 'monster' the Western, Christian tradition... Through a bit of fantasy, he was made to challenge God Him/Herself, thus repeating Satan's sin, by which he was punished to eternal damnation in life in death. He was also expelled from the family of Christ and made to roam a land inhabited by the very people he had fought ahgainst: non-Christians. Vampires represent our fear of the other, whether they were people of different ethnicity (one hopes most of us have got over it), of femininity (see Jane Eyre and The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination) and, even more the fear that we can become like them, now mainly applied to gay men.

Vampires become the receptacle of our fears while allowing us to fantasise about the very people we are afraid of.

Oh, come on folks. We're talking romance and fantasy. Think James Dean with fangs. Vampires are the ultimate 'bad boys'!