R.I.P. Corey Haim (1971-2010)

The Lost Boys was an archetypal eighties vampire movie. Released in 1987 (the same year as Near Dark) the Lost Boys combined teenage chic and vampire menace with a classic tale of outsiders standing up for themselves and brothers looking after each other.

Corey Haim played the younger brother, Sam. But life imitated art when Haim was introduced to drugs on the set of the Lost Boys. The drugs plagued and it seems finally took his life, at the age of 38. Unlike the fictional vampires, drugs were a monster he fought but ultimately succumbed too. Corey Haim was found dead in his mother's apartment, from an apparent overdose.

5 Worst Vampire Covers

This is my round up of my least favorite covers of vampire novels. You can click on the pictures to see them at a larger size.

#5) Bloodcircle

This cover isn't terrible but it stands in for the common sort of lazy cliched and poorly executed covers put on vampire novels. In fact PN Elrod book seems to be particularly prone to them. However the art on this cover isn;t very good either, and the composition looks like a bad photo mash-up, made more perplexing by the fact that it is fully painted.

I get that they want an identifiable vampire on the cover. But of the protagonist does not have pointed ears, gray skin or fangs like a starving viper, painting him this way is just silly. Also when the book is a cross over vampire/detective novel surely at least one element indicating detective fiction should appear?


#4) A Clash of Fangs

"Do you think they can tell I just drew the fang on?"
"No, dude. It's like totally seamless"

I am also wondering on what planet Mr. Mullet is mean to be a sexy gay romance hero? And of course the plain white circle standing in, presumably, for the moon just ties it all together (not).

But speaking of other planets....


#3) Tomorrow Sucks

The title sucks. The tag line ("SF in a Jugular Vein") sucks. The cover is a collection of vampire and sci fi cliched assembled into a whole that is worse than the sum of its parts.

Which is sad because this is a pretty good anthology of some classic stories.

#2) The Last Vampire
Like my first one this kind of stands in for a type of cover. One that takes a piece of crappy art and tries to make it not so bad by making it small and/or applying a cheap trick like reversing colours, zapping it with nuclear level of saturation--or as in this case mirroring it to make it kind of look like a face. Only not really. If the font is big enough, raised and metallic and celebrity authors are being quoted, nobody will notice how rubbish the art is, right?

#1) They Thirst
But for full bore, unmitigated, 24-carat ugly I don't think anything can beat this.

The idea of undead monsters shambling around town isn't half as scary as this combination of silver, yellow and purple.

I can only imagine this is meant to depict just how bad jaundice and facial acne can get if you are immortal.

Just to be fair, watch out for my post on 'Five Best Vampire Book Covers'. If you have a most or least favorite vampire cover, please let me know!

Website or blog?

Blogger now has a function to create "pages". I am considering moving the reviews currently on my website to this blog. They would be easier to update as blog pages. But I wonder if they are easier to find on my website. Any suggestions?

TOMORROW SUCKS greg cox & t k f weisskopf [eds]

This review is part of a blog review book chain. The previous link is Foucault's Pendulum and the next link is Shades of Twilight.

Tomorrow Sucks: in the introduction of this vampire sci fi themed collection, Greg Cox makes an interesting suggestion. He writes that after science fiction explanations could be used "vampires didn't have to be evil anymore. No longer a creature of hell by definition vampires could be villains, victims, or even heroes."

I certainly agree that vampire fiction has changed in this way but I wonder how much is due to encroaching science, and how much is just waning religiosity--as fantasy/magic-based vampirism remains a more common theme than any kind of plausible speculative science.

Regardless, this anthology of stories dating from 1933 to 1988 is a pretty good introduction to short stories on the intersections of vampire fiction and science fiction.

Several of the better stories lost something by being in a vampire anthology as it spoiled a twist of the plot. But in each case the story, by an established master, stood up well (e.g. And Not Quite Human by Joe L Hensley, Pyotr's Story by Spider Robinson).

Some of the stories effectively used the vampire to illuminated some kind concept about humanity. Such as Ray Bradbury's Pillar of Fire in which the last vampire awakes in a utopia without lies, crimes, graveyards... novels, imagination or belief. The Stainless Steel Leech by Roger Zelazny shows how the last vampire passes on his nature to a cybernetic future. And Shambleau by CL Moore is just a great evocation of the horror and desire a vampiric creature could produce.

Two of the stories explore an alternative version of the word and centre around romances. Both The Man Who Loved a Vampire Lady by Brian Stableford and Leechcraft by Susan Petry give a window into worlds they authors explored more fully in later novels.

There were three other stories in the anthology that fell rather flat with me as did the second editors postscript which I feel would have been more successful as a second introduction, but--for me--7/11 is a good hit rate for enjoying an anthology. Overall this book is well worth reading if only to see so many high-powered writers put their own twist in the vampire mythos.

3.5/5

SABELLA tanith lee

Sabella is one of the earliest vampire books that I read, and it is written at an fairly accessible YA level. The basic story is of Sabella struggling with her desires and guilt over her victims. She does not understand why she is different from everyone else, but does what she can to survive--including using sex to exploit men. The setting is on another planet with all those rich, exotic details that Lee writes so well.

[SPOILERS FOLLOW]

My reaction as a young girl is pretty much the same as it is now. As viable as the ending might be, the solution to Sabella's problems is literal subordination to a man of her own kind. She is cows down to him, or goes on killing other men--these are her only options. This just makes me acutely uncomfortable. I guess Sabella is just the Twilight of my generation.
[END SPOILERS]

I give Sabella 3/5 for the readability and quality of writing. Sabella is a real vampire to the point that she kills to live and struggles with her own morality. But it would be an 4 if I hadn't hated the ending so much--which is just a visceral thing and most other people would probably not react to it like I did.

RATING: 3/5

Amazon: 4/5

RUNNING AVERAGE: 3.5/5

A Self-Promotional Interlude

Strangely enough, I have been posting on this blog for a while and not yet mentioned any of my own vampire fiction. Bad author, missing a chance for self-promotion. Of course there will be no review and no rating, but here is the cover and blurb.

The Wicca Man: Tongue-Tied
by Emily Veinglory

When Sean, a conservative psychology professor, is cornered one night by a very buff creature of the night, he does the first thing he can think of. Casts a spell. Not just any spell. A love spell. And it works.

Now the vampire, Thane, is head over heels for Sean and causing chaos in his life. Even worse, Sean’s falling in love with him, too. But is it real or just the magic?

The witches are pissed Sean used coercive black magic. The vampires want Thane back. And Sean knows, if you love something, you’ve got to set it free. If it comes back, it’s meant to be, right? The only problem is, the being he’s setting free is a bloodthirsty vampire, and there’s a lot more at stake than just matters of the heart.

...I am currently working on the sequel: The Wicca Born II--Blood Borne