"I've got a lot of patience, baby": the story behind the dedication of The Girls with Games of Blood

My first Memphis vampire novel, Blood Groove, was dedicated to the memory of Duncan Browne (read why here). Browne remains a fairly obscure musical figure, although I hope I've nudged a few people toward seeking out his work. But The Girls with Games of Blood is dedicated to one much better known, whose songs helped define the Sixties, even if those songs were performed by other people.

Laura Nyro wrote classics: "Eli's Coming," "And When I Die," "Stoney End," "Wedding Bell Blues." And while her versions languished in relative obscurity, cover versions (Three Dog Night, Blood, Sweat and Tears, Barbra Streisand, The Fifth Dimension) were enormous hits, insuring both her reputation and her economic security. Safe from the pressures of commercial hitmaking, she created a piano-driven, soul-based body of work that, in its willful difficulty and self-referential symbolism, predated similar performers (most notably Tori Amos) by twenty years. Tragically, she died of ovarian cancer in 1997 at age 49, the same age her mother died of the same disease.

In The Mansion on the Hill: Dylan, Young, Geffen, Springsteen and the Head-On Collision of Rock and Commerce, Fred Goodman describes her thus:

"[Laura] Nyro, who resembled a chunky Morticia Addams, was both unusually talented and just plain unusual. Dressed in black with her long hair reaching down to her thighs, Nyro wore purple lipstick and used Christmas tree ornaments as earrings." (p. 122)



I had written an early draft of Blood Groove just before Goodman's book came out in 1998, and was toying with the idea of a sequel based on the idea of two girl vampires fighting over Zginski. There was no story yet, and no clear concept of the new characters. But the description in Goodman's book stuck with me.

I had a passing familiarity with Nyro's work, but I followed my new obsession where it took me and began listening intently. In the larger sense, it exposed me to a lot of awesome music I might otherwise have missed (does anything evoke a lazy, woozy summer afternoon better than "Stoned Soul Picnic"?). And in the song "When I was a Freeport and You were the Main Drag," I found this:

Well I've got a lot of patience, baby
That's a lot of patience to lose

Somehow the image from Goodman's book clicked with this snippet of lyric and created, full-blown in one burst, the character of Patience (as well as providing her onstage catchphrase). She's not a direct copy of Nyro, of course; in fact, she ultimately has very little in common with her inspiration beyond a basic physical resemblance. But without Laura Nyro, there would be no Patience Bolade. And without Patience, there would be no Girls with Games of Blood.

Nyro performing "Save the Country" on TV in 1969:



Leave a comment on the last vintage musician you rediscovered and you might win a signed copy of the new book.

Release day for THE GIRLS WITH GAMES OF BLOOD!

It's release day for The Girls with Games of Blood, the follow-up to my first Memphis vampire book, Blood Groove.

When Blood Groove came out last year, I of course checked at my local Barnes and Noble to see if they carried it. I was disappointed at first not to see it among the other vampire novels in the Sci Fi/Horror section, so I asked if they planned to stock it. The clerk said it was in stock, shelved in the Literature Section.

Literature?

Okay, first let me say, that's flattering. Certainly I'd like to think I write literature. Still, Blood Groove is about vampires: hard core, drink-your-blood-and-toss-your-wasted-carcass-aside undead. It's not romance, it's not light, and it's certainly not heartwarming. The audience for the average literary novel would be blindsided, I fear, by its contents (see this recent review).

I asked how this classification was determined, and was told it was done at the corporate level. So apparently someone at Barnes and Noble HQ thinks I belong just before Lucy Jane Bledsoe (The Big Bang Symphony: a novel of Antarctica). Which, again, is flattering. Publisher's Weekly says about her book, "Bledsoe finds the spark of life amid the ice and desolation." Heck, that could almost work for mine as well.

The point to this little post is, if you go to Barnes and Noble to find The Girls with Games of Blood (and you should; you know you want to), don't look with the other vampire books. Check in literature, under "B," next to Lucy Jane.

Exclusive new Memphis Vampires short story

As a thank-you to all the folks who enjoyed Blood Groove, and in anticipation of the release tomorrow of The Girls with Games of Blood, here's the first part of a short story that takes place between the two books. You can read the whole thing on my website here.

J'OUBLIE

(c) 2010 Alex Bledsoe

Memphis State University, late summer, 1975

"You again," the sour librarian said as she looked up.

"Yes," Alisa Cassidy said, "me again." She struggled to smile despite the stab of pain. Six months, the doctors said, and that's if she put herself in their hands, which she refused to do. Lying bald in a hospital bed was not how she wanted to go. She had no patience for this wrinkled old crone's little power trip, but it was a barrier that had to be negotiated if she wanted to reach her goal. She added helpfully, "I called ahead."

"Oh, I know," the librarian said as she rose from her seat. Her long, spindly limbs made her resemble some insect unfolding; her tall beehive hairdo added to the effect. "I have it ready for you."

Alisa dearly wished Mrs. Cutlip, the former librarian, was still alive. For that matter, she supposed, so did Mrs. Cutlip. This replacement, brought in from one of the state system's outlying campuses, seemed determined to make Alisa's remaining time as miserable as possible. Whereas Mrs. Cutlip was always glad to see her and never insisted on the protocol of appointments, this bitter artifact was a stickler for meaningless details.

Alisa followed her to the Special Collections reading room, where the book waited for her. It sat on the pristine table like a fat, well-fed slug, its leather cover swollen with mildewed padding. The metal clasp and hinges were green with corrosion, and a black patch on the spine showed where someone had once attempted to burn it. The antiseptic confines of the rare book reading room made it look even more rancid. The thought of touching it again always made Alisa's stomach turn.

"Wear these," the librarian said, indicating a box of disposable cotton gloves. She looked disdainfully at the book, then at the woman who dared to consult it. "This book is the work of the devil, you know."

"So I've heard," Alisa said. Every time I talk to you, she added in her head.

"You can't study it and not be affected by it. It wouldn't surprise me if that's why you got cancer."

Alisa's head snapped up, and the glare she gave the old woman was the first thing that had ever cracked the hag's smug superiority. "If you'll excuse me," Alisa said through her teeth, "I have work to do."

The librarian scurried out. Alisa trembled with suppressed rage and almost dropped the contents of her briefcase all over the floor. She sat and took several deep breaths, fighting the tears burning behind her eyes. It was a small campus, so naturally word got around about things like a faculty member with a terminal illness. Still, how do you justify calling yourself a Christian when you say things like that?

Alisa struggled to concentrate on the book before her: the Festa Magotta, a.k.a. the "Feast of Maggots." She put on the gloves and turned the pair of metal clasps. She lifted the cover and scowled at the puff of noxious odor that escaped.

She consulted her notes and began turning the heavy, stiff pages. Translating this book was her life's goal, and since that timetable was now significantly shortened, she had no time to waste.

She reached the point where she had stopped at her last session and turned the next page. Tucked into the fold was a thin stack of paper, of a much more recent vintage and covered with handwriting in English. She held her breath and leaned close, discerning the words "horror," "insanity" and "poodle."

She looked over her shoulder. If the mantis-librarian saw this, she'd snatch the papers away and Alisa might not see them again for months--months she didn't have. So she carefully pulled them out, hid them among her own papers and began to read....

Read the rest of the story here.

And you can order your copy of The Girls with Games of Blood here.

I finally answer THE vampire author question

As an author of books about vampires, I get asked one question more than any other, at signings and conventions and neighborhood cookouts: "So, what do you think about Twilight?" It's become a litmus test of sorts.

So I thought I'd answer it here, for the record, in handy condensed form. What do I think of Twilight?

I haven't read Twilight. None of them. My wife read them, but I haven't. So I can't speak to Stephanie Meyer's skill (or alleged lack of) as a writer.

I have seen the first movie. I thought Kristin Stewart was too intelligent and powerful an actress to play such a passive role, and it appears her recent performance as Joan Jett has proven me right. I thought the high school scenes really felt like high school. I thought the Cullens, in their albino-ish glory, were ridiculous, and as a parent I was appalled at both the way Bella's mother treated her, and the way she treated her father. But I was clearly not the intended demographic. In fact, never in my life have I felt less like the target audience.

But....

I understand the appeal. It's the same thing that lies behind the enduring presence of Dracula, and Lestat, and even Bill from True Blood. Whatever her other shortcomings as a writer, Meyer understands that vampires are at their best when they function as metaphors.

When Dracula was first published, the grim Count personified the fears of his time. Women were beginning to demand rights, including the right to enjoy sex, so rigid traditionalist Stoker demonstrated what happens to women who do so. London was inundated with immigrants, so Stoker showed the dangers of foreigners. I'm not saying he was right about either of these things, or even that he did this consciously. But Dracula stood in for the real-world terrors of its English readers in a way that his literary predecessors (Polidori's Lord Ruthven, Varney the Vampire, LeFanu's Carmilla) never did.

It was nearly a century before another literary vampire appeared who managed the same trick. Anne Rice's Lestat, in his loneliness and narcissism, perfectly captured the alienation of the "wide-open" Seventies when he appeared in 1976. Using vampires to address the AIDS crisis never really created a single unifying figure, but True Blood equates vampirism with the issues of homosexuals trying to fit into society, especially in the alternately embraced and ostracized Bill Compton.

And significantly, in none of these stories are the vampires our point-of-view characters. Dracula is told from many perspectives, but never from the Count's. We see Lestat through the eyes of his protege', Louis (I know this changes in later novels, but that's a different topic). True Blood's main character is psychic waitress Sookie Stackhouse.

Which brings us to Twilight.

It's beyond obvious that Edward Cullen represents Bella's desire for, and fear of, sexual intimacy. What gets missed in a lot of the "I hate Twilight" discussions is just how powerful a metaphor this is. It taps into a universal experience--well, universal for half the human race--and presents it in a way that allows the reader (and it's safe to say most of them are female) to identify with Bella on a fundamental level. We see Edward through her eyes, and if parts of the relationship seem a little squirrelly from our perspective (he's how old, and he's watching a teenage girl while she sleeps?), we understand why she feels like she does. Thus the criticism of her as a weak, passive character is really beside the point: this story couldn't happen to anyone else.

So at the risk of taking a beating, I'll make the statement that Twilight works for readers the same way Dracula, Interview with a Vampire and True Blood works. It personifies what they fear most in a way that lets them safely work through that fear.

There. And for reading this far, here's a little tune as a reward. My friend Fred Schepartz first alerted me to this.

What I love most about vampires is...

The Madison Vampire Coven consists of...wait for it...authors based in and around Madison, WI who write about vampires. Currently we have four members, and I asked each to complete the following statement.

What I love most about vampires is...

Jordan Castillo Price, author of Hemavore:

"What I love most about vampires is their vulnerability. I think the ways in which vampires can be harmed are much more interesting than their powers. Depending on which mythologies you draw from, your vampire characters could be vulnerable to sunlight, running water, garlic, or holy relics, just to name a few things. Spin these vulnerabilities into your storyline and you could end up with some really fun elements. What about a vampire who makes a living selling "native earth" to other vampires online? Or maybe an As-Seen-On-TV acupressure bracelet that allows vamps to cross bridges over streams and rivers without freaking out? Vampire weaknesses allow for really compelling world building."

Anna Black, author of "The Temptation of Mlle. Marielle Doucette," found in The Sweetest Kiss: Ravishing Vampire Erotica:

"What I love most about vampires is that as humans we can both envy and pity them. We can envy their immortality, fantastic strength, hypnotic power and, in some cases, their preternatural beauty. We can yearn to be like them and yet, at the same time, shun and even dread becoming one of them. That is where pity comes into play. We can pity their isolation from humanity and, possibly, each other. We can acknowledge that even as they are envied they are also hated and hunted. They are the shadowy reflection of our most impassioned and fearsome desires."

Fred Schepartz, author of Vampire Cabbie:

"What I love most about vampire is that they're so damn sexy. Even when they're not sexy, they're very sexy. They're hideous, but they're beautiful. They are that thing that we fear most, a creature above us on the food chain, a creature that means sure death or worse. And yet, they are so fascinating, we would just love to meet a real vampire sometime."

And yours truly, author of Blood Groove and, coming this July, The Girls with Games of Blood:

"What I like most about vampires is they can represent things in a way that makes us see them anew. Whether it's xenophobia and superstition (Dracula), loneliness and narcissism (Interview with the Vampire), or the terror of sexual relationships (Twilight), vampires stand in for things we otherwise don't want to acknowledge or discuss. In fact, I'd make the case that if a vampire isn't a metaphor for something else, there's no point in writing about them. The vampires that last are the ones who are more than just monsters."

Leave a comment completing the statement, "What I love most about vampires is..." for a chance to win a signed advance reader copy (ARC) of The Girls with Games of Blood. Deadline is May 14!

Review: a vampire suffragette in Alaya Johnson's Moonshine

I first heard about Moonshine when I was on a 2009 convention panel with its author, Alaya Johnson. The central conceit--in 1920s New York, a woman battles for the rights of vampires much as other suffragettes stood up for women and immigrants--fascinated me. My own vampire novels, Blood Groove and The Girls with Games of Blood, also draw parallels between the racial and gender tensions of the 70s and the identity crises faced by my vampires.

According to Johnson, Moonshine was originally titled Vampire Suffragette, which is a much more accurate, if unwieldy, title. Zephyr Hollis is a Montana girl trained to kill vampires (and various additional creatures grouped under the name "Others") who has a change of heart and begins fighting for their right to co-exist with humans. A genie named Amir wants her help in tracking down the mysterious vampire gangster Rinaldo, who is flooding the city with Faust, a blood-based drink that leaves vampires addicted and vulnerable to the sun.

The book works because of the narrator's delightful, spunky voice. Zephyr is a compelling character, and her drive to help others (and Others) is blessedly devoid of self-pity or martyrdom. She stays true to her principles no matter what. Whether teaching a night class for vampire immigrants, helping the father of a part-fairy child get the illegal surgery his offspring needs, or defending an injured vampire from an angry mob, Zephyr demonstrates remarkable courage and resourcefulness. Some of her language seems disconcertingly modern, though (her use of "fuck," for example, or the word "clone"; at one point she threatens to kill "all your sorry asses" and says an opponent "face-planted into the cold rock").

The one big disappointment for me--and it's a matter of my own expectations rather than a failure by the author--is the overall lightness of tone. After talking with Ms. Johnson, I expected something darker and heavier. The dreariness of Zephyr's existence and the inherent hopelessness of her cause(s) are glossed over by clever banter and rollicking action scenes (since she's been raised to be a slayer--here called Defenders--there's a lot of swordplay). Zephyr's voice never allows the true despair of the ones she tries to help to come through, and thus her nobility seems somehow...shallow. She remains outside the true tragedies around her. Further, romance is a big element of the story, and while I have nothing against that (and it's handled well here), it again works at cross-purposes to the depth I expected. A male hero can have a cause so important it makes romance incidental; why not a female hero?

But this is judging the book against standards it never tries to meet in the first place. Moonlight is a fun read, with an engaging heroine and a world rich enough to sustain several subsequent adventures. If those adventures grow darker, make the parallel between immigrant and Other more tied to reality, and break down the barriers between Zephyr and her charges, then so much the better. But at least next time, I'll have a better idea of what I'm getting.

Moonshine will be released May 11, 2010.

Belatedly, Dracula The Un-Dead

Before we start, a caveat. Sequels to classic novels, written long after the fact by new writers, annoy me. It's one thing to be influenced by the classics, it's quite another to co-opt settings, characters and atmosphere (the heavy lifting of writing) to bring life to your own derivative plot. It's worst of all when capped by the hubris to claim something is "THE sequel to..." as opposed to "A sequel to..."

I'm a huge fan of Bram Stoker's original novel Dracula. Not a scholar: I leave that to smarter folk. But I read it at least once a year, usually around Halloween, and when I wrote my own vampire novels (Blood Groove and The Girls with Games of Blood) I referred to it constantly because it's the gold standard.

Which brings me to Dracula: The Un-Dead, released just before Halloween 2009 and touted as THE official sequel.

It seems to be less a follow-up to Bram Stoker's Dracula than to Bram Stoker's Dracula, Francis Coppolla's 1992 bodice-ripping version of the story. For example, the book accepts the film's connection of Renfield to Jonathan Harker's law firm, something the Stoker novel never mentions. Lucy Westernra's hair is described as red, as in the film but never in Stoker. Some descriptions sound like instructions to the CGI crew: "Their eyes turned black; their fangs elongated." In Stoker, no transformation is so blatantly described, which creates an even more powerful ambiguity. And Mina, who in the novel suffered only one symbolic rape, is depicted--again as in the movie--as having succumbed willingly to Dracula's charms.

Worse is that the authors, perhaps playing into the currently-marketable "dark" trend, have the original heroes who defeated Dracula ruined by the psychological after-effects of their experience. These noble men, who in Stoker always tried to do the right thing even at great risk, are now drunks (Jonathan Harker), drug addicts (Jack Seward), whiners (Arthur Holmwood) and hypocrites (Van Helsing). The authors also manage to throw in random bits of Victoriana and vampiric history; thus Elisabeth Bathory, the "blood countess," is a character, Jack the Ripper is invoked, and even the Loch Ness Monster gets his moment.

Then there's the wink-wink-nudge-nudge series of in-jokes, in which minor characters are named after famous actors who have played the Count: policemen named (Raymond) Huntley, (Louis) Jourdan and (Christopher) Lee, a Dr. (Frank) Langella and so forth. And a final revelation, straight from The Empire Strikes Back, that's so foreshadowed it becomes laughable.

There's a weird "meta" aspect as well. Bram Stoker is a character, and his novel Dracula exists in the story's reality. Quincey Harker, ostensibly our hero, thus reads about his parents' adventures in a book the author (within the sequel to his own book) stresses is a novel. So this book literally can't be a sequel to the original, since the original was not the "true" story. And Dracula, in his guise as the actor Basarab, finagles his way into playing the character Dracula in the stage version of Stoker's novel.

And the thing is, none of this works if you're a true fan of the original book. It becomes a pile of meaningless references, in-jokes and pandering to the current vogue in vampire action and romance. It's a cash-in, packaged and presented as a literary event but, with scenes such as a katana-wielding Mina battling a flying female vampire on the streets of London, plainly more interested in getting that big-bucks movie deal. Hell, it even turns out that Dracula, one of literature's greatest villains, isn't a villain at all but a misunderstood hero. All that remains is for him to start drinking artificial blood and enroll in high school.

So who's behind this? According to the IMDB, co-author/screenwriter Ian Holt has two credits: a 2005 horror film called Dr. Chopper and, "in development"...you guessed it. In the novel's second afterword (the afterafterword?), Holt confirms that the book was originally planned as a screenplay, which explains its film-treatment feel. And Dacre Stoker, great-grand-nephew of Bram, seems to have been involved mainly because of his DNA. Both authors insist this sequel was a labor of love, but the cynic in me doubts that; this smacks of packaging, from the involvement of an erstwhile screenwriter to the overwhelming marketing push (tie-in Visa and MasterCard credit cards, for example).



I don't mean to say this is a badly written book. It's adequately written, if sloppily edited (on page 15, Elisabeth Bathory makes a small cut on a naked young woman's throat who's then hung upside down, yet according to the text Bathory's "otherworldly eyes remaining focused on the single drop of blood now sliding down her victim's chest." On page 185, someone is referred to in the narration as a "pour soul." And so on). No doubt most readers will find it adequate. If it had been presented as just another vampire novel, perhaps I would've found it adequate, too. Because I wanted to like it.

But at a time when I could've used a reminder that occasionally things are done for something other than monetary profit, that maybe someone wrote THE sequel to Dracula because they loved it as much as I do, I was instead reminded that, for many people, profit is the only reason for anything.

The Madison Vampire Coven strikes!

Last night, the Madison Vampire Coven had its second official Halloween reading, this year at Borders West. From left: me, Fred Schepartz (author of Vampire Cabbie and Jordan Castillo Price (author of the Psycop series).

(BTW, those aren't stains on my shirt, they're spots on the camera lens. I swear.)

Hammering the Count

Thanks to the patience of my wife, aka the mater familias, we've celebrated the Halloween season by marathoning Hammer's Dracula series. Starting with Horror of Dracula, we've watched Brides of Dracula, Dracula: Prince of Darkness, Dracula has Risen from the Grave and most recently Taste the Blood of Dracula.

I've seen all these films before, but this is the first time I've watched them in sequence, and close together. And you know what?

Hammer seriously dropped the ball.

No, really. They got a lot of things right: atmosphere, suspense, music. But they blew it all in the story department.

How? By making a dozen successful Dracula movies, and making none of them about Dracula.

This is doubly sad since they had a definitive Dracula, Christopher Lee, in harness. Tall, good-looking, with a tremendous voice, he was an ace just waiting to be played. Yet he never was. He became simply a standard monster, who more often than not had little motivation for his actions. And that voice? Relegated to a few lines per film (hell, in Dracula: Prince of Darkness he doesn't say a word). In most of the series he never even has a conversation with another character. He stalks through the films, cape aswirl, beckoning young women to their doom. And that's about it.



It says something about Lee's onscreen presence that, despite these restrictions, you remember him so vividly. To see just how good an actor he was at this stage in his career, you have to track down films where he played secondary roles, such as The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll for Hammer, or his turn as Mycroft in The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. He could be charming, funny, relaxed and debonair. Yet his signature role took advantage of none of this.

As I said, this isn't news to anyone, especially Lee. He's gone on at length about how he struggled to get screenwriters (particularly John Elder, the pseudonym for Hammer producer Anthony Hinds) to do more with the character. But Hammer, one of the last "factory" studios, thought it knew what sold, and so kept using Dracula as a boogeyman in tedious stories about youth both Victorian and (in Dracula AD 1972 and The Satanic Rites of Dracula) contemporary. Or, as the mater familias put it when the films would cut from Dracula to one of these nondescript period teens: "Oh, God, not more character development."

With the current vampire craze, as well as the seemingly unending cycle of horror sequels and remakes, it's interesting that no one's tried a new series with someone like Gerard Butler (who played the Count in Dracula 2000 but not its sequels). Hopefully if this happens, they'll let the actor do more than walk through musty sets sporting red contact lenses and melted-crayon blood.



Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Interview: Dracula expert Elizabeth Miller

If you watch the History, Discovery or National Geographic channels around Halloween, when all things vampiric and Draculoric are fair game, you’ve probably seen and heard Dr. Elizabeth Miller. She is an expert on Bram Stoker and the novel Dracula, including its history and inspirations. Her many published books include Bram Stoker's Notes for Dracula: A Facsimile Edition, and Dracula: Sense & Nonsense. Professor Miller was kind enough to answer some questions for me regarding vampires in folklore and literature.

Alex: It seems as if the vampire in traditional folklore was seldom a fully conscious, will-directed creature. At what point did they become so in the popular imagination?

Dr. Miller: This started to happen as the vampire migrated from folklore to literature. The 18th-century reports about vampire sightings in central and eastern Europe coincided with (and may have contributed to) a rising interest in Gothic literature, first in Germany and later in the century, in England. The Gothic movement was part of the broader period of Romanticism, with its challenges to rationalism and its shift of philosophical emphasis to subjectivity, emotion, intuition and the imagination. The adoption of the figure of the vampire was inevitable. Appearing first as a type of "demon lover" in German poetry, the vampire made its way to England where it was embraced by the Romantic poets and shapeshifted into a full-blown aristocrat.

Dracula is the gold standard, but not the first "aristo-vampire." What prompted this shift from peasant revenent to high-born demon?

The first vampire fiction in English literature was The Vampyre. Published in 1819, The Vampyre was written by John William Polidori, who had served as Lord Byron's personal physician for a time until disputes brought an end to the relationship. Polidori clearly modeled his vampire, Lord Ruthven, on Byron. That, along with the fact that many thought that Byron had written the story, gave it instant popularity. It began what was essentially a "vampire craze" in the theatres of London and Paris during the 1820s. Lord Ruthven is the prototype of the aristocratic vampire.

During the 19th century, interest in the vampire continued, with Polidori's Ruthven as the model. By the time Bram Stoker started Dracula, a number of literary conventions for the vampire were already in place: the vampire is of an old, aristocratic (and usually foreign) family; the vampire is tall, dark, spectral, and dressed in black; the vampire possesses sharp fangs which leave two bite marks on the victim; the vampire is a creature of unusual physical strength; the vampire has a strong seductive power over women; the victim's response to the vampire is ambivalent, revealing both attraction and repulsion; and the most effective way to destroy a vampire is to drive a wooden stake through its heart.

In my research folkloric vampires seem to be solitary creatures often linked to their families, yet the film version of In Search of Dracula (based on the landmark book by Raymond T. McNally and Radu Florescu) says vampires meet on St. Andrew's Eve (November 29). Is this legitimate folklore? If so, why did the vampires meet?

I have no idea of the source of the statement re vampires meeting on St Andrew's Eve. I know that it is widespread in general folklore that evil is at its strongest on the eve of a saint's day. Indeed, Stoker encountered such a piece of lore in Transylvanian Superstitions by Emily Gerard (1885). She stated that St George's Eve was believed to be a time for the gathering of witches. No mention of vampires, however. Stoker uses this in his novel, with reference to "all the evil things in the world". I suspect the statement in the film was "wishful thinking."

There are many odd ways to identify and/or repel vampires. What's the strangest you've come across?

There are two that Stoker listed in his notes for Dracula but decided not to use in the novel:

"Painters cannot paint him - their likenesses always like someone else," and "Insensibility to music"

Vampires are now not just appealing to teenagers, but in the wake of the Twilight series they are teenagers. What do you see as future trends for the popular image of the vampire?

Vampires are likely to become so commonplace that they will lose much of their appeal. The down-side of romanticizing the vampire is that it loses the grip on that part of our imaginations that are attracted to horror.

Thanks to Professor Miller for answering my questions. You can find her newest work, Notes for Dracula, here.

My WisCon schedule

If you're attending WisCon 33 in Madison, WI this coming Memorial Day weekend, you can find me at the following:

SATURDAY

Panel: Where is the Goddess These Days? Sat 8:30 - 9:45AM in the Capitol A room.
Rhianna Moore, Melodie Bolt, Catherine Anne Crowe and me.
Description: Previous WisCons had many program items about Goddesses and Goddess spirituality. These have been rather lacking the last few years. Is the Goddess passé, or is She so accepted there is no reason to talk about her any more? Is there any new Goddess–oriented fantasy and science fiction we might be interested in discussing?

Reading: Boll Weevils Advance From The South, Eating Everything That Tries To Stop Them Sat 1:00 - 2:15PM in Conference 2 room.
Forrest John Aguirre, Mark D. Rich, Robert F. Wexler and me.
I'll be reading from Blood Groove and The Sword-Edged Blonde; if time permits, I might squeeze in something from the next Eddie LaCrosse novel, Burn Me Deadly.

SUNDAY

Panel: Is Regionalism Dead? Sun 8:30 - 9:45AM in the Senate A room.
David J. Schwartz, Catherine Cheek, Rich Novotney and me.
Description: Modern publishing technology (e.g., the Internet, desktop publishing) seems to have created a global village and shrunk the distances between major cultural centers and the far–flung places where some writers live. Yet some Canadian writers who submit to U.S. markets are regularly warned not to focus too much (if at all) on Canada, and rural writers in any country are given similar warnings about writing about their actual milieux, yet reader appetites for fiction set in New York, New Orleans, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, Tokyo or thinly–disguised versions of these cities are presumed to be unlimited. Let's discuss whether reality matches this perception.

Panel: The Care and Feeding of Your Vampire Sun 1:00 - 2:15PM in the Caucus room.
Fred Schepartz, Suzy Charnas, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Jordan Castillo Price and me.
Description: How do our favorite undead heroes come to life? Vampire writers reveal their dark secrets and give a blood to fangs description of how they create unforgettable vampires.

MONDAY

The SignOut Mon 11:30AM - 12:45PM in the Capitol/Wisconsin room.
I'll be available to sign books and chat about pretty much anything. Even if you don't have a book for me to sign, stop by and say hello.

Hope to see many of you there next weekend!

Interview: Katherine Ramsland, author of The Science of Vampires

Vampires are illogical, impossible creatures of superstition and ignorance. So when Katherine Ramsland approached them scientifically in The Science of Vampires, she faced an uphill battle to find plausible explanations for the various bits of common knowledge about bloodsucking fiends. Using the most up-to-date technology and forward-thinking theories, she actually brought some reality to these unreal beings, and I found her book very helpful as I worked on Blood Groove.



Dr. Ramsland was kind enough to answer a few of the questions about the reality of vampires, and their place in our popular consciousness.



Alex: If Anne Rice had not come along, would the popular image of the vampire post-Barnabas Collins still have developed into a mostly sympathetic character? In other words, did Rice create the moment, or was the moment inevitable and simply coincided with her work?

Dr. Ramsland: The moment was inevitable. No one creates a phenomenon by themselves; it all happened as the convergence of many forces. You're seeing something similar now with the Twilight series.

The Twilight series seems, culturally speaking, to simply move the idea of the sympathetic vampire into the teenage realm, which logic says would be a meaningless distinction to an immortal, whatever his chronological age when he's turned. What about the Twilight series makes it a fundamental change in the popular image of the vampire?

I see nothing in the Twilight series that advances or changes the image. It seems fairly stereotypical, but it's reaching an audience that hasn't seen much vampire substance in a while and just wants more vampire.

Is there any possible scientific validation for the concept of resurrecting a vampire by removing the stake from his/her heart?

No. The notion is a myth, with the superstitious folk idea of pinning a corpse into the coffin, to keep it from leaving. Fiction writers then gave it a spin. To say that science would support re-animation means you think an immortal vampire is possible.

If we accept that sunlight can destroy vampires, why wouldn't moonlight--reflected sunlight--do the same?

The notion of the sun's destruction comes from the sun being symbolic of God. The vampire's soul is supposedly damned - or actually, nonexistent - so exposure to God would destroy the vampire. It's not actually about exposure to light per se, or they'd explode in any lighted arena.

Is there any way to extrapolate what the long-term psychological changes might be in a consciousness capable of existing and maturing for longer than a single human lifetime?

Yes, of course. As with all of us, to sustain passion for life we must develop a sense of momentum into the future. That would mean a healthy dose of curiosity, a sense of challenge, and a sense of accomplishment as a satisfying reward. It also means the ability to plan and implement it, and an inner drive that has a self-renewing factor from the sheer energy of being alive. We see people who can barely sustain this into their 20s before they fade away into substance abuse and boredom. Others live to be over 100, with plenty of life-sustaining energy.

Do you think there's any special, specific mental or emotional quality, unique to this sort of creature, that would be especially necessary to sustain this inner drive over, say, centuries of conscious existence?

Perspective. The more you see and the more opportunities you have to broaden your sense of the world, the more perspective you acquire. Sometimes this also delivers wisdom, and wisdom generally feeds curiosity, which is the basis of passion. Someone with perspective understands that contentment is about appreciating what you have and paying forward to others when you can.

How do you see a vampire “paying forward?"

Not as a generous gesture but as a means of making their existence more interesting. I don't have specifics. Each one will do whatever his or her personality and situation dictate, which is also true for non-vampires.

Thanks to Dr. Ramsland for taking the time to answer these questions.

Past vampire-related posts

For new readers who might be interested, here's rundown of some of my older vampire-related blog posts:

A look at the 1943 classic Son of Dracula, in which a great film succeeds despite a totally miscast title character.

Five cool things about the classic novel Dracula that you might not know.

Steampunk bloodsuckers: review of the film Perfect Creature.

On rewriting Dracula for kids.

This Saturday is Vampire Day at Westgate Mall

If you're in the Madison, WI area this Saturday, May 2, come join us for Vampire Day at Ravenworks in Westgate Mall, on the corner of Odana Road and Whitney Way. At 12:30 I'll be reading from Blood Groove, and signing copies as well. There's also tarot readings, a "Makeup of the Macabre" session, and a costume contest.

Hope to see you there!

Blood Groove Release Day!

Today the "suave, creepy" (Publishers Weekly) vampires of my "edgy, enthralling, entertaining" (Library Journal) novel Blood Groove are released on an unsuspecting public. Pick up a copy and journey back to 1975 Memphis when the King still lived, Parliament was in session and the undead wore stacks, bell-bottoms and polyester.

Get a sneak peek of Chapter 1 over at Flames Rising.

Anyone who comments on this post between now and Friday will be entered in a drawing for a signed copy of Blood Groove.

Blood Groove video trailer

As promised last week, here's the short film based on my novel Blood Groove.



Written and directed by Lisa Stock. Featuring Catherine Mancuso. Music: "Bottle of Jack" by Colleen Grace, used by permission.

I'm interviewed at Patricia's Vampire Notes (and you can win an autographed book!)

It's one week from the release of my vampire novel Blood Groove, and today I'm interviewed at Patricia's Vampire Notes. You can also sign up for a chance to win a signed copy of Blood Groove. Be sure to stop by!

A second look at Love at First Bite

There's no doubt 2008 was a huge year for vampires, with the completion of the Twilight book series and the release of the first film, HBO's launch of True Blood, based on the Charlaine Harris books, and the surprise of Let the Right One In, a Swedish film based on John Ajvide Lindqvist's novel. But it still wasn't the biggest year for vampires.

That year was 1979, and the vampire in the spotlight was the king of them all. John Badham's revisionist Dracula, starring Frank Langella, competed with Werner Herzog's remake of Nosferatu, featuring Klaus Kinski. But the surprise winner, in box office terms, starred the tanned and vaguely smarmy George Hamilton: Love at First Bite.

The Badham and Herzog films have weathered the past three decades pretty well. Herzog's is considered a classic, and Badham's codified the popular notion of vampires as seducers more than slayers (Langella never even sports visible fangs). But the Hamilton film, directed by the forgotten Stan Dragoti (probably more famous for once being married to supermodel Cheryl Tiegs), was the popular success.

Seen today, the film is both crudely of its era and surprisingly timeless. The most dated aspect is racial humor so cliche'd it probably should've produced cringes even in 1979 (it didn't; I saw the film in the theater in Jackson, TN, and all of us of every race laughed our fool heads off). The stars of TV's The Jeffersons, Sherman Hemsley and Isabel Sanford, have cameos as, respectively, a hypocritical preacher and a tough-talking judge. A Puerto Rican family, starving because the father refuses to find work, mistakes Dracula in bat form for a "black chicken." And on the streets of Harlem, Dracula is referred to as a "honky" and a "mother."



But between these ill-advised bits are some surprisingly fun, deadpan scenes that retain their power to tickle. Central to this is that Hamilton plays Dracula mostly straight: no matter how silly the situation, the king of the vampires never loses his essential dignity. Even such groaners as Dracula getting drunk on a wino's blood, or being mistaken for a waiter due to his tux, work because Hamilton goes for the reality among the silliness.

Susan St. James, of McMillan and Wife and Kate and Allie, co-stars as Cindy Sondheim, the supermodel reincarnation of Dracula's great love. Much like Kate Capshaw in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, St. James is too much actress for the part: she takes an underwritten character and brings her to vivid life thanks to her own innate skill and intelligence. And actor (Goodbye Columbus)/director (My Favorite Year) Richard Benjamin goes beyond the comedic call of duty as psychiatrist Jeffrey Rosenberg (real name Van Helsing, but he changed it "for professional reasons"). The scene in which he and Dracula have a stare-off, each trying to hypnotize the other, is a highlight.

But ultimately the story is a romance, and a rather sweet one at that. The chemistry between Hamilton and St. James works like gangbusters, creating a subtle poignancy beneath the goofiness. It's closer to the tenderness of Young Frankenstein, in fact, than the crude slapstick of Dracula: Dead and Loving It. And it's that aspect that stays fresh no matter how much time passes.

A NOTE: In the theater, on TV and on videotape, Dracula and Cindy dance to the Alicia Bridges disco hit "I Love the Night Life" in arguably the film's best-known moment However, the DVD replaces the song with something generic and, presumably, cheaper. What's most annoying is that the trailer on the DVD does include the song. I sympathize with the DVD's producers for not wanting to shell out the no-doubt-astronomical geld for the music rights, but it's a significant loss to those of us who remember it. So here's the scene the way it should be:

(Follow the link: embedding disabled)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgtftS4MF0Y

Guest blogging at Magical Musings

Today I'm guest-blogging at Magical Musings on finding the essential core quality for my vampire characters. Stop by and say hi!

Speaking with the vamp from Vamp

Since vampires don't really exist, it's impossible for me, as the author of a vampire novel (Blood Groove, available April 28, 2009 from Tor), to chat with one. But I can talk with the next best thing: an actor who plays a vampire.



Kristin Forde portrays the heartbreaking vampire Angela in Ry Herman's play Vamp, performed by StageQ and the Mercury Theatre in Madison, WI through March 28, 2009. Jennifer Smith, in the Isthmus, says, "Whether you're gay, straight, a figment of someone's imagination, a member of the living dead or just plain human, Vamp is fresh and relatable." I saw the show, and I'll sign that, too.

Forde was kind enough to answer some vampire-specific questions about creating her character.

Alex: Both Chloe and Angela were victims of "monsters"; why do you think Angela became one herself, while Chloe remained a victim?

Kristin: I actually think that if you were to ask Chloe, she would tell you that she is also a monster. A different kind of monster, maybe one hiding in the closet, but a monster all the same. Chloe and Angela masked themselves differently. Angela self-identifies as a vampire and performs in life with a confident, attractive front knowing that her ability to attack lies just beneath the surface. Chloe hides in her apartment and spirals downward in depression and mental illness, alienating herself from friends. Her attraction to Angela, who makes it quite obvious that she is a vampire, allows this cycle to continue. I would claim that they are both monsters and each 100% responsible for the repeated patterns of perpetration and victimization, anger and depression.

In the first parable scene, there is a beautiful girl and a monster. At first glance, it seems the beautiful girl represents Chloe and the monster, Angela. In fact, the beautiful girl is Angela. Chloe is represented in the second parable scene when "the beautiful girl meets another beautiful girl." The beautiful girls are both victims who react differently. One runs away while the other attacks...both in an effort to defend themselves.

Another interpretation of the play which I have explored is that Angela is not real at all. She is similar to Jesus and Spunky Old Gal, an annoying character that exists in the plays Chloe reads, but takes on extra significance because Chloe is afraid of the next person she will fall in love with, without even knowing who that will be. Angela represents what she is afraid of. And in the end, Angela has a lesson to teach her as any trite character would.

Either way, I would suggest that Chloe is not simply the victim and Angela is not simply the monster.



Did you approach the character of Angela as if she were a real vampire, or did she simply believe she was a vampire? What aspects of the play's text influenced your choice?

I approached Angela's character as if she only believed she was a vampire. I decided this right away because it gave her more depth to work with. She truly believed she was a vampire so she lived by conventions and attributed all aspects of her being to her status as a vampire. This allowed me to explore the motivations and actions of a predator and as a vampire frustrated with her reality. Yet the story I was even more interested in was the story of self-created realities. Her status as a vampire, even her frustration with it, is actually a method for avoiding the very difficult place of healing. Only by becoming conscious of patterned, negative behavior and allowing herself to feel such heartbreaking emotion could she fully grasp her potential for living with free will.

Her 'healing' begins with Jesus' parable about the beautiful girl. He sends her a message that a monster only convinced her to believe that she was a monster. In fact, she just needed therapy! She continues by describing her experience with a vampire that sucked the love out of her and made her feel like she could never love anybody: "If I had loved her enough it would have been alright, but I couldn't do it. I didn't have it in me because I am bad." She breaks down with emotion. Later, she searches the sky for answers and Jesus meets her in the field. He tells her to "go home." She then takes over the puppet stage and tells her own story that goes beyond her first encounter with a monster. She speaks of behavior learned from parents and teachers, she confesses that she hated herself a long time ago "because she wasn't nice anymore." Again she breaks down: "Maybe I should shoot myself in the fucking head." At this moment, though, I believe she realizes that she doesn't have to kill her whole self; only the self-loathing and self-compromising monster living inside. In her poem, she says the hardest part about packing was "putting away the bondage gear." It was hard to set herself free from the monster, yet she did it.



Did you have a prior interest in vampires before taking on the role? How did (or not) this affect your performance?

I didn't have interest in vampires before the show. I'm not sure how this affected my performance. It may have led to an easy conclusion that Angela only believed she was a vampire and more exploration of the human side. And sucking blood was never a primary motivation.

What influenced Angela's striking visual presence?

Angela's appearance was influenced by the writing, the directing and the designer. Ry Herman described Angela's costume as a vinyl-based evening gown with gloves. I believe that part of this was to show that Angela was not creating any illusions about her identity, yet Chloe either ignores signs or is simply oblivious. Tara Ayres wanted Angela to be a very sexual character; a vampire who uses sexual attraction to gain access to its prey. This becomes part of Angela's story then. Her ability to control situations with a confident sexual tone prevents her from dealing honestly with her own demons. Rebecca Site took direction from the director and writer and made a kick ass costume!

Thanks again to Kristin Forde for taking the time to talk to me. Vamp will be performed through March 28, 2009; info on tickets and times can be found here.