The Blue Fairy's Bookshelf

A Long Time Dead Samara Breger, 2023 Premise: An epic romance. A sumptuous historical love story. A vampire story. So maybe you loved Fingersmith, ( https://bluefairysbookshelf.blogspot.com/2014/03/fingersmith.html ), but thought it would be better with overt supernatural elements.  Or maybe you like the themes of Carmilla and its relations ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesbian_vampire ), but want a true romance, with hopefully some kind of happiness for the characters.  Well, have I got a book written specifically for you!  A Long Time Dead follows the life and undeath of a Poppy, a cheerful hedonist and (in life) prostitute, who feels drawn to another vampire, the reserved and serious Roisin. They cannot be together for several reasons, most notably because Roisin has sworn to take down her master, the cruel and powerful Cane.  Poppy is a delight. Her adventures through the societies of the undead, her struggles, her general good humor (except for mourning the f...

Sunshine Robin McKinley, 2003 Premise: Rae is a baker with a career, a boyfriend, and a community. She knows not to go through the bad part of town alone. The lake near where her grandmother had lived should have been safe. There shouldn't have been vampires anywhere near there. This is one of the best damn vampire books I've ever read. It takes place in a fascinating world that is revealed only slowly and naturally. It's in first person, and there is almost zero info-dumping. Very little is revealed until it comes up directly, including important facts about the world and the characters' history. I loved the language in this book. Slang and conversation casually reflects the presence of everyday magic and myth. The world, as alluded to above, is a complex one. Vampires are the most dangerous paranormal critter, but not the only one. It's unclear how long they've been openly coexisting with humanity, only that there was a major conflict within livi...

Those Who Hunt the Night Barbara Hambly, 1988 Premise: James Asher is a professor. He knows a little bit about a lot of things and a lot about linguistics and anthropology. He is also a retired player of the Great Game. This is why, when Simon Ysidro demands his help, Asher’s first response is to notice his unique accent. His second is notice that Ysidro isn’t breathing. Ysidro needs Asher to help him find out who is killing the vampires of London. Asher just needs to not get killed. A little fun with vampires for Halloween. I feel like it would be a little unusual today to see a novel that deals so well with the potential ambiguity of vampires. Even if they once were human, and retain some human qualities, that just makes them, at best, as untrustworthy as humans. Even when he becomes engrossed in the problem for its own sake, Asher never forgets that Ysidro might turn on him, or stops thinking about options should he need to turn on them. These are dangerous predators....

Greywalker Kay Richardson, 2006 Premise: Harper is a PI with a fairly average life, until a violent attack leaves her briefly, well, dead. Her experience leaves her with lingering symptoms: she sees and feels things that don't seem to be there. Oof. this is slightly awkward. Greywalker has been on my to-read list for a while now. The series was highly recommended by a friend, and the author is local to my new home. I picked up a cheap copy months ago, and it was the first one to hand when I decided I should actually start reading the books I bought over the last year. Unfortunately, it didn't really click for me. It wasn't one thing, just a series of little hiccups. It came out in 2006, and it feels modern except that characters keep talking about pagers. Pagers. All the time pagers, and going to the office to check messages. The word just dates it in a particularly awkward way. As a lifelong fantasy/SF fan, an author has to work much harder to get me to sympat...

Anno Dracula Kim Newman, 1992 Hey, look! Alternate History plus monsters before it was a trend! Premise: What if Dracula didn’t lose. What if his bid to settle in England was successful? What if he then - a prince of Transylvania, after all - married Queen Victoria? This is the story of a very different history. I really enjoyed this book, despite a few glaring plot holes. Dracula’s rise to power, for example, is generally glossed over. All the things that follow from that: social positions of prominent vampires, rebellions, etc. work well from the premise, but how exactly he managed to get there is left a bit fuzzy. This was mostly only a problem at one point, when you see Dracula in person, that how he became so powerful became hard to picture for me. Luckily the rest of the book is simply lovely. The assortment of characters is delightful for those of us who like to play “spot the reference”: some are original, some from history, some from literature. The main plot fol...

Dead Until Dark (Sookie Stackhouse, Book One) Charlaine Harris, 2001 Premise: Sookie is a waitress; she mostly keeps to herself. She sort of has to, otherwise she ends up reading people’s minds and knowing things she’d rather not. She’s intrigued when the first vampire shows up openly in their small town, which quickly turns to worried when her new friend is suspected of murder. This was....fine. Nothing special. It’s cute, I guess, and the writing is competent and I was curious enough to get to the end, but in the end I just thought it was fine. My main problem with the book was Sookie. Laying aside her annoyingly cutsie-pie name, she’s irritatingly dense. Why are you surprised when something paranormal happens? YOU CAN READ MINDS! You ARE paranormal! And then, why are you surprised the next time something paranormal or scary happens? And the time after that? And the time after THAT? I know it’s a lot to take in, but she is really incapable of rolling with a situation, and...

The Night Eternal Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan, 2011 Premise: Sequel to The Strain and The Fall . Two years have passed since the events of The Fall , and the global Vampire-pocalypse is in full swing. Eph, Nora, Fet and Gus continue to try to fight the Master, but unless they find his origin site, no victory is possible. Eph has an additional problem: the Master still holds his son Zack captive. Well, nuts. There is a trope, in which a previously fine character goes off the deep end, suicidal depression, betraying the heroes, etc., only to have pull him or herself together at the eleventh hour to save the day. It can be done in a way that makes sense, that inspires sympathy and understanding from the audience. Okay, I can't actually think of an example like that just now, but I'll believe it can happen. However, most of the time it just makes me want to shake the character violently until they stop being idiotic. In case you haven't guessed yet, I did ...

The Fall (Book Two of the Strain Trilogy)  Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan, 2010 Premise: The sequel to The Strain (Previous review, part of a series on vampire literature, is here .) The Master's plans start to come together while scattered humans try to fight back against the increasing vampire plague. Some small spoilers below, especially for the first book. The Fall suffers a little from being the middle book in a trilogy. It's interesting and exciting, but a lot of the middle feels like just setting pieces in motion so they can come into play later. It's still good, but I anticipate the third will be a more satisfying read. It continues to be a great take on vampires. Science and magic and other things I won't name because it would be a spoiler all come together to create vampires that feel both fresh, and like a natural step from earlier versions. (I noted this in The Strain as well, that there's a bit of Dracula , a bit of I Am Lege...

Only one book this week that I was interested in.  Next Week DC really gets into their all-Batman-all-the-time push, I'll probably glance at some of those books. This book was new in stores on 10/6/10 American Vampire #7  (Devil in the Sand Part Two) Written by Scott Snyder Artist: Rafael Albuquerque I've been following this book from Issue #1, and I'm still enjoying it for the most part.  I thought the art got a little sketchier than normal this month.  This is the second issue of the second story arc, based in Las Vegas when the Hoover Dam was under construction. I don't dislike Cash, the cop at the center of this story arc, but he's nothing too special yet.  I'm intrigued by what's revealed in this issue about the ulterior purpose of federal agents Jack Straw and Felicia Book (those sound like real names to you?)  And if there were any question why American Vampire is "suggested for mature readers", the nude women on the first two page...

So I've come to the end of my trip through vampire country, for now anyway.  Although I have picked up the first two issues of the new comic book American Vampire .  It's currently split into two related story-lines, written by Scott Snyder and Stephen King, and set respectively in LA in the 20's and in the 'Old West' in the 1880's.  Given the title, no surprise that it's about uniquely American vampires.  So far I'm intrigued, and I like the art, so I'll probably collect it through this first arc (five issues, I understand) and see where it goes. I'm not going to make a big chart of vampire characteristics and powers, but the one at Wikipedia is pretty great .  Also of interest, if you missed this link in a previous article: the Sliding Scale of Vampire Friendliness (Productivity warning, that's a TVTropes link...) Instead, today I'm going to give you a quick meditation on the importance of opening lines.  A good opening encourages...

The Strain Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan, 2009 The short of it: I really liked this book.  It's extremely fitting for this to be the final book in my vampire survey, because it is a modern mash-up/reinterpretation of the best bits of many of the books I've read earlier.  One of the quotes on the back even calls it “an unholy spawn of I Am Legend [and] Salem's Lot .”  It was scary and gross and awesome. And now, a story.  In September of 2009, Erin entered a contest, in which first prize was tickets to the Fellowship of the Ring live concert at Radio City Music Hall.  He didn't win that.  He did win second place, in which the prize was supposed to be a copy of the book The Music of the Lord of the Rings , a copy of The Hobbit audiobook, and a bookmark.  You can read the short piece that he won with here.   However, the Music... book got tied up in copyright problems, and as of this date has still not been released.  So inst...

Twilight Stephanie Meyer, 2005 Spoilers abound, but you probably expected that. About half-way through reading this book, I began to wish that I had read it when it came out.  Because if I hadn't basically known what was to come in the later books, I could have mustered both a little hope that the book would dig itself out of its hole, and more hate on where the book ends up.  As it is, my overall response is a relatively apathetic "Meh."  On the plus side it reads really fast, except for when supremely awkward turns of phrase threw me.  On the minus side, it was so lacking in substance as to be lighter than I like even for popcorn reading, maybe call it cotton candy prose. As of about half-way through, Twilight, while written in a simplistic style with very poor description, didn't completely suck.  Even with what I knew about the series, I could almost convince myself that the whole thing had a pretty smart unreliable narrator thing going on....

Guilty Pleasures (Anita Blake, Book 1) Laurell K. Hamilton, 1993 I opened this book with a bit of trepidation, because even though I've read it before, I was a bit concerned how it would hold up. But you know what? I kinda love this stupid book. This series eventually winds its way into increasingly ridiculous, and what I like to call porn-tastic, situations, but this first one, while slapdash and odd, has some real charm. One big thing you have to be able to just go with to enjoy this book is the seemingly commonplace male strippers. The vampires seem to be easy to accept by comparison, according to various people I've spoken to. In re-reading it, I realized specifically why I like it. It's an unapologetic modern pulp novel. It's a first-person, flamboyantly described, sex and violence pulp novel. With paranormal stuff and a female protagonist. In my book, that spells super fun. I had gotten to see the sun rise as I drove home that morning. I hate sunris...

Interview with the Vampire Anne Rice, 1976 I come to this book from a weird position.  I've read plenty of stuff inspired by this series, ( Hello World of Darkness ,) but never anything actually from it before.  I don't think I was missing much.  As far as I know, Anne Rice is the source of the angsty vampire tradition.  This is definitely the first (and as far as I know only) book I'm going to read in this theme in which the protagonists are all vampires. 

Salem's Lot Stephen King, 1975 I have to admit, I winced when I opened this book.  I'm a little hypersensitive to Mr. King's pet narrative devices after reading Under the Dome last month (review pending a break in my posting schedule), which retreads a lot of the ground first walked in Salem's Lot .  But happily, once past the first page I was reminded why they became his favorite narrative devices.  Because when he's on point, it works beautifully. Man, this was a good American re-telling of Dracula .  King makes no pretensions that it isn't just that, even comes right out and says it in the introduction, also that he tried to blend back in some more horrific elements found in EC Comics.  Old vamp Barlow and his human lackey set up shop in the Maine town of Jerusalem's Lot, with considerable success.  A group of locals figure out what's happening and move against him.  Like most of King's writing, it flows beautifully and reads viscer...

I Am Legend Richard Matheson, 1954 I'm having a really hard time planning this post.  I really enjoyed this short novel, but most of what I found fascinating about it really belongs under a spoiler warning.  Yes, even though the book came out in 1954, has been adapted into three movies, and is a seminal work of modern horror.  You ought to read it before I can give you my full reaction. So all I'll do first is fit it into the context of vampiric literature.  I Am Legend famously inspired many modern horror writers and filmmakers.  The opening premise - guy alone in a house staving off waves of undead - inspired much of what we think of as the modern zombie.  For the most part, the vampires here are less intelligent than humans.  They are only possessed by a desire for blood and an instinct to hide during the day.  On the other hand, similar to Dracula , female vampires seem to also acquire a preternatural wantonness, which is creepy, an...

Dracula Bram Stoker, 1897 I think Dracula needs a longer title.  I'd like to suggest: Dracula: Sexism Kills!   I can't believe I couldn't get through this book when I tried to read it 8 or so years ago.  Maybe my nineteenth century reading skills have improved.  I can't imagine why. I really enjoyed this book.  The characters were properly bluff and British when called for, Dracula was creepy, Renfield really tragic, Van Helsing, among other things, played for comic relief, which I was not expecting.  And Mina!  Level-headed Mina the super typist and analysis girl.  She was awesome.  I know the role she's given to pay in fighting the Undead is a bit of a rear guard, but I love her.  I love that once she accepts that Dracula is real and very dangerous, her response is: 'alright, now see all this information you've got all over?  Why don't you let me sort that out for you and clarify it?  Okay?  Great.' ...

Two events of last year have been driving me toward reading/re-reading a bunch of vampire fiction. One, we won a copy of The Strain , Guillermo Del Toro's new vampire book. Specifically Erin won it, with this piece of fiction. Two, I suppose I should see what's up with the whole Twilight thing. So I've decided to hit the highlights of literary vampires through history, starting later today. Here's my projected timeline: 1897  Dracula 1954  I Am Legend 1975  'Salem's Lot 1976  Interview with the Vampire 1993  Guilty Pleasures (one of the first big paranormal romances) 2005  Twilight 2009   The Strain  Did I miss any major ones?