Post Warmer: I can has vampire book?

I'm a big icanhascheezburger fan. Those delightfully-captioned furballs get me every time. I also love Cute Overload. Nothing like clicking on to photos of fuzzy Shetlands and fidgety fennecs to keep one going during a long work week (and this is definitely one of them, oui?).

Ah, but icanhascheezburger is the awesome, I must say.

Especially when one includes a black kitteh (with Kittensley white chest spot!) echoing my current guilty pleasure reads:



A comparison of fictional bloodsuckers forthcoming - including the Barrow vamp series 30 Days of Night, which scared the crap out of me in movie form, despite Hartnett's wooden acting. Too toothy and messy, methinks...but the story is intriguing, which is why I have every single copy of Steve Niles' frozen bitefest on hold from the library. (I'm still trying to practice the best "these are for my nonexistent kid brother" look for my concerned librarian, who had to hand Laurell K. Hamilton's Incubus Dreams over without an audible "tsk." I think she's starting to worry about me.) Also on the boards: David Sosnowski's hilarious Vamped, Elizabeth Kostova's Vlad Tepes quest The Historian, and the broadcast-inspired (why do I always feel the connections aren't so far-fetched?) Fangland, written by a former 60 minutes producer (and apparently also in film gestation, with Hilary Swank as the heroine...hrm). It's really interesting how many authors have tried to define and refine the vampire myth.

So stay tuned for biting commentary and a semi-historical breakdown of vamp lore. Are they humans with fangs and a bad blood habit? Or are they monsters who must be shot/staked/beheaded on sight? And what do you prefer - the glamorous undead...or down and dirty fangsiness?

Why do I have a feeling this upcoming post is going to majorly suck?

Salacious B(uffy): The Anita Blake Series

The librarian hands me a pack of hardbacks, eyebrows raised at the titles printed from the computer: Cerulean Dreams, The Lunatic Cafe, Micah...Anita Blake, much? How did I end up becoming a Laurell K. Hamilton junkie?

I blame the following details:

* Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel
* Anne Rice
* Living next to a glamorous cemetery (I like jogging around old tombstones. The dead don't laugh at my thighs.)
* Waiting too long for my next MJD fix
* A hard-boiled newsie friend who admitted in a gush of red wine and late night neurosis how much she adored Narcissus in Chains. (This was eight years ago. I picked up my first Hamilton last weekend.)

I'm reading them as soon as I can get my hands on the goth-decorated covers. This is insane. I also gobbled (in twenty minutes) the graphic novel version of her first book, Guilty Pleasures. Since I can't avoid reading spoilers, I already know Anita has gotten it on with every type of Undead, from Jean Claude the Master Vampire and Richard the Werewolf, to Micah the Wereleopard (hrm...spotty...). I wouldn't be surprised if she finds an attractive zombie some day - though at this point, she does draw the line on decomposing lovers. Hamilton's imagination is as fertile as it gets - I totally understand how she hits the New York Times best-seller list every time she publishes. She writes about a world where vampires have recently acquired U.S. citizenship, throwing a monkey wrench into the usual stake-em-and-leave-em vampire slaying stories. Her heroine Anita is an animator (no, not da kine that works for Pixar - when I first read the description of her job, I was like "Eh? How does she go from drawing cartoons to killing badly-dressed vamps?" Dense = me.), able to raise the dead in order to settle court cases and police investigations. She's also a necromancer, which means she can CONTROL the dead, a power growing stronger with each novel (and each paranormal boinking, apparently).

While I'm hooked, and will keep reading until I've exhausted the tri-county supply of Hamilton books, I cannot help laughing at some outrageous details. Like how Hamilton has made the kinky menage a trois into a power-sharing "triumvirate" of inter-species power. So if Anita's dating a wereleopard and a vampire, they can draw power from each other telepathically, increasing their natural powers through metaphysical bonding...and well...physical contact. Wokey. There's also quite a lot of different "were" animals - it's becoming an undead zoo around here! In the beginning, I was thrilled by the idea of wererats, wereleopards, etc. Now, I'm a little scared...because Anita has a tendency to get "involved" with the latest species (no were-snakes, Anita!!!). I haven't read Narcissus yet, where sex becomes an important act to keep the main characters alive (oh dear!). And I can't decide if I do prefer the characters clothed...because some of the S&M themed outfits are just too much to bear in my (shallow watered) Vogue-loving head. I mean really - do all male vampires shop at Leather Pants R Us? It makes Angel's all-black ensembles seem rather nice in comparison (and they were, weren't they?).

Argh.

But I keep reading. So far, my favorite is The Laughing Corpse, a voodoo-themed novel about killer zombies and the unscrupulous humans who control them. Very gross. Lots of supernatural fighting. In other words - less naked tussling and more clothed whupass. Hamilton is a great writer because she's able to (Count Dracula laugh...PUN) suck you into her improbable world, where a tough heroine with a penchant for guns and stuffed penguins reigns supreme over all other beings. If you can suspend disbelief at Anita's sexual prowess and shield your eyes from the odd fashion choices, this series is worth a few guilty reads in the near-dark.

Bite Me: MaryJanice Davidson and the Feisty Undead

Guilty pleasure confession from this past weekend: MaryJanice Davidson's Betsy the Vampire Queen series, kicking off with the hilarious travails of an outspoken heroine who just so happens to be immortal...but wishes she had a pedicure before she died. Midwest gal Betsy Taylor is mowed down by the soccer mom's weapon of choice - an SUV - only to find herself rising from the grave in the same week in "Undead and Unwed." Thus begins the chronicles of Betsy the Vampire Queen, who rules with a manicured fist... and her very sexy consort Eric Sinclair. Now at 7 books (so far!), Davidson's heroine has triumphed over rebellious minions, a scary vampire King, an attic zombie, a manic librarian, and her own pesky blood craving problem (solved by one very accomodating husband).

While real-life vampire wannabes scare the crap out of me, I did have my Lestat/Louis** crush in the aftermath of Interview with the Vampire. Yes, I bought the Anne Rice books and watched Buffy/Angel (sigh) religiously. I thought I left the bloody fiends behind until I added one of Davidson's pastel-covered books in my basket of chick lit (I'm dreadfully shallow when picking books from the library's humor section. A cute cover gets me every time). After breezing through a predictable "Dedication," the latest from "The Nanny Diaries" authors Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus, I sat down and read Davidson's insane vampire chronicles in a few hours. Hot undead sex scenes? Check. Glamorous vampires? Check. Cute werewolf side stories? Check. Adorable vampire slayer? Check. An unstrained brain throughout this literary experience? Check, check, CHECK. It's not Tolstoy, chicas. But it was fun. Betsy isn't into all the vampire bullshit - and she swears like a sailor. Would Lestat be aghast? Something tells me he'd ask her liven up the perpetually moaning members of his coven.

The side characters are pretty awesome - especially her half-sister, the Anti-Christ Laura, the spawn of Satan who moonlights as a Born-Again prude to rebel against her famous mother (yeah, the Devil is a woman...who looks like Lena Olin). But let's not forget Antonia the psychic werewolf; knitting George, the former Fiend; Jon the vampire slayer with a massive crush on the Queen; Tina the lesbian minion; and a slew of wisecracking monsters and mortals. Speaking of mortals, most of the series' major characters live together in a mansion owned by Betsy's best friend Jessica. It's a wacky, weird kind of Full House sans Stamos, a dysfunctional family of freaks not unlike one's own gene pool, with supernatural weapons and fangs. I would also advise reading these books with access to a cold shower if alone...Betsy, you minx! While the sex scenes ARE steamy, it seems the immortals mate for eternal life - so the romance novel lover in me is more than satisfied by the happily ever...and ever...and forever resolutions to the various relationships in the books.

Davidson IS Betsy, by the way. "I don't know about you guys, but I'd rather be reading a book than listening to some self-important idiot blathering about - as Elaine from Seinfeld put it - `the excrutiating minutiae of everyday life,'" says the lady behind all those eye-popping biting scenes between the Queen and Sinclair. Perhaps this is why she speaks best through fantasy characters like vamps, werewolves and mermaids (yes, there's a series too!). She doesn't take herself seriously, a trait I appreciate in a contemporary author, especially when she writes in BOTH my favorite genres.

"I mean, the whole reason I brought up Betsy in the first place was because I was tired of the broody ancient vampire protagonist paired with the trusting virginal no-bad-qualities-at-all heroine," writes the author in her blog. "If I go to the bookstore today, there are all kinds of nutty heroines getting into trouble in the paranormal world, mistresses (sort of) of their own destiny. That works for me...I admit it: I like my romances frothy. Angst = yawn, as far as I'm concerned."

Thanks MJ, for breathing new life into depressed vampire lore. If Rice ever returns to her roots, one hopes a few fanged smiles are in order. After all, you can only spend so many lifetimes kvetching. At some point, you should fall in love...and get your nails done.

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** Lestat and Louis, ah such an ill-starred screen couple. One bad movie about a crazy primordial queen, a spiteful eternal toddler and ancient depression have kept them apart. Add one Born Again author who has denounced her best-selling series, and we may never see that ONE on-screen kiss/bite that should've happened.

You know there will be an Anne Rice post some day.