alrighty, this is my topic for my 3 novel comparative ISU. I was thinking I'd compare bram stoker's dracula, andrei codrescu's the blood countess, and an anne rice ... but do you guys have any suggestions for some vampire fiction? And i need three topics to string through all3 books, iw as thinking sexuality, what the vampires do to get victims (what the victims lack and find in the vampires) and what charcteristics do the vampires lack themselves as people.. or is there something else I can look at? thanks guys n gals
Vampire fiction in literature: Aleksej Tolstoj - Oepyr John Polidori - The vampyre John Stagg - The vampyre In the fantasy genre you could read the clan novel series van vampire the masquerade (I didn't read them by the way).
I would suggest Nancy Collins Sonja Blue novels.. so much better than Poppy Brite and an interesting twist to the vampire theme. As a one off there's Dan Simmons' Carrion Comfort. Very well written and another variant of the mind vampire theme. Lastly.. Brian Lumley's Necroscope books.. the earlier ones are the best.. in the Lovecraft tradition.. the later ones are just overegging the series.
Have you read anything by Laurell K. Hamilton? She writes of vampires,lycanthropes, fairies, in an alternate universe. She gives a very different view of the vampire. Do the books have to be fiction? If not you might want to read Piercing the Darkness - Undercover with Vampires in America Today by Katherine Ramsland. She is a reporter that was accepted into the vampire community to do this book. She has also done bios on Dean Koontz and Anne Rice
Sexuality and Vampiricism is an interesting and easy to study connection - you should look into the sexuality of the females as 'conducts' for the vampire's desire. Another interesting angle is to look at the Queer Theory, which is particularly relevant to Bram Stoker. The theory is that the League of Light (what were they called? Anyway, Van Helsing, Dr Seward, Quincey etc.) are actually engaging in sexually charged behaviour - Lucy's bite and their subsequent blood transfusions are all about sharing 'juices' with Dracula himself, and she is little more than a vessel. There is of course all the penetrating they're all trying to do to each other, Dracula with his teeth and the League with wooden stakes.
chelsea quinn yarboro has done a series on the vampire sometimes known as le comte du st germaine... historical note: the first vampire movie (silent, german) was titled "nosferatu"
There is a large book of short stories called 20 tales of Vampiric Erotica. Edited by Poppy Z Brite who also writes alot of sexually explicit stories about Vampires.
