Wanted: Vampire novels with real vampires

Let me first get this off my chest:

The entire Twilight hysteria makes me want to puke. i grew up goth and have retained a lot of my literary preferences since "growing up", and I happen to think that vampires are cool. Real vampires. The ones that would be poster children for what constitutes a perfect predator if not for certain very inconvenient weaknesses, such as a tendency for sizzling if put on a silver platter, being turned to ashes by direct sunlight, and an inability to be alive at all unless it's night time.

Vampires do not walk around in broad daylight. They do not fall in love with humans or with each other, and they do not willingly agree to live off the local Red Cross supply of blood out of compassion for their fellow man. Even Anne Rice's overly introspective drama queens were better than what has been marketed ever since Buffy made vampires "cool" and things then spiraled out of control into pseudo-tragic teen fantasies that barely touch on the Victorian-esque forbidden tensions that made vampires so much more dangerous to young women than to young men (Carmilla, anyone?).

So, does anyone have suggestions for vampire novels that have stayed true to what vampires are supposed to be?

 

Hehe, I red one that was gloriously bad. Like, Trash romance novel bad. It was so much fun! It was called something camp like... bite me.

But the Original Dracula is my favorite. I have a 1950's hard cover book sleeved "Book of the month" back when that was classy copy and I'm in love with it. There was also another I read, I can't recall the title, it was Victorian Era, but it wasn't Anne Rice, there was way less incest.

If I can think of the title I'll let you know.

I really do hate twilight though... I call it a teenage girls epic struggle between necrophilia and bestiality.

 

The original Dracula novel is brilliant. The first few chapters, when Harker staying as a visitor in the castle and gradually, bit by bit, realizing what exactly is going on, are surprisingly creepy still.

If the Victorian era one you read had a female vampire with a barely hidden obsession with the female protagonist, that was Carmilla. Completely free of incest, but compensating by instead having a generous amount of barely hidden lesbianism.

 

I don't recall lesbianism either... It might not have been main stream.

But ooh! I found this: http://www.vampirelibrary.com/

It could help?

 

Oh, that looks like a great place to start! Bookmarking it so I can look into it later when I'm not on my way out the door. Thanks!

 

I also found this one, which looks intentionally bad but a lot of fun:

http://www.amazon.com/Little-Vampire-Women-Louisa-Alcott/dp/0061976253/ref=pd_sim_b_6

 

I think I've seen The Strain, though not read it. It was on the 'most popular" list in Sony's ebook store recently.

Bookmark, bookmark... and now, to add these to my eReader wish list for later.

Thanks again!

 

Quite a few years ago, there was a TV show starring a vampire.
Can you name him and his real-life name?
Extra points for naming the show.

 

Ya coulda renamed the jpg before uploading it

 

Hadn't thought that would be there. Wasn't on what I downloaded.
Still got the extra point question.
Name the show.

 

If that was in the description on IMDB I'd watch it and then email Timw a link.I may even read the book if it had pop outs.

I watched twilight 2 though and it wasn't funTeenagers have trouble dealing with relationships at the best of times?So make one teenager a vampire and one a dog human hybrid and it will be good?

No, its not.It just makes the movie freakin longer.

Sorry Mimsy,I don't have any valuable input for you.

 

Mimsy this was the campy one I read:

http://www.amazon.com/Because-Vampi...3861/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1303601099&sr=8-1

I still can't find the other one. But this one ^^ Is basically trashy romance novel with Vampires. It was fun to kill a few braincells on, then go read something worthwhile.

 

Terry Pratchett's vampires are throughly awesome. Most books have the slightly less nasty vampires, but Carpe Jugulum seems to have the throughly evil type.

 

Dark Shadows......

 

Easy to Google when you know who to search for.rolleyes
Used to watch the show because of him.
Just looked natural for the part.

 

I remember the show cause I've seen the show a few times (not enough to follow the story lines though). Frid did fit part well. I remember there were quite a few raves over the actor, David Selby,who played Quentin the werewolf. Well, so I thought (just googled him and the one site I went to said he was a ghost (non-speaking role), but (from another site) then a curse was put on him and his descendants to turn them werewolves.

 

A few years from now the shelves of secondhand bookstores everywhere will be groaning under the weight of discarded Stephanie Meyer. Read bits and pieces of the Twilight novels, mostly over the shoulders of other bus passengers, and they hurt my brain with their awfulness.
I had a book years ago called The Vampire's Bedside Companion. It had a few short stories, and also a lengthy piece about vampire activity in London's Highgate Cemetery.
It's still available: http://www.amazon.com/Vampires-Bedside-Companion-Amazing-Fiction/dp/085632101X

 

Not to mention a very classy one towards the end there...

 

William Gibson's never-filmed script for Alien 3:
http://www.awesomefilm.com/script/Alien3.txt
Gibson's aliens have a new method of reproduction. You'll be wishing you'd met the vampires instead!

 

Dark Shadows.
Never saw it on tv, but I collected the comic for a couple of years.


And I've just found another anthology tucked away behind something else in the bookshelves.

http://panhorrors.wordpress.com/category/ornella-volta-valeria-riva/

My copy has the lovely vampire lady on the cover. Doesn't she look surprised to find a stake buried in her heart!

VIY by Gogol is a very creepy tale.