Today we are joined by author Jennifer Harlow, who gives us a history of vampires in entertainment. Be sure to stick around after this great post for a chance to win some goodies from Jennifer and also be sure to comment to this entry with your answers to her questions! :) Now, bring on the fangs…

Everyone loves vampires. Most of you wouldn’t be reading this blog if you didn’t. They have been around in some incarnation since ancient Egypt. I know this because I took “Monsters in Literature” in college and had to write a paper on them. (I also took “Witchcraft.” Go University of Virginia!) Early vampires were demons who drank the blood of babies until medieval times when the vampire morphed into something more akin to a current day zombie. A ghoul who craved human flesh. But as the times change so do our monsters, even the staples. None more so than the vampire. It wasn’t until the early 1800s and the story “The Vampyre” that the seeds of the modern vampire were planted. This vampire was based on the poet Lord Byron. Suave, dressed well, amoral, seduced women, then left them for dead, much like Byron did in real life. Then came Dracula who, despite what the movies might lead you to believe, was not like the Byronic vampire. In the book, Dracula was more akin to the ghoul version in folklore. He was pasty, rat-like, and looked like a well dressed corpse who slept in dirt. It wasn’t until Universal Studios and Bela Lugosi resurrected the suave vampire that our modern incarnation of the vampire really reached the zeitgeist.

Then, some forty years later, came Anne Rice. From Lugosi to Rice, vampires became campy due in most part to the Hammer Horror films, who were the only ones putting out vampire films. The atomic age with their huge bugs attacking desert towns, almost killed off the vampire and other monsters. Hammer was the only studio really keeping the vampire alive. They stayed steady with the sexy Count seducing Victorian virgins. Until Rice took them to a new level. She humanized them, brought them into the third dimension. They had problems, some hated what they were, they had consciousness and a conscious. People sometimes ask me if given the choice would I want to become a vampire. The answer is hell to the no. Watching everyone I love die, living for centuries on blood alone, having to kill people so I could live sounds like a living hell. I’m 28 and I’m getting bored, imagine having to endure that for centuries! I would be a Rice vampire. They were us plus.  Read more

Teresa

Teresa (nom de plume: Torrance Sené) is a self-proclaimed geek, a Janeite, a lover of werewolves and bad-ass angels, an aspiring novelist and an avid book reader who freelances as a web designer. You can follow her on Twitter at @eireannoir.

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Today we are joined by UK paranormal romance author, Felicity Heaton :) Give her a warm welcome!

Firstly, I want to say a huge thanks for having me here today to talk about my books. I’m going to be talking about my favourite paranormal species—vampires—and how I choose to write these wonderful dark and deadly immortals.

I should introduce myself first though. I’m a paranormal romance author and I’ve been writing since 2005, and turned indie in 2006. In that time I have written over forty stories under the names Felicity Heaton and F E Heaton. Most of my stories are released under my full name, but I write the Vampires Realm series as F E Heaton. My paranormal romances are usually focused on vampires and werewolves, but I do also write other shape-shifters like black panthers, and also demons and witches, and a whole bunch of sexy angels.  Read more

Teresa

Teresa (nom de plume: Torrance Sené) is a self-proclaimed geek, a Janeite, a lover of werewolves and bad-ass angels, an aspiring novelist and an avid book reader who freelances as a web designer. You can follow her on Twitter at @eireannoir.

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The Kensei (Lawson the Fixer, #5) by Jon F. Merz. © 2011 St. Martin’s Griffin. ISBN 9780312662233. Trade Paperback. Urban Fantasy. 416 pages. Source: ARC provided by author.

Synopsis: Meet Lawson. A cynical, wise-cracking vampire charged with protecting the Balance between vampires and humans, he is part cop, part spy, and part commando — James Bond with fangs. Lawson mixes shrewd cunning with unmatched lethality to get his job done. He tries his best to dismantle conspiracies, dispatch bad guys, and live long enough to get home.

Review: Lawson is burned out, and a trip to Japan seems like the perfect holiday. That’s just wishful thinking of course because not long after he arrives his ex-girlfriend–an assassin–pulls him back into the game. Organs are being trafficked and it’s up to Lawson to put an end to it. The Kensei was a great book, and the only thing that really brought it down for me was that Merz hardly ever brings attention to the fact that Lawson is a vampire. It’s touched on a couple times (in regards to eating and such), but that’s really it.

Aside from that, he is basically human so that sort of bothered me since I like heavy fantasy/paranormal elements in my urban fantasies. But other than that, this is a great book with amazing action scenes, plot twists and great attention given to Japanese culture and the martial arts. The Kensei can be read outside of the other Lawson books with no confusion and will definitely speak to fans of Jason Bourne (that is if you don’t mind a little vampire in your espionage). 3/5.

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Teresa

Teresa (nom de plume: Torrance Sené) is a self-proclaimed geek, a Janeite, a lover of werewolves and bad-ass angels, an aspiring novelist and an avid book reader who freelances as a web designer. You can follow her on Twitter at @eireannoir.

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Today we are joined by paranormal author, Denise Verrico.

When I was asked to contribute a post on vampires, I immediately suggested one on vampire lore. When I set out to write my first Immortyl Revolution novel, I read a lot of books on vampire legends and the classic stories. Although I decided to go with a more science fiction take on vampirism, I do play around a little with the myths in my books.

In my reading, I found that almost every culture has some sort of vampire myth. Most of the legends with which we are familiar come from the Slavic tradition of Eastern Europe. These along with the legend of the real life Vlad Dracul inspired Bram Stoker to write the most famous vampire tale of all time, Dracula.

I find the real-life Dracula far more scary than any literary vampire. Vlad Dracul (son of the dragon) or Vlad the Impaler was a 15th century Wallachian prince. As a boy of eleven, the Ottoman Turks took him hostage along with his brother, Radu the Handsome. It is probable that during this time that Vlad suffered sexual abuse at the Ottoman court. His brother, however, converted to Islam and went on to serve the Sultan. These factors may well have contributed to Vlad’s intense hatred of the Turks and inspired him to invent a particularly ghoulish way of dealing with his enemies.

Vlad’s victims were impaled with a large wooden stake that went through the anal cavity and up through the internal organs, ending out of the mouth. The impaled prisoners were then set up around Vlad’s castle to terrorize their comrades. Legend has it that these unfortunates often suffered for two days before dying. Recently scientists have explored the story with computer models, concluding that it is indeed possible to impale a body this way to prolong suffering.

The folkloric traditions of Eastern Europe have inspired much of the popular vampire lore. In Slavic culture, belief in spirits both good and evil abounded. Demons in either human or animal form were said to feed on the blood of livestock and human beings. Vampires were the resurrected dead, pale of complexion with long fingernails and elongated teeth. Sometimes they had only one nostril. They were bloated, mindless creatures that preyed on their own families and haunted their villages. Read more

Teresa

Teresa (nom de plume: Torrance Sené) is a self-proclaimed geek, a Janeite, a lover of werewolves and bad-ass angels, an aspiring novelist and an avid book reader who freelances as a web designer. You can follow her on Twitter at @eireannoir.

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