Archive for best vampire books
Best Vampire Books: The Vampire Diaries: The Hunters-Moonsong
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Title: The Vampire Diaries: The Hunters-Moonsong
Author: L.J. Smith
Release: March 13, 2012
Pages: 400
Genre: Urban Vampire Fantasy
This is the second book in the new The Hunters sub-series from The Vampire Diaries. This time we watch as Elena struggles with the changes in her life as she begins a new one at Dalcrest College with her friends. The horrors of the Dark Dimension start to fade as she learns to enjoy the ivy-covered walls of the college where her parents met. Both Stefan and Damon seem to be pretty happy and Elena is content to turn her life around with the help of her friends Bonnie, Meredith and Matt.
But, of course, such tranquility never lasts forever and this is true of Elena’s life more than with most. Students are disappearing from the school and no one knows why. Soon she is suspecting every person she meets and panic has begun to spread across the school campus. She watches in horror as her friends around her fight to protect each other, often in vain.
But the worse of it all is when Elena comes to find out a secret, a secret that is deadly and that sends a shiver of shock through her very being. In this latest sage of the Vampire Diaries Series - The Hunters-Moonsong, she begins to realize that true tragedy may not be avoided and she knows she must do everything she can to stop it. But for now, she must find a way to escape this secret and the fate it foretells for her. In all of this, where are Stefan and Damon, and is there any way they can prevent this tragedy for happening?
Scoring the Vampire Myth
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Recently the Huffington Post did an article looking at various elements of the vampire myth. They decided to compare today’s vampire stories to see who rated higher on the scale for the handling of the creation of a mythological vampire world, where vampires come into it and their sex and danger appeal. As vampire fans, we have all had these discussions, on who is the hottest vampire and which book series seems to be the truest to our own personal ideal of what a vampire should be.
I think that by now we have all created our own rules about what makes a vampire attractive. However, do we agree on what rules need to come into play to establish the vampire world? In some books how vampires are created is very clear. Anne Rice’s books are a good example of this. I have also read plenty of vampire books where the question of how a vampire is “made” is part of the plot of the series. It isn’t always that easy to predict. Outside of the books that use vampires as a point of humour (like the Jane Bites Back novel by Michael Thomas Ford) most vampires are portrayed as pretty dangerous, especially when hungry. At the same time, the world of the vampire, what the outside world knows of them and how they interact in it has changed a lot since the early Dracula story was published.
It is always interesting to see how the top concepts compare and this look at vampires by comparing some of the top vampires in books, television, film and comic books is quite interesting to read. I was a bit disappointed to not see the Rice Vampire books included, but the new crop of vampire tales she looks at are a great cross-section of the modern idea of a vampire. To get an idea of how your favorite series would rate, check out the ratings and final analysis at the Huffington Post directly by reading it here.
Best Fantasy Books: Blood Rock by Anthony Francis
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Title: Blood Rock
Author: Anthony Francis
Release: July 2011
Pages: 298
Genre: Urban Vampire
Dakota Frost is a skindancer- meaning she is someone who can make her magical tattoos dance out of her body to act and protect her. It is a handy ability to have in the Atlanta that she inhabits, filled with vampires, werekin of all kinds and so much more. She needs it sometimes just to stay alive and in this second installment in the series we find she has to get pretty creative with those magical tattoos. I jumped into this book without reading the first in the series and had no trouble but I have to admit that now I want to go back and read the first one. His world is just that good.
Dakota is one tough cookie, she can do all kinds of martial arts and kills when she has to without much regret. But I love the fact that we also see the soft side to her when she decides to adopt a little weretiger that is a foundling. The love between the two is obvious and Anthony Francis handles this part of the story with such grace that it makes the character all the more fascinating. When you add in that Atlanta seems to be having problems with magical graffiti that is killing vampires, that Dakota’s relationship with the law in the form of the local police seems to be getting rocky despite her family history of both a Dad and Uncle on the force and she is finding herself dating a vampire – well life is complicated for this gal.
The scenes of her and vampire Calaphase on a date are like nothing I have ever read. Her protective instincts when little Cinnamon is threatened are amazing. But the best scenes by far are when she needs to pull out those tattoos to protect either herself or someone else. Anthony Frances is careful to make his explanations seem within the realm of possibility without going into so much detail we lose the thread of the story. It is just plain intelligent writing of a carefully thought-out world with a dynamic and intelligent woman at the center it.
How she manages to find out who and what exactly is creating these deadly living pieces of graffiti – so like her own tattoos and yet so much more deadly – and why they are killing the vampires of Atlanta is just one part of a great story that will have you sitting up late at night to just read a little further. I know that is what I did, and couldn’t stop reading even if it was 3AM. The story telling in Blood Rock is addictive and the characters are all fascinating.
