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This post written by Clint The House of the Vampire
by George Sylvester Viereck
So you’ve read all the popular vampire series and you still want more? Do you consider yourself a fairly good reader, who doesn’t mind slightly old-fashioned writing? Are you interested in seeing the origins of today’s vampire novels? If so, you might want to check out this old-school vampire story.
The House of the Vampire is probably the first psychic vampire novel. Psychic vampires don’t drink blood. Instead, they take energy or life force or spirit or something like that from their victims. In The House of the Vampire is about a group of artists – writers, sculptors, and painters, whose creativity and spirit are being sucked away by a psychic vampire.
Reginald Clarke is a master writer, a man who can use words like nobody else. He also happens to have fantastic taste in all other forms of art, and he tends to take in and nurture less successful artists.
Reginald’s current protege is Ernest Fielding, another writer. Ernest is currently living with Reginald and trying to write the great American novel.
Jack is Ernest’s college friend, former roommate, and best friend in the whole world. Jack is away at school during much of the story, but he plays an important role.
Ethel Brandenbourg is, or was, a painter. She and Reginald were also briefly a couple. She hasn’t really painted in years, though.
Most of the story is about nervous artists being nervous artists. They make such good victims for a psychic vampire because it’s so hard to tell when they are being drained of their energy. They’re artists, after all. Are they just being overly sensitive? Are they having (absolutely natural) trouble coming up with the next great novel or painting? Are they having their life essence stolen by a vampire? Of course, evidence starts to pile up. Ethel and Ernest think they have it figured out, but nobody else believes them.
So how does The House of the Vampire compare with the Hollywood vampire stereotype?
- Drinking Blood [xmark] The vampire sucks the creative energy out of our artists.
- Has Fangs [xmark]
- Vampires Spread by Biting [xmark] According to the vampire, it just happens. It’s how you are born.
- Amazingly Strong [xmark]
- Unkillable [xmark] As far as we know, vampires are physically pretty ordinary people. It’s all in the mind.
- Weak Against Wooden Stakes [xmark] Well, no weaker than a normal person.
- Weak Against Sunlight [xmark] Not even a little bit.
- Must be Invited In [xmark]
- Weak Against Flowing Water [xmark]
- Weak Against Holy Symbols [xmark]
- Weak Against Garlic [xmark]
- Get Confused at Crossroads [xmark]
- No Reflection in Mirrors [xmark]
- No Heartbeat/Breath/Blood/Temperature/Other Signs of Life [xmark]
- Pale, Corpse-like Appearance [xmark]
- Doesn’t Age [xmark]
- Changes Shape [xmark]
- Flight [xmark]
- Wall Crawling [xmark]
- Hypnotic Powers [checkmark] Psychic powers and a ton of charisma! What a combination.
- Sleeps in a Coffin [xmark]
- Wealthy [checkmark] Not insanely wealthy, but certainly very well off.
How about some of the more modern trends?
- Sophisticated and Elegant [checkmark] Everybody likes this vampire, and he certainly has style. Not capes and things like that, but a really good sense of normal human style..
- Angsty [xmark] This vampire doesn’t feel the least bit bad about sucking people’s energy or even killing them. In fact, he sees it as his duty.
- Dark and Brooding [xmark] A little nutty, yes, but far to arrogant and cheerful to be dark or brooding.
- Really Just Misunderstood [xmark]
- A Sucker for Love [xmark]
- Looks Young and Sexy [checkmark] [xmark] I’m not sure about young, but this vampire has the charm. Women pay attention to him. So do men.
- Fluid Sexuality [checkmark] [xmark]Well, maybe. The House of the Vampire has been called the first gay vampire novel, but I’m not familiar with the cultural norm of the early 1900s. We never see the vampire get it on with another guy, but you might infer that he isn’t altogether 100% heterosexual. You might not. It’s all in how you read it.
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Where to Find It
You can read copies online through Project Gutenberg, Google Books, HorrorMasters.com, or Wikisource.
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This post written by Clint True Notebooks: A Writer’s Year at Juvenile Hall
by Mark Salzman
[cover name=truenotebooks]
Mark Salzman is writing a novel, and he wants to make one of his characters more lifelike. The character is supposed to be a young criminal, but all the personality Salzman can give him is tattoos and a shaved head. What do you expect, since Salzman had never actually met or talked to anybody like that. Then one of his friends, Duane, convinces him to attend a writing workshop he runs in juvenile hall. Salzman isn’t thrilled by this, but he gives it a try.
Salzman has two major objections to going to a writing workshop in juvenile hall. First, he doesn’t really want to hang out with criminals. Second, he really hates writing classes. He taught one before, and he hated it. However, when he actually shows up and pays attention to what the 17-year-old murderers write, he is amazed. After one hour with the class, he said, “if my college students had made this kind of effort, I might still be teaching.” Naturally, he ends up running his own writing class for high-risk offenders, or teenagers who are facing life without parole.
The writing class is good for his students. It gives them a chance to express themselves, explore complex ideas, and be creative, and they’re pretty good at it. Through their writing, we get to see what kind of people they are. Obviously, they’ve got their problems. Most of them are in for murder or something similar. They’ve made some pretty bad choices and done some pretty bad things, and they probably won’t ever get out of jail. However, they aren’t the kind of human waste that a lot of people think they are. If they hadn’t been screwed over by life, they could have done some impressive things. For that matter, some of them may even be able to do impressive things from within jail.
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Where to Find It
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This post written by Clint The Grin of the Dark
by Ramsey Campbell
[cover name=thegrinofthedark]
Simon Lester is a film critic, but he isn’t doing that well at it: he works part-time at the local gas station. Then one of his old college professors asks him if he is interested in writing a book on Tubby Thackeray, who was a comedian from the era of silent movies. Tubby used to be famous, but now it seems like nobody has heard of him. In fact, Simon has a terrible time finding anything about him. His films seem to have been removed from film archives, and things written about him seem to have been lost or destroyed. When he asks people about Tubby, they often get hostile. Clowns threaten him. Some guy on an Internet forum starts giving him trouble.
Finally, Simon finds people who know about Tubby Thackeray and are willing to share information and copies of his old films. Some of his work is really bizarre and troubling, and it seems to follow Simon home. The spirit of Tubby starts to take over his life, and it seems to be possessing his girlfriend’s son. Simon has enough trouble in the real world without any supernatural events, and he starts to crack up.
This story is dark and disturbing, but it doesn’t have much blood or gore. Supernatural things happen, but the real horror is in Tubby’s films and Simon’s head.
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Where to Find It
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This post written by Clint The Cat Who Covered the World: The Adventures of Henrietta and her Foreign Correspondent
by Christopher S. Wren
[cover name=thecatwhocoveredtheworld]
Christopher Wren did not have good luck with pets when he was young, so he wasn’t exactly eager when one of his friends asked if he would be willing to adopt a kitten. However, she apparently knew Christopher well enough to know how to bribe him – she offered him a bottle of Scotch to take the kitten. I’m not really into cats or Scotch, but I really enjoyed this book anyway.
The Cat Who Covered the World is the story of this cat, named Henrietta by Christopher’s children. She’s an ordinary tabby cat, but since Christopher Wren is a foreign correspondent for the New York Times, she gets to travel the world and be a cat around all kinds of interesting people. She disappears in Egypt for a while. She makes friends with Nobel Peace Prize winner Andrei Sakharov, who was also the guy who helped the Soviet Union develop the nuclear bomb. She kills a mouse and gives it to the ambassador of Pakistan.
This is sort of like a story about an ordinary person who gets caught up in extraordinary events, but in this case, the ordinary person is a cat. Usually. Sometimes it’s the author, like when he has to help his friend Kif sneak in to rescue a cat in the middle of the Iran hostage crisis.
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Where to Find It
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This post written by Clint Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure
by Larry Smith and Rachel Fershleiser
[cover name=notquitewhatiwasplanning]
The editors of SMITH Magazine asked their readers to describe their lives in just six words. You might think this sounds like a crazy idea. Well, I’m not going to argue with that, but the responses they got sure are interesting. Some will make you think. Some will make you laugh. Some will make you say, “Wait, what?”
It’s probably easier to give you some examples. If you want more, SMITH Magazine has an ever-growing collection.
Hope my obituary spells “debonair” correctly.
Aging late bloomer yearns for do-over.
The freaks, they always find me.
After Harvard, had baby with crackhead.
Catholic school backfired. Sin is in!
Girlfriend is pregnant, my husband said.
My life’s a bunch of almosts.
Mormon economist marries feminist. Worlds collide.
Cheese is the essence of life.
If you like these, you can also find some six-word stories at Wired that are from horror, fantasy, and science fiction writers. Some of them involve R-rated topics and language, plus a little politics.
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Where to Find It
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This post written by Clint The Name of the Wind
by Patrick Rothfuss
[cover name=thenameofthewind]
Kote is a simple innkeeper. Unfortunately, the roads are not safe these days, so business isn’t doing so well. Part of the problem is that a bunch of giant spider-like creatures are living near his village, so Kote decides to wipe them out. Because simple innkeepers always kill packs of monsters in their spare time.
One man is sure that Kote is more than he seems. He calls himself Chronicler, and he is sure that Kote is the legendary hero or villain (depending on which legend you listen to) Kvothe. After hounding Kote for a while, Chronicler finally gets him to confess to being Kvothe. Chronicler really wants to know the truth behind all of the stories about Kvothe, but Kvothe will only talk if Chronicler promises to write exactly what Kvothe says.
Much of The Name of the Wind is Kvothe telling us about his life. He’s done some pretty impressive things. He was born into a group of traveling performers, so he learned to act, sing, and ply instruments. An wizard/scholar named Abenthy travels with his family for a while, and he teaches Kvothe the basics of magic/science. However, Abenthy never teaches him the really powerful magic, where if you can name something, you can control it. Kvothe decides he wantes to learn the name of the wind, which is something that Abenthy knows. Abenthy encourages him to attend the University, where he can learn that kind of magic, but before that can happen, Kvothe’s family is killed.
Kvohte survives as an orphan for a while, but he eventually gets into the University, where can study naming magic, and maybe even find out more about who killed his family. We learn a lot about Kvothe’s life at the University – how he fell in love, how he was banned from ever setting foot in the library again after an incident involving a candle, and how he manages to become a student of the Master Namer.
This book is big, but it is only part on of three. We get a lot of hints about the things he has done, but we don’t know, for example, why he eventually gets expelled from the University, how he gets the nickname of Kvoth Kingkiller, or why he decides to pretend to be an inkeeper.. However, this book isn’t all about the past. Parts of it are set int he present, where dark forces appear to be at work. Kvothe may have very good reasons for hiding out.
You can read an excerpt from the book online at the author’s website.
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Where to Find It
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This post written by Clint Essex County Volume 1: Tales from the Farm
by Jeff Lemire
[cover name=essexcounty]
Lester is a 10-year-old boy whose mother has just died of cancer. His father is out of the picture, so he goes to live with his uncle Ken, who lives on a farm. Lester loves comic books – he is writing his own, and he sort of lives in his own little comic book world. He wears a mask and cape all the time, and pretends to be a superhero defending humanity. Ken isn’t really sure what to do about this, but he’s pretty sure that letting Lester hang out with Jimmy, who runs the local gas station, is a bad idea. Jimmy is also a comic book fan, and he plays along with Lester’s ideas. Together, they continue Lester’s comic book and build a fort to defend against aliens. Despite Ken’s concerns, Jimmy is able to make a connection with Lester and eventually help him return to the real world.
There are two other volumes in this series, but they aren’t about Lester, Jimmy, and Ken.
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Where to Find It
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This post written by Clint The Hoopster
by Alan Sitomer
[cover name=thehoopster]
Andre is a basketball champ. People call him “The Hoopster.” However, he also loves writing, and his life gets a lot more complicated when he is asked to write a column for a magazine.
You can read a very short excerpt online at the author’s website.
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Where to Find It
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