Lost Souls finished; Sourcery started

I've finished Lost Souls, this year's Halloween vampire selection.

I did not like this book.

As always with books that I dislike, the main thing that nags at me is the writing. All along I've been thinking of situations in the story that were offensive to me (more on that later) but in the end, the very thing that made them offensive is not that they are in the story, but how they are used in the story. It's all in the style, not in the subject.

My main critique is that this feels like a teen novel. To clarify what I mean, there are very good quality novels that are about issues that concern teenagers primarily, but that can be enjoyed by adults as well because of the quality of the writing. Then there are teen novels, which are dummied-down to a low reading level and deal with subjects within a very narrow world view. In other words, they are novels that insult the reader's intelligence and don't ask the reader to think very much. Lost Souls falls more into the latter category.

Lost Souls also leans very heavily on shock value. Adults having sex with teenagers is a common scenario, but not a theme - the situations are merely lewd and gratuitous. There are also two incestuous relationships in the novel. One involves the non-vampires, a man and his teenage daughter. The scene is detailed graphically, which is absolutely cringe-inducing to read. Nothing screams exploitation like an incest scene written as if it's supposed to be hot. There's no real purpose behind it, other than his daughter has boobies now, and has messed up values because she takes Dracula a bit too seriously.

And yes, really, there's a girl in the book who has messed up values because she reads. There are numerous references to Dracula in this book, and plenty of gothic kids who want to be vampires. Apparently they want it so much, they are willing to prove themselves through acts of depravity. It reads like a true crime novel from the Satan-scare 80s, that strives to convince you that all goths are so obsessed with vampires that they set bizarre and depraved goals of initiation upon themselves. I heard that they have to break every one of the 10 commandments! I heard that they have to commit each of the seven deadly sins! I heard that if you see someone driving at night with their lights off, you shouldn't flash your lights to warn them, because it's really a car full of goths who are going to follow you and kill you and drink your blood!

Alas, these gothic kids cannot become vampires, because in this book vampires are born, not made. You know how with every vampire novel, the author feels the need to rewrite the vampire myth? This one is no different: a vampire is created when a vampire has sex and becomes pregnant or impregnates someone. This can include procreation with a human - humans can impregnate a female vampire, or carry a vampire child. The child kills the human at birth - so female vampires make a great effort to not get pregnant. As a safety against abortion, vampire spawn effect the mother's brain so that she puts the survival of the child first. These children - even though they are part human - are not dhampirs, but vampires. Older vampires have fangs, can walk in the sun but are less tolerant of it, and are unable to consume anything but blood. Meanwhile younger vampires can frolic in the sun all day and eat whatever they like, although blood is what truly nourishes them. But they don't have fangs so they have to file their teeth. This is not, again, because they are all half-human, but because of evolution. Vampire evolution. Fairly rapid evolution, thank you very much Mr. Darwin.

I can see where writers find it interesting to make their vampires their own, but the changes in this novel come rather close to the baseball playing, sparkly in the sunlight variety. Furthermore, the vampire's chief role is to symbolize taboo subjects that humans have trouble facing. It seems like a waste of time to put all this effort into defining what a vampire is if there is a story to tell - we know what vampires are, ya'll. They drink blood, they like the night, they have sex with absolutely everybody. Yes, get on with it - what's this story about?

And what this story is really about is how we are just as bad as the vampires. Every disgusting thing a vampire does is mirrored in a human's actions. The writing goes to great lengths to show that just living is a disgusting act. Even moments that seem meant to show some kind of tenderness between characters attempting to make a connection with one another are spoiled by the incessant use of the word "spit" every time two people kiss. Bodily fluids abound. Gluttonous young vampires eat junk food non-stop, spewing cake when they talk and smiling through chocolate-smeered teeth. For what reason?

Because we are all disgusting. We are all bags of spit and snot and blood, doing gross things like kissing and eating, like, all the time. The monsters and us, we are exactly alike.

I can just hear some ridiculous nihilistic teenager saying "whoa. We are all monsters." Maybe that teenager was me, once. I want to go back in time and smack her upside the head. Snap out of it, kid! Life ain't so awful!

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Now that that's over with, I've decided to start a new trend. Every time I read a novel that I dislike, that offends the intellect and the senses, that makes me feel like my brain needs to be cleansed, I'm going to follow it with a book from the Discworld series. There are quite a lot of them, and they are witty and charming, so it's the perfect change of pace. So now I've started reading Sourcery by Terry Pratchett. So far it's funny and doesn't make me feel like I can't read it while eating. I feel quite confident that it will remain that way throughout.

Twilight vampires: accidentally clever

I'm sidetracking a bit today to discuss some information I picked up recently about Twilight. I'm deep into the world of Dracula at this time, and meanwhile vampire stuff is everywhere with the release of the New Moon film, so it's not completely off-topic.

I'm not a fan of the Twilight series. In fact, my friend J'Mel's article about the first movie pretty much expresses how I feel about the entire thing. I, like J'Mel, don't think you need to read the series to know that it's awful. Besides, someone is already reading it on behalf of all of us who refuse to. I've also met a few writers who have very strong (negative) opinions about the series, including one who specifically told me she thought it was dangerous for tweens. I don't agree that the books are dangerous, I just don't think they are very good.

I was surprised to learn, however, that there is some precedence for the seemingly non-vampiric nature of Stephanie Meyer's vampires. A big complaint is that they lack fangs, which are the most universally accepted trait of vampires. As it turns out, the title character in the vampire story Carmilla has no fangs, and this is a story that preceded and inspired Dracula.

Additionally, on Here and Now yesterday they discussed how there is precedence for the vampire as a stereotype of Mormons. It turns out that vampire imagery was used to demonize the Mormons in the early 1900s. Stephanie Meyer is a Mormon in case you've missed out on this detail, and the scholars interviewed on Here and Now note that it's a clever flip of the old archetype that Meyer's vampires are creatures with morals and self-control instead of demonic monsters gathering multiple wives.

Of course, all of this would be much more impressive if Stephanie Meyer knew it before writing these novels. As they note on Here and Now, she's never watched any vampire movies or read Dracula, or watched any vampire-inspired movies - so she's never seen these films that vilify Mormons either. I doubt she's read the lesbian vampire story Carmilla for that matter. So the fact that her stories are a part of the history of vampire fiction in interesting ways doesn't make the stories themselves interesting. It also doesn't change the fact that she arrived here by accident, having no sense of the history of the genre to begin with.

And it certainly doesn't make up for the more sparkly, baseball-playing offenses she has committed.

Regarding vampires.

Happy Halloween! In celebration of the holiday I’ve decided to read Dracula. It’s not the only vampire story on the list, but clearly the most popular, and probably the most appropriate choice for this holiday out of all the novels on the list.

I’m not going to speculate too much on the novel at this point. I’ve just started reading, and the Dracula legend is such a part of pop culture that it would be easy to make assumptions based on creative works other than the novel.

Instead I’m going to go off topic and talk about a vampire story I read recently, Courtney Crumrin and the Prince of Nowhere. This is part of the Courtney Crumrin series by Ted Naifeh, who is my current favorite comic book guy. Courtney Crumrin is a series of stories about a girl who has inherited the power of witchcraft, and who uses magic to deal with both the ordinary and the unusual problems of a young girl.

It sounds a little Harry Potter-ish, but this series goes well beyond Harry Potter’s heroic yet simple tale. Courtney is not learning to be a hero. She’s trying to learn about love and trust, learning at a very young age that giving your heart to someone means risking great pain and loss. Her flawed guardian is her uncle Aloysius, who is quite capable of instructing her in magic, but is not a much help regarding love and friendship. He allows the non-magic people in his town to believe that his house is haunted, seeming to prefer that they fear and avoid him. Likewise, he has disdain towards the community of magic users as a whole, because they tend to be as fearful, ignorant, and prejudiced as the non-magic people.

Prince of Nowhere begins like all the recent novels in the popular vampire romance genre; Courtney has never truly had a boyfriend, and she falls in love with a vampire who appears to have been turned when he was a little older than she is. Unlike the popular stories of this genre, however, Courtney’s vampire is not safe, not resisting his vampire urges in order to live a more humane life. The possibility of this kind of life is not even discussed in the story, leaving me to assume that in this story the life of a vampire is the life of a predator, with no special exceptions you can make to ease your conscience. In fact, the story doesn’t mention our vampire’s conscience, and I assume he doesn’t have one. Genteel behavior, special attention paid to his human love, these all appear to be tricks played in order to turn Courtney and gain the companion that he craves.

Which brings up an interesting point, one which I’ve noticed is a problem lately: modern vampires are always telling us that we should not want to be vampires, but the argument is always so poorly supported. The following is just a handful of popular reasons our tortured vampire male leads give for not turning their girlfriends (or boyfriends, if you are reading Anne Rice) and their obvious counter-arguments:

1. Being a vampire is awful! You crave human blood all the time! You must live with the knowledge that you are an evil killer! First of all, the vampire delivering this speech is somehow managing the temptation to eat all the tasty humans, because his lover is there, not getting eaten. So this argument condescendingly suggests that the fang-bangers wouldn’t have the strength of will to avoid biting everyone in sight, or to just fill up on True Blood or rats or – what do Twilight vampires eat, deer or something? – prior to going out amongst the humans. Also, some humans are really awful people. While we are imagining a world full of real vampires, why not also imagine that it’s ok for vampires to chow on murderers and rapists?

2. Being immortal may make you insane! This is also a side effect of mortality. Doesn’t happen to all of us. It probably doesn’t happen to all of them either. Not to mention, it’s at least worth giving it a try. Surely you’d have a millennia or two in you before the crazy set in.

3. You will watch everyone you love die as you remain the same. Not if you turn them. I guess some of them will refuse, but hey. People make decisions that are life threatening, and those of us who love them have to accept that, even if we are only mortals. By the way, this is why you should turn me into a vampire, so you won't have to watch me die. Go ahead, ease your suffering.

4. You will learn that life is meaningless. Yes Louis I might, but I might decide to dwell on that as a mortal too. I think I am more likely to mope about my meaningless existence in a cubicle all day than I would while being fast and strong and awesome all night long.

5. You will never see the daylight again. Eh. I am not a big fan as it is.

In The Prince of Nowhere the reason why Courtney should not become a vampire is simple and clear. Vampires have a particular nature about them which means that once you are turned, you are no longer like the humans. Being human is the only way to maintain your humanity.

It's not that I dislike the stories of the vampire boyfriends. I am a big Buffy fan, and I love the show True Blood. It's just that the vampire/human love story does have this one major flaw in the plot, and it's nice to read stories where the vampires stick to their guns and accept their predatory nature, and where the humans realize that they must choose human or vampire and cannot have both.

When it comes to that, I feel that Dracula will not disappoint.