Vamping It Up

Two new fantasy novels came out this week: Danse Macabre, the 14th Anita Blake adventure by Laurell K. Hamilton and A Fistful of Charms, the fourth outing for Rachel Morgan by author Kim Harrison.

I bought both books on Saturday morning and, as I write this, I'm about halfway through the Harrison novel. I should add that last week I finished the latest Charlaine Harris novel, Definitely Dead, the sixth book in the Sookie Stackhouse chronicles.

All three authors--Hamilton, Harris and Harrison--feature heroines living in alternate universes in which vampires figure prominently.

I know. I know. You're asking why I'm mentioning these three authors when there are hundreds of authors churning out vampire novels. Without even trying, I could reel off the names of a dozen romance writers penning a vampire series, including MaryJanice Davidson, Christine Feehan and Maggie Shayne to name just a few.

The reason I mention the three Hs (Hamilton, Harris and Harrison) is that I believe all three are exploring new territory in the sub-genre of vampire fiction. Each has developed an intricate universe with unique characters and world rules.

Laurell K. Hamilton: I first encountered LKH when I read Guilty Pleasures sometime around 1994. I was so taken with the book that I ran out and bought her previous novel, Nightseer. Big mistake. Nightseer is godawful. However, with the Anita Blake series, LKH hit her stride.

The early Anita Blake novels were mostly adventures. Anita is a necromancer who works raising zombies and executing rogue vampires for a living. When she finally yields to her lust for Jean Claude, the Master Vampire of St. Louis, the novels begin to move toward erotic romance. As the books progress, I would cease to describe them as erotic romances. They cross the line into erotica--passionate sex without any promise of a permanent relationship with one partner. In fact, the hallmark of the series is now multiple sexual encounters with multiple partners while still providing adventures on the paranormal wild side.

Charlaine Harris: I was so tickled by the first Sookie Stackhouse novel, Dead Until Dark, in 2001 that I bought a second copy for one of my brothers to read. Sookie Stackhouse is a waitress living and working in the little town of Bon Temps, Louisiana. Sookie is a psychic being slowly driven crazy by the chatter in her head from all the minds she cannot block out. She is thrilled to realize that she cannot "read" a vampire's thoughts. That alone is enough to tempt her into an affair with Bill the Vampire. Meanwhile, the vampires' power structure is delighted to learn of the existence of a psychic whom they can employ for their own purposes. Sookie's life becomes a balancing act as she is introduced to the underworld of paranormal creatures existing secretly alongside humans.

Harris' series was the first vampire novel with a chick lit voice I'd encountered, and I loved its understated humor. Three years later, MaryJanice Davidson did a straightforward chick lit vamp with her "Undead" series. However, the difference is that Harris' series is, first and foremost, a vampire story with a chick lit voice (as opposed to MJD's series, which is primarily a chick lit novel that just happens to be about vampires).

Kim Harrison: In some ways, Harrison's books are the biggest surprise of all. The first in the series, Dead Witch Walking, came out in 2004. The book I'm now reading is the fourth in the series. Rachel Morgan, the heroine, is a witch who makes a living tracking down rogue witches, Weres and vamps with the help of her two partners: Ivy, a living vampire, and Jenks, an aging pixy. The novels take place in Cincinnati after The Turn, the time when humanity was almost wiped out by a bioengineered tomato gone bad. The world is now evenly divided between Inderlanders (magic folk) and mortals.

Like the early Hamilton novels, Harrison is edging her way along the erotic continuum. Ivy's passion for Rachel is an intriguing mix of bloodlust and old-fashioned lust. I anticipate that Harrison will cross the line from heterosexual f/m romance to f/f before long. She is certainly ratcheting up the passion meter in A Fistful of Charms.

It was Lord Byron who first merged the legend of the vampire with lust (and regret) in his poem The Giaour in 1813. Byron's own image as a sexy aristocrat prompted his personal physician, John Polidori, to write what is usually considered the first vampire novel, The Vampyre, in 1819, modeling the character of Lord Ruthven on Byron himself.

Two famous vamp works--the 1816 poem Christabel by Coleridge (he of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner) and the 1871 novel Carmilla by Joseph le Fanu--both had strong lesbian overtones.

All these early works have been nearly forgotten, overwhelmed by the celebrity of Bram Stoker's 1897 Dracula. That novel stood alone and unchallenged as the premier vampire novel until 1976 when Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire returned the genre to its earlier sensuous and sumptuous roots.

There have been many articles written about why vampire novels are so popular. The more obvious reasons are the attraction of the forbidden, the seductiveness of the dark lover and the yearning for eternal youth. At its most basic, vampire novels are about Eros (the impulse to connect) defeating Thanatos (the death instinct). However, the glut of similar material on the market means that something new and fresh will always stand out from others in the field.