I'm helping Lynda Hilburn gather information about a topic of crucial importance: Vampires!
She's going to put together some information for an article or two, and I'm pitching in.
My questions are:
How many kinds of vampires do you think there are (monster-type, angsty, warrior, gorgeous lover, superior to humans?, what else?)?
Of those, which kind is your favorite?
Why?
If you'd like to put in your two cents, we'd love to know! Feel free to comment.
Wouldn't Nacho (above) make a great vampire?
Here's Lynda's blog, if you haven't read her part yet:
http://paranormalityuniverse.blogspot.com
15 comments:
How many kinds of vampires do you think there are (monster-type, angsty, warrior, gorgeous lover, superior to humans?, what else?)?
Comical. Sad, but true lol. You have the ones that don't take being a vampire serious (Once Bitten anyone??)
The lowly depressed vampire. Pity party for one!
The joiner. Everyone is doing it, so should they!
Of those, which kind is your favorite?
Why?
Wouldn't Nacho (above) make a great vampire?
My quotable comment: **Drool**
Ops forgot to answer this one: Of those, which kind is your favorite?
Why?
I like the gorgeous lover type hehe. Who wouldn't! I don't think I'm the only one who drooled over Brad Pitt when he was in Interview!
The loner vampire, who does not want to be responsible for another, just themselves. However, my favorite type is the lover/superior to human who is put in their place by a human...Because it makes for a very sensuous love story.
Nacho? Oh my, I would invite him in anytime....lol.
I choose to believe that the only type of vamp arounds is the one that I want to rip the clothes off of! LOL
Seriously though, there has to be the brooding "I hate that I'm a vamp and feel bad about biting you but I'm gonna do it anyway" vamp, the "I'm too hot for words and will rock your world" vamp, the evil "I'm going to take over the world" vamp, and the "Super strong dimented" vamp. That way we have yummy sexy stories with plenty of villains. And if the villain vamp in story one becomes reformed and is a hunk of burnin' love by story three... Woo Hoo!
My fave is the brooding or too-hot-for-words vamp. Both promise to give us an emotional (and sexual) rollercoaster ride we won't soon forget.
I think that there are all different types...my favorite would have to be the gorgeous lover/warrior that knows when to not take himself too seriously. don't really like the brooding vamps...you have centuries at your disposal...come to terms already!!!
nacho is pretty...I'd invite him over for a late night snack!!!
Hey, what great comments! Thanks bunches!!
Brenna Lyons wasn't able to add her comments here so I'll put them in for her.
First question...types of vampires?
The types you list are more descriptors for the characters and have
not much to do with being a vampire or not, IMO.
And, they aren't mutually exclusive. For instance, one of my own
vampires, Jorg/Veriel, is (by turns...and often more than one at once)
a monster, gorgeous lover, tortured hero, warrior, angsty, more than
human, less than human... And, he acknowledges that each is true of
himself. He even acknowledges that he is poison to the women who love
him, but he's bonded to them and...only twice in his history...has had
the strength to let them go...for a time.
To be a truly interesting vampire, the character should meld a few of
these attributes, IMO. For instance, Dracula was almost all of them.
Anything less is two-dimensional, when you think about it.
So, if those aren't types of vampires, what are TYPES of vampires?
Each mythos is somewhat different.
You might have classic blood-exchange vampires, and the only way the
heroine can be with the hero is to become like him. You might have a
mythos where the vampires can be converted back to human magically.
You might have a world where the heroine's life is extended simply by
bonding to the vampire, but she is otherwise human in attributes. You
might have a tragic rendition, where you KNOW the heroine is going to
die soon, and he will be plunged back into despair without her.
You might have a world of psychic vampires, where there are no blood
exchanges, but rather you have emotional or lifeforce exchanges
(sometimes sexual energy exchanges).
You might have vampires that can't walk the sun. May I take a moment
to remind that DRACULA could walk about in the day? You might have
ones that are weakened by the sun or that can only walk in the sun, if
they are older and more powerful vampires (IOW, fledgling vampires
would not be able to). You might have a world where they can take
weakened sunlight, where sunlight doesn't affect them, where it hurts
but doesn't kill them...or even where some magic or science protects
vampires from the sun. Blade and the dark glasses and sunscreen is
pretty fun for that.
You might have vampires...again but on another tact...that are
blood-exchange vampires. You may have ones that transform just from a
bite...or a series of bites. You may have some that are scientifically
engineered, are aliens, are magical creatures that only resemble
vampires. (In fact, my own "vampires" are not vampires but magical
creatures that the vampire stories were written to explain.)
You might have vampires that are UNDEAD or reanimated corpses, that
MUST physically die to be reborn as a vampire (that may not, as
vampires have such things as breath and heartbeats), that may be cold,
clammy... Or, you may have a mythos in which the vampires don't die,
where...had they died before or during conversion...they would be dead
and not vampires. Those sorts of vampires are often hot-blooded,
living creatures that have intense hungers (of several
sorts...grinning...since vampires are known for their hungers: blood,
power, sexual, etc.). You may, on the other hand, have races of
vampires that pass down what they are father to son, mother to
daughter. You may have created vampires...in a more science fiction
sense.
That's one thing that some people don't understand about vampires. You
don't just have horror vampires vs. romance vampires vs. erotic
vampires. You have science fiction vampires and fantasy vampires.
Sometimes, vampires are a mix of several types.
Second question...now that I've bored you completely! What types do I like?
Any well-written vampire and cohesive world (IOW, the person isn't
contradicting himself/herself) is good with me. I adore the original
Dracula. I love Sherrilyn Kenyon's Dark Hunters and Christine Feehan's
Carpathians. I love Fae Harlow's psychic vampires. I liked Interview
With The Vampire. I loved the vampires that Linda Bleser created for
brakos. Of course, I love my own vampires, but that goes without
saying. If I didn't like them, why would I write them?
Brenna Lyons
I love gorgeous lover ones and the monster type ones. One I would love to read is a comical one, like Love At First Bite.
Nacho would make one sexy irresistable vampire! :)
Cia
OMG, Can I have Nacho? I think I'm in love. He's the perfect type of vampire - gorgeous! I've encountered, in my reading and writing, the sexy type, the monster type, the sexy but villainous type and of course there's the alien type and the totally demony almost non-sentient type.
I believe there are a lot of different vampires. I like the "Angel" and "Dark Hunter" and "blood ties" type that what to be the scary I'll get you type but turn out to be good guys in the end. I like all books where the vamp is not ugly and nasty but I also like a good scary movie where the vamp seduces women. I think my favorite is the vamps in Lynsay Sands books about the "The Argeneu Vampires" In fact i haven't read a book yet that I didn't like their take on the vamp!!!
Historically, there are many different types of vampires, but authors create many more every time they create a script for a movie or form on outline or character description for a novel. As long as the characters are believable, I like all the different types, but I'd have to say my absolute favorites are the gorgeous-lover-warrior types.
Ignore my deleted comment, I had to edit and didn't know how.
I agree with what Brenna Lyons was saying about kinds of vampires. I think about it as how different cultures describe vampires. It's different in Asia vs. Africa etc. Monster-type, angsty, warrior, gorgeous lover, superior to humans are all characteristics of vampires (and people too if you think about it) and I think they can be found in most vampires in TV, movies, and literature.
As for Nacho: He would make a perfect vampire, mostly since he's hot.
How many kinds of vampires do you think there are (monster-type, angsty, warrior, gorgeous lover, superior to humans?, what else?)?
All kinds, from all over the world. How about the psyhic vampire? I have a writer friend who wrote a nonfiction book,Actual Factual: Dracula, A Compendium of Vampires which should be out. You can check her website on that at http://theresabane.com/ . And not all drink blood too.
And with science fiction why not alien vampires?
As a bibliographer and someone who started her writing career with mostly nonfiction (lit-crit), I love taxonomy, and I would divide vampires according to their origin and nature rather than their personalities (which can overlap -- you could have a brooding, carefree, romantic, sinister, or whatever-type vampire in any of the classifications). There's the classic undead vampire, which, as people have pointed out, varies widely among different folklore traditions and literary creations. There's the living vampire, also mentioned in one of the other posts -- also supernatural, but never having died. Vampirism as infectious disease, the classic example being Richard Matheson's novel I AM LEGEND. Vampirism as hereditary disease (or if it's more of a hereditary curse, that would be a fantasy or horror vampire rather than an SF vampire). The "Vampire as Alien," i.e., another naturally evolved species separate from humanity, whether originating on Earth or on another world. The psychic vampire, who feeds on emotions rather than blood or other body fluids (another possible area of overlap, since either a supernatural or an SF vampire could be a psychic feeder). Spectral vampires rather than corporeal ones also exist. Suzy McKee Charnas has an amusing story about a spectral vampire, a little old lady who hangs around her apartment in ghostly form after her death, "Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep," in one of Ellen Datlow's vampire anthologies. My own favorite is the naturally evolved "alien" or other-species vampire, as in Charnas' incomparable VAMPIRE TAPESTRY, THOSE OF MY BLOOD by Jacqueline Lichtenberg, FEVRE DREAM by George R. R. Martin, FLEDGLING by Octavia Butler, SHATTERED GLASS by Elaine Bergstrom, etc. That's the kind of vampire I write about. I apply all these classifications and more in my annual vampire fiction bibliography (more information on my website, www.margaretlcarter.com). As far as personality type is concerned, I prefer the sensual, romantic vampire who uses blood-sharing to give his partner ultimate pleasure. Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's Count Saint-Germain is the perfect example (in the traditional supernatural category).
My favorite kind of vampire is the gorgeous lover type, but I like them to have a little sprinkling of angst, and warrior in them as well. Tom Cruise was an awesome vampire as well as Brad Pitt and Antonio Banderas...I loved David Boreanaz as Angel, but I have to say my all time fave vampire was Spike (James Marsters). He was everything a vampire should be!!
And yes Nacho would make an excellent vampire! I was drooling over that pic!!
Ashley A
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