Charlaine Harris "Southern Vampire" series. And "True Blood" which is not bad

[alexandral]

Charlaine Harris' "Southern Vampire" series consists of 8 books so far, starting with "Dead Until Dark". If you like your books well-written, please give this one a miss. I thought the herouine could have been Mary Sue to the extreme, but to be fair at least the books had a slightly contrived explanation for why every person of every gender falls in love with her (she is a supernatural being herself). The thing I liked the least was the very poor quality of writing. The worst book of the series for me was "Dead as a Doornail" because I had to read it in atrocious translation onto Russian which made even Harris' dialogue look supper-intelligent.
However I galloped through the books in two long nights because I loved the character of Eric who is their redeeming feature (and such a good one too!). ERIC ERIC ERIC ERIC ERIC ERIC ERIC. Sometimes I fall in love with a character in a book which I don't even like and this can change my perception of the book in some instances...

The vampire genre seems to bring the worst out of the writers. I am a huge fan of it but there are only few books about vampires (or containing vampires) that I thought were good (in no order, I feel there must be more but I can't rememebr any):

1. Dresden Files Series. This is not about vampires only, but about all things supernatural and the main hero is a wizard residing in Chicago. I would recommend these books for the many characteristics of good serial fiction : strong world building, humour, numerous characters you will care for (including vampires). Jim Butcher has a way with words and writes great fun: wars between wizards and vampires, fairy queens , fallen angels, demons, named swords... everything.

2. Vampire Knight. This is series of Japanese manga (graphic novels) and anime. Very much young-adult oriented series but your inner teen may like it too. The main herouine Yuuki is lovely. For one thing, I understand why the two main guys are in love with her: she is brave, loyal and ready to do anything for her friends. The series is a well-done gothic take on teenage sexuality.

3.Aleksey Tolstoy, "Upir". Upir is the old Slavonic word for a vampire. This is series of short stories which was the beginning of my interest to vampires. It is a great one for the lovers of folklore and extremely scary.



True Blood : The pilot episode of this HBO series based on Charlaine Harris "Southern Vampire" series could be found in some places. Somehow, though the events seem to be the same as in "Dead Until Dark", the TV episode gave me a totally different feel. I liked the pilot of "True Blood" (considering this is the worst title of all times) and I thought it was more of "my thing" than the books.

But it seems that quite a big part of the dialogue has been changed (for the best!) and Anne Paguin plays a much deeper character than Sookie-of-the-book is. I am looking forward to the continuation of the series in September.

But - OH HORROR! I looked and looked in the character lists but I could not find Eric. Why???? He is not there? He is not among mains characters in the first book but he is quite essential even there! ** rants **

Comments

[bambinainnero.livejournal.com]

Vampire Knight is great indeed. I just finished the anime and I'm halfway through the manga, and I loved it!
Talking about the heroine.. her voice in the anime is SO ANNOYING, ugh ._.

[elec3nity.livejournal.com]

Your top of the books looks a lil' bit strange to me, because I'm a great fan of the classical vampire novels of Bram Stoker, Ann Rice and Baron Olshevri (I don't know whether the last one had been translated into English). ^_^

[xiaobellsa.livejournal.com]

I'm on the Eric band-wagon too, I don't get Bill- he's so boring.
Glad to hear the pilot of True Blood was good! I was afraid they were going to trash it:) I think I read somewhere Eric isn't going to be in it for a while :(

[mnemo-syne.livejournal.com]

Boy, Kaname looks so not amused in your icon! Hee.

Have you read "Sunshine" by Robin McKinley? Absolutely fab vampire book, I love it. Too bad it's not a series.

I don't have HBO but I want to see True Blood.

[the-grynne.livejournal.com]

What gets me about most of those supernatural-romance series is how it starts to become too crowded with supernatural beings (like an author is going through a list in her head: were-whatevers? check. fairies? check) and those different races start getting used in short-hand ways to represent different segments of society/cultures, playing up their stereotypes rather than individuating them as persons. To me, that just feels lazy.

Eric, you'll be glad to know, is definitely going to be in True Blood. Alexander Skarsgard (son of Stellan) is playing him, and I think the role is a recurring regular. He's easily my favourite character in the series, as well.

[arathisiewen.livejournal.com]

*pouts*

I so want to see True Blood.... but taking a chance on another vamp show right now is disheartening...

[nutmeg3.livejournal.com]

Once again I'm sad that Upir seems to be unavailable in English.

[endlessdeep.livejournal.com]

Eric shows up in the 4th episode of True Blood. Played by Alexander Skarsgard. He's my favorite character in the books as well.

I suppose they picked True Blood for the name of the series because it's the name of the synthetic blood the vampires drink in the book series. Not very inventive, but recognizable I suppose.

I have to agree that the dialog in the TV series is much better than in the books. Although I found Sookie to be a little too perky in the first episode. I am really looking forward to the show. :)

[aprisea.livejournal.com]

I really like Vampire Knight manga^^ I haven't seen anime yet.Next month I will watch it (holidays!).

I can't wait to watch True Blood in september.I like the pilot it's different from books, but I don't really like Anna Paquin as Sookie ._. It's weird XD
I want to see Eric *__*