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

[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.

[alexandral.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.

Stereotypes abound, I agree. I don't mind different races of supernatural used when it makes sense. Like in "Dresden files" (which is not romantic series as such, though it has some romance) where the main premise is to show the big world of supernatural completely unnoticed by humans. This is not a new premise, but I don't mind.

But in "Southern Vampires" series by the time fairies appeared the place was already too crowded with the different species.

I also don't particular like the way C.Harris insists on jamming the parallel between vampire/human relationship and relationships between different human races down our throats. It just doesn't seem to be right somehow. In my personal opinion the ugliest and unfairest and most difficult to irradicate side of racism is when someone is trying to prove that people from different races are different.
But vampires in "Southern Vampires" are different from humans and there is no doubt about this, so the parallel is not logically fair at all. Hmm, I hope I expressed it all correctly. :D

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.

Fabulous! I just found out how Alexander Skarsgard looks like. I ABSOLUTELY APPROVE.

[the-grynne.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Not to mention the "pure-blood" fixation of the weres.

Like the Harry Potter books, I have a feeling that the way these various authors deal with their myriad supernatural species is going to be a very interesting subject for cultural historians in the near future.

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

I think I am the only person on the whole planet who hasn't read Harry Porter books. I tried a couple of times (my colleague at work lent some to me) but it didn't click with me.

But truly enough, in the past the supernatural books tended to be about one thing at the time: vampires or were-things or fairies , not all at once.

[the-grynne.livejournal.com]

Oh no! Sookie has gotten used to the vampires, better introduce some other strange thing for her to whinge about!

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

It certainly seemed this way. I don't remember correctly but it seemed that the latest books were entirely populated by supernatural folks. Where have all the humans go?

And I am very much holding Sookie's coldness towards Eric against her! :D