Who's reading any vampire stuff?

Anybody got any good recommendations? I recently bought an adaptation of Pride and Prejudice wherein Mr. Darcy is a vampire. I haven't got it yet. Anyone read any of these adaptations of classics? Any opinions?

You can try to find an English translation of Nodier, Charles (19th C French fantastic tales, etc.), his stories are about vampires and the supernatural.

Otherwise, Ann Rice's vampire chronicles (Interview with the vampire, The vampire Lestat, etc) is a good start.

In terms of adaptation, I think that there are two reactions from readers: if you have read the original, you may think adaptations are wrong, if you cannot bear that an original story can deviate from the storyline/established canon; then people may like new, original, adaptations, BECAUSE it is new, and it may incite them to re-read the original. In the case of 'Pride and Prejudice and zombies', I have resisted any attempt at reading it, because, in my opinion, the author of the book is using the fact that the original book is in the public domain to sell his work.

I just finished Soulless, and it's fun. Just put The Companion on my wishlist at the library.

Hrmmmm anything else historical with vampires... not that I can think of in my recent reading history.

I'm not reading it at the moment, but as this topic is in the Historical Fiction group it would be apropos to mention The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. It's very atmospheric and well written.

There was also a recent ER book, Descent Into Dust, that has vampires in Victorian England.

I won't even mention that travesty one of my co-workers is reading, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter... :(

I really loved the The Gardella Vampire Chronicles beginning with The Rest Falls Away by Colleen Gleason, the whole series is great, it's like Buffy the Vampire meets Pride and Prejudice - loved it, and the series is complete.

I won Descent into Dust and hope to start it this weekend and will let you all know what I thought of it .I also won on a different site Queen Victoria Demon Hunter by the skim I've given these two books I think I'm going to like Descent better but we'll see.
I also loved The Historian

Sounds generally like highbrow or maybe pseudo-highbrow stuff. Lotta people out there reading all kinds of werewolf, vampire, and other type beastie things, which account for almost a third of the books I edit for mainstream publishers. The latest, which I now have in the house and have to finish by the end of the month--fifth in a series by a particular author--is called Vampire Uprising, with more beasties of all kinds than you'd believe. (In some of these books the vampire is the good guy, or woman.)

Several have already mentioned The Historian - I really enjoyed it as well. It isn't a quick read, but has a well written and fully developed plot.

I read a good historical fiction/dark fantasy vampire novel a couple of years ago that hasn't got much play: The Mirror by Natalia Lincoln. It's a creation story that goes back and forth between modern New York and Medieval Europe to explore the beginnings of vampirism. The characters are tortured and complicated and the plot moves rapidly. Lincoln did her homework in the Medieval sections. The historical and modern detail is vivid and accurate, making the brooding castles of Eastern Europe and the gritty streets of modern New York characters in their own right. It's a dense read, but worth the effort.

Descent Into Dust was pretty good definetly no sparkly vampires here!

It seems I shall be posting a dissenting opinion.

The Historian was pants. Overly long, contrived, not particularly exciting and over-hyped.

Let the Right One In, on the other hand, is downright chilling. Ditto Salem's Lot. Carrion Comfort is another inspired vampire novel.

Enjoy...

I thought Descent Into Dust was okay, but not great. It was lacking somehow, just didn't have a lot of momentum and I like a romantic interest, and their wasn't much there, though I have hopes for the future books in the series.

I agree ktleyed but I think it may be the beginning of a good series.It wasn't the best but it was pretty good I thought.

And the Historian is one of those love it or hate it books.

I highly recommend Kim Harrison's "Rachel Morgan" series (a/k/a "The Hollows") starting with Dead Witch Walking, and read them in order or you miss out seriously on back story.

It's set in Cincinnati after "The Turn" when 90% of the human population has been wiped out by the T-4 Angel virus spread by a genetically mutated tomato. As a result, Inderlanders (witches, vamps, weres, and other species) are now numerically equal to humans and have mostly come out. (Also, humans now have an abhorrence of tomatoes, so pizza parlors are mainly run by vampires.)

Rachel Morgan (a heterosexual witch), Ivy Tamwood (a bisexual vampire), and Jenks (a philoprogenitive pixie) have formed a detective agency called Vampiric Charms. (Get it? Vampiric for vampire and Charms for witch? Except someone at the phone company didn't, and a confusion in the Yellow Pages listing means Rachel sometimes gets calls from humans who think she's running a dating service for the vampiricially oriented.)

Tongue-in-cheek combo of serious paranormal thriller with Buffy-ish camp.

The Historian was awesome to listen on the book on CD. Unabridged - of course. But it was great!

And on my Kindle I'm currently reading Three Days to Dead by Kelly Meding. It does have some vampires in it, although the main protagonists are human and the vamps don't seem to have a particularly prominent role. (I'm only about two-thirds through, so it's possible that the vamps might become a little more prominent by the end, but I suspect they won't.)

For the perfect marriage of historical fiction and vampire novels, I believe that Chelsea Quinn Yarbro is the queen. Every historical period she researches is accurate and the vampire in question lives for thousands of years. And they are partially epistolary as well. The series begines with Hotel Transylvania and continues with Blood Games, I believe. There are a lot of these and I believe her website lists the novels in both historical order and order of publication. I am going to check out The Mirror and get that copy of Soulless out of the TBR pile thanks to this thread.

I read Yarbro's series many, many years ago and remember really enjoying the earlier ones. However, as with many series, I also started to get bored toward the end. It felt like the same plot over and over with different settings. My apologies for not remembering when it started to drop off, but it's been awhile.

I'm a vampire snob I'm afraid - became intrigued by the genre in my early teens when I managed to find a copy of Bram Stoker's Dracula which was hard to come by in the mid-70s - and carefully hoarded other gems in the genre through the 80s, when vampire books were few and far between and good vampire books as rare as hen's teeth.

George Martin's "Fevre Dream", published 1982, was chilling, and McCammon's "They Thirst" terrified me. And Stephen King's "Salem's Lot" is also a classic. Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's Saint-Germain series were quite reasonable too, although I prefered my vampires evil. Estleman's "Sherlock Holmes vs Dracula" also impressed me.

Now vampire stories are a dime a dozen with all the teen reads cluttering up the scene - the Vampire Diaries and the Twilight series to name just two - and from being thrilling adult fare they have dumbed down to appeal to the Boy Band generation, boasting legions of teenyboppers as fans. Dracula is turning in his grave.

#20 - Its hard to be a good vampire snob these days with so much fluff flutting the market, however, based on this thread I have recently read The Passage, which is definitely worth a read, though I would term it more post-apocalyptic than vampire fiction, Carrion Comfort, which was a really great read and The Mirror by Natalia Lincoln, which is shaping up nicely. I also read Descent into Dust, which falls more into the fluff category and got The Companion, which I have yet to read.

#20: Now vampire stories are a dime a dozen with all the teen reads cluttering up the scene - the Vampire Diaries and the Twilight series to name just two - and from being thrilling adult fare they have dumbed down to appeal to the Boy Band generation, boasting legions of teenyboppers as fans. Dracula is turning in his grave.

I completely agree. Fortunately not all new books are the »I want my boyfriend to be a tender, loving and caring vampire« kind. Personally I'm looking forward to read David Wellington's series about the vampire hunter Laura Caxton. Wellington's vampires should be the predatory kind, not emotional teenagers...

#21: Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons is also on my reading list!

This one is really different - maybe because it is set in a very realistic, very "close to home" environment in a suburb in Sweden. It got excellent reviews when it was published - also outside "vampire buff-circles": Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist.

#23: This one is really different - maybe because it is set in a very realistic, very "close to home" environment in a suburb in Sweden. It got excellent reviews when it was published - also outside "vampire buff-circles": Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist.

I have mixed feelings about this one! The novel is well written but somehow I got the feeling that it is more a sociological study than true vampire horror fiction!

#23 and 24 - Interesting as Let the Right One In is on my TBR pile at the moment, though I have been on a bit of a vampire glut and took a break for some historical fiction. Thanks to this thread, I also got a couple of vampire romances from the library and will report back as to whether or not they were readable.

I know Let the Right One In is renowned as being excellent and has ben recommended by people who like it despite rather than because it was a vampire story. David Wellington sounds like an interesting writer - zombies, werewolves and now vampires? I'll keep an eye open for him in the discount shops. Has anyone read any Freda warrington? I think that was the name. She started a series some years ago but I read only the first book, A Taste of Blood Wine.

I think Locke is right about it being a bit "sociological". I guess that is an important part of what makes it different. Someone looking for the romantic vampire could go seriously wrong with Let the Right One In. But if you're wondering what would happen if a real everyday sort of vampire actually moved in next door - then this is a good one.

The Historian is incredible...

No such list is complete without I Am Legend by Richard Matheson.

I personally also really liked The Empire of Fear by Brian Stableford.

Fevre Dream is also excellent.

There are some interesting ones on this list:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/oct/30/kevin-jackson-top-10-vampire-novels

I am currently reading A Discovery of Witches by, Deborah Harkness .I don’t know who the marketing genius (insert sarcasm here) was that decided to market this as Twilight for adults. It Is Not! I’d say it has more shades of The Historian with more romance. It took me a little while to get into this one but now I’m hooked.

It is a witch and a vampire falling in love while trying to find an ancient book that has been lost.

There's a new series by Cherie Priest, Cheshire Red Reports, the first book of which is titled Bloodshot. I really loved her "Eden Moore" trilogy but didn't read anything she wrote after that because it seemed mainly alternative history and/or steampunk, neither of which particularly interest me. This new series, though, involves a vampire who's a "master thief" (a bit different, at least, from the standard vampire fare), and I think I may wind up liking it even better than "Eden Moore" for the snarky narrative voice of Raylene Pendle, the vamp.

This isn't HF, though, but urban fantasy.

One of my favorites is Fevre Dream by George R. R. Martin. Takes place in the South on a riverboat.

I'm not reading anything at the moment, but I like Patricia Briggs' Mercy Thompson series, wherein Moon Called is the first book. I don't completely agree with her pack politics for the wolves, but we'll see what happens in later books. The series is still relatively young, it's well written, and still has a lot of potential.

@33>> I'm reading River Marked (the latest Mercy) right now. Quite interesting, and so far a little better than some of the others. No where near as good, in my opinion, as Kim Harrison's Rachel Morgan series or, by the looks of the first book, Cherie Priest's new "Cheshire Red Reports" series, but that's because I prefer a story with a more independent woman character, and Mercy's too cozy with Adam for my own taste. (Maybe that's what you mean by not agreeing with "pack politics"?)

I find this conversation to have nothing absolutely to do with anything of a historical fiction nature. Am I way off track?

The Joe Pitt series by Charlie Huston (touchstone not working) is pretty good. The first in the series is Already Dead. Vampyres are created by a vyrus (okay, the "y" thing is a little cheesy), and NYC is carved up into turf battled over by rival vampyre clans. Joe is a Rogue, not associated with any clan, but does odd jobs for them.

>36 Tess_W:-Well the second book in The Discovery of Witches looks to be alot more historical fiction because at the end there is time walking and they plan to go back in time and find out more about the book, thats why I mentioned it here.