Interview with the Vampire

   
    Vampires – There can only be one! When we look at vampires in this day and age we generally start to see a vast divide amongst  the groups; “the sparkles” (romantic, gothic type) and “the matadors”(masculine, macho fighting types.) Both are pretty much the evolution on steroids version of where they actually came from. Originally being more of “witch calling” event, people used to acuse others of vampirism as well as going out of their ways to actually stake the bodies of the dead.
From the novella The Vampyre by John Polidori's vampires started to gain ground in the gothic stereo type of being charismatic and educated. This lead to Bram Stoker's Dracula which spawned an entire cultural current. Things started getting tense in the house so the genre split, taking two distinct turns.

Not nearly enough guns or blood

The lonely steward started popping out True Blood, Count Dracula and Twilight like it was none of her business while the roid-raging preteen divulged into Underworld, Van Helsing and Castlevania.
While i'm partial to both I have recently had my weights tipped in favor of the shotgun wielding bunch. Why? Two reasons, Twilight and Anne Rice.

    Since most of the reason why Twilight is just plain ridiculous (never said not well written.. just ridiculous) are in plain view i'm going to pick on Anne Rice.
I give her recognition and a bow at keeping many middle aged woman's clits in good use but frankly I get irritated when the same staple of the good girls falling after the bad boys comes into a serious novel. Maybe its just my cynicism about the subject but i'm frankly a little bored by the entire “i know more than you or lead you to believe I do, therefore you must swoon me compassionately” act. Mrs. Rice gave us this role in the embodiment of Lestat- one of the first, and supposedly, oldest vampires we see in the book. Why is he not held to his actions and words? Why is no one truly challenging him of his supposed knowledge? I see no validity other than literally sucking you for what your worth. I'm going to pretend to stand for a higher class of relations so i'm not buying his sack of potatoes.

Tempting.

 I thought maybe Rice would go farther with the relationship between Armond and Louis but once again it was somewhat fruitless and I didn't see much in it.
     Practically every character had some huge inexcusable character flaw... all except for one. That single candidate was the youngest vampire in the troop named Claudia. Not only is she one of the few kid vampires you see roaming around she actually has a lot of depth. Not only does she pose as an innocent young girl she rides the undercurrent in her favor, single handedly allowing the other two to take care of her needs while she reins as ignorant queen bee. While she's using her witty guise she is actually dealing with very real and interesting internal problems concerning her age. The struggle between her mental age and that of her body is something I think a lot of people can relate to. This escalates and Claudia becomes the true monster of the book, taking what she pleases in what seems to be pure evil. I loved Claudia and not quite sure why a lot of others didn't.
    In Rice's defense she does what she does very well and is an excellent writer just this kind of half serious novel I didn't enjoy.

The only vampire that can get me weak at the knees