|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Vampire Readings is an annotated bibliography of vampire literature emphasizing fiction published since 1987 but which also includes selected older works. There are sections for novels, anthologies and novellas, young adult fiction, and additional readings. In this last area are listed nonfiction works that cover both vampire literature and myth. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
For the purpose of inclusion in this book, vampires are defined as immortal (or long-lived), blood-drinking humanoids. They may go about by day and revel in sunlight, see their reflection in the mirror, laugh when confronted with a cross (or other religious object), run about without concern for native soil, savor the odor of garlic, sleep in beds and spurn coffins, but if they wish a place in this bibliography they must drink blood and be almost indestructible. I will admit that the careful reader of this tome will find a few items that push the limits of the definition, but as in life (or unlife, as the case may be), there are gray areas. When trying to draw a line of demarcation there are things that straddle the border and a judgment call has to be made. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I first encountered the vampire through a reading of Bram Stoker's Dracula. At the time I was staying in a guest house in Mexico City. My room had dark paneling and dim lighting in other words, an atmosphere exactly right for what is, by even today's cynical standards, a very scary story. Many others have continued to use Count Dracula or others of his ilk to personify evil and bring shivers of fear to the reader. Dracula is not the first vampire story in English, but it has proven to be one of the most popular; published in 1897, Dracula has been continuously in print ever since. It has also spurred a spate of novels, many of which carry on the tradition of the vampire as the embodiment of evil. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
In these novels of horror the supernatural powers of the undead stem from an unholy bargain, and if the vampire still has a soul, it is one that is damned. In novels such as John Steakley's Vampire$ or Bloodshift by Garfield Reeves-Stevens, the undead face true death as they battle agents of the Roman Catholic Church. These agents often belong to a |
|
|
|
|
|