Laura Parker on Vampires: The Lure and the Allure

Vampires; the Lure and the Allure.

By Lara Parker, author of DARK SHADOWS: WOLF MOON RISING.

Vampires and zombies and ghouls, oh my! What is the ever-growing fascination with supernatural entities that are also evil? Is it because we live in difficult and disappointing times and seek escape from our troubles? Or does it go deeper?

First of all, it’s obvious that sexual urges play a large part in the appeal, and the bite of the vampire is a thinly disguised metaphor for the sexual act. Being bitten plays out the stages of seduction: the irrepressible urge, the loss of will, the abandonment to desire, and then penetration and orgasm. Unfortunately, being bitten is also lethal. One either dies or becomes one of the living dead.

In the teen age and college culture of today, young girls are expected to be sexually available, even eager. The old-fashioned standard of playing hard to get so that he will want you more has disappeared. This doesn’t mean that girls are happy with these expectations, but they are pressured to conform to them nevertheless.

And we’ve always been drawn to the ‘bad boys,” and popular songs often explore that topic. Desiring what is bad for you and can harm you is part of the allure.

TWILIGHT provided a way out of this dilemma since sex with a vampire is forbidden; being bitten is the sure road to death, just as sex was thought to be in days before birth control and antibiotics.

Bella is safe because she can abandon herself to love. A beautiful, powerful boy takes care of her and keeps her safe, but she does not have to have sex with him because, well . . . she can’t have sex with him. (At least in the first book) She and Edward both know this, and the sword lies between them and keeps them apart. Bella gets the boy but remains the virgin to be loved for her virtue.

In the cult TV show, DARK SHADOWS, the vampire Barnabas Collins fulfilled the dreams of lonely housewives watching TV over their ironing and longing for the renewal of passion in their lives. Desire for a vampire’s bite is not being unfaithful to one’s husband because the bite cannot be safely consummated. One can fantasize passion but not succumb to it, expunging guilt but leaving one free to explore sexual desire.

Played with Shakespearian conviction by the charismatic actor, Jonathan Frid, Barnabas Collins represented the fulfillment of female fantasies.  Dangerously evil, he was also deeply morose and consumed with guilt over his need for blood, engaging not only the “bad boy” desires but also the mothering instinct: “He is so sad and depressed; can’t I be the one to relieve his misery?”

On a deeper level, the vampire embodies all that we aspire to and all that repulses us. He is immortal, living forever, and this is what we long for most deeply: eternal life. This is why we practice religion because we are promised an afterlife in paradise. At the same time we are repulsed by anything dead, even a squished cockroach or a dead mouse. We draw back in disgust. This is the push-pull of the vampire, desire coupled with loathing that creates artistic tension and a compelling fixation.

The vampire also possesses the allure of the competent, reckless but sophisticated male who is experienced and powerful. He is a figure of forbidden desire much like the cowboy, the gangster, the gambler, or the lord of the manor, a mysterious, gloomy and troubled loner whose indifferent heart can be won by the right virtuous woman. 

This scenario is at the heart of Gothic romance, Jane Eyre, for instance. The fact that the vampire is a member of the wealthy and powerful class of men makes him appealing to women and the fact that he is evil disguised makes him taboo. The dichotomy is evident, and the desire to pull the two sides of the vampire into one accessible human being is the lasting attraction.

Love and death are fiction’s time-honored topics, and the vampire embodies both.

Amazon

Dark Shadows: Wolf Moon Rising

The first all-new Dark Shadows novel in years, written by Lara Parker, one of the stars of the cult classic TV show!

When a portrait is lost that has maintained Quentin Collins’s youthful appearance for over a century—and has also kept his werewolf curse at bay—Quentin begins to dread the full moon.

Meanwhile, David, the sixteen-year-old heir to the Collins fortune, has fallen in love with Jacqueline, a young girl living at the Old House who is the reincarnation of Angelique. David and Jacqueline are swept back in time to the prohibition era of the Twenties, where David uncovers the dark secrets of the Collins family history.

Most threatening of all, Dr. Nathanial Blair, an expert in the paranormal, has come to Collinwood because he suspects they are harboring a vampire. Fortunately, Barnabas Collins has returned to his coffin after a disastrous flirtation with life as a human. Nevertheless, what Blair discovers places the entire Collins family in jeopardy.

Amazon

DARK SHADOWS: WOLF MOON RISING

BY LARA PARKER

Lara Parker is as bewitching and cunning an author as she was when she portrayed the sexy enchantress Angelique on Dark Shadows…

WOLF MOON RISING injects new blood into a classic saga on werewolves and vampires.”

—The Commercial Appeal on DARK SHADOWS: WOLF MOON RISING

Box Office Poison: Guest Post with Phillipa Bornikova

The paranormal in Hollywood....  Well, there are some who would say there’s nothing “normal” about Hollywood at any time (insert rim shot here).  Joking aside, the fantastic has been integral to film and to Hollywood from the earliest days.  Consider Méliès and his film A Trip to the Moon or Le Manoir du Diable, or Murnau’s terrifying German silent vampire film Nosferatu.

When America came roaring into this new form of entertainment there was Frankenstein, and the Wizard of Oz, and Lon Cheny’s Wolfman, and Bela Lugosi as Dracula.  Witches, vampires, werewolves and an array of other fantastic and monstrous beings have been cavorting across both the big and small screen for decades.

So why did I decide to set an urban fantasy novel in Hollywood?  Partly because I had included elves in my pantheon of supernatural creatures, and it just seemed like an inevitable conflict would arise between the human actors and the preternaturally beautiful Álfar of my universe.  Hollywood is a town that puts a big premium on looks.  Even writers are subject to this judgment of the physical.  It would be logical that the Álfar would begin to get all the roles to the detriment of the human actors.

Also I’ve known a lot of hard charging Hollywood agents and managers, and in my universe I had postulated that werewolves would gravitate toward highly competitive jobs and dangerous jobs from bond traders to soldiers, etc.  High powered agents and managers are ruthless and it seemed like another profession well suited for Hounds. 

I also know the siren song of Hollywood.  I’ve felt it myself, and for generations the handsomest boy and the prettiest girl in high school have made that pilgrimage for the chance to be a star, our American version of royalty.  That made me think about the attractions of our world to the more pastoral Álfar, and I had another source of conflict that I could explore.  The truth is how you gonna keep ‘em down on the farm or locked in fairyland once they’ve seen Tinsel Town?

Ultimately the premise for my series was to investigate how the presence of supernatural creatures would affect our culture as well as our economics and politics.  I wanted to look at the levers of power, and entertainment certainly plays a part in that.  It is how we project American values and power to the world, and it’s also our largest export.  It just seemed like the next logical place to explore how vampires, werewolves and elves would  change our world.

So that’s the origin of BOX OFFICE POISON and I hope it sheds a little light on the internal workings of The Industry, and provides a bit of fun along the way.

Amazon

London Falling: Paul Cornell the Interview

A writer of the acclaimed modern incarnation of Doctor Who

begins a nail-biting contemporary dark fantasy series with

LONDON FALLING

“Featuring an assemblage of super-natural baddies and two terrifying villains,

Cornell’s foray into dark fantasy isn’t for the faint of heart, but it’s one absorbing, brilliant read. Even with four principal characters, Cornell knows how to go deep with each, switching among their perspectives and steadily building the reader’s emotional investment. If this is just the series opener, I can’t wait to see what’s coming in book two.”

-- RT book review, 4 ½ stars and Top Pick!

Paul Cornell is a British writer best known for his work on the television show Doctor Who, most notably for penning three Hugo Award-nominated episodes, as well as several spinoff novels. This is why TOR is proud to announce the release of Cornell’s latest fantasy novel LONDON FALLING (A Tor Hardcover; On Sale: April 16, 2013)!

Police officers Quill, Costain, Sefton, and Ross know the worst of London—or they think they do. While investigating a mobster's mysterious death, they come into contact with a strange artifact and accidentally develop the Sight. Suddenly they can see the true evil haunting London’s streets.

Armed with police instincts and procedures, the four officers take on the otherworldly creatures secretly prowling London. Football lore and the tragic history of a Tudor queen become entwined in their pursuit of an age-old witch with a penchant for child sacrifice. But when London’s monsters become aware of their meddling, the officers must decide what they are willing to sacrifice to clean up their city. 

The Interview:

1. What inspired you to write London Falling?

I wanted to write something set in the modern world, with a group of professionals (in this case undercover police officers), encountering the supernatural.  The way their procedures and tactics help them get past their shock and terror is what interested me most. 

2. Are you a panster or a plotter?

I don't know what a panster is, but I assume it's a sort of cook.  I do all the cooking for my family.  And I'm going to call it that now.  I'm going to say 'well, I'm not much of a panster, but I can make a great jambalaya'.  I actually plot in vast, enormous detail before writing a book, then have to horrifyingly revise it when the writing of that plots unravels it.  But I do have a sheet showing what I'm meant to be doing at all times. 

3. Open your book to any page and tell us what is happening.

Okay, randomly, page 232 of the UK edition: my broken genius of an intelligence analyst, Lisa Ross, has just learned something terrible from a woman in the remains of a Victorian dress at a New Age fair, having had the 'Tarot of London' read for her.  While her boss, Detective Inspector Quill, is having a punch up outside with a man who can use vanes to make the winds hit him. 

4. If you were going to take your characters out to dinner, where would they like to go and what would they eat?

A police pub near Gipsy Hill police station, where they're based, like The Black Sheep.  They'd have pub grub, heavy on the carbs, and three or four 'pints of therapy'.

5. What is your favorite ice cream flavor?

I'm lactose intolerant, but I will risk the wrath of my stomach for a Raspberry Ripple. 

6. Do you have any hobbies for when you are not chained to the computer?

I love cricket, and run a fantasy cricket league, so I follow the scores avidly.  I don't get to watch as often as I'd like, because we have a six month old baby, and our lives are not our own.  (What did I do with all that spare time?!)

7. If you have pets, tell us about them.

I don't!  Erm, sorry. 

8. What has been the toughest part about being a writer and do you try to balance your writing life with a day job?

I'm a full time writer.  The toughest bit is actually the plotting.  If you get that right, then everything else is easy.  I've just had to write two plots for two different things in a week, and after that I felt like I'd been attacked with hammers.  (Without wanting to belittle the experiences of those who've actually been attacked with hammers.  Our thoughts and prayers are with you.)

9. What advice would you give someone who is trying to write a novel length piece for the first time?

It's about memory.  It's remembering what everyone's motivation was the last time you saw them.  It's about remembering how the whole thing feels while you're writing a small piece of it.  If you get an awful feeling, like you're a terrible writer (some people call this 'writer's block', but I don't believe in that, because this is an alarm, not an off switch), then read back, not the bit you're on now, but from a few pages back.  Your brain is telling you you've done something wrong, and you've been building on top of it for a little while.  Or maybe that's just me.  

10. What is on your writing horizon?

I've just delivered the sequel to London Falling, which is called The Severed Streets ('Jack the Ripper is back, and this time he's only killing rich white men'), and I write the Wolverine comic for Marvel every month.  Apart from that, there are a few lovely things I can't talk about, and my new Wild Cards story, 'The Elephant in the Room' will be on Tor.com next month. 

Stay tuned for a review of this awesome book. I have started it and don't anticipate much sleep in the next few days! :)

Trucker Ghost Stories: An Interview with Annie Wilder

In a uniquely entertaining book by a rising star, here are uncanny true tales of haunted highways, weird encounters, and legends of the road.

It may have happened to you; it’s happened to almost everyone who’s ever driven down a highway at night, or in the fog, or snow. Something suddenly appears: a flash of movement, a shadow...what was it? It could be, as the true stories in this book attest, a ghost.

These are true stories from the highways and byways of America. These firsthand accounts are as varied as the storytellers themselves—some are detailed and filled with the terror and suspense that made people feel they had to share what happened to them with others; others are brief and straightforward retellings of truly chilling events.

Here is a chupacabra attack on the desert highway between L.A. and Las Vegas; ghost trains and soldiers; UFOs; the prom girl ghost of Alabama; a demon in Texas, and other accounts of the creepy, scary things that truckers and other drivers and passengers told to editor Annie Wilder.

With so many different stories, Trucker Ghost Stories moves beyond the usual haunted house to offer stories to entice any ghost story reader...and anyone who’s ever wondered...

TRUCKER GHOST STORIES

And Other True Tales of Haunted Highways, Weird Encounters, and Legends of the Road

Edited by Annie Wilder

“Soon summer’s campfires will be extinguished, but it’s not too late to study up on scary stories to pack along with the marshmallows.

These “true first-person accounts of strange encounters on the highways and byways of America” include the tale of the “Alabama Prom Girl Ghost,”

the always popular “Hitchhiker in Red” and the unbelievable (we mean just that) “Kentucky Train Track Monster.”

-- NY Daily News

An Interview with Annie:

1.  How did you get started with paranormal investigations?

I wrote a book about my experiences living in a house filled with ghosts and the investigators came calling.

2.     What was your favorite thing about writing this book? Reading the ghost stories that came in and hanging out occasionally on the online trucking forums. I like the colorful vernacular and blue-collar vibe of trucker world. Also, I ‘ve really enjoyed working with some of the truckers and other contributors who are now writing their own books, or finishing up books or stories they started years ago. 

3.     What is the weirdest story you have ever heard or experienced? That’s a hard question to answer; there are so many good stories in the book…The hitchhiker who had goat legs and hooves was pretty weird. Or the skinwalker chasing two boys in a pickup truck in Arizona.  There’s a witch story in the book that filled me with a sense of dread. Lots o’ weirdness out there on the roads — I think we captured some of the best of it with this book.

4. Open up the book to any page and tell us what is happening.

 It’s nighttime. A trucker is driving solo near the Little Big Horn Battlefield in Montana. He hears a voice saying, “Can you help me?” coming from inside the truck. In the driver’s words:

“Now I am running 68 mph at the time. I looked over and there in buckskins was Custer, plain as day. He said, ‘I need reinforcements’ and disappeared.”

4.     Tell us about your other books, House of Spirits and Whispers and Spirits Out of Time.

My first book, House of Spirits and Whispers, is my account of living in a house haunted by spirits and characterized by astral anomalies of all kinds. The main house spirit, Leon, described the house to one of the psychics as “Grand Central Station for ghosts.”

My second book is a book of true family ghost stories from my Irish and German relatives, and has stories of things ranging from fairies and death coaches to animal omens, Bloody Mary, and a mysterious ghost girl.

6. Pepperoni pizza or sushi?

   Pepperoni pizza. No. Sushi. Ever.

7. Margaritas or sparkling water with lime?

   Is a tequila shot an option?

8. What is it like having your home investigated by ghost hunters?

It’s interesting and novel and usually fun. It also requires a lot of trust, since you’re letting strangers go through your home. I do request that all visitors in my home be respectful of my property and of the beings residing here, whether they are physical, spirit, or animal. I also ask guests not to summon or invite anything into my house that isn’t already here.

The group that investigated most recently told me that when I left for a few minutes to walk our dog, the atmosphere of the house changed. It became more guarded, as though the spirits were nervous about the investigators being there without me in the house. I thought that was pretty cool.

What have you found out about the haunting?

Hmmm, this is hard to answer, since it’s kind of a neverending ghost story. Each psychic, paranormal investigator, and sometimes the haunted tea party guests add a bit of information or some new insight to the story.

I talk about recent investigation findings, plus the latest weird happenings, quite often on my Facebook page. I also have a bunch of material that I plan to use in additional books.

9. Tell us about what you are working on now.

I’m collaborating with the house spirits on my next book, a short Q&A, but with the spirits providing answers to the questions I’m most often asked by readers or by my haunted tea party guests.

There’s a psychic in Texas, Linda Drake, who is really good at getting really interesting and informative responses from the ghosts in my house. So I booked a couple of readings with Linda and, as I had hoped, the spirits had a lot to say. I’m working now on following up on some of their comments to see if I can corroborate or add any details. I think it’ll be a fun book to read.

10. What are some of your favorite spooky reads?

I started reading Anne Rice’s The Witching Hour when I lived alone and it was so terrifying to me that I had to put it away for a few years. I started reading it again when one of my kids moved back home for a bit and got weirdly hooked on it, even though I found it so frightening that I was almost afraid of the book itself — as if the story’s evilness could seep out of the pages and into my house.

In nonfiction spooky reads, I love Colin Wilson’s Poltergiest and FATE Magazine. I’m also a huge fan of the fabulous UK magazine Fortean Times. And I’m reading all of Nick Redfern’s books now and digging them.

Thanks Annie for hanging out with the zombies today!! Weird is wonderful and we can't wait to read your book.

Three Parts Dead Virtual Tour and Guest Blog

A tale of intrigue, a murdered god, and the business of necromancy,

THREE PARTS DEAD by Max Gladstone

is an intriguing urban fantasy set in a phenomenally built alternate reality!

“The combination of legal thriller and steam-powered fantasy may seem improbable, but Gladstone makes it work with an appealing cast and a setting rich

with imaginative details…. the story remains suspenseful and fast-paced throughout, and the diverse, female-led cast is a joy

to follow through the fascinating and unusual landscape.”

-- Publishers Weekly «starred review«

“Sci-fi, fantasy and a murder mystery all rolled in one…really exciting and fast paced with unexpected twists and turns. It culminates in a big surprise ending.”

—RT Book Reviews

A god has died, and it’s up to Tara, first-year associate in the international necromantic firm of Kelethres, Albrecht, and Ao, to bring Him back to life before His city falls apart.

Her client is Kos, recently deceased fire god of the city of Alt Coulumb. Without Him, the metropolis’s steam generators will shut down, its trains will cease running, and its four million citizens will riot.

Tara’s job: resurrect Kos before chaos sets in. Her only help: Abelard, a chain-smoking priest of the dead god, who’s having an understandable crisis of faith.

When Tara and Abelard discover that Kos was murdered, they have to make a case in Alt Coulumb’s courts—and their quest for the truth endangers their partnership, their lives, and Alt Coulumb’s slim hope of survival.

Set in a phenomenally built world in which justice is a collective force bestowed on a few, craftsmen fly on lightning bolts, and gargoyles can rule cities, Three Parts Dead introduces readers to an ethical landscape in which the line between right and wrong blurs.

ZombieGirl Shambling Guest blog

Dead Gods

By Max Gladstone

      How does a god die?  And what happens afterward?

      We don’t think of gods as mortal, but they do perish.  Dead gods litter history.  Some of their names we know, like Mithras; some we only call “God A,” or “the Staff God,” deities robbed of everything but symbol.

Some even die before history crushes them, inside their own myths or those of others.  Baldur dies, stabbed by mistletoe, robbed of resurrection.  Cronos dies at his children’s hands.  The various waves of gods that settled Ireland die, killed and displaced by their successors, until a final truce allows the Tuatha De Danaan to dwindle away in relative peace, reduced to “fair folk.”  Some think these myths record movements of history: tribes displaced, one group of conquerors giving way to the next.  Maybe so, maybe not—it’s a cool thesis, though, and gods, especially old-model gods, do seem tied to a certain people, a certain way of life and a certain time.

And as times (and ways of life) change, gods change in response to them.  Older gods are displaced by younger.  Apollo becomes god of prophecy in addition to plague by killing the Pythia—another dead god for our list—and assumes her powers.

So gods change.  They grow with their nations, and they die with them.

Our modern world might not be ruled by gods in the ancient Greek model, but impersonal, immaterial, and fickle forces do shape our destiny.  Back in 2008 when the recession started, people looked around as if the sky were falling.  Immaterial calamity had a dramatic, and direct, impact on the world we inhabit.

Three Parts Dead takes that image and runs with it.  What if the passing of gods caused the passing of nations, not the other way around?  A god’s death would lead to a crisis—institutions failing, people rioting in the streets.  New gods might rise in the vacuum, of course, or other powers step forth to take their place.  But there would be parties anxious to stem the tide of social unrest, to preserve the status quo, by bringing the dead god back to life.

Of course, these parties would have their own agenda.  Not everyone would want the god returning from death to be the same one who died.  Those arguments would play out at the highest levels of power, politics, and religion, down to the streetcorner prophet.  Death and resurrection become the subject of courtroom drama and political scheming.

My main character, Tara, stands in the middle this chaos: a young necromancer trying to make her way in the world independent of gods, she’s nevertheless tasked with bringing a god back to life.

And when she starts to ask the question of how this god died, and why, the answers she finds will shake the foundations of the city she’s come to save.

Blog: http://www.maxgladstone.com

Twitter: @maxgladstone

Bio:  Max has taught in southern Anhui, wrecked a bicycle in Angkor Wat, and been thrown from a horse in Mongolia. Max graduated from Yale University, where he studied Chinese.