My latest column is up over at This Is Horror! This month, I make a plea on behalf of some of the more neglected night creatures in fiction… Here’s a snippet from the opening:
It’s not that I hate vampires and zombies.
Like many fans of dark fiction, I was once seduced by Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Le Fanu’s Carmilla and Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire. I watched all of Buffy and some of Angel. The first season of True Blood was intriguing, as was its premise, though the show quickly wore thin. I still consider Norman Partridge’s ‘Apotropaics’ (Subterranean, 2008) one of the most refreshing uses of vampire lore in short fiction. Jason Nahrung’s Blood and Dust (2012), what will no doubt prove to be a rollicking vampire yarn set in the Queensland outback, is a novel I’m really looking forward to reading. And James Bradley has written a brilliant essay, ‘Bloody Beauties: The Rise and Rise of Vampire Lit’ (The Australian Literary Review), which has done an excellent job explaining the resilience of vampire fiction over the years…
Read the rest of the column here.
Lisa L. Hannett 