A little bit of fun.
What on earth has happened to the traditional vampire? Which writers today are continuing in the great tradition of Stoker, Le Fanu, Rymer and the like. Yes, Anne Rice writes some excellent and entertaining stories, as does Stephanie Myers. But their creations are not vampires in the traditional sense. Nor does the plethora of mainly young adult "vampire" stories feature real vampires. Bacause the element of real evil has gone. Many stories have no supernatural element at all, let alone the presence of real evil. Stephen King, in his wonderful Salem's Lot, describes Father Callahan's state of mind as follows:
The exultation had faded away like a bad echo of pride. Terror struck him around the heart like a blow. Not terror for his life or his honor or that his housekeeper might find out about his drinking. It was a terror he had never dreamed of, not even in the tortured days of his adolescence.
The terror he felt was for his immortal soul.
How can the terror in your average YA so-called "Vampire" novel even compare with this. The true vampire is evil, a demon. The soul of a person is damned, held in bondage whilst the vampire's unnatural life continues. And when it ends, what? Salvation? Eternal life? Or perhaps simply an end to suffering. I will again quote from Salem's Lot, and if you haven't read it, you should buy it now and do so. Ben has just driven a stake through Susan's dead heart:
Blood suddenly boiled from her mouth and nose in a tide… and something else. In the faint light it was only a suggestion, a shadow, of something leaping up and out, cheated and ruined. It merged with the darkness and was gone.
She settled back, her mouth relaxing, closing. The mangled lips parted in a last, susurating pulse of air. For a moment the eyelids fluttered and Ben saw, or fancied he saw, the Susan he had met in the park, reading his book.
It was done.
No. I'm not sorry that Anne Rice wrote her books, nor am I sorry to have read and enjoyed many of them. Nor do I begrudge the writing of the whole Twilight series, or the many other vampire books which depart from the tradition. I am not the arbiter of what is and is not a Vampire, nor should I or anyone else be. There is room for all sorts of interpretations of the Vampire myth. But we do seem to be bringing up a generation that doesn't know what a real vampire is! From what I can see the traditional vampire story is currently missing in action.
And so to the question. Is anyone aware of any more traditional vampire stories published recently? Are any authors writing them anymore? And if there are any, are they good enough to recommend?