Stephen King wants scary vampires...

[GuardianAngel]

I admire Stephen King. The Stand is one of my all time favorite books. But I don't really care what he wants (all do respect, Mr. King). Salem's Lot creeped me out (which was a good thing - at the time). But all vampire's don't have to be Kurt Barlow just as all Saint Bernard's don't have to be Cujo.

I like the new twist on vampires - that they may walk among us, be a part of society and we may not know it. Doesn't mean some aren't evil - they just don't have pointed ears and bald heads.

[Fleur de Lisa]

I admire Stephen King. The Stand is one of my all time favorite books. But I don't really care what he wants (all do respect, Mr. King). Salem's Lot creeped me out (which was a good thing - at the time). But all vampire's don't have to be Kurt Barlow just as all Saint Bernard's don't have to be Cujo.

I like the new twist on vampires - that they may walk among us, be a part of society and we may not know it. Doesn't mean some aren't evil - they just don't have pointed ears and bald heads.

Oooh, you make them sound sooo hot!!

Completely agree. He's entitled to his opinion, especially since he is such a prolific writer, but that's all it is, an opinion.

Salem's Lot and The Stand are my 2 fave King books and I think one of the reasons is because I did read them when I was so much younger that I've become almost nostalgic. As I've said before, Salem's Lot was the very first King book I read as a teen, and it affected me so powerfully not only because it deliciously scared the you-know-what out of me, but it was so well-written compared to the other drivel I had been reading. Opened my eyes to books even futher and for that I will always be grateful to Mr King.

[Ella713]

Well, I think the vampires on True Blood are plenty scary as well as sexy. I don't really think it has to be either or. The vampire mythology can really be used to create whatever world you want. There are literally no limits. We've gone from hideous creatures to drop dead sexy vampires to vampires who sparkle in the sun. I've even read vampire books where the vampires could consume food as long as blood was poured on top like ketchup! I think Stephen King wants it to reamin one dimensional.

[allegrita]

Okay, the blood-ketchup thing make me at the same time.

I'm no expert, but it seems to me that recent vampire books, TV shows, and movies that stretch the "rules" are a positive thing. I do understand why some people want vamps to be plain old scary and monstrous, and that sort of story is fun in its way. But that makes them awfully one-dimensional. As NightAir said back when this thread was first started, vampire stories are human stories. Making the vamps one-dimensionally monstrous pretty much knocks them out of the "human" part of the story, and they are reduced to a foil for the "real" people to fight against. Whereas a vampire with more humanlike emotions and thoughts is a wonderful way to explore the human condition from inside, with the added powers, lusts, torments, etc., of vampirism giving the storyteller more "tools" to use, so to speak.

One of the things that immediately appealed to me about Moonlight was the fact that vampirism isn't a "curse" or a "damnation." You don't lose your soul when you're turned; you don't wake up totally evil. Moonlight vampires have lost much and gained much as a result of being turned, but they haven't lost their souls. They remain people--and, assuming they get through the rough transition, they can choose what sort of vampire-person they want to be. That makes them seem much more real to me, and much more appealing. And (sorry, Mr. King) not at all like horror-story vampires, although Moonlight-world stories can easily incorporate elements of horror.

The same goes for straight romance. Much as I loved the romantic aspects of Moonlight, I loved the fact that the romance was only one aspect of a very complex world. I'm not very fond of formulaic romances, whether they have supernatural creatures in them or not. So Moonlight was the perfect world for me. A world of huge possibilities, that felt realistic and yet wonderfully unlimited in its scope.

I guess that's why I'm still here after all this time...

[librarian_7]

Oh, goodness, are you sure you want to get me started on this?

In the most direct terms, I feel like the vampire can be a lot of different things to different people. What I don't understand is those people who insist that vampires have to be exactly the same all the time...because, honestly, they never have been "the same" from book to book, movie to movie, or television show to television show.

Stephen King is a wonderful writer, and he has many times scared the living **bleep** out of me, BUT his take on vamps is pretty limited. Salem's Lot was a good book, and he did a lovely job of transplanting the basic Dracula plot to New England....and extrapolating what would happen if everyone bitten by a vampire, turned into one. (Sometimes that book seems more like a plug for Zero Population Growth than a horror novel...)

I am very interested in the vampires who have morphed into romantic heroes. Because when you look at the attributes of the classic romantic hero, who is angsty and tortured by past misdeeds, and who is eventually redeemed by love...well, it's such a natural fit with the vampire, and when I say that, over the howls of the people like King who really want their vamps to be more like the folkloric critter (and in folklore, vamps are more like zombies than they are in literature). Even the first vampire in English prose lit, Polidori's Lord Ruthven, was --if not terribly haunted by his past--a seductive, aristocratic figure, who spent a lot of his time seducing women.

So, Mr. King...scary vamps are fine. If that's what you like, there are plenty of them out there to be found. Doesn't mean the others aren't valid, or vampish enough.

-fighting for the reputations of Josef and Mick,

Lucky