brought to you by OBS Staffer Hutchxx

Every weekend I find myself spending hours in a bookshop picking out another book for me to get my nose stuck in too, that was when I came across “The Last Vampire”, a series by Christopher Pike.

“Death never comes at the right time, despite what mortals believe. Death always comes like a thief.”

The Last Vampire is set out in three volumes with two books in each. They tell the story of a five thousand year old vampire, Alisa Perne. Alisa believes she is the last blood thirsty monster left, she was one of the first vampires made by the first vampire himself. She is a very cold hearted character but she has a large amount of compassion for people even if she tries not to show it. She can crush a skull with ease and has the speed like nothing else in the world.

The first volume starts with ‘The Last Vampire’ then goes into ‘Black Blood’, both stories follow the story of Alisa, (or Sita, as this is her real name) and when Detective Michael Riley calls her to his office with fact after fact about her, she knows someone wants to find her and she cannot let that happen. She kills the Detective and finds herself enrolling in high school to be friend the detective’s son, Ray Riley and ends up falling in love with him. Meanwhile, Sita’s finds out the truth. Yaksha her creator, the first vampire, has been following her and wants her dead…

Both books have flash backs and stories of her God which were interesting at first but by the end they became boring. I began to force myself to finish the book. I just didn’t get hooked. The book was well written and different, as it wasn’t from a human girl’s perspective. I think even though I didn’t enjoy reading it enough to buy the other two books, I would maybe give them ago in the further.

Talk about the book here

WHY TEENS LOVE TO SINK THEIR TEETH INTO VAMPIRE BOOKS, MOVIES

Source: sify.com

An English lecturer has examined why teenage vampire books and movies have gripped youngsters’ imaginations nowadays and taken the crowd by storm.

Jolene Zigarovich, Cornell visiting lecturer in English, says, “The reasons for the teen vampire craze are multifold. There is a Shakespearean, tragic element, in the sense that not only is young love forbidden in teen vampire films, but also that love and death are conjoined. Sacrificing oneself for love seems to be a perpetual, human theme.

“The addition of the supernatural and the promise of immortal love that the vampire symbolizes, complicates this very human trope. Love goes beyond teen angst and tragedy in these films; it is literally soul wrenching and otherworldly.

“I believe that the common thread is the Gothic literary tropes of the Byronic, anti-hero, sexual threats, and the disruption of gender stereotypes. In these scenarios, there is typically an attractive social other pained by his immortal plight and doomed to prey on innocent, female victims who find him a tragic, irresistible figure…”

READ MORE HERE

REVIEW AND GIVEWAY: SHIVER BY MAGGIE STIEFVATER

Source: bookaddictpatti.com

From the author’s website:

For years, Grace has watched the wolves in the woods behind her house. One yellow-eyed wolf—her wolf—is a chilling presence she can’t seem to live without. Meanwhile, Sam has lived two lives: In winter, the frozen woods, the protection of the pack, and the silent company of a fearless girl. In summer, a few precious months of being human… until the cold makes him shift back again.

Now, Grace meets a yellow-eyed boy whose familiarity takes her breath away. It’s her wolf. It has to be. But as winter nears, Sam must fight to stay human—or risk losing himself, and Grace, forever.

_________________________________

I picked up this book when Ms. Stiefvater came to New Orleans for a book signing. I hadn’t read Shiver yet, but planned to, “eventually”. Why, oh why, did I wait so long to read this book?!?

When Grace was a small child, she was dragged off her backyard swing by wolves and almost killed. One wolf stopped the pack from killing her, and since then Grace has felt a special bond with “her wolf”. She looks forward to seeing her wolf every winter, when the pack comes to the woods behind her house.

Sam has watched Grace ever since he kept the rest of his pack from killing her 6 years ago. He watches her from afar, thinking about her, wishing their lives weren’t worlds apart.

After a wolf attack on a fellow student, the town decides to kill the wolves. As she arrives home after trying to stop the hunters, she spies a wolf on her porch – he’d been shot. Then, suddenly, not a wolf, a boy – Sam.

READ MORE HERE

Why do you think people love Vamps, werewolves and the like?

One Book, One Twitter: the world’s largest book club?

By Marjorie Kehe at The Christian Science Monitor

Don’t believe what you read, says author and editor Jeff Howe. “The Internet is not destroying literature.” If anything, he argues, “the new medium could breathe new life into a few old ones.”

To prove his point, earlier this month Howe kicked off “One Book, One Twitter,” which Howe hopes will become “the largest collective reading exercise in history.” As Howe explains in book industry trade magazine Publishers Weekly, “This summer, thousands of people from all over the world are reading Neil Gaiman’s ‘American Gods.’ They will then discuss the book using Twitter, a new-fangled technology that’s doing for the epigram what Anne Frank did for diaries.”

Read More here

Science Fiction Author Offers Readers $3,000 In Prizes To Read His Book

By Charlie Jane Anders at io9

The search for a new publishing model that takes advantage of the internet continues. Author Peter Riley is giving out $3,000 in prizes to people who’ll read his book, Universes, and answer some questions about it.

Riley, a former editor with the London Free Press in Ontario, has posted his novel online for free, and he hopes that running contests with cash prizes will “stir up interest on the Internet in order to get the book ultimately noticed and published.” He’s been looking for a publisher since he finished the novel in 1999.

Read More (and get the book link) here

Jane Eyre: From Gothic Heroine To Vampyre Slayer

by Eve Conte at Tor

Thanks to the recent surge of mash-ups of classic literature with the supernatural, the literary heroines of the 19th century are finding a new audience with today’s readers.

The latest literary character to go badass is Jane Eyre, who is now a slayer of various supernatural beings, in Sherri Browning Erwin’s new Jane Slayre. While Charlotte Brontë’s Jane always manages to land on her feet, in Erwin’s version, she also has the added inherent ability to defeat vampyres, zombies, and other creatures of the night no matter how downtrodden her personal life may be. With a name like Slayre, you’d think the young orphaned Jane would question her heritage, but she finds out soon enough that slaying is in her blood.

Read More here

That Twitter book club has made me finally want to join twitter. I’ve had American Gods on my bookshelf for a few months, but I always get distracted by other things. Now seems like a great time to read it.

what do you think of the twitter book club? Will you join the Universes contest? Do you think the re-imaginings have helped or hurt classical literature?

Author stakes claim in new vampire anthology

By Trevor Suffield at Winnipeg Free Press

Move over Edward and Bella, and put a stake in it Lestat — Charleswood resident Ron Hore is the newest fang in vampire fiction.

The father of five and grandfather of six recently had one of his short stories published in a new Canadian vampire anthology entitled Evolve: Vampire Stories of the Undead. His story, Chrysalis, chronicles the tribulations of a teenage girl who has one parent that is human and one that is a vampire. Hore says his inspiration did not come from a deep, dark place but rather the radio.

“I was listening to CBC talking about Darwin and that led to me thinking what would happen if a vampire and a human had a child?”

In 2006 he won the top prize in the Canadian Authors National Convention for his short story, Midnight, and has been a member of various writing groups across the city. Hore, who also writes science fiction and fantasy stories, says he isn’t too impressed with the recent slate of vampire stories invading pop culture, including the Twilight saga. His tastes run more along the lines of classic tales like Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

Read More here

Paranormal Romance Readers, Where Are You?

by Heather Massey at Galaxy Express

Even though the market for (horror-based) paranormal romance was once supposedly “dead,” it’s not that way now. Readers have developed a rabid taste for preternatural heroes, heroines, and settings. With such a predilection for the exotic, it stands to reason they would also want to glom onto science fiction romance. Science fiction, fantasy, and horror—if you like one, chances are you like ‘em all, right?

So why aren’t the readers who enjoy paranormal romance also driving sales of science fiction romance? It seems as though strong SFR sales should be an automatic by-product of the paranormal romance boom. Clearly, that hasn’t been the case. Why is that?

Read More here

Time Traveler’s Wife Pips Kite Runner To Be The Lovereading Book Of The Decade

via Book Trade

In February 2010 Lovereading began the search for ‘the readers Book of the Decade’.

To begin with Sarah Broadhurst, Lovereading’s Editorial guru, chose her 50 favourites from the last 10 years and then it was over to the readers. The first stage, which attracted nearly 20,000 votes, took the top 50 to a shortlist of ten. Then, in April, the voting reopened to allow readers to choose the overall winner.

“Ten terrific books, something for everyone from love story (The Time Traveler’s Wife) to thriller (The Shadow of the Wind), strong drama (The Kite Runner) to a book narrated by Death himself (The Book Thief); a difficult choice to choose just one. I have, now you must. It is interesting to note that of the ten, seven have been filmed. Good films though they may be, none of them can portray the full depth and strength of the novels so if you have seen the film, why not now read the book. You’ll glean so much more from it.”

The final vote was very close with less than 0.5% between the top two titles! But with 18.1% of the total vote, Audrey Niffenegger’s unique book The Time Traveler’s Wife came out the winner.

Read More here

Living in a Sci-Fi Novel

by Paul Constant at The Stranger

Setting aside the embarrassing lack of jetpacks, there can be no doubt that we live in a science-fiction future. It’s become almost a cliché to say that, but just because a truth is universally accepted doesn’t make it any less true. One of the most discussed product debuts of the last few months is a glass screen, 10 inches tall and half an inch thick, that enables you to contact almost anyone on the planet via text communications, watch movies, read virtually any book ever published, and play games with people on other continents. We live in some author’s paperback science-fiction novel.

What nobody thinks to ask is this: What kind of a science-fiction novel are we living in?

We’re living in a dystopian future, we’re a populace in need of saving, and the logical next question is: What do we do now? For the last hundred years, we’ve looked to our science-fiction authors for the answer.

Read More here

I really like the premise of the Vampire Evolution anthology. That’s why I loved Vampire Tapestry, it deals with Vampirism from a scientific perspective. I don’t really read much Paranormal Romance, so I don’t know if it’s hard to find. I love that The Time Traveler’s Wife won best book of the decade. It’s such a great story, and I think it helped subtly introduce more people to Sci Fi.

What do you think of the idea that we’re living in a futuristic world? Do you think it’s good, or are we living in a dystopia? What do you think of modern Paranormal Romance?

brought to you by OBS founder Dawn

Vampire Dreams is a compilation of numerous stories each told from a different perspective. They’re told by slayers, humans, werewolves, young and ancient vampires. Every tale draws you in but leaves you wanting more, almost like a dream during which you wake up but long to revisit.

Richard Reich weaves old myths, vampires in modern times and interesting religious questions into the many short stories. I enjoyed the ones that included historical events such as the Civil War and Roman Empire told by the older vampires.

Be forewarned, a few of the narratives border on PG-13 if not a tiny bit more. They’re fun, clever and a definite must read in my opinion.

Below are a few of my favorites:

Hellfire
A vampire mother, brought from Transylvania to America after her supposed death. For years a daughter notices dead animals constantly showing up in their back yard. What will a daughter do to protect her father? to prevent him from becoming just like her mother?

The Power of Gods

A 2000 year old vampire tells of his “change”, in a well hidden cave, and his survival. The mysterious being that changed him, could he have been Jesus Christ?

None Remains Save One
Working for the Hungarian Historical Preservation Society, two men clean up and restore stones from Dracula’s castle. They find a stone inscribed with the title of this story. What does it mean? They dig a bit further and find a hidden chamber. One of the men enters the chamber and  sees a ring in a pile of ash. He sneezes and breathes in the dust….oops, big mistake.

Blood From a Stone
Told from a journalist’s point of view, he visits Virginia on assignment where a mysterious recluse hosts a strong man contest each year. The journalist visits the home of the recluse and sees and hears wolves all around him.

Those who enter the contest were meant to die, as they are vampires. The recluse stakes each one as the journalist looks on. He then taunts the journalist to write about it because no one will believe it.

I Once Was Lost
A vampire confesses his “sins” to a priest, which takes a considerable amount of time as the vampire has it all written in a book. Once finished the vampire asks for absolution. The priest is not sure he can grant that to the vampire.

The vampire changes him so that the priest will have to kill to survive – it may cause him to change his mind about forgiveness.

A Cross Word
A doctor comes across the scene of an accident where a well dressed man is nearly decapitated. The doctor sees there is nothing he can do so he sits with the dying man….only he’s not quite dying. The doctor is baffled and calls 911. The injured man begs him to hang up so that he might explain. He also begs the doctor to take him to a dark place where he can heal….

I loved this book and each tale. It’s snarky and in many cases all too ironic. I also enjoyed the religious tones and questions that were weaved throughout many of the stories.

My only complaint: the stories are too short. I would love to read some of them as complete novels. More Richard, more!!! Don’t leave us hanging!

You can talk about this book on our forum!

Purchase a copy of Richard Reich’s books here.

Source: usatoday

Author Seth Grahame-Smith launched a phenomenon with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, his clever twist on the Jane Austen classic. (Grahame-Smith’s follow-up, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, was released this month.)

The success of Zombies has been so huge that a film adaptation is in the works. In May, Del Rey takes the franchise a step further with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Graphic Novel.

Read more here…

This would make for an amazing graphic novel. I will be putting this on my must get list.  I am also looking forward to reading Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Are you a fan of these books? Which have you read? Tell us about your thoughts on the novel. Leave a comment.