Anne Rice...

Yes, The Vampire Chronicles were good. I just feel let down, I guess. My monster vamps weren't so monster after all.
Steph's religion, I think, helped? It reached a younger audience, maybe, since it wasn't complex or dark. Mommies could feel okay about their 13 yr olds reading them.

I'm sorry, I'm just not getting it. How does the author's Catholicism retrospectively make her vampires less vampy?

Ya know what made her vamps seem less vampy? Vittorio. Ugh! That guy, and the book he came in, sucked!

Loved the rest of em though, and it's a shame she gave up on 'em.

Ooh! Idea!


Coming soon - Blood noon, a Vampire Chronicles tribute, by Lord Adamson.
Don't worry, I read up on copyright and I reckon I can swing it!

scarletpeaches said:

I'm sorry, I'm just not getting it. How does the author's Catholicism retrospectively make her vampires less vampy?

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She claims they were on the path to God. When they opened their eyes to their new world, they were actually awakened to their new path of spirituality. It was really a religious series with lots of metaphors, apparently.

Coming soon - Blood noon, a Vampire Chronicles tribute, by Lord Adamson.
Don't worry, I read up on copyright and I reckon I can swing it!

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I'd read it!

I just read it as a story about vampires.

It's certainly no more Catholic than the godawful Twilight saga was Mormon.

Whatever Rice says about it, the series is what it is. Every author is influenced by their background but at least Rice has talent, if a propensity to go all Britney on Amazon.

Considering that the concept of vampirism is itself inextricably linked with Judeo-Christian myth, it's hardly surprising that some vampire writers would suddenly decide they're gung-ho for Jesus.

Or - ahem - that some Christians wouldn't have a problem with writing about vampires.

I assumed that went without saying.

I'm neither Christian nor Mormom, but my tale is about vampires. I feel like such a freak.

Aye.

scarletpeaches, shamelessly bumping up her post count in a thread about one of her pet subjects.

Hesperides said:

She claims they were on the path to God. When they opened their eyes to their new world, they were actually awakened to their new path of spirituality. It was really a religious series with lots of metaphors, apparently.

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Yep, it got really obvious that was the way it was going around about the time of Memnoch the Devil and got even more pronounced in later books.

Too much "poor me, God hates me" sermonising and not enough bloodsucking. I hated everything after Queen of the Damned.

I've had enough of metrosexuals posing as vamps... I say its time to get back to vicious bloodsucking b@stards.

Or vampires set in the era of the vampire paranoia in Europe, when peasants were desecrating graves to find alleged vampire evidence and the Empress Maria Theresa issued an edict to make them stop.

Celina, shamelessly paving the way for much self-promotional work for her vampire project The Vampire Covenants trilogy coming in April with vampires in the 1780s and making the Benedictine monk almost single-handedly responsible for the vampire mania in the eighteenth century into a vampire himself.

*grin*

No sparkles or Egyptians though. Sorry, kids.

Now that sounds more like it.

mscelina said:

Or vampires set in the era of the vampire paranoia in Europe, when peasants were desecrating graves to find alleged vampire evidence and the Empress Maria Theresa issued an edict to make them stop.

Celina, shamelessly paving the way for much self-promotional work for her vampire project The Vampire Covenants trilogy coming in April with vampires in the 1780s and making the Benedictine monk almost single-handedly responsible for the vampire mania in the eighteenth century into a vampire himself.

*grin*

No sparkles or Egyptians though. Sorry, kids.

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I read Rice's spiritual autobiography recently - a good read, by the way. But she talks about how, while her own spiritual journey couldn't help but influence her writing, her books reflect more her wrestling with religious issues than as some sort of religious platform.

I think she's an outstanding writer and am just now reading her work - both the Vampire books and the Christ the Lord books - for the first time.

I get really sick of authors who happen to be Christian getting bashed for whatever they write--by non-christians as well as by other Christians.

If they write Christian books, some people say they don't have the guts to write mainstream books. Other Christians criticize them for which subjects they choose to write about or how they handle them. Now non-christians (forgive me if I'm getting the wrong idea about your beliefs) are saying Christians aren't qualified to write about vampires?

I am a Christian, and my faith influences what I write about & how I do it, as I'm sure everyone's worldview does. I've read books by some Christian authors who've taken their stories to places I don't think I'd go. But I think it's dangerous to say certain topics or genres are strictly off-limits to Christians. To me, the ethics of it is all in how they're handled.

In the case of Rice's Vampire books, the complaint seems pretty silly. It's my understanding that Rice only recently rededicated herself to her faith. She did not sit down to write books with a Christian message at the time those books were written.

Aside from that, you may be enjoying more books with Christian themes than you realize. If you really think about it, if you threw out all the books with themes that could somehow be related to Christianity, there would be very little left. Redemption, good versus evil, self-sacrifice, the hero who saves the day, spiritual or character growth, "messiantic" concepts such as a person being special or chosen to do something great, forgiveness--I could go on and on.

If you can't enjoy a book because you suspect Christianity may have influenced its author in some way, what on earth are you going to read?

I can uderstand not wanting to get whacked over the head with a religious message you don't want to hear, but come on. Rice didn't do that in her vampire books. The fact that you liked them until you got the news that she's a Christian proves that.

All of Western civilization has been influenced by Christianity. That includes literature. It's unavoidable.

I don't think anyone's forbidden from a genre because of their faith. To me, it was just like someone telling me my best friend really wasn't who she said she was for our entire relationship. It's hard to explain, I guess.

Looking forward to more demonic vampires!

Adzmodeus said:

Now that sounds more like it.

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Okay, that's it. You're hired as my publicist.

mscelina said:

Okay, that's it. You're hired as my publicist.

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Woo! I accept payment in either cups o' tea, or buckets o' blood.

Whatever makes her happy.

It's like a joke in itself - the two biggest selling vamp writers are religious.

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I don't see how...the vast super-majority of native English speakers are Christian, obviously the chance is very high that the vast super-majority of English-speaking authors also would be....

Fantasy is fantasy. Go figure.

scarletpeaches said:

At least IwtV was a good book.

*coughlookinatyoustephcough*

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It was okay. Looking back, though, it would have been better had Louis sparkled a bit more.

To be honest I didn't care much for Rice's vampires.

They seemed a bit too much like Greek Gods; beautiful avatars of the best and worst of humanity. I couldn't identify with them at all.

'Salem's Lot FTW.

I tried to read Interview when it was first out. Because I liked the vampire novels of Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. Couldn't get more than 50 or so pages into it. Gave it back to the friend who lent it to me. Have never tried any of her other stuff.

MM

I didn't like IwtV at all. All Louis did was WHINE WHINE WHINE. It was really annoying. My favorite book of hers was The Vampire Lestat. Her narrative voice in that book was fantastic.