No Anita Blake TV Series

She preceded Sookie and Bella, but she hardly pioneered the genre. Just sour grapes.

Cyia said:

She preceded Sookie and Bella, but she hardly pioneered the genre. Just sour grapes.

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Word.

Exactly what I thought. The woman's so far up herself it's unreal.

Maybe if she spellchecked her blog occasionally and stopped throwing her dollies out of the pram she'd get more respect.

I checked on Wikipedia, and it looks like the first Anita Blake book came out in '93.

I was going to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume the series had been around since the 80's, but it's not even 20 years old.

dpaterso said:

<quick check... yeah> Anita Blake's adventures precede Sookie Stackhouse and Twilight, so I can see as how the author might feel a tad miffed at being overlooked. I've read the Anita Blake comics and liked the story lots and was wowed by the art. Going by that alone, methinks the material might make for a damn good movie or TV series. I might try the novels sometime!

-Derek

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Stop at book 9. Seriously.

If you don't like her books, your all jelouse loosers.

Srsly. What is it with vampire authors going doolally online? Is there something in the air?

I think Anne Rice pioneered the sympathetic vampire trope, at least for popular audiences. And I think Buffy predated Anita Blake...

But I think LKH did something pretty special with the tropes and the genre, and I can see why she feels she invented it.

At some point (book 9?) they petered out into dull porn and lost their story-line.

Deja vu.

Don't we have a long thread somewhere where we recently hashed out whether or not LKH pioneered anything?

Keyan said:

I think Anne Rice pioneered the sympathetic vampire trope, at least for popular audiences. And I think Buffy predated Anita Blake...

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Uh... no.

St. Germain was in books long before Lestat, and before that, there was Barnabas Collins. Even Dracula has his sympathizers.

The pioneer doesn't much matter. It's "What have you done lately, and how popular are you right now."

She didn't pioneer anything.

Buffy The Vampire slayer predates her. You notice you don't see Charlaine Harris, or P. N. Elrod (who CLEARLY prdeates LH) making snide remarks about Hamilton?

Yeah.

I so want something vampirey published someday then I can go batshit online.

Didja see whut ah did thur? Batshit? Vampires?

Oh I give up.

Buffy the film (1992) predates Anita Blake (Guilty Pleasures, 1993); Whedon's series didn't air until 1997. I'm not sure why these arguments always have to be all or nothing. It's not like every frontier gets just one pioneer, the first, and all that came after were something else entirely. I think LKH gets some credit for pioneering the kick-ass sexy heroine brand of UF.

I think she shouldn't really be surprised it never got picked up. I admit I never read the books, but if they eventually started going from plot to porn, do you think a tv station is really going to be interested?

GregB said:

Buffy the film (1992) predates Anita Blake (Guilty Pleasures, 1993); Whedon's series didn't air until 1997. I'm not sure why these arguments always have to be all or nothing. It's not like every frontier gets just one pioneer, the first, and all that came after were something else entirely. I think LKH gets some credit for pioneering the kick-ass sexy heroine brand of UF.

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Agreed. Whatever the series is now and whatever quirks LKH has I think she played a large role in shaping the UF genre. She could have been a bit more humble in her phrasing, perhaps, but it must be frustrating seeing True Blood on the air and not be able to get AB on TV.

While I do think the shift in tone of the later books might have been somewhat of a stumbling block, the violence in the series as compared to something to the Sookie Stackhouse mysteries might also have been an issue.

You want some pioneers of the genre? Here's a few, please forgive me for the many omissions:

1816 - Lord Ruthven appears in Glenarvon by Lady Caroline Lamb.

1819 - The Vampyre by John Polidori, Lord Ruthven appears again. Ruthven enjoyed the same popularity then as Dracula does now. If a guy named Ruthven turned up in a play or book, the audience knew vampiric high jinks would ensue.

1845-47 Varney The Vampire James Malcolm Rhymer or Thomas Preskett Prest--maybe both! A sympathetic vampire. He didn't like being e-vul, but still chowed down.

1897- Dracula by Bram Stoker. 'Nuff said.

1966 - The TV series Dark Shadows, which introduced Barnabas Collins, the first sympathetic vampire since Varney.

1972 - The Nightstalker First TV movie to garner a 54% share of the ratings, the highest known at that time. First to deal with a "serial" killer before agent Robert K. Ressler coined the term in the FBI's still-new Behavioral Sciences Unit, anticipated CSI shows with an unforgettable autopsy scene.

Introduced the world to Carl Kolchak, hero to urban fantasy & vampire fans, a wonderfully corrupting influence on writers everywhere.

Followed up by The Night Strangler and Kolchak: The Nightstalker TV series.

Not bad for being based on an unpublished book by Jeff Rice.

1975 - The Dracula Tape by Fred Saberhagen is released. Nine more books follow.

1976 - Interview With the Vampire by Ann Rice is released.

1978 - Hotel Transylvania by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro is released. LOTS of books to folllow!

1987 - Bloodhunt by Lee Killough with vampire cop Garreth Mikaelian is released. Tor books was clueless about how to market it and gave it a terrible cover.

1989 - Burning Water by Mercedes Lackey introduces witch Diana Tregarde, two more books to follow.

1989 - Forever Knight pilot with Rick Springfield as vampire cop Nick Knight

1990 - The Vampire Files: Bloodlist by P.N. Elrod introduces Jack Fleming, vampire PI, hits the racks, eleven books follow.

1991 - Blood Price by Tanya Huff introduces vampire Henry Fitzroy is released, 5 books to follow.

1991 - The Vampire Diaries by L.J. Smith is released. in 2009 a TV series, same name airs.

1992- 1996 - Forever Knight Canadian pilot with Shakespearian actors Geraint Wyn Davies and Nigel Bennett airs and catches on.

1992- Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie

1993 - Jonathan Barrett, Gentleman Vampire: Red Death by P.N Elrod is released, three more books follow.

1993 - Guilty Pleasures by LKH is released.

1997-2003 Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series

1999-2004 Angel (spinoff TV series from Buffy)

2001 - Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris wins Anthony Award for Best Paperback Mystery in 2001.

2004 - Ann Rice puts on a crazy hat and rants against the fans who made her wealthy. Not terribly clever of her.

2005-2009 - Twilight is released, becomes wildly popular with teen females. Hollywood, sensing ready cash, makes movies and T-shirts to sell to them.

2006 - LKH puts on Ann Rice's crazy hat and rants against the fans who pay her bills. Hardly pioneering or professional.

2007 - Moonlight, about a vampire PI, airs on CBS.

2008 - Blood Ties, based on Tanya Huff's series airs.

2008 - True Blood, TV series airs on HBO

2008 - Being Human, TV series airs in the UK

2009 - LKH claims to have "pioneered the genre".

2009 - Other writers on AW question that claim. Quite a lot!


Draw your own conclusions about there not being any sour grapes, ladies and gentlemen.


Entry updated to include a few I forgot!

Gillhoughly said:

Draw your own conclusions about there not being any sour grapes, ladies and gentlemen.

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Does LKH claim to be a pioneer of vampire fiction? That would be...silly...by any definition of "pioneer." I thought she was claiming to a pioneer of the modern UF genre. If not, I retract my comments!

Wow. You guys are rough.

Personally, I think she should be happy. TV has fucked up every urban fantasy they've touched.

GregB said:

Does LKH claim to be a pioneer of vampire fiction? That would be...silly...by any definition of "pioneer." I thought she was claiming to a pioneer of the modern UF genre. If not, I retract my comments!

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The first recognized example of UF is The Borribles series by Michael de Larrabeiti, 1976-1986.

The term came into being around 1987.

Emma Bull's War of the Oaks, 1987, was set in modern Minneapolis.

Hamilton's first book appeared in 1993, a good 6 years later. If that makes her a "pioneer" of Urban Fantasy, yeah, I guess that's technically true, but that self-declaration is a bit hard to get past.

Someone else calling her a pioneer in either or both genre is fair enough. For LKH to declare herself to be a pioneer smacks of an ego the size of Anita Blake's sex partner list.

I covered this from the vampire angle, because she's best known for writing about them, which is a sub-genre unto itself.

However, if one wants to get REALLY technical, UF books that pre-date her, like The Vampyre, Dracula, The Dracula Tape, Bloodhunt, and the TV series Dark Shadows, were all in contemporary urban settings for their time. You couldn't take a short stroll in Collinsport, Maine without encountering a vampire, werewolf, ghost, Cthulu follower, witch, or Frankenstein doppleganger!

Wonder what that sort of thing does to property values?

.

And don't forget Mercedes Lackey's Diana Tregarde series that started in 1989.

LKH is saying, according to her Twitter, that she pioneered the "Paranormal Thriller'. And now, pretty much, she's claiming she's responsible for everything from the Buffy TV series to Stephanie Meyers Twilight being published.

I give her props for her early books, but there were many before her, and I didn't hear about her until 1999. Anita is a hell of lot like Lackey's Diana- and both characters have a vampire who calls them Ma Petite. Go figure.

But her attitude is atrocious. She literally has stated that her work is too edgy for most people and if you don't like her work it's because you're a prude.

Yeah. She's great...

I think Suzy McKee Charnas' The Vampire Tapestry needs to be included, too. Smart re-think about vamps. The novel is Simon & Schuster July 1980, but there was a novella a couple of years earlier, I think.