ROBUST discussion

Found on the UK Amazon page for IDITAROD a novel of The Greatest Race on Earth:

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

34% buy the item featured on this page:
IDITAROD a novel of The Greatest Race on Earth by André Jute Kindle Edition 4.8 out of 5 stars (5)
£2.08

21% buy
Vampire book.... 4.2 out of 5 stars (33)
£4.49

17% buy
Vampire book.... 4.3 out of 5 stars (39)
£0.99

15% buy
Vampire book.... 4.2 out of 5 stars (10)
£0.00

In plain English, my book attracts the bookbuyer to the page, but the vampires Amazon puts on the same page get two out of three sales?

I'm going to give up literature and start writing vampire books!

Just checked mine... got at least two bloodsuckers leeching off me too.

Not even one of the few good vampire books I know of.

Write literary vampires! There's no reason why paranormal has to be pulp. Do what Larry McMurty did for westerns to vamps.

Off to see the names of the vamp books and maybe purchase.

/nah, only kidding!

And Keryl is onto something, a vampire with a sense of style and education. Us older folks need something more than a blue eyed blond hunk with the body of a god invading our dreams.

Claudine wrote: "Off to see the names of the vamp books and maybe purchase.

/nah, only kidding!

And Keryl is onto something, a vampire with a sense of style and education. Us older folks need something more than a blue eyed blond hunk with the body of a god invading our dreams. ..."

Maybe you need something more than that... ;)

Still, if you're gonna write vamps for grown ups I'd say step one is read the Lestat books, and then make a mental note to not write anything even remotely like Louis.

Yeah, Keryl, I was thinking the same thing. Claudine can go look for the vamp books. I'm gonna go look for that blond hunk with the body of a god.

If I find him, I'll just say, "Hi, I'm Mrs. Robinson..."

Keryl wrote: read the Lestat books, and then make a mental note to not write anything even remotely like Louis.

Oh good God yes! What a snivelling little twit.

Patricia, a vamp will always be older, always. By hundreds of years ;)

Claudine, I forgot all about that hundreds-of-years thing. Shows how out of touch I am with vamp culture.

Yes, but you can be forgiven for forgetting that because apparently with the current set of YA inspired Vamps they not only stop aging physically, they also stop maturing mentally.

John Hartness writes my current favorite vamps in Hard Day's Knight and he did a bang up job with them, and with a good reason, they're 38ish and trapped in 19 year old bodies. See, that's the sort of vamp I can related to.

The whole 'I've been alive for eons and yet I still think the world revolves around teenage girls' vamps don't make any sense to me.

"The whole 'I've been alive for eons and yet I still think the world revolves around teenage girls' vamps don't make any sense to me."

I know a lot of guys who think like that. They just leave out the vamp part.

Patricia Sierra wrote: ""The whole 'I've been alive for eons and yet I still think the world revolves around teenage girls' vamps don't make any sense to me."

I know a lot of guys who think like that. They just leave out..."

That's how two of my friends decided they were officially middle aged, they still liked watching the teen girls, but they didn't want to really have anything to do with them because they're so vapid.

I'd corpse if I tried to write vampires.

It's decidedly ambitious to believe that Valley Girl, the Teenage Years, and any hunk who could possibly be interested in her, would grasp the reference to Mrs Robinson. Geez, what are you thinking of, Sierra, songs were 1m50s back then, and consisted of several verses! You can't lay that on Valley Girl. The International Court of Human Rights in The Hague will indict you for Cruel and Unusual Mental Punishment.

Keryl wrote: "Yes, but you can be forgiven for forgetting that because apparently with the current set of YA inspired Vamps they not only stop aging physically, they also stop maturing mentally.

[author:John Ha..."

Yes, these new vamp heroes do come across as idiots don't they? :)

I recently read Sunshine, by Robin McKinley. The vamps don't shine like walking bling. They are evil. Similarly 33 A.D. by David McAfee. Both good reads purely because the vamps are Dracula on crack, evil creatures who are not beautiful. And because the stories are well written.

Andre, I believe in education. I'll teach him who Mrs. Robinson is.

Well, the checks aren't rolling in, so I guess none of the vampire books were mine.

It's really fun when people find out I write vampire books, and then tell me how much they love Twilight. Then I try to suppress a shudder. And, depending who it is, I might say, "My vampires drink human blood. That's what makes them vampires." *evil grin*

Oh Andre, I think the reason your book breeds vampire results is because there are sled dogs on the cover. Sled dogs=wolves=werewolves=Twilight=vampires. See? Makes perfect sense.

Just call me Stephenie...

There are wolves in IDITAROD a novel of The Greatest Race on Earth too, and they eat people, on more than one occasion. Mmm, I wonder if I can *repurpose* the novel... Let's see, how's this:

Bloodcurdling tale of flesh-eating wolves cursed by Wendigo, the Forest Spirit of Alaska, to lust after human flesh forever. Now they're hunting the preternaturally beautiful Rhodes Delaney, investing and infesting the bodies of her sled dogs, even as she runs 1200 miles to Nome through the heart of their territory... Which favorite dog will turn into a werewolf next? Will Rhodes make it with the man-eaters of Tatotna already snapping at her heels? Can she escape by throwing her earthly lover, James Whitbury III, to the wolves? Only Wendigo knows, and he wants your soul before he tells you.

Thanks for the tip, S.M. Did you know that I'm a qualified Zulu witchdoctor?

Sounds like a premise for a good movie. Oh wait, that's been done before.

/The Thing anyone?
//so not a scary movie

It looks like Andre has attracted the living dead! I don't know why either as your books don't actually suck. (Haha, I live for puns!)

I wrote one Vampire short story on the premise that I can't stand them. Add a few grains of humor, make him an unattractive horror who won't make tweens giggle, and throw in the fact that 'she' outsmarts 'it' in the end and I earned a one star for it here on Goodreads! I love it too. Shattering their hopeful little dreams of sexy vampires was the goal, and I think it did the trick! Muwahahaha!

On a hunch, I went to Amazon back in April and did a search for
"Wizards" and then "Vampires" and found 20,388 titles with "wizard" in them and 16,526 with "vampires" in them. I talked about this in my blog:
http://anabarauthor.blogspot.com/2011...
and then started a group on Goodreads titled: Too many wizards and vampires

I'm starting to get some people to join, and the interesting part is that quite a few of them are young. Maybe the Twilight version of vampires is nearing its demise. Still, I would not say I'll never write a vampire story. It just won't contain the stereotypical "blue eyed blond hunk." I could not force myself to write something that I knew was not original, at least to me.

Just as a knee-jerk reaction I make fun of vampire books, but the fact is I never read one. Maybe I should look at some to see if they're really as awful as I suspect they are. I'd appreciate receiving some recommendations of Kindle books that a) don't cost too much, and b) will give me an idea of what's good in the genre. (No recs for junky ones, please.)

Patricia Sierra wrote: "Just as a knee-jerk reaction I make fun of vampire books, but the fact is I never read one. Maybe I should look at some to see if they're really as awful as I suspect they are. I'd appreciate recei..."

Goodness, Patricia, I'm speechless. Not at the knee jerk reaction... I just can't rec-up a Vamp book that I find a good read. If you like the idea of male vampires acting gay towards each other without having the sex, read anything from Anne Rice starting with her 'Interview with the Vampire' series. If you're OK with teen love and his hard sexy chest and how she feels when he's sparkling in the sunlight, start with the Twilight series. It isn't that any of them are poorly written. They take the Vampire lore and go to well, sickening extremes on the social interactions. Then everybody out there just about wrote their own Vampire stuff and added their own lore. It's like a copy of a copy within a copy, reworded for their own coolness. I don't know if you read my freebie or not, but if you did, it's everything their books aren't.

John Hartness The book you want is called Hard Day's Knight. If you like Kevin Smith, you'll probably like it.

Anne Rice writes what I consider decent plot, but you need a machete to get through all the descriptive writing. If you don't want to know what every single flower in New Orleans looks like, you can skip Anne Rice.

I didn't think Twilight was too badly written, but the main characters are all absolute twits in desperate need of an IQ infusion.

Charlaine Harris writes the Southern Vampire Mystery Series (aka True Blood). They're short little reads. I liked them considerably better than the True Blood television show. They start to get a bit weaker as the books continue on, but that often tends to happen with series. They're somewhere between paranormal mysteries and romances.

And, of course, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel the Television Series are fun TV. I'd say they're well worth your time whether or not you like vampires because they're just fun to watch.

Really, there is no "typical" vampire. They cover the whole gamut of human and inhuman conditions. But lots of the tormented sparkly type do seem to show up in paranormal romances.

Keryl wrote: "John Hartness The book you want is called Hard Day's Knight. If you like Kevin Smith, you'll probably like it."

Hmm, I'll have to check that one out.

I agree with your assessment of Anne Rice. Lestat was great, Louis terrible, and she needs an editor that will tell her to prune that description. I liked her vampires because they seemed mature.

I can't stand The Southern Vampire books because I hate Sookie more than I've hated a character in a long time. I think the first book starts out something like: I'm a blonde with a little waist and big boobs. I stuck with it for about half the book, but it didn't get any better.

Loved Buffy and Angel. There is a graphic novel series that took up where the Buffy TV show left off. I've read a few and they are good if you like that kind of thing.

Somehow I managed to never see an episode of Buffy. Maybe Netflix has it. I'll have to check.

Rice would probably drive me batty. I do not enjoy description unless it's concise and used sparingly.

Patricia Sierra wrote: "Just as a knee-jerk reaction I make fun of vampire books, but the fact is I never read one. Maybe I should look at some to see if they're really as awful as I suspect they are. I'd appreciate recei..."


Dracula by Bram Stoker

The most simpatico character is the Countess Elisabeta, a hysteric who kills herself under the belief that her husband is dead, while actually he's tarrying impaling captured Turks beside the road. Dracul was a real character, so was his wife, and the impaled Turks; the Bosnian troubles in our own time is a direct result of that little unpleasantness.

All the rest was Stoker.

Okay, I downloaded it. I wonder how far into I'll get before I start screaming and running away...

Andre Jute wrote: "All the rest was Stoker."

I adore the original Dracula story. If you're going to try out vampire books it's hard to find a better place to start than Stoker. You can get it from Amazon for free, but I can't speak to the formatting. I've heard some of the scanned titles are bad that way.

I could offer some recommendations. I'm a bit of a vampire nut, but I need to know a little more. What kind of stories do you usually like? There are basically two flavors of vampires. The more traditional version is a horrible monster, and the more modern version is a romanticized gentleman. There's a lot of junk in both areas, and some gems as well.

Coral, I normally read down-to-earth fiction. Fantasy is not my thing, which is partly why I've never read a vampire book before. First person is my favorite narrative style, and I usually prefer stories set in the present or somewhat recent past; the future doesn't interest me much, at least in fiction. A bare-bones writing style is also to my liking.

Stoker is the best to start with. Anne Rice, loved her early books. Haven't read anything since Queen of the Damned though.

I read a vamp book a couple of months ago but sadly it is not available online. Print only.

Sunshine - here's my review - http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

The vamps are not made of bling, neither do they shine.

Another newbie indie author I enjoyed is David McAfee's 33 A.D. http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

33 A.D. has an interesting premise, how vampires nearly killed Jesus. A very interesting storyline.

I have an indie recommendation too! Burden Kansas by Alan Ryker, a modern-day vampire story set in the US Midwest. There's no fantasy element to speak of, and it's told with a spare style:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10...

I have heard good things about both of the books that Claudine mentioned too, but I've never read either of them.

I can see I'll be busy sampling today. I have already dumped one book, but the Stoker book looks like something I'll at least try...I read a bit of it last night.

I always find it a good plan to start with whoever invented the genre. Stoker invented the vampire genre. All the rest are copycats, most of them inferior copycats.

I'm not much for the vampire books - but what killed it for me was the 'Vampire Hunter' series by L. K. Hamilton.

I think she lost her mind somewhere along the line. The one book of the series that I read was one long sex scene and then 1 chapter of plot. GROSS OUT!

K.A. wrote: "The one book of the series that I read was one long sex scene and then 1 chapter of plot. GROSS OUT!"

Did you read the chapter of plot as well?

K.A. wrote: "I'm not much for the vampire books - but what killed it for me was the 'Vampire Hunter' series by L. K. Hamilton.

I think she lost her mind somewhere along the line. The one book of the series t..."

I have all 20 books. I'm on book 13 or 14 now I think. She's definately lost the plot in favour of porn. But I'm alone for the next few days so maybe porn is what I need right now ;)

Mmm. Losing the plot in favour of porn in one book can look like a fortunate accident. In twenty books? That's definitely a conspiracy.

Andre Jute wrote: "Mmm. Losing the plot in favour of porn in one book can look like a fortunate accident. In twenty books? That's definitely a conspiracy."

Well, I'd be one to say that the uptick in Vampire romance comes from the heart of the vampire creature. He's the symbol of man's sensuality unleashed and uncontrolled. In Stoker's time that was horror. Now, it's wank fodder.

After all, if I remember the basic plot, it wasn't Mina who was so bothered by Dracula coming over to suck her neck, it was her upright Victorian male "protectors" who had to come in an defend her virtue from the clutches of the erotic easterner.

Wank fodder. I like that term!

Yes, I think you are right Keryl. Stoker's pandered to the outdated Victorian view of how women were viewed when he wrote it. Nowadays it's every woman for themselves.

Andre, the first few weren't overly smuttish. With every book after the first few though the sex has just gotten more and more and more graphic and out of hand, not much of a plot where you have as the main character a vampire executioner who also raises the dead. I keep thinking I may have to wash my dirty little hands or something...the kind of feeling you got as a kid sneaking a peek at your dad's stash of dirty mags.

Duh. I just remembered. Stoker's Dracula was kept under the counter in the library, a distinction it shared with no more than half a dozen books.

So that's why!

Andre Jute wrote: "Duh. I just remembered. Stoker's Dracula was kept under the counter in the library, a distinction it shared with no more than half a dozen books.

So that's why!"

Well, it was shocking and titillating when it came out, but I didn't think you were that old. ;)

I remember seeing it on the banned books lists, along with the Scarlet Letter, which is just as explicit and racy. But, by the time I was looking to read it (age 13, early nineties) it was on the shelf next to all the S authored fiction.

Still if you look at the classic monsters of the Victorian era, they're all aspects of mankind they found deeply disturbing. The werewolf, man's animal nature. The vampire, his sexuality. Drs. Frankenstein and Jekyll, man's intellect unbound by morality. Interestingly enough, while they still are featured as monsters, these days those tropes are more likely to be the hero of the piece than the monster.

Be sure to read Suck, the first book in my Wank Fodder Vampire Series(tm) soon to be uploaded to the Kindle Store...

Patricia Sierra wrote: "Be sure to read Suck, the first book in my Wank Fodder Vampire Series(tm) soon to be uploaded to the Kindle Store..."

Exploded into the Kindle Store?

Keryl wrote: "Andre Jute wrote: "Duh. I just remembered. Stoker's Dracula was kept under the counter in the library [...]
So that's why!"

Well, it was shocking and titillating when it came out, but I didn't think you were that old. ;)"

At my school the librarian, who also taught English and Latin to the specially gifted class, pressed Dracula into my hand and said with a leer, "It won't give *you* any ideas but it might get me invited to one of your orgies in the arts block one afternoon, eh?"

The next day I said to, "What do we have on the Turks Count Dracul impaled beside the road?"

"That wasn't the sort of idea I had in mind," he said mock-sadly.

By the way, I bet you're picturing an emaciated weasel with thinning hair and leather pathes on the elbows of a cord jacket. Nope. He was a dignified man in later middle age, given to three piece salt and pepper suits and powdered hair perfectly barbered and brushed, very elegant, complete with a Raymond Loewey Studebaker and an apartment in the nearest thing to a Bauhaus block the town boasted. I always assumed he was homosexual, and certainly I often found him in the house of my painting teacher, who was for sure. Back then, growing up in a country town, the only people I knew with such deliberate style were gays and gangsters.

Andre - I read that chapter throughly, I just skimmed the rest - LOL.

I thought it was a shame that she hadn't started with the last chapter and written a different book.

Claudine - the series was first mentioned in "Writing a Breakout Novel" where it was praised because of the quality of tension in the writing.

When I picked up 'Dance Macabre' I wasn't mentally prepared for what I found. I suppose if I'd started with the first book - the BDSM wouldn't have bothered me so much.

You can't really argue with success - and she IS successful.

Patricia Sierra wrote: "Be sure to read Suck, the first book in my Wank Fodder Vampire Series(tm) soon to be uploaded to the Kindle Store..."

Just remember to put me in the acknowledgements for the Wank Fodder bit! :D

Wow. The memory is really quirky today. I remember from long ago Danse Macabre by Frederic Mullally, a well written but steamy novel about a hopeless love affair, maybe, anyway, steamy.

KA I like her style of writing. It seems so easy flowing, not contrived in any way. I like the Anita Blake character in all the books so far, mostly. The sex doesn't bother me at all. It's pretty graphic sure, racy, full of elements that might make you uncomfortable but it doesn't bother me all that much. For me, it's reading this type of book inbetween the George RR Martin books that keeps my mind sort of saneish. The first few books have far better storylines than the later ones. I'm on Harlequins right now. It's very meh.