Newscoma

Once upon a time, there was a vampire dog named Mabel. She would eat the candy of small children and bark at leaves. Blood, however, sort of creeped her out. So, due to her infliction, she would protect the small dog, Duff, who was a vampire slayer. There were may adventures but then Vampire Mabel just went to sleep, as is her way.

I’m going to talk about vampires right now. If that’s not your cuppa, here is a lovely picture of a knitted sweater on a penguin It’s seriously the real deal.

I have loved tales of vampires ever since I read Salem’s Lot by Stephen King.  Barlow was one bad-assed vampire that didn’t want to romance you with witty sexual innuendo. He wanted to eat you because humans were food. And he also wanted to psychologically damage you before he ate you almost like the proverbial cat playing with a mouse until it gets bored.

Dracula had a bit of romance going on but the bottom line is he was hungry.

Vampires changed in the 60s, of course with Barnabas Collins (although I never thought he was especially hot), and then they went mainstream in the 70s with Frank Langella. Now don’t get me wrong, there were more, but I do remember that Langella made my hair even sweat when I was 11-years-old.

And now to the part after the jump that might give my blog an R-rating.

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I read the book Sunshine by Robin McKinley this weekend. It was recommended to me and I have to say, and as much as I adore the trashiness of True Blood as well as the nastiness of some vampire genres, I really enjoyed it because it was different with an easy elegance of simplicity.

The vampire is not handsome and the author describes him as having the skin the color of old mushrooms. The antagonist, who is named Sunshine, is a magic holder who has the power of transmutation, and is a baker. The beauty and simplicity as she talks in first-person about needing the dough each morning as she makes cinnamon rolls for her stepfather’s coffee shop is exquisite. I could read about the smells of her baking over and over.

It’s that good. I read it before I read the reviews. When Neil Gaiman says it pretty much perfect, well he’s right, it is. I didn’t know that before I picked it up to read. I don’t mind being spoiled, but I’m glad I wasn’t for this book.

The vampire, named Con,  is not human, nor does he pretend to have human emotions, which I found to be quite refreshing. She writes that vampires move “like vampires” although that is left somewhat to your imagination regarding their fluidity while moving and that there is really nothing human about him, including his eyes that appear to be an “alien” green. He is not the Eric the Viking of the Sookie Stackhouse books, and that was more than okay.  Con doesn’t pretend to be anything more than he is, and although there are remnants of humanity, his main goal is survival. He only shows attention to Sunshine because he is bound to her and because he owes her. She has found noncommittal love with a man where there is little communication in the character Mel, but she is comfortable with the arrangement. This may sound non-romantic, and it is quite frankly, but it was also a testament that she is her own woman. It’s not a traditional love triangle, yet it is.

It’s all about her. Her power and her strength despite fear is the main focus of the book.

I liked it. I like nice clean writing full of everyday life where there is strength and fear combined and where there is another outerworld that I had not thought about it.

I recommend it.

A great deal happened in last night’s episode of True Blood, but when you break the components down, there really was only one big event because the other stuff was a continuation of previous things that have already been set up. That’s how this show gets you, and it was the ending of  “I Will Rise Up” that changed the direction of many things.

But I’ll get to that after the break for those folks who haven’t seen it.

We are seeing characters change as we head to the last quarter of this second season. I’ve said it before, as I’m sure I will say it again as I adore repeating myself, but this is a trashy yet oddly erotic, soap opera. The uncompromising mother, the evil vixen, the Too-Good-Too-Be-True blue collar bar owner (who happens to be a shape-shifter), the fallen cop, the All-American Girl, the men/vampires who love her and the  Big Bad.

Wait, that was Buffy, never mind.

Spoilers after the break:

Image Credit

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This week’s True Blood was extremely tasty due to one Eric Northman, the Viking vampire who never smiles did so on a number of occasions, and there was human heart eating with unexpected results.

As I have sort of made this, and Big Brother once again due to the unreasonable desperation of people willing to subject themselves to ongoing humiliation, my summer watching program, I have decided to blog about it. Not Big Brother necessarily because although we have a weekly lunch scheduled around it (we do these things in Hoots), that I might fill you in on later, it is True Blood that has hold of me right now.

Now, True Blood is another beast indeed. If you have read this blog for any length of time, you know I adore vampires, zombies, Sasquatch sighting, Bat Boy and parallel universes.  And I dig small towns with secrets.

In Timebomb, the basis of what we saw in the first fifteen minutes was absolutely amazing. I love television that is unapologetic. If you are expecting Gone With The Wind, you are in trouble. If you are looking for fast food, Timebomb scratched that itch.

Spoilers after the break:

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I was a late bloomer to watching the True Blood series on HBO but I have read the majority of the Southern Vampire Mysteries (not the last one though.) I’ve written before that I’m a sucker for not only horror/scifi movies but for parallel universes that combine paranormal elements in to everyday life.

Let’s get to the fact that Charlaine Harris’ novels are like drinking a mocha on a spring afternoon. The mocha is pretty tasty, but you drink it and it’s gone, the sun is still shining and you go back to your car to the next adventure.

It’s unmitigated fluff, but it’s amusing to me at least.

And the funny thing is that her descriptions of juke joints in the south is pretty dead on. I like the quirky (everyone use’s that damn word about these books, but it works) characters because I can pretty much identity them here in Hoots Central. The books focus on small town life, petty gossip that can be heard by the heroine which is the basis of the series of Harris’ novel and those subcultures that make a small town interesting.

Oh, and they are dime-store mysteries thrown in with a bit of Harlequin Romance where the sex is just lying out on the table. There is not doubt that all the characters are very unapologetically sexual. Groovy.

And that, campers, is why I read them because they are light, get some of the gist of small-town Southern USA (especially regarding the easy, or sometimes tense, banter in a bar) and there is that bit of hypocrisy that goes along with anyone who is blind to one cause and devoted to another or is just high falutin’. Happens everywhere (although the TV series has pretty much beat me in the brain with the Fellowship of the Sun, although having read the books, I know where that’s going and it’s important to the canon of the tale.)

So I’m fixin’ (because like Sookie Stackhouse, I’m southern) to talk about the differences between the two mediums, why I think they work and that’s it’s just soap opera fun in all reality.

There I said it, we have a new soap opera on the air where you get to see the sex, the gore, the betrayal, loyalty and supes. This is not your Dark Shadows of 40 years ago, but it’s the same premise behind all the glitter of HBO.

And, I rather like it.

Major spoilers after the break and I’m talking serious spoilers from the book so you have been warned.

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