Vampire Literature

So I was wondering if anyone else was feeling a little starved of decent vampire novels?

Whenever I hear someone talk about vampire stuff the dreaded T saga comes up all the time, they are crap books and I hate them so I was wondering if you guys had any good suggestions?

For me one of my favorite novels was The Historian.




Which came out around the same time as T****** and I feel like it never really got the recognition it deserved. What about you guys? Which books would you recommend?

I stick to DriveThrouh's VtM books... I have never heard of Mrs Kostova, to be honest.

I don't read :/

The only good vampire novels that I've read in a while are by a German author (Markus Heitz), and I'm not sure they've been translated, because they were not a huge popularity smash (niche genre and all). He also wrote some very interesting werewolf novels and has a foot squarely in the horror/supernatural genre, and I like them largely because the protagonists of his novels tend to be supernatural creatures, not just the antagonists.
He also writes ordinary fantasy (about dwarves? There's a rather popular series called "Die Zwerge" (the dwarves) that I haven't read) and thrillers with supernatural elements, and does a lot of research for his novels, which I really like. In his vampire novels, he oriented himself on the Eastern European image of vampires, which is a nice change from the Dracula clones.

Hm, I've seen "Die Zwerge" in bookshops, but never read it. So he writes supernatural things as well. Might be worth looking into...

Most of the supernatural stuff is in one universe, too, so there are lots of character crossovers in his novels, which I liked. However, that means you have to read his books in a certain order, otherwise you'll be spoiled or missing certain necessary information. (Also, The Dwarves has apparently been translated, but none of his supernatural stuff, according to wikipedia at least).
I think the order in which you should read them goes something like this:
Ritus -> Sanctum (Werewolf stuff)
Kinder des Judas -> Judassohn -> Judastöchter (Vampire stuff)
Blutportale (Supernatural stuff)
Oneiros -> Totenblick (Supernatural stuff)

Not sure about Blutportale, though. It's been a few years since I've read all of it, maybe I should do it again in the semester holidays.

In case you don't know them yet, I really like the "Dresden Files" series of books. Lots of supernaturals and some are cool vampires too!

Eliza wrote:

(Also, The Dwarves has apparently been translated, but none of his supernatural stuff, according to wikipedia at least).

Shame they actually sound interesting :(

wesp5 wrote:

In case you don't know them yet, I really like the "Dresden Files" series of books. Lots of supernaturals and some are cool vampires too!

I have the majority of that series knocking around somewhere but haven't got round to reading them, they're one of my partner's favourite series :3

My favorite would be "The Golden" by "Lucius Shepard".

It's kinda hard to explain it, but it's somehow written like characters are really vampires, as in their way of thinking is way above human level, as in it's overlayered, but in other terms it's under human level because they sometimes overthink the most simple stuff.

Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons. Not about vampires per se, but chess games with people still happen... literally.

I looked up both books they sound interesting :)

I really enjoyed Necroscope book too it had an interesting take on vampires for sure but has flaws.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/66655.Necroscope

Have you read them all? I stopped with the first one -which I liked very much- but from what a friend said about the rest, I did not stick my nose into those.

Jad.3 wrote:

Have you read them all? I stopped with the first one -which I liked very much- but from what a friend said about the rest, I did not stick my nose into those.

I started the 2nd book, which was basically an in utero infection of vampirism on a child and him growing up in England.

I'm not sure exactly why I stopped reading it, thinking back I'd say probably because it just wasn't as good as the first one, I had stronger ties to characters in the first book than the next one. It wasn't the fact my favourite characters died at the end of book one that put me off but rather the fact that I didn't bond with the new characters and had little interest in the ones that made it to book two.

IIRC, before George R. R. Martin wrote A Song of Ice and Fire, he was into the horror genre and wrote a number of vampire novels, a title of one of his best books was "Fevre Dream". If you like George R. R. Martin, Fevre Dream might be of interest

musclehustle wrote:

IIRC, before George R. R. Martin wrote A Song of Ice and Fire, he was into the horror genre and wrote a number of vampire novels, a title of one of his best books was "Fevre Dream". If you like George R. R. Martin, Fevre Dream might be of interest

Is it as heavy in detail as Game of Thrones?

musclehustle wrote:

IIRC, before George R. R. Martin wrote A Song of Ice and Fire, he was into the horror genre and wrote a number of vampire novels, a title of one of his best books was "Fevre Dream". If you like George R. R. Martin, Fevre Dream might be of interest

Is it as heavy in detail as Game of Thrones?

How about Dracula by Bram Stoker

YamiRaziel wrote:

How about Dracula by Bram Stoker

Reminds me of Clan Novel Tzimisce... Why are you asking?

Ah, no reason. I saw everybody discussing vampire literature and wanted your opinion on this one. It's one of my favourites

YamiRaziel wrote:

Ah, no reason. I saw everybody discussing vampire literature and wanted your opinion on this one. It's one of my favourites

It is a classic. The Tzimisce were based on this book. Even the developers admitted that.
I bet it is one of Philo's favorites

Feral wrote:

YamiRaziel wrote:

Ah, no reason. I saw everybody discussing vampire literature and wanted your opinion on this one. It's one of my favourites

It is a classic. The Tzimisce were based on this book. Even the developers admitted that.
I bet it is one of Philo's favorites

Nah, too many crucifixes and holy water for our Philo...

To be honest, as someone who has had to read quite a few "classics", the original Dracula is surprisingly palatable even for a modern taste. Compare it to, say, the original Frankenstein, which was dreadfully boring in parts and incredibly thick in others, and you get what I mean. (Not to say that Dracula doesn't drag on at times, but me, I actually had fun reading it, unlike when I had to read Frankenstein for a literature class.)

Hm, I agree with your opinion on Dracula. As for Frankenstein, it's too long since I read it and I can't remember it that well. But that's probably because it wasn't that good...

It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils.

The beginning of chapter 5 of Frankenstein is burned forever in my mind. I remember when I read it for the first time in 10th grade, I had like 4 unfamiliar words in this sentence, alone The list went up to 300 for the next 5 pages...

YamiRaziel wrote:

It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils.

The beginning of chapter 5 of Frankenstein is burned forever in my mind. I remember when I read it for the first time in 10th grade, I had like 4 unfamiliar words in this sentence, alone The list went up to 300 for the next 5 pages...

I was doing the same, when I was learning English. Tremere Trilogy in one hand and dictionary in the other...
But for a really posh English, go for Agata Christie.