A Vampire a Day: Fevre Dream by George R. R. Martin

I first encountered George R. R. Martin as a fan of the original Beauty and the Beast, which he created. I found out he'd written a couple of novels and went in search of them. I really liked Armageddon Rag, but I REALLY liked Fevre Dream, his vampire novel. It's an obscure one that ended up on the B&N Reads list of "the Ten Best Vampire Novels No One Has Read"  (I've read one other book on the list, Suzy McKee C Charnas' Vampire Taspestry but haven't read the other eight which means I have the chance to discover eight (EIGHT!!!!) great new books.

Fevre Dream is a gothic novel with a capital G. Wikipedia, which has an entry on the book (of course they do--it's not a "thing" unless it's got a Wikipedia article) that likens the book's style to a mashup of Bram Stoker and Mark Twain. Martin worked out a complex backdrop for his vampires (the "red thirst" they experience, the Pale King who leads them) and it mostly takes place on an elegant and elaborate steam boat (the Fevre Dream of the title.)

This is a lush and decadent and nuanced novel and (in my opinion) leaves Anne Rice in the dust.

A Vampire a Day: Salem's Lot by Stephen King

I'm pretty sure this was the first book I read by Stephen King. I never read Carrie, but I picked up Salem's Lot at the Westover Hills Public Library in Richmond and was completely hooked. I am an unabashed fan of King, and think he's a master at crafting character. (I believe he is the Charles Dickens of our generation. He is superb at characters. And even on his worst days--Desperation, Rose Madder, I'm looking at you--he's better than most people.)

I loved the way he played with the tropes of the vampire myth in this book, especially the way he did the "stake through the heart" thing. I liked the pairing of the kid and the writer who has come back to his home town. (SPOILER ALERT) He has written about killing the love interest in the book and he's absolutely right about the way that unsettled the reader. Because if he killed her off, what might he do next???

I also really liked the first television adaptation of this. David Soul, Lance Kerwin, James Mason and a scary, Nosferatu-type vampire. The scene where a vampire Geoffrey Lewis floats outside the young hero's window was damn scary. (Geoffrey Lewiswas one of my favorite character actors. I saw him in a spoken word performance years ago and he just killed it.) James Mason was perfect.  (And another example of the "all the villains are Brits" idea.)

Salem's Lot was written when King was only 28.

A Vampire a Day: Innocent Blood

You didn't see this movie. Nobody did. I know this because it was a Warner Bros. movie and I was working at WB at the time. In fact, I was working at Warner Bros. helping develop a vampire script that had been written by two guys who'd penned a massive, franchise-spawning hit. The premise of the script was original and featured vampires in Vegas preying on people in 12-Step programs. We submitted the script to the studio the weekend Innocent Blood opened and on Monday, our script was deader than disco. And unlike vampires, it did not rise from the dead. (For the record, Box Office Mojo says it made less than $5 million in domestic release (and even in 1992, that was terrible). It never got an international release and considering the global appetite for horror, that tells you just what a stinker the studio had on its hands.

On paper, the movie was a no-brainer. Directed by John Landis, starring Anne Parillaud who was hot off La Femme Nikita, and the late, great Robert Loggia, with Anthony LaPaglia and Angela Bassett in supporting roles. The movie was chock full  of character actors, from Zhazz Palmenteri to Luis Guzman. Even Don Rickles showed up. The storyline combines romance, Mafiosi, and dark humor. Maybe it was the humor that was the problem. Audiences seem to prefer their vampire movies straight up unless it's an out and out spoof like Vampires Suck.

It had a GREAT poster. The kind of image you could see on a paranormal romance today. No fangs, just Anne Parillaud's gorgeous face and big red eyes.

If you're curious, you can watch the trailer here.

A Vampire a Day: Sabella: Or the Blood Stone by Tanith Lee

You don't always remember what your gateway book was to a new author but for me, the Science Fiction Bookclub 1980 double-novella collection SOMETIME AFTER SUNSET (comprising "Companions on the Road" and "Sabella') was my introduction to Tanith Lee.

I had never read anything written in that darkly lushly style before. Tanith Lee used words the painters use oil pigments, just slathering them on, layering them, swirling them around. Her prose was absolutely  gorgeous and I was a fan from that moment on. I've read most of her work and that's saying something because she was wildly prolific.

She wrote several vampire stories, including Dark Dance, which I somehow missed (and which sounds like it has a bit of 50 Shades of Grey in it), and several other books in her Blood Opera series. It's probably heresy to admit it but I never much cared for Anne Rice's vampires. Like everyone else, I devoured Interview with the Vampire but it didn't send me off on an Anne Rice reading binge. (And for me, the absolute best thing about the movie was Kirsten Dunst's performance as the child vampire.)

But Sabella...It was science fiction. It was horror. It was fantasy. It was beautiful. And if I had never read it, I would have missed out on 30-some years of wonderful books.Now if I could just find a copy of BLOOD OF ROSES, which you can get used on Amazon for $151 or new for a few thousand.

A Vampire a Day: FOREVER KNIGHT: Intimations of Immortality by Susan Garrett

I knew Susan Garrett. She was a friend of a friend of mine and soon after we met I realized that Susan was a friend to everyone. She was warm and generous and lovely and when she died a few years ago, even though I hadn't known her long or known her well, I felt bereft.
Susan was active in the fan fic community, writing stories in several different universes, including Forever Knight, the Canadian television show that has attained cult classic status. She and I shared a fondness for Forever Knight. (My best friend is a dead ringer for actor Geraint Wyn Davis, who played the vampire lead.)

The powers-that-be producing the show read some of Susan's fan fiction and invited her to write one of the tie-in novels. I think there were three, but this is the only one I ever read. It was a lot of fun, and can be read as a stand alone, even if you never saw the show. It preserves the struction of the television episodes, which involve a modern-day story taking place in an unnamed city (clearly Toronto because you can see the CN tower in most of the exterior shots) and then flashing back to a time in the main protagonist's past life.

The book was a mass market paperback published in 1997 and you can still get copies on Amazon for a penny and postage (around $4). If you like vampires with a side-order of romantic angst, you'll love this book. And you'll love Susan's writing too. A lot of her fan fic is still online, so if you liked this story, you can find shorter works she wrote.

A Vampire a Day: Bent Steeple by G. Wells Taylor

Horror writer G. Wells Taylor (his new book, The Night Once More is a genre-bending, phantasmagorical noir-horror-thriller), hit an absolute home run with Bent Steeple, a stand-alone vampire book set in the Canadian north woods. If you like Stephen King (and I do, a lot), you will LOVE this book. The characterizations are absolutely first rate, from a doctor who sees what's happening before anyone else, to a disabled kid. (Fergus will break your heart.) this is another vampire book that is for readers who prefer their horror to be just that--horrific. Taylor is also the author of the Dracula of the Apes trilogy, a masterful mashup of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Bram Stoker. (You'll never look at Tarzan the same way again.)

Bonus:  I love this cover. Stark. Graphic. Eerie-looking. So much subtler than the usual black and red  with creatures.

A Vampire a Day: Vampyrrhic by Simon Clark

Remember when vampire books were horror stories? Me too. (I still get chills thinking about Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot.) Vampyrrhic, which is free today, is a throw-back to the days before sparkly vampires and alpha-hole blood-drinkers. The vampires in this book are Nosferatu and they're damn scary. The tale unfolds in a small town in Northern England and like all horror stories that take place in small towns, the isolation and the vulnerability of the town play a part. Clark is a writer to watch in the horror-thriller genre and if you like your vampires to be monsters, you will like this book.