A Vampire a Day: Vamp

I have a theory about vampire movies and the lackluster performance of 2014's Vampire Academy bears it out. I don't think audiences really like comedy blended with their vampire stories. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a hugely successful television series but the movie it was based on only made $16 million domestically and was never released overseas.
Vamp was a movie I saw one weekend when my roommate and I scooped up a ton of videos more or less at random because our local video store was already out of all the new releases. I wasn't expecting much, frankly, but as it turns out, I was pretty entertained. for one thing, Grace Jones as the vampire was both sexy and scary. For another, some of the comedy really worked. (I particularly liked amoment when a character gets staked through the heart but doesn't die because it's formica and not wood.) Robert Rusler as Chris Makepeace's hapless friend was darkly handsome (yes, I can be shallow), and Gedde Watanabe starred as well. Billy Drago and Sandy Baron also co-starred and were perfect.
If you're looking for something pulpy and silly to watch one Halloween night, check out Vamp.

He'll always be Hans Gruber to me. RIP Alan Rickman.

Yes, yes, he was in the Harry Potter movies, but he'll always be Hans Gruber to me. I started working for Silver Pictures the month that Die Hard came out. I've always liked action movies and Die Hard, like many of Joel Silver's movies, established a new story paradigm that other companies were quick to pick up on and run with. I cannot tell you how many "Die Hard on a (fill in the blank)" movies I read in the 18 months I worked there.Some were pretty cool, others were just lame knockoffs.

Bruce Willis ruled as John McClane in Die Hard. I'd only ever seen him on Moonlighting and in those beer commercials but he had a good smirk--only Clark Gregg does it as well--and I  liked his style. He was great. But Alan Rickman as Hans Gruber? He was perfection. Sinister and smart and he had the first "resurrected villain" moment that ever really worked for me.

The next thing I saw Alan Rickman in was Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and my favorite scene in the whole movie was the one where he (as the Sheriff of Nottingham) has a conversation with Michael Wincott's hilariously dim Guy of Gisborne. "I'll cut out his heart with a spoon."  "Why a spoon cousin?" "Because it will hurt more."

I Will Make Wine of Your Blood

The heroine of my upcoming urban fantasy novel (Misbegotten)  is a paranormal crime reporter named Kira Simkins.  In the course of the story, I mention that "Kira" has written two true crime books, one about a syndiate of murderous mer-men (Poseidon's Stepchildren) and one called I Will Make Wine of Your Blood. My friend Joy Sillesen of Indie Author Services whipped up covers for the imaginary books and I've always planned on writing novelettes to give away to my so-far nonexistent mailing list. But as I get close to finishing Misbegotten, I find myself more and more intrigued by the premise of this paranormal "true crime" book. I really want to write it now, but that will play havoc with my schedule this year.
I love this cover so much.

A Vampire a Day: Sunglasses After Dark by Nancy Collins

When I read this book, Sonja Blue was not yet the heroine of a series of books. I thought I was reading a one-off and was sad because I LOVED Sonja. I loved Sunglasses After Dark. They've redone the covers now that it's a series, and they're wonderfully retro, but the one I first read had the cover pictured.

Sonja's a vampire who hunts other vampires. That's not a particularly new idea (Blade, Vampire Hunter D), but I got a kick out of Sonja's particular brand of kick-ass. She stood out from all those katana-wielding, tramp-stamped hunter chicks  you see nowadays. Sonja is ... complicated.

Nancy Collins sounds like an interesting person too. I hope I run into her some time at SDCC.

A Vampire a Day: Gil's All-Fright Diner by A. Lee Martinez

A werewolf, a vampire and a ghost ruin a Goth girl’s plan to open a portal for the old gods to usher in a new world of darkness.

This is a very, very funny horror story that uses all the tropes of urban fantasy and spins them in a redneck kind of way. The vibe is one part ZOMBIELAND and one part FROM DUSK TIL DAWN with a big dash of DUCK DYNASTY/HERE COMES HONEY BOO BOO thrown in. In other words, although the characters include vampires and werewolves and ghosts and zombies (and zombie cows), the backdrop is pure regional.

It’s a really loopy and off the wall and extremely entertaining as a book. Martinez really does urban fantasy well and he and Christopher Moore seem to have this branch of the genre all to themselves.

The characters are all fully realized and recognizable human beings, even when they’re undead or ghosts or weres or just hapless minions of the manipulative Tammy/Lilith.

A new book in a series that just keeps getting better and better

If you're not yet a fan of Stacy Clafin's "The Transformed" series, then why not?  The best-selling author has just released #11, Obscured. She's also hosting a giveaway on the Free Kindle Giveaway site. So if you haven't started the series, get reading. If you're already hooked--the wait for the new book is over!

A Vampire a Day: The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

A curious young woman investigates her diplomat father’s past and stumbles across the true history of “Drakulya.”

I loved this book. My review of it read, in part:This book has close kinship with the wonderfully evocative period mystery IN THE NAME OF THE ROSE.  The story is atmospheric and densely fragrant, with details that anchor us in time and space even as the story spins its magic across the centuries.  The characters are rich and dimensional, drawing us into the outlandish tale one step at a time.  

The book garnered all kinds of praise for its literary excellence and no one seemed to mind that it was really a vampire novel.