Aug
31
Written by:
amarino
8/31/2009 10:23 AM
Retract your fangs and repent, for the end is near!
At least, that's what the store clerk at a local Barnes & Noble superstore told me - and I can't say he's wrong. The death of the undead might be upon us. Just look at the evidence:
► the vast number of vampire titles released each week by publishers (especially in the subgenre called “vampire romance” – so popular there’s a website dedicated to it: www.vampireromance.com), which began with Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles and found new life through Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series -- which has recently been turned into a Marvel Comic book -- and then through other writers, like Christine Feehan, Patricia Briggs, MaryJanice Davidson, and Terri Garey among others;
► the plethora of articles and opinion pieces on vampires in the major popular presses – too numerous to list;
► the new series, The Vampire Diaries - an obvious network-rework of the success of Stephanie Meyer's groundbreaking YA series, Twilight, (the CW is premiering the series "The Vampire Diaries," on Sept. 10. )
► the HBO masterpiece True Blood – based on Charlain Harris's brilliant series of Soukie Stackhouse novels;
► the Twilight phenomenon – a series that has re-made the vampire so successfully that they are no longer fall into the horror genre in most people’s minds, but in YA.
(For an example of this last bullet point: so often when I tell people I wrote a vampire novel, they tell me their 11-year old daughter just finished the Twilight series and maybe they’ll pick up a copy of Bitter Things for her. I groan and cop to the fact that the readers of Twilight are not my target audience – while I wouldn’t mind making some sales [I do have this goal of selling every single one of the books in my publisher’s warehouse] I also don’t want to get into trouble for contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Bitter Things is definitely NOT for the recently pubescent! But because of Stephanie Meyer’s redoubtable skills as a storyteller, the uninitiated are under the impression vamps are for kids. )
So much mainstream pop culture enthusiasm directed to the Pale and the Pointy can only signify the twilight of the genre itself, according to some. The sun is setting on the vampire and it’s not going to rise again soon. They have used former Fed Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan’s “irrational exuberance” label of the 1990’s dot-com bubble as an apt metaphor. There’s just no way to maintain this much interest and enthusiasm.
The vampire’s blood is too thin; the Great Vampire Bubble is upon us.
Is it time to cash out on my vampire stock?
Copyright ©2009 Andrew Valentine
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2 comments so far...
Re: Thin Blood
No way...not time to cash out the vamp stock. There have always been die-hard vampire fans, whether they voice their obsession or stock up on books and keep them under the bed for a night alone with their favorite soulless characters.
The death of tweenvamps may surely be upon us but I don't think it will die out as fast as projected.
Good luck. I hope to read Bitter Things soon!!
By Courtney Jester on
9/25/2009 3:08 PM
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Re: Thin Blood
Thank you, Courtney! I agree that this is not the death of the undead, but the numbers of fans are so large, I just don't think the culture can sustain itself. The true fans of fangs will always be among us, you're right, and people are always attracted to sex and death - so maybe it is just the tween-vamp movement that is a bubble about to pop.
By amarino on
9/25/2009 3:10 PM
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