It seems like every year I hear someone say, “Oh, the vampire trend is finally dying down.” And yet when you look at the list of young adult releases, there are still plenty of vampire books today, both established series and books by new authors.
So…are vampires really a trend? One in danger of dying out? I don’t think so—I think vampires are forever. After all, they’ve been populating popular fiction for a long, long time both as seductive villains (Bram Stoker’s DRACULA, anyone?!) and as sexy tortured heroes (Anne Rice’s popular VAMPIRE CHRONICLES series). The VAMPIRE DIARIES books—more popular now thanks to the recent TV series—were originally published in 1991, almost fifteen years before TWILIGHT (even though I’ve actually seen readers accuse author L.J. Smith of “ripping off” Meyers).
For a while post-TWILIGHT, there did seem to be a deluge of teen vampire books. Some even became wildly popular (like Richelle Mead’s VAMPIRE ACADEMY series, Melissa De La Cruz’s BLUE BLOODS series, P.C. and Kristin Cast’s HOUSE OF NIGHT series, and Amanda Hocking’s MY BLOOD APPROVES series). Then, it seemed as if there was a slight shift, and we started seeing more of other paranormal creatures—werewolves and angels and demons, among others. “The vampire is finally dying out!” people proclaimed.
Except it didn’t. A look at some new and upcoming popular young adult titles feature vampires, either as the primary paranormal element (Amalie Howard’s BLOODSPELL) or as one of multiple elements (Kiersten White’s PARANORMALCY and the upcoming SUPERNATURALLY or Cassandra Clare’s INFERNAL DEVICES series).
It’s pretty easy to figure out the appeal. With vampires, we’ve taken the “bad boy” and we’ve upped the ante. I mean, c’mon, just how dangerous was the hot non-paranormal guy on a motorcycle? How deep was his angst? What’s the worst he had suffered? Sitting through history when he really wanted to be writing emo poetry, instead? And what was at stake for the girls who fell for him? Their reputation, maybe.
C’mon, guys….how about their mortal souls?! Isn’t that way more interesting? How about if our angsty heroes are saddled with immortality, forced to watch everyone they know and love grow old and die? What if they’ve done bad things—you know, like biting people and sucking their blood. What if, instead of simply trying to restrain themselves from ravishing their heroines, they have to restrain themselves from killing her, too?
So go on, show a vampire some love today. Me, I’m giving a shout-out to the sexy but self-loathing Louis from Anne Rice’s INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE. How about you?
My dyslexic 12 year old has finally found the joy of reading…in Darren Shan. (He wrote the book made into the recent movie, the Vampire’s Assistant.) As long as she is reading and it is aimed at her age group then I am glad whether it is fairy princesses or vampires!
I’m so glad your daughter found something she enjoys!
I am addicted to the House Of Night series, Real Vampires series, and the Vampire Kisses series and every time a new book comes out i have to get it and read it.
I like vampires and I have read books on them and watched the movies about vampires and especially the bram stoker’s dracula movie, now that movie is awesome and I like the anne rice vampires and of course there are other vampires by various authors who I didn’t include because I either don’t remember the name of the book and/or the author, but they are out there- a great many- there stories about the vampires are all tempting and nail biting when reading them. I have created a new character that the world of book readers will love to hate and love to love when I bring them to the world’s attention- I am talking about spiders! Yes, these creepy, dark and interesting characters are both hauntingly beautiful and possessive and I have even created the little spider, who is determined and lovable and desperately wanting to make it in the world- along with her parents- amongt humans on an island called sapelo. The characters I have created will be a great addition to the literary world and will last as long as dracula. I am not at all trying to throw dracula from the map of readers, because, drac has been here for centuries and is a great chaotic character, but, I feel it is time to let a new generation of character enter- spiders! They’re just as exciting as I mentioned in the start of my discussion and audiences will love it. The spiders are similar to humans in many ways, except they are halflings, shapeshifters and they demand control of human and earth and of course there’s a good reason why, but that’s all for your reading pleasures.