Midnight Reviews

One of the best surprises a writer can receive is an unexpected good review. My two vampire novels, 100,000 MIDNIGHTS and ACROSS THE MIDNIGHT SEA, each were recently reviewed by Bradley Krawchuk, who had some great things to say about both books. I thought I'd share those reviews here today.

In the interest of full disclosure, I do know Brad, though not very well. We've never met in person, so I guess we're what you might call friendly internet acquaintances. We first met several years ago on a forum devoted to the work of prolific comic book writer/ artist John Byrne. I later became Facebook friends with a handful of people from that forum, including Brad.
Brad is a voracious reader, going through hundreds of a books a year, many of which he reviews on Facebook. I did not ask Brad to read or review my vampire novels. In fact, I didn't know he'd purchased them until he posted his thoughts on the first one, so these were not solicited reviews.

Here are, in his exact words, Brad's comments:

"100,000 Midnights by Aaron Smith - Now, why didn't Facebook highlight Aaron Smith's name there? Ah! There it is! Hey Aaron, cool book! Dude, the "Miracle" was awesome - and a good name, too! And Perfection? That was just X-Filesy goodness.
So at first I didn't like it. I read a couple chapters and I thought I knew where it was going, and then when I realized I didn't, I assumed I knew where it was going anyway, and then I figured out where it was actually going but not, and then I understood it was just doing whatever it wanted and I held on for the ride. That's when it got really fun!
A young man with an old soul meets a young looking but much older vampire, and then proceeds to go on many crazy and (seemingly) disconnected adventures with her. That's pretty much the gist of it right there. It reads like an old fashioned serial adventure story; if you took out things like cell phone references (and an entire chapter about rock n' roll), substituted carriages for cars and steamers for airplanes, you could almost fool me into thinking this was written back in the early 20th century. John Carter, Tarzan, Sherlock Holmes... you put a chapter a week in a pulp 100 years ago this would almost fit in. Almost.
Because while the serialized adventure style of the book hearkens back to a bygone era, the references to classic sci-fi and fantasy literature - both overt and subtle - has a decidedly nostalgic and sentimental undercurrent that makes it seem much more at home in modern literary times. It feels like it's of the past even while it yearns to be part of that past, an interesting and very entertaining line to walk.
The sheer lunacy of the ideas and the many disparate elements that get tossed in and taken out makes it feel like it could go in any direction, and like I said, once I understood I shouldn't anticipate anything, I left myself open to be pleasantly surprised by where it went. By the time I got to who was living in that castle, I was pretty much beaming as I said "of course!" As such, I can hardly wait to see where it goes next in the sequel!"

And, concerning the second book:

"Across the Midnight Sea by Aaron Smith - The follow-up to Smith's 100,000 MIDNIGHTS sees Eric (our human narrator) continue his relationship with the newly Elder vampire Siobahn, and his continued employment by Phillip, an older vampire with a mysterious past that isn't so mysterious after this volume.
The book picks up days after the end of the previous adventure, and while there are some twists and turns the novel overall has a more focussed narrative thread, without the numerous serial adventure side missions. There are certainly still nods to different popular stories, but this second outing delves less into the general supernatural themes of the first and spends time deepening the lives of the main characters. Phillip's aforementioned mysterious past is revealed, Eric's family naturally comes into the picture, and a possible love triangle emerges when Eric befriends an entirely human female closer to his own age than the near 300-year-old (and immortal, and vampiric) Siobahn.
Think of the first book as a rollercoaster, and this one like a Ferris wheel. You hardly catch your breath with the first, with the second you take time to stop and look around, but they're both still fun rides. I have no idea what the third book will be, and that's a good thing."

Those 2 reviews each made my day and I'm glad Brad (and other readers, I hope) looks forward to the next book in the series.

I found it interesting that Brad, being an observant reader, noticed certain differences between the two books, specifically what he calls the serial nature of the first book and the more focused narrative thread of the second. He's right on the money, and there are reasons for the differences (and I'm glad he seemed to enjoy both styles). The first book was indeed originally written as a series of short stories and intended to be a serial. I first created the character of Eric and Siobhan in two short stories, "100,000 Midnights" and "A Study in Shadows," which were published in Pro Se Press's magazine FANTASY AND FEAR. After writing those, I couldn't get enough of them, so I kept writing. I came up with plot after plot and soon had eight stories. It was then that I decided to try to put them all together as one novel. Those 8 stories became the 14 chapters of 100,000 MIDNIGHTS. After that book was accepted by Musa Publishing, I wanted to do a sequel. That story, ACROSS THE MIDNIGHT SEA, was meant from the first page to be a novel, which explains the difference in style from the first book. 

I do plan to write a third novel continuing the story of Eric, Siobhan, Phillip, and the other cast members. I haven't started it yet, but I have a few ideas. 

Those interested in my vampire novels can find them on Amazon for Kindle:

100,000 MIDNIGHTS  

ACROSS THE MIDNIGHT SEA      

or for Barnes & Nobles' Nook e-reader:

100,000 MIDNIGHTS 

ACROSS THE MIDNIGHT SEA

or at the Musa Publishing site.  

Thanks again, Brad, for the great reviews! 

 

Good Intentions, Unexpected Results

I've been very pleasantly surprised lately by some of the things people have been saying about my writing ... and I swear I didn't do most of it on purpose!

When I write a story, I have one goal in mind. That's to entertain.What form that entertainment takes varies depending on the genre, but all I ever really want to do is tell a good story in the best way I can. I'm the kind of writer who takes an idea for a plot and bashes the words out quickly and by following my instincts. I don't do detailed outlines or obsess over every word. I take an idea, follow my gut, and run with it. Eventually, if I'm lucky, I end up with a finished short story or novel and somebody wants to publish it. The the readers get it and I hope they enjoy it. That's all there is on my end of the process. I don't try to do anything more than make those readers happy and keep them interested for the time it takes to read from Page 1 to "The End." 

But my last few releases have been getting comments that have shocked me, in a good way.

I wrote my spy novel NOBODY DIES FOR FREE with the intention of telling a story that thrilled readers the way I've always been thrilled by things like James Bond movies or Tom Clancy books. Based on what readers have said in response to the book, I seem to have accomplished that and I'm glad I have. But there's been more than that. I've had people say they've been amazed by the depth of character I've given to the protagonist, Richard Monroe, or been surprised by the twists of the plot. A writer I greatly respect, Trent Zelazny, went so far as to say that the writing is "mind boggling, slick and with a high polish, yet dripping with humanity and often poetry." I literally had tears in my eyes as I read that review. Good tears, because I seem to have accomplished what I set out to do and then more.

I also recently released my second vampire novel, ACROSS THE MIDNIGHT SEA (sequel to 100,000 MIDNIGHTS). My goal there was the same as it always is, to entertain. Now those books contain an element of romance and some sex scenes. The sex is there because it's part of the story, not for any other reason. To be honest, I'm not very comfortable writing about sex. It feels clumsy to me, slightly embarrassing, maybe too personal to be sharing with the world, even if it's the characters having the sex and, obviously, not me. I don't get too graphic with my literary depictions of sex. I tend to use metaphors and hints. It's certainly not outright erotica. So imagine my surprise recently when a reader reported being aroused by those scenes! I'll take the compliment, gladly, but it's not what I expected to hear.

Getting comments like those from readers and reviewers has caught me off guard and I take it as a sign that I'm doing something right, becoming a better writer. I won't try to duplicate those successes, but will continue to do what I've always done, which is write by instinct, put down the words that seem to tell the story best. If those words have deeper effects than I anticipated, good!

The lesson I've learned: trust myself, write what feels right. Experience, guided by instinct, and a hell of a lot of practice seems to be paying off.

As I said earlier, I swear I didn't do it on purpose!            

A Bloody Good Book

Christopher Farnsworth has some serious guts. Sure, all writers are brave people. We bleed on paper, putting some of our most personal thoughts and dreams out there for the world to read, even if we do often disguise them as the actions or ideas of our characters. But I'm talking about a different kind of creative courage.

If there's one thing that's most precious to writers, it's ideas. We need ideas to ply our trade. We horde them away as if they were as valuable as Faberge eggs. We collect them in Word files, on the backs of used envelopes, on little scraps of paper stuffed Columbo-like into our trench coat pockets, and we'll even resort to scribbling on toilet paper before an ethereal inspiration slips away in the night. So when, on page 20 of Farnsworth's latest novel, Red, White and Blood, I read, "Only a week ago, they had dealt with a squad of men who'd learned to use Spontaneous Human Combustion to make themselves into living bombs..." my jaw hit the floor. What Farnsworth did there was take an idea worthy of at least a short story and maybe even a full novel, and fire it at his readers like a single bullet just to make that one paragraph more interesting. I'd be overjoyed to come up with an idea that good and I'd probably milk it for every word it was worth...and Christopher Farnsworth uses it as a little detail! My respect for his writing doubled at that moment, and it was already at a pretty high level to begin with.

Red, White and Blood is the third novel in the Nathaniel Cade series. The premise of the series is partially based on a real historical incident. President Andrew Johnson once commuted the death sentence of a man accused of being a vampire. That part is fact. What Farnsworth did was take the idea further and attack the question of what if it really was a vampire? What if this blood-drinking undead being has secretly been working as a government  operative for every U.S. president from Johnson to today (although the current president in the books is a fictitious character instead of Barack Obama). It's a great concept and the books are even better than they might sound from my brief summary.

I've read and enjoyed all three books so far, and each has gotten better. The first, Blood Oath, introduces readers to the vampire Nathaniel Cade, his president-appointed "handler" Zach Barrows (a young man who knows politics but has to learn the hard way how to navigate the terrors of the night), and various supporting characters. Blood Oath  focuses on events involving a modern day Frankenstein-type character,

The second Cade book, The President's Vampire, was even more thrilling for me than the first, as it contains elements inspired by the work of one of my favorite writers, H.P. Lovecraft. It also tells us what really happened to Osama Bin Laden!

So I recently read the third installment, Red, White and Blood, and I'm happy to be able to report that it's the best one yet. The plot, which centers on a thing called the Boogeyman, a seemingly indestructible  incarnation of the serial killer or slasher archetype, is interesting, fast-paced, suspenseful, and even heartbreaking at times. After this one, I've also come to the conclusion that Christopher Farnsworth is one of those writers with whom no character is truly safe, which is yet another reason his work impresses me.

The Cade novels aren't strictly horror stories. They tend to cross genres between gruesome horror and intense action, with bits of mystery thrown in as well. And I can't forget to mention the references. Farnsworth ties together all sorts of historical facts, conspiracy speculations, occult ideas, and other details in ways that will make fans of the things he refers to smile, while not getting in the way of the enjoyment of readers who might be unfamiliar with such things. In other words, the style in which these books are written will welcome both hardcore genre fans and casual readers alike.

As the author of two vampire novels myself, I'm occasionally asked about my favorite vampire books or movies. There are many bloodsucker stories I've enjoyed over the years on either paper or film, but Farnsworth's Cade series is easily my favorite currently running vampire series of any kind. These are excellent books, with each better than the last. I look forward to the fourth book in the series. 

Anything Can Happen at Midnight

I suppose it was inevitable that I'd want to write about vampires at some point in my life. I've been interested in the undead ever since I was about five and a vampire story in a Batman comic scared me senseless. Over the years that followed, I saw dozens of vampire movies, read most of the best-known vampire books (and many obscure ones too), and never completely lost interest in the idea of blood-drinking creatures of the night.

It was a few years ago that I wrote my first vampire short story, "100,000 Midnights," which was published in one of the magazines I sometimes contribute to. I started writing sequel shorts to that one, soon had a handful of them, and then made the decision to combine them all into one book instead of publishing them piece by piece. That became the novel 100,000 Midnights, which was released as an e-book just over a year ago by Musa Publishing. While it was a slow starter in sales, possibly because it was aimed at an audience outside my usual pulp stomping grounds, it's really started to pick up in recent months, probably due to the help of some very positive reviews. Here's the Amazon page for 100,000 Midnights. 

 

Now, I'm happy to announce that the second book in my vampire series, Across the Midnight Sea, is now available for Kindle, Nook, and most other electronic formats. Here it is on Amazon.

 

So as I write this, I'm thinking about what it's like working on this series of vampire stories (and yes, there will eventually be a third book), and I'm starting to smile as I realize how much fun it is.

The vampire books, or I guess I can call it the Midnight series now, since that word appears in both titles and will find its way into future volumes' titles as well, are my personal playground where anything can happen. Other series of stories I've written or are currently writing seem to have more rules that I have to follow (not that that's a bad thing, it all depends on what I'm trying to accomplish with a given project). For example, when I work on a character like Sherlock Holmes or Allan Quatermain, I have to maintain the essence created by the originator of the character. When I work on a Marcel Picard detective story or a spy novel like Nobody Dies For Free, the stories take place in a realistic version of our world and I have to obey the laws of science and reality. But with the Midnight books, my typing hands are completely unbound.

The Midnight books are set in a world full of supernatural beings, though the general human public isn't aware of what goes on in the shadows.

100,000 Midnights begins with our protagonist, Eric (who I've never given a last name to) stopping in a diner late one night. Eric is what you might call a very young hermit, a somewhat eccentric young man who has few friends and often feels like he was born in the wrong era. So he's sitting alone in this diner and he meets Siobhan, who turns out to be a 292-year-old vampire, though she physically looks like she's not even twenty yet. Eric's whole life changes that night and he finds out that there's a hell of a lot more going on in the world than he ever imagined. He also discovers that he has a natural talent for dealing with supernatural emergencies, though that doesn't mean its always easy. And, he also soon discovers that he can't ever really go back to the way his life used to be, not that he wants to, because that would mean leaving Siobhan.
I'm not going to say anything more about the plot right now,but Eric's nocturnal adventures continue through that book and into the sequel.

The Midnight books are also, I realize, a place where I can pay tribute to many of the things that have influenced me. Quite a few of the places in those two books are thinly disguised versions of places I've been to. Someday, I'm going to do a blog post featuring photos of the real-life locations that have inspired the places in the novels. There are references and homages to a lot of other things in there too, things like the work of H.P. Lovecraft, old Archie comics, H.G. Wells, Dracula (of course!), Shakespeare, Sherlock Holmes, and probably a dozen other things, some of which I might not even have been aware of putting in there at the time!

When I started the set of vampire stories that eventually coalesced in the first novel, I really didn't know exactly where I was going with them. Now, two books into the series, with a third just barely started, I'm still not sure where Eric, Siobhan, and the others will eventually end up, but I hope those who have read and enjoyed the first book and those who are currently reading the second, will come along for the ride. You can never be sure what will happen at midnight.     

7 Books That Changed My Life

Early this morning, on my way to sit down and check my e-mail, I caught a glimpse of my bookshelves and something made me stop for a minute and look. Hundreds of books stared back at me, many I've read at least once, some I've read many times, and quite a few I just haven't gotten around to yet. But among those many volumes are a handful that, for one reason or another, had such an impact on my mind (and heart too, in some cases) that they literally changed who I am to one degree or another, either by introducing me to a new genre or interest or doing something to inspire my writing or maybe even changing the way I think about the world we live in, or the worlds we could live in if things were just different enough to shift reality into something other than our familiar realm of existence. In appreciation of those personally important works, here is a list of seven books that really had an impact on me. There are others too, but these are the ones that jumped out at me today.

THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
I first "met" Sherlock Holmes when I was about 8, via the British TV series starring Jeremy Brett as the Great Detective. I was fascinated by everything: Holmes' brilliance and eccentricities, his colorful adversaries, his loyal companion Watson, and all the details that go to make up a mystery. My grandfather, noticing my interest in one of his favorite fictional characters, found his own copy of the complete Holmes canon, the one he'd owned since his boyhood in the 1930s, and gave it to me for Christmas. I still have it today and still refer to it anytime I need to double check something for the new Holmes stories that I've had the privilege to be allowed to write for Airship 27 Productions for the past few years. My love of detective stories began with Holmes, but certainly didn't end there. If not for Doyle's work, I wonder if I ever would have followed that fascination and found Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot or Peter Falk's brilliant portrayal of Lt. Columbo or countless other literary or film detectives.

CASINO ROYALE by Ian Fleming
The aforementioned Sherlock Holmes is probably my favorite fictional character, but also pretty high up on that list is James Bond. Like with Holmes, I knew Bond on screen before I ever met the literary version. To me, in my early childhood, Bond looked like Sean Connery or Roger Moore or Timothy Dalton or George Lazenby. When I did finally get to read Fleming's books, I began with the first one, Casino Royale. I'm glad that was the first one he wrote and the first one I read, because it had not, at the time, been made into a movie yet. Had I read, say, Goldfinger, first, I probably would have had images of Sean Connery and Gert Frobe running through my head the whole time. But because the first 007 story I read was not a movie yet, Fleming's words had their effect on me without cinematic memories getting in the way. Because of this, the Bond I see when I read Fleming is different than the guy in the movies, and hopefully closer to what Fleming intended. I like both Bonds now, the movie version and the one that comes in words on the page. My own first spy novel, coming soon, was inspired by both versions of Bond, as well as by all the spy fiction I read later after first discovering the genre because of Ian Fleming.

DRACULA by Bram Stoker
Forget every movie version of the famous vampire count. Forget the handsome face of Christopher Lee. Forget the romantic baggage added on to the character in Francis Ford Coppola's adaptation. Let all that slide out of your mind and lose yourself in the novel upon which all those movies were not-quite-based. Don't get me wrong, I love some of those movies, especially the Hammer ones, but this is the real Dracula, and one of the best (worst?) villains in literature. Stoker's choice in telling the story as a series of letters and journal entries was particularly inspired, as it allows the story to unfold as the characters experience it, letting the reader know just slightly more than any individual character does at any given moment. Of course, the two characters who actually have a firm understanding of just how dangerous things are getting, Dracula himself, and Van Helsing, aren't included in the narration (except for one section by Van Helsing toward the very end). Dracula is a slow, chilling, crawling, deepening nightmare of a book that will drag you in and not let go until you've made it to the end. It reaches a point where you must know what will happen next. That's the book that really cemented my love of vampire fiction and what eventually led to my writing 100,000 Midnights, the first of my own vampire series.

THE OCTOBER COUNTRY by Ray Bradbury
 When I was a kid, reading books meant for kids, a story was often just a story and the words were just there to move it along from one event to the next and eventually to its conclusion. I knew that things had to happen in stories, but I don't recall, at a young age, giving much thought to how important it was for some writers (the best writers, maybe) to choose which words served the story best. And then I discovered Ray Bradbury. Words never looked quite the same to me after that. Bradbury used them to build atmosphere, alter mood, make a story so much more than just a series of words describing events. I don't know if I can explain it any better than that, but I do know that The October Country  is my favorite of Bradbury's books, a wonderful collection of short stories, including such classics of horror and speculative fiction as "The Watchful Poker Chip of H. Matisse," "Skeleton," "The Man Upstairs," and many more.

THE BEST OF H.P. LOVECRAFT: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre
I've since read almost all of Lovecraft's fiction and own many editions holding various stories in various orders under various groupings, but this sampler was my first taste of the absolutely unique sort of storytelling that we now call "Lovecraftian."
Lovecraft's work, so I've heard people say, isn't for everybody. Some people find it too thick with extravagant adjectives and antiquated phraseology and cyclopian....see? It's contagious!
But seriously, there's nothing else in the world like Lovecraft. Whether it's his Cthulhu stories or the Dream Cycle or anything in between, it's a unique, thrilling, often horrifying blend of myth, horror, and science fiction, a genre unto itself.

HYPERSPACE by Michio Kaku
As much as I love science-fiction, I'm also very interested in science fact. One of my favorite subjects is quantum physics. Although I'm fascinated by the concepts and theories, I'll come right out and honestly admit that I don't understand the complicated mathematics behind them. Dr. Kaku's book explains the amazing ideas of modern physics in an entertaining way that makes them clear, and even more interesting, to a mathematically-inept reader like me. You won't see your "reality" in the same way after reading this or any of his other books.

CREATURES OF LIGHT AND DARKNESS by Roger Zelazny
This is my favorite novel in the world. A mind-altering blend of Egyptian mythology and science-fantasy told in a way that I don't think any other writer can ever replicate, I was never quite the same after reading this for the first time and, strangely and wonderfully, it seems just slightly different with each subsequent reading, as if there are always nuances that remain hidden until I'm ready to discover them.
It starts out with a unique present-tense third person narrative, drifts into poetry in unexpected places, and ends as a play! Zelazny, it seems, was willing to break any rule, stretch any boundary, and do anything to get this story told, and it works perfectly.
As I've been writing this blog entry, I've realized something. Perhaps the reason I love this novel so much is that it really includes, in some way or another, all the qualities that make the other books on this list so special to me. "Creatures" gives the reader the intellectual exercise of a Sherlock Holmes mystery, the suspense of Bond, villains as terrifying as Dracula, epic events as cosmic in scope as anything Lovecraft ever imagined, exquisitely crafted prose worthy of Bradbury, and mind-bending concepts that could very well have come from (or might even go beyond) the things discussed in Hyperspace.
"Creatures" is a short book. The edition I have here is only 190 pages, but it packs more punch than any other book I've ever read. I can't really say it's influenced my writing, because I could never be as bold as Roger Zelazny when it comes to finding a truly new way to tell a story, but it's certainly influenced my imagination, and I think that's even more important.      
 

 

   

When Good and Evil Wear the Same Face

A few hours from now, it will be May 26, 2013, a date I feel I should commemorate here because it happens to be the 100th anniversary of the birth of one of my favorite actors, the great Peter Cushing.

Those of us who love movies in the genres of horror, mystery, and science fiction should all be grateful to Cushing for his incredible body of work. Perhaps the most amazing thing about his work as an actor was his ability to play both sides of the game, switching from hero to villain and back again from film to film with what looked to viewers like flawless ease, though it was more likely hard-earned skill. While actors who usually play heroic characters, like Harrison Ford, for example, occasionally have a turn as an evil swine, and those who most often portray villains, like Bela Lugosi, have had some sympathetic roles, I have a hard time thinking of another actor who played both sides as well and as often as Peter Cushing.

To think about this in terms of just his most well-known roles, Cushing's version of Van Helsing was one of the best and most famous. He played Sherlock Holmes too, both in the Hammer version of The Hound of the Baskervilles and later in a BBC television series. He is among my favorite Holmes actors, right up there alongside Jeremy Brett and Basil Rathbone. And he also portrayed The Doctor in two Doctor Who movies. That's three massively important heroic characters.

On the evil side, who could forget his Dr. Frankenstein and, perhaps even more famously, his important role in a film that defined the childhoods of so many of us who grew up in the 70s and 80s, Star Wars? As far as I'm concerned, Cushing's Grand Moff Tarkin was the main villain in Star Wars. Looking back with hindsight after all the movies, people tend to think of Darth Vader as the big bad guy in George Lucas's trilogy, but Vader wasn't much more than a henchman in the first one, while Tarkin was obviously in control. He barked, "Vader, release him!" and Vader did.

Peter Cushing is one of a handful of actors whose work I always enjoy, whether in a classic like Star Wars or Horror of Dracula or The Hound of the Baskervilles, or in any of the lesser films he did over his long career. Like any prolific actor, Cushing was in his share of lousy movies too, but I don't think his performances were ever bad. He could rise above bad scripts, bad directing, and bad cinematography to shine even when the movie was covered in mud.

I wasn't always a big fan of Cushing. For years I thought of him as a minor character from Star Wars, but as I got older and saw more of his films, I grew to appreciate his work a lot more deeply. His Grand Moff Tarkin was incredibly important to that first Star Wars movie. His Van Helsing was a fit match for Christopher Lee's Dracula, and his Holmes, as I said before, is right up there with many other fine actors who sat in the rooms at Baker Street puffing that pipe while deep in thought.

Peter Cushing appeared in over 90 movies. Some of them are now among my favorite films of all time, while there are others I haven't yet seen. I'm glad I haven't seen them all. It gives me something to look forward to. Cushing's long, distinguished career on film lasted from 1939 to shortly before his death. He died in 1994 at the age of 81.

So it's been a hundred years since his birth. I suspect that in another century, the work of this fine actor will still be appreciated and those who love horror, mystery, and science fiction will still marvel at the work of a man who played both good and evil with so much skill.

Now comes the hard part. I have to decide which of his movies to watch for the the occasion!       

Count-ing to Five

It's no secret to anyone who reads my work or follows this blog that I'm a big fan of vampires. I've blogged about them before, written a vampire novel, 100,000 Midnights, which will be the first in a series, and long been addicted to vampire novels, movies, etc.

Of course, one of my favorite characters in fiction, and certainly my favorite in the vampire genre, is Dracula, created by Bram Stoker for his novel of the same name. Stoker's book is one of my favorite novels and I've read it many times and will probably find an excuse to read it again soon.

But what about other depictions of Dracula? The count has appeared in hundreds of other novels, movies, and comics over the years. So I was thinking it might be fun to try to narrow down all those post-Stoker Dracula appearances to my favorites. I've picked the number 5 for this little exercise, since any more would make for too long a blog post! Having whittled the candidates down like Van Helsing preparing a stake, here is my list of my five favorite Draculas outside the original novel. I look forward to hearing what others think, whether they agree or disagree with me.

5. DRACULA (1931 film)

I couldn't possibly leave Bela Lugosi off the list, could I? For many people, he's the first image that comes to mind when they hear the name "Dracula!" It's a good movie, even if it seems tame compared to many of the later Dracula films. Lugosi was an excellent actor who often doesn't get enough credit. The film's story strays very far from Stoker's novel, but it's still entertaining and has the classic charm of those glorious old Universal horror movies. I recently viewed the movie with the Phillip Glass score that was added to certain editions of the DVD not long ago. The new music made it seem like a different film and added something refreshingly eerie to a movie I'd watched a dozen times before. I'd recommend it with the Glass music or in its original version.


4. NOSFERATU (1922 silent film)

This German horror film, directed by FW Murnau and featuring Max Schreck as the vampire Count Orlock is, like the Lugosi version, loosely based on Stoker's novel. Nosferatu is one of the strangest, creepiest things ever put on film. It pulls you in and drags you through a black and white nightmare. In my opinion, the best way to watch this movie is late at night with the sound turned off. No music I've heard added to the film does it justice, but silence in the background adds to the eeriness of the experience.


3. HORROR OF DRACULA (1958 movie)

The first in the classic Hammer Productions series of Dracula movies, this is the best. Christopher Lee as Dracula, the great Peter Cushing (possibly my favorite actor ever) as Van Helsing, this is a good one. There's a certain atmosphere and look that was specific to the Hammer horror movies and this is perhaps the best example. Like the last two movies I mentioned, this one goes way off track from being a real adaptation of the novel it was supposedly based on, but that doesn't make it any less worth watching.


2. COUNT DRACULA (1977 TV movie)

In 1977, British television aired this two and a half hour adaptation of Stoker's novel and this time it really was an adaptation! I saw this for the first time about a year ago and was completely blown away! This is Stoker's novel brought to bloody, creepy life. Louis Jourdan (who deserves a villain of the century award for playing not only Dracula, but a Bond villain and a murderer matching wits with Lt. Columbo) plays Dracula and does an admirable job. Van Helsing is played by Frank Finley.
The movie made a few minor changes from the novel. Lucy and Mina are sisters instead of friends, Quincey and Arthur are combined into one character, and the final fight sequence is slightly altered (but I'm not saying how, in case you haven't seen it yet). Other than that, this version hits all the stakes on the head and is, finally, a very good adaptation of the book. The special effects, despite the limitations of 70s TV, are chilling and work well because they don't try to go too far.
I highly recommend this one!


1. TOMB OF DRACULA (Marvel Comics, 1972-1979)

This may surprise some people, but my Number One choice here is not a movie but a comic book series. This is also not an adaptation (tight or loose) of Bram Stoker's novel, but a continuation of the story of Dracula.
Running 70 issues, this series was brilliant from start to finish. Drawn for its entire run by Gene Colan, whose art style was perfect for the subject matter, and written, except for the first few issues, by Marv Wolfman (an appropriate name for a writer of horror comics), it began with Dracula's resurrection in the modern world and followed the count's activities, as well as the adventures of a group of vampire hunters pursuing him.
Interestingly, Gene Colan based the look of his Dracula on actor Jack Palance before Palance actually played the count in a 1973 movie!
The series is available in inexpensive reprint form as part of Marvel's Essentials series of books. Every fan of Dracula, even if not normally a comics enthusiast, owes it to him or herself to read Tomb of Dracula.    

So that's my countdown of favorite post-Stoker Dracula depictions. Of course, Dracula is just the tip of the vampire iceberg. I've enjoyed other vampires in many books, movies, and TV series, but that's a subject for another blog.
If you have any strong opinions on my choices, good or bad, I'd love to hear them.

SPARKS

The process of writing a story usually begins, at least in my experience, with a question. In the case of my vampire novel, 100,000 Midnights, the question was “What happens when a human being, blissfully unaware of the existence of the supernatural, finds himself drawn into a world of shadows, immortals, and horror?”

            That question started the ball rolling and I soon had the first in a series of short stories that I later merged into a novel and had the good fortune to have published. But now, more than two years since I started to write the story, I find myself looking back on the process and wondering exactly how the pieces fell into place after I’d asked the initial question that became the core of the plot. I don’t mean I wonder how each event in the book took shape. That much is obvious: a story rolls like a snowball down a mountain and picks up not only speed but detail as the writer becomes more comfortable with his or her characters and themes. What I do mean is that I began to wonder why this particular writer chose, consciously or not, to answer the story-starting question in the particular way I did. What outside influences worked their magic on my mind in order to cause my brain and then my typing fingers to spit that story out onto the page?

            Looking at the novel, I realize that the primary theme is much simpler than mortal meets immortal. In fact, it’s perhaps the most common theme in all of storytelling: boy meets girl. But as I think of many of the stories I’ve written, I see a pattern. I have a habit of using a specific variation of that common theme. Quite a lot of my work could be categorized as stories of ordinary boy meets extraordinary girl.

            Using this theme was a natural pattern for me to fall into because I’ve been there. Like Eric, the protagonist in 100,000 Midnights, like Jason in my first novel, Gods and Galaxies, and like a few other characters I’ve written about, I’ve often felt that I didn’t quite fit in with what society seems to consider social success and, maybe, normalcy. Not that I was ever that odd or a complete outcast, but the general tone of my life, at least for the first twenty-five years or so, was that of a loner and an eccentric in the eyes of others, and my life may have seemed dull and mundane, to others and certainly to me. There’s a bit of me in all my characters. Like Jason, I’ve always been both fascinated and appalled by religion, interested in mythology but critical of the damage often caused by its believers. Like Eric, I’ve always had a fascination with the past, a feeling that maybe, at least in the corners of my mind where fantasy outweighs reality, I’d have been happier to have lived in a different era. I suppose I’ve always felt like an outsider in my time and place, a stranger in a normal land. For Eric and Jason, their dull lives are thrown into unfamiliar, exciting, and ultimately better (even if more dangerous) territory when they each encounter a very unusual woman. For Eric she’s a 300-year-old vampire; for Jason, she’s royalty from another galaxy. Both men make the jump to a brighter reality because of someone who comes very unexpectedly into their lives.

            My own experience might not sound as dramatic. My wife isn’t an alien, isn’t an immortal blood-drinker (which is good because I don’t even like needles at the doctor’s office!), but the experience of discovering her was no less powerful.

            Because of my solitary nature and my feeling of never really fitting in completely, I long held the expectation that I would always be alone. Then she appeared. I met the woman who would become my wife while filming a movie. I had done some acting several years earlier, studied the art, performed in some Shakespearean stuff around the New Jersey area, had fun with it, but stopped when I got tired of people who were more interested in being actors than they were in the actual work that goes into acting. Theatre became one in a long list of former hobbies that had worn out their welcome. So I stopped. But I got a call out of the blue one day asking if I’d be interested in a small role in an independent film an old acquaintance was making. I agreed to do it, having nothing to lose. When I said yes that the offer, I had no idea just how much I’d end up gaining. 

            I arrived on the set and there she was, working as a member of the film crew. She wore a Wonder Woman t-shirt and barked orders at actors in a voice that still held a trace of the accent she’d brought with her from Poland a decade earlier. At some point in that chaotic day of takes and retakes and debates over the delivery of lines and the torturous pauses that eat up time between shooting, electricity passed between us, magnetism, a hint that there was more going on than the filming of a movie. When the day was at its end and I asked her to call me, I was different. For once in my life, despite all my history of social awkwardness, I felt no fear, no hesitation, as if, for once, the universe was rooting me on, wanting me to win.

            I would have been crushed if she hadn’t called, felt like a lottery winner who has the ticket snatched from his hand by a strong wind before getting a chance to claim his prize. But she did call me, and the rest is history.

            It’s been almost a decade now and she’s with me every day when I wake up, every night when I go to sleep. During that decade, many things have changed. I own a house and I’ve become a writer. That second thing, the writing, I don’t know if I ever could have done without her. I write the words, but she encourages me because even when I don’t think I have another sentence in me or another story to tell, I know that she believes I do, and that convinces me. Before her, on my best days, maybe I could look in the mirror and hope to see Clark Kent staring back at me. But now she smiles at me and for at least a moment, I believe I can be Superman.

            There’s an old saying about a great woman behind every great man. That’s not quite right. I try to be a good man, don’t know if I’ll ever qualify as great, but I know that beside me—not behind but beside me—there’s a great woman. Unlike the women I sometimes write about, she’s not an alien with royal blood or a vampire with all the powers of the undead…but sometimes I think she does have some kind of superpower. What else could possibly explain how she puts up with me and my moods and my frustrations, frequent depressions and all the other things about me that must be aggravating at times?

            I don’t know how she does it. I don’t think anyone else could. But I know one thing for certain. Everything I’ve accomplished and everything I’ll accomplish in the future is a fire started by the sparks that came from her.

            As writers, we have to exaggerate events. A simple love story often isn’t enough. There has to be more. And so somewhere in that story is placed a fantasy element and in my writing it’s usually the extraordinary woman who changes the life of the ordinary man. I imagine the events and put them into words, but I don’t have to imagine the emotions. When one of my characters discovers the feelings of joy and wonder and chaos and surprise and disbelief and potential that come from finding the one person in an infinite universe of beings who can make him feel that way, I’m not making anything up. I’ve been there and I’ve done that.