The Southern Soft Porn HBO Vampire Fantasy

I am a HUGE fan of Charlaine Harris’s books. Not least because reading Dead as a Doornail inspired me to write Tempest Rising. I’d never read a fantasy book like it (not because they’re not out there, but because I hadn’t read fantasy for about 10 years), and the tone was so different from the "serious" fantasy I loved but I’d always known I could never emulate. The first thing that struck me about Harris’s novel was that, while the heroine was heroic, it was in an entirely human way. She was heroic because she bore her “disability” with grace, always managing to be polite and respectful (values she held important) despite the horrors her mind picked up on a daily basis. She was heroic because she remained open, despite the fact that most people would have shut themselves off from experience or hope after living the way she had.

Another thing I adored about the series was it indulged in all the fantasies I’d always riffed on, in my own mind and with my family, about the SF/F genre that I otherwise loved. Peelers are a practical, cynical people. We have a touch of idealism and romanticism that balances our otherwise dark natures, but, for the most part, we reflect our Midwestern, immigrant roots. So, as we were walking out of Blade 2, years ago, my brother said, “I’m really glad that, after kidnapping Kris Kristofferson, the vampires put him in designer leather pants. Because he was wearing jeans throughout Blade. Somebody had to go out and buy him some Versace before they interred him in goo.”

What my brother was commenting on was what had always bothered me about many types of fantasy that we now call urban fantasy. Because I’m practical, and Midwestern, and a Peeler (so a bit of an asshole), I always wanted to know: who buys the vampire’s cravats? How do they pay their electricity? Do they have a checkbook? Do they balance it? With a calculator? Did Renfield ever look at Dracula and say, “Master, you need to stop spending so much on virgins because we have to feed your wolf-minions. And you know how rabid they get when we switch their kibble for something cheaper.” That’s why I loved, in Harris’s books, when Sookie compliments Bill on his brown and green golf shirt (!?!?) and Bill tells her he bought it at Dillards in Shreveport (where I do my own shopping nowadays, thanks). Harris obviously asked herself, “Where would a vampire get his golf shirts?” Which is genius not least because it’s a vampire in a golf shirt. That’s brown and green.

I know, nowadays, that Harris isn’t the only recent UF writer to riff on these things. But she was the first one I’d read after a decade, and it felt entirely new to me. So new I had to write my own. Which is why I’m not only a fan, I’m a bit of a rabid fan. Granted, I am a quiet fan, as always. I’m not much of a “joiner” so I don’t participate in fan stuff. But I’m enough of a fan of Charlaine’s books to have bought this:

It’s from Dirty Coast, a Louisiana tee shirt company.

I am also enough of a fan that I knew my judgment of HBO’s True Blood was going to be the jaded, mutinous judgment of a true fan waiting to be disappointed by the Hollywood treatment of their favorite novel. And I wasn’t very pleased by the first season. I didn’t get why they made Sookie so trashy, or why they made some of the plot deviations they did. I couldn’t see logic behind the choices, although I knew, as well, that I wanted the series to be the books and that was an impossibility. That said, I’m really enjoying the second season. I feel that the parts of this season that are like the books are closer, in spirit, to the original and that the parts that deviate do so in a bolder, more original way that makes sense.

That said, I am also aware that I may just have gotten over the fact it wasn’t a direct repro of my beloved books.

What do you think of True Blood, the HBO series? And don’t just tell me Eric is hot. That is a given, like the sky is blue or the sun will rise in the morning.

Thanks!