Not every title is a treasure

I had bad luck with reading this week, and it’s all Stephenie Meyer’s fault.

The plan for this week was to write about vampire books, but I haven’t read enough of them to be much of an expert. I thought it would be a good excuse to read some of Anne Rice’s vampire chronicles, maybe some Anita Blake books, maybe some classic horror like the original “Dracula.” People are calling Meyer’s “Twilight” series the next “Harry Potter,” so I added them to the list as well. At this point you may have noticed that I assigned myself a ton of giant books to read in seven days. If you’re guessing that this didn’t go well, you’re right.

Aside from the formidable volume of the task, I made another big mistake, which was choosing “Twilight” first. Everyone from my boss to my sister has recommended “Twilight” and its sequels, so I was looking forward to it.

I don’t know how sales stack up, but I can assure you that “Twilight” is not the next Harry Potter. In fact, it’s been years since I’ve had such a negative reaction to a book, and I’ll be honest: I couldn’t finish it. I know it’s bad form to naysay something I haven’t completed, but the fact that the book was too miserable to get through serves as its own kind of review.

But this seems to have developed into a rant. The point I was aiming for is that I spent so much time alternately wading through “Twilight” and coming up with excuses to avoid it that I didn’t make much progress on the other huge pile of vampire books I had assigned myself. Which is bad news for someone trying to write an authoritative vampire column. So my recommendations this time might be a little shaky. They’ll also be fairly obscure, but I imagine you’re used to that by now.

Proceeding in no particular order, then, are the few vampire novels that I can (mostly) vouch for.

First is “Interview with the Vampire” by Anne Rice. I’ve only just started it, but so far I haven’t been seized by a violent desire to throw it out the window. Anyone troubled by Rice’s (former) tendency for “transgressive sexuality,” as wikipedia puts it, should probably steer clear, though.

Next is a book called “Vamped” by David Sosnowski. As the story of a vampire who starts a successful campaign to “vamp” the vast majority of humanity, it gets lots of originality points, plus a few for fun narration, as well.

A more traditional story is Steven Brust’s “Agyar.” It’s a very straightforward love story about a journal-keeping vampire and the human woman he falls for. Finally, I’ll recommend a short story by Sharon Farber called “Born Again.” It addresses hypothetical vampirism in scientific terms, and features a great female narrator.   

With that, it looks like I’m out of room, but remember: If anyone waves “Twilight” at you, threaten them with plenty of stinky garlic!