My Perfect Vampire Novel

Disclaimer: Sometimes you plan a blog schedule, and before you can even fathom to get a backlog, you end up “knock me on my ass for 24 hours” kind of sick. So we post on a Tuesday this week, not Monday

I do not hate True Blood. Nor Vampire Diaries. Not even Twilight. I feel it’s important to say that out the gate. While I have a lot of beef with many choices made during that early 2000s vampire craze—precisely, I have a lot of feeling about the confederate vampire problem,—that’s not today’s discussion.

Today’s discussion is just about the vampires themselves.

Now, one of the main reasons I always struggled with these 2000s era vampires is that they were always, always, *always*, sexier than they were scary. And I understand the appeal of them being sexy. Of course. A beautiful, ageless predator? A scary hot boyfriend who finds you more attractive than hunger? Than eternity? That’s swoon-worthy. Its something to marvel. (It probably also says something about the desire to crave a man who chooses loving his partner over loving the patriarchy that gives him power, but hey, I won’t give too much of a literary analysis lecture here).

But I always craved vampire stories that draw on the horror more than the sex. Even internally—that horror of needing to take something vital from people, their very lifeblood, to survive. The fear of maybe learning to like it. What a monster like that would look like.

Interview with the Vampire and the classic Dracula itself hits this balance the best for my brain. There’s something that feels so accurate about vampires being these entitled, sensual, selfish creatures that take more than they give and corrupt or kill when it suits them. But even then these depictions aren’t perfect. Dracula was marred with the male hysteria of fearing women’s sensuality. because of that purpose, it’s easy to forget and disregard the human parts of Dracula. The compelling parts of him. And in Interview with the Vampire, there is a lacking female perspective. The closest thing to a female perspective is Claudia, who is a… mixed character for a lot of reasons. But that feels improper. It feels like women more than men should have so much to feel about the symbolic horrors of vampirism, and not in a sexually corrupted kind of way.

After all, what’s more emblematic of vampiric entitlement than the way the patriarchy has taken advantage of women? Have fed off their labor? I know that’s feminism 101 and some people find it preachy, but when a metaphor hits it hits.

As someone who identifies with and feels great solace in monster narratives, I tried to strike a new balance in my own book, Daughter of Or. Focus on those women wiled and manipulated by a Dracula type, while still maintaining that human element of *why* he has any appeal at all.

The vampires in Daughter of Or are violent and selfish, and also are trying to learn ways to take blood ethically. Giving each other permission, etc.; trying to make equity and honesty out of a power imbalance. And then contrasting that with their Dracula’s mental gymnastics to explain to himself why its good and right they he just so happens to drain mostly women and use them to sate his tastes, his loneliness, his every whim. He feels entitled. He feels outcast. He feels right, and its up to the women vampires around him to band together and prove just how much he didn’t have to choose this life. That he looked at this spring of power within him and *chose* exploitation and indulgence, but they will choose another way.

And that’s why some of the most terrifying scenes in the book don’t involve the mindless thralls of the looming death god. They are centered around a powerful man who deems himself worthy of taking anything he wants. After nearly 75 years, his tragic backstory is little more than a convenient excuse.

Protection and control does not mean love.

I’m not trying to be a debbie downer about vampires. I just find the commentary on control and power far more compelling than the sex. Yeah the sex is fun, absolutely, but I like it to be a flavor, not the whole show, y’know?

To be a little less self-centered, I’m slapping in a few recommendations for vampire stories I really dig right now:

Abigail (2023 Film)

Castlevania (2017-2021 Animated Series)

Castlevania: Nocturne (2023-Now Animated Series)

What We Do in The Shadows (2019-Now Series)

Time and Time Again (2022-Now Webtoons Series)

Interview with the Vampire (2022-Now TV Series)