Mmmm.... citrus herb chicken with garlic. IJS.

Also, the whole dead thing? Very important. (re Jilli's vampire rant.)

Also, the whole dead thing? Very important. (re Jilli's vampire rant.)

Also important re: citrus herb chicken.

Totally (re the vampires). Mine are certainly going to be dead (or formerly dead, now undead); the woman was one of the last victims of Elizabeth Bathory's pet henchwoman, and she herself turned her male companion in a grubby alley near the Bastille during the Terror.

They can NOT go out in sunlight. They don't eat cheeseburgers. They aren't cute. They also aren't stupid, because I have this idea that writers who offer up creatures who have successfully survived for the equivalent of five human lifetimes and are portrayed as dimwits? OUght to be nibbled to death by ducks.

edit: oh, and the chicken? Dead first, as well. Much easier to pluck that way.

double-edit: GINGER! Thank you for an intelligent, well-thought out Amazon review!

You're welcome. I meant to do it long ago. At least at this point I could point people at the next one.

Hell, if the Amazon rankings are anything to go, the pre-order on "Famous Flower" is more active than "Weaver" is right now. Which, in fact, is just how it should be.

"re-thinking" the standard mythology so they can go out in sunlight, don't have to drink blood, and can eat cheeseburgers means you are no longer writing about vampires

With you on the main points of the rant. But Bram Stoker's Dracula could in fact go out in sunlight; he just had no superpowers in daytime. Being caught by the first rays of sunrise or the last rays of sunset would however have been deadly to him. Also I think so would being out exactly at noon, but I don't remember that last for certain.

t /nitpick

Gar, where in Dracula do you remember him being out in sunlight? I'm trying to remember that part, and can't; all I'm coming up with, without referencing the book, is the part in London when (I think) Harker sees him, and says "it is the man himself - but he has grown young!", and I don't remember the actual encounter, or time of day during which it happened.

Of course, Dracula could also cross running water (the ship running ashore at Whitby with his coffin in it, setting him free on English soil, is one of my favourite bits of horror ever written), so apparently Stoker played with the mythos, as well.

We never actually saw Dracula out in sunlight. Van Helsing in sharing vampire lore and talking of the strengths and weakness of vampires specifically said that vampires could walk in the day, but if they did they had no special strength or ability to turn into mist etc. Since sunrise, sunset, and (I'm 90% sure of this last) noon could kill them, I can understand why Dracula and most vampires would choose in practice to sleep days ; a hell of lot safer to go out only at night.

Oh yeah, this reminds me that I was planning on reading the original Dracula and Frankenstein this summer. I've begun Remember Me already...but hm, should I do the monster books now or read my new Davies? I suppose I should do them next in honor of Van Helsing, or something. Which one should I read first? Which one is better?