beth b -- thank you! And guess what? My local library has both SWV and UD+UW.

Two rather silly vampire novels to look for.

And actually I remembered wrong. Times of day were not deadly to him, but when he could transform:

..His power ceases, as does that of all evil things, at the coming of the day....

... he can only change himself at noon or at exact sunrise or sunset. These things we are told, and in this record of ours we have proof by inference. Thus, whereas he can do as he will within his limit, when he have his earth-home,his coffin-home, his hellhome, the place unhallowed, as we saw when he went to the grave of the suicide at Whitby, still at other time he can only change when the time come. It is said, too, that he can only pass running water at the slack or the flood of the tide. ...

So in his resting place he change anytime, outside it only at sunrise, noon and sunset exactly.

That also explains how he can cross running water - only at the flod tide. So Stoker did play the game more or less fairly - very definite strengths and weakness for his vampires.

Any thoughts on Dan Simmons' Carrion Comfort? I much preferred the novella and found it ineffably cool and vital. The novel seemed a bit padded, compared to the economy of the shorter form, but maybe I should read the novel again now and see if it fares any better.

Because Frankenstein was about 70 years earlier - Mary Shelley was Regency period (she was born at the end of the 18th century), and Stoker was a Victorian Irishman.

Oh, okay. Maybe I'll read Franky first, then.

JohnSweden totally with you. The novella was far superior to the novel in my opinion. Ditto with Orson Scott Card's Lost Boys.

P-C, they're both brilliant, but also definitely period pieces.

Gar, that answers that. Perfect! Thanks.

To me, it comes across as her writing thinly-disguised RPF porn that hits all her kinks AND managing to get paid for it. Yes, Poppy, we know. Yes, you're fascinated by serial killers. You really, REALLY want to be a queer Asian man in his 20s. That's nice. Now write about something else.

Oh, dear. That was kind of the impression I'd gotten from the except had had read, but I had hoped that the book would delve off into better waters. (Wow, that's a mixed metphor.)

I remember I caught the excerpt off a website she shares (shared?) with a couple of other writers -- I read a book called "Silk" and rather liked it, but I can't remember the last name of the writer. Caitlin C-something. Gosh, that was a couple of years ago -- I can't remember if it was explicitly about vampires or more about psychic vamps.

Does anyone know what I'm talking about?

Any thoughts on Dan Simmons' Carrion Comfort? I much preferred the novella and found it ineffably cool and vital. The novel seemed a bit padded, compared to the economy of the shorter form, but maybe I should read the novel again now and see if it fares any better.

Don't bother re-reading the novel. The novella is the better version.

When I was a college freshman, instead of standard freshman English, we all had little seminars with 5-15 students, lots of writing and discussion, and quirky individualized topics. Mine was "The Fairy Tale and 19th Century Gothic Literature." We read lots of fairy tales in their pre-sanitized versions, and then went on to The Castle of Otranto, Frankenstein, Dracula, and Wuthering Heights.

This discussion is taking me back to 1989, and discussing the stories and books around the table with a handful of other earnest 17- and 18-year-olds and a professor who loved her work. I adored that class, even while having no idea how unusual it was and how lucky I was to be there.

-- I read a book called "Silk" and rather liked it, but I can't remember the last name of the writer. Caitlin C-something.

Caitlin Kiernan, maybe? I read that: it creeped me out and I adored it.