Book Panels: Vampires and Werewolves
This was one of the panels I'd been dreading, because I really didn't know that much about the genre, but it turns out to be huge. I'd done some digging around in advance: I knew that Kelly Armstrong wrote werewolf novels like Bitten, so I looked that up on Amazon, and clicked on the "Customers also bought.." link. And again. And again. And again. They just kept coming...
My search had thrown up the following:
Also mentioned were Poppy Z Brite's Lost Souls, and Gale Corrigan's steampunky series.
There were comments to the effect that some people got the appeal of vampires, but not werewolves, so there were some discussions down each path. One of my favorite points (I forget who mentioned it, sorry) was that these genre might be a way for teenagers to talk/read about sex and other issues
We talked about the difference between the Hammer view of vampires, and the more contemporary variants. There was some movie-bashing, but there was some love for the actual source materials. Actually, there was some love for the movies, too. And as one librarian in the audience said, this is one folks want to read. If they're reading, then yay.
Overall, quite a fun discussion.
My search had thrown up the following:
- Stephenie Meyer (Twilight)
- L.J. Smith (The Vampire Diaries)
- Richelle Mead (Vampire Academy)
- P.C. Cast (House of Night [school for vampyres])
- Rachel Caine (Morganville Vampires)
- Kelly Armstrong
- Patricia Briggs (Mercy Thompson stories) (mechanic and coyoyte)
- Rachel Vincent (Faythe Sanders stories) (werecat)
- Carrie Vaugn (Kitty Norville, Talk Radio jock)
- Charlaine Harris (stookie stackhouse/True Blood)
- Keri Arthur (Reiley Jenson Guardian series)
- Anita Blake
Also mentioned were Poppy Z Brite's Lost Souls, and Gale Corrigan's steampunky series.
There were comments to the effect that some people got the appeal of vampires, but not werewolves, so there were some discussions down each path. One of my favorite points (I forget who mentioned it, sorry) was that these genre might be a way for teenagers to talk/read about sex and other issues
We talked about the difference between the Hammer view of vampires, and the more contemporary variants. There was some movie-bashing, but there was some love for the actual source materials. Actually, there was some love for the movies, too. And as one librarian in the audience said, this is one folks want to read. If they're reading, then yay.
Overall, quite a fun discussion.