Well, I near the end of the third installment of Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles, Queen of the Damned. Great stuff that I suggest to any member of scifi/fantasy fandom who reflects my StarTrek and superhero point of view...My wife had been bugging me for years to check it out, but it struck me as fluffy and all those goth kids that were reading the Vampire Chronicles often come off as really superficial (I really ought not to judge; after all, I have my own Star Trek suit). Furthermore, coming from the fan-boy geek set as I do, it was tough to get over my deep seated opinion that the only good vampire is a dead vampire (excepting, of course, my inner 12 year old's fondest fantasy, Vampirella). Ultimately, these vampire characters and their stories are quite appealing. The books have complicated plotlines and sophisticated characters that obsess on morality, ehtics, and aesthetics.

But here's why I think I really like these books.

Anne Rice's vampires are for all intents and purposes superheroes and supervillians. That's right, superheroes! I think I annoyed my wife and some friends a few weeks ago when the idea hit me while we were all watching a dvd of Queen of the Damned (not quite the book, okay, not really the book at all, but the film does capture the essense of the characters); I started going on and on about the idea which I think might have damaged everyone else's viewing pleasure. Oh well.

Even though I'm not really an X-Men fan, I think the best explantaion is to compare Marvel's angst ridden mutants with Anne Rice's angst ridden vampires. There are secret wars and battles between good mutants and evil mutants; there are secret wars between good and evil vampires. Both mutants and vampires are scorned and hated by humanity. There are good mutant leaders like Professor Xavier and Cyclops; there are evil mutant leaders like Magneto. So, too, with vampires: Maharet and Marius; Akasha and Enkil. Both the X-Men and the Vampire Chronicles are ensemble stories; that is, no single character becomes too terribly important to the drama--each mutant/vampire has his or her role to play...

Dark Phoenix. Akasha. Think about it.

I suppose I could go on and I would if this was a paper for some cultural rhetoric class or something. But this is my blog, and like Lestat or Wolverine, I follow my own rules here.

snkt and slurp!