BLAMELESS, BY GAIL CARRIGER--character, Prof. Lyall

Another note about this werewolf/vampire series: I recently listened to the CD and fell in love again with Prof. Randolph Lyall, the always correctly dressed and greatly put-upon Beta of the London Woolsey Werewolf pack. His huge Alpha, Lord Connall Maccon, gets ridiculously drunk over a personal crisis. (It takes formaldehyde, as werewolves are not affected much by alcohol.) Knowing that the Alpha is incapacitated, a "loner" wolf comes to challenge for the control of the Woolsey pack, and Prof. Lyall must fight in his leader's place. He's much smaller than most weres, but has skill, speed, cunning, and over a century of experience. During the fight the drunken Alpha Maccon arrives and literally tosses Lyall to the sidelines. Lyall hates being untidy, even in wolf form, and he cleans up the blood "surreptitiously licking his ruff like a cat." Wonderful character.

And the series also has the flamboyantly gay vampire Lord Akeldama, who's invented the Pink Slurp drink--blood mixed with champagne. Now you're all set for the next W-V party. Be sure to get the cravat straight.

SOULESS, BY GAIL CARRIGER

ALEXIA TARABOTTI, with a deceased Italian father, is too darkly complexioned, forthright, and voluptuous for the VICTORIAN marriage competition. As a "preturnatural," she can turn supernatural being mortal with a touch. She has no soul to save for the afterlife, and conquers this deficit with yards and yards of courage, heart, intellectualism, and a strict regard for the manners of polite society.

She is therefore outraged when a newly made vampire attacks her at a party, violating all forms of social etiquette, with his clothing so terribly disarrayed he hasn't even got a properly tied cravat.

In the scuffle, she kills the vampire, a terrible social embarrassment. The very eligible but scruffy bachelor, LORD CONNAL MACCON, Alpha werewolf of the London Woolsey pack, is sent to investigate and helps her cover up the her gaffe.As more new vampires appear and old ones disappear, everyone holds ALEXIA responsible.

As she struggles to solve this problem, she is helped by applications of tea drinking, the flamboyantly gay vampire LORD AKELDAMA, judicious whacks with her trusty parasol, and the increasingly affectionate LORD MACCON himself. Part urban fantasy, part steampunk, this witty variation on the werewolf/vampire theme comes to us through JANE AUSTEN and SOOKIE STACKHOUSE.

TRAILER FOR VAMPIRES SUCK

I just saw the hilarious trailer for this parody of the TWILIGHT series--who cares how good the movie really is? Bella is riding the roads of Washington, musing "I feel so safe with you," when she nearly runs over Edward Cullen and crashes her motorcycle. In the second scene she confronts the Jacob Black look-alike. "Why did you just take your shirt off?" "It's in my contract--I have to do it every ten minutes of screen time." Lastly, she hovers over Edward Cullen, breathing "Let's go all the way." Cullen hastily points out, "Purity Ring," as he avoids her.

I had neglected the TWILIGHT series due to its teen orientation, but I'm glad I read it now. It's always good to be aware of the pop-cultural zeitgeist, and know whether you're Team Edward or Team Jacob.

CHANGELESS, by Gail Carriger

In yet another w-v series, Alexia, Lady Maccon, is the wife of Lord Maccon, a London based werewolf. Alexia is a strange preternatural creature, a curse-breaker who can turn weres and vamps mortal with just a touch. Also, she's missing a soul. Her acerbic point of view is wonderful. The voluptuous Alexia has a figure unsuitable for Victorians, but her husband enjoys it thoroughly. The physical relationship between Alexia and Lord Maccon is as enthusiastic as that of Amelia Peabody Emerson and Radcliffe Emerson in the celebrated Elizabeth Peters series. And Alexia is as deadly with her parasol as the formidable Amelia, whacking the weres to command their attention.

Disaster follows when a strange event plagues the London supernatural community. None of the supernaturals can change form and are trapped as mortal humans. They have lost their invulnerability and face sudden death. Lord Maccon dashes away to fight this catastrophe, leaving Alexia to find and follow him. The werewolf dominance struggles which follow are less interesting. They were enlightening in the Carrie Vaugh "Kittie" series, but are now tedious.

The supernaturals slot into Victorian England in unique ways. They are more or less accepted, and Queen Victoria profits greatly by "her vampire advisers and her werewolf warriors." The East India company is vampire controlled. I knew it! Bloodsuckers if I ever saw any! Enjoy this romp.

WEREWOLVES AND VAMPIRES—an astonishing eleven series

1.PATRICIA BRIGGS
Mercy Thompson: Volkswagen mechanic, coyote shapeshifter

2.CHARLAINE HARRIS
Sookie Stackhouse:A waitress and medium

3.CARRIE VAUGHN:
Kitty Norville:A radio show personality

4.STEPHENIE MEYER
Bella, in the Twilight series:A mopey high school student

5.CHRISTOPHER MOORE
Vampires of San Francisco
LATEST NARRATOR:ABBY VON NORMAl, Emergency Backup Mistress of the Greater Bay Area
too many characters to name
no werewolves

6.JES BATTIS:
Heroine whose name I can't remember (bad sign)(Tess Corday)
an OSI-occult scene investigators
Vancouver, vampires, necromancers
no werewolves.

7.IONA AMDREWS
Kate Daniels:Magic/tech turmoil in Atlanta
were beast of all kinds
vampires as orcs.

9.JIM BUTCHER
Harry Dresden series:Chicago
Vampires as major players, at war with wizards
sexy monsters
Werewolves major characters,in Fool Moon
afterwards minor , but persistent players; the bumbling college-student pack lead by the childish Bill, who later grows up to be the powerful Will—almost the only friends Harry has

W-V'S AS SUPPORTING ACTORS

10.TERRY PRATCHETT, the Ankh-Morpork city cities
Angua is a beautiful girl loved by Captain Carrot Ironfounderson
several other supernatural minor, but memorable, characters, including the (not terribly competent vampire) watchperson Salacia and the soldier Malifient in Monstrous Regiment
Also, the Black Ribboner,Lady Margolotta may be the Patrician's lover
He certainly claims to have learned a lot from her when he was young
and who could forget Otto Chriek, the vampire photographer who crumbles to dust every time he uses a flash, but is willing to suffer for his art.
Hadn't realized how strongly drawn these characters are, as is almost ever major character in Discworld
Hadn't noticed it, but there's only one book in which the vamps are evil.
And one with Angua's family and her psychopath brother Wulf

11.J.K.ROWLING
Harry Potter series.
One werewolf, the beloved and poverty-stricken Professor Lupin, friend of Harry's father, nemesis of Severus Snape, very memorable
no vampires

12.SETH GRAHAM-SMITH
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
Zombies, but a hugely funny member of this world

MOON CALLED, by Patricia Briggs

Patricia's Briggs series is an exciting addition to the werewolf-vampire world .Her heroine Mercedes “Mercy” Thompson, a Volkswagen mechanic by trade and a coyote shapeshifter. She was fostered by the werewolf pack in Spokane until Bran Carter, the Marrock, leader of all Northwestern werewolves, cast her out when she was sixteen and in love with his son Samuel. (Marrock, a wonderful new vocabulary word, is old English word for a knight who was thought to be a werewolf).

Now she is next door neighbors with Adam Hauptman, leader of a pack a few hundred miles south of her original clan. Mercy's built a life for herself because she doesn't need a pack, unlike weres. Mercy finds Adam attractive, but her mischievous coyote side playfully resists his attempts to dominate her.

Then Adam's human daughter Jessie, is kidnapped, several of Adam's pack are killed, and Adam disappears on the hunt for Jessie. Mercy is forced to look to the Marrock for help. Back in the pack's territory, she encounters Dr. Wallace, the kind old veterinarian who cared for all the weres. His werewolf son has Changed him in order to beat his brain cancer. Now young and healthy, his calm and loving personality has vanished. He's aggressive and viciously quick-tempered, like all weres, and barely restrains his violent tendencies. If he can't get control of his wolf soon, the Marrock will have to kill him for the safety of the pack. The Marrock has his own agenda as he plans to reveal the werewolves to the public light.

Mercy rouses the Marrock's pack to the fight for Adam and Jessie. In the process she uncovers the truths about Samuel and the werewolves' desperate struggles to create families.
MOONCALLED is a fascinating new exploration of the supernatural genre.

WHY THE SUPERNATURAL? commentary

The proliferation of supernatural novels raises the question of why this genre is so popular now. I think there are currents in writing, waxing and waning of popularity. A writing instructor told me once that successful writers told the exact same stories, only different. J.R.R. Tolkien may have been the progenitor of modern fantasy, with his legendary Middle Earth trilogy. He didn't have any vampires or werewolves, but certainly chronicled the societies of hard working dwarves, glittering and dangerous elves, and brooding wizards.

Another example is the tough-gal protagonist, with Sue Grafton's Kinsey Milhone its prototype. There have been many followers, of various twists, including Sue Dunlap's Jill Smith cop mysteries. Dunlap's creativity also produced a lowly meter reader P.I, as well as an independent female medical examiner with a gorgeous cook/house boy. V.I Warshovski and Carlotta Carlyle are two other tough broads, given life by Sara Paretsky and Linda Barnes respectively.

Movies of that era also began to abandon the female role of helpless female or girl Friday. Ass-kicking women are now the standard stereotype, from Carrie Moss of the Matrix series to any number of Angelina Jolie's roles. The average woman can't really beat up the average man, but this stereotype is much more fun than the fluttery kind.

Maybe in the future the Chinese will colonize Mars, and spacesuits and rockets will appear, but I predict that sexy, spooky Sookie and her friends will rule for now.

DEAD AS A DOORNAIL, Charlaine Harris, a Sookie Stackhouse novel

I was going to swear off the vamps when I saw the cute cover of this grocery store book. Now three chapters in, I'm wondering why I was prejudiced against this series. I think it was the fact that I don't like visual depictions of the supernatural scene (see previous postings). I was put off by my assumptions about the True Blood TV adaptation. This is obviously contempt prior to investigation. The book is a scream, in a good way. I already don't care much about the mystery, but I love the way Harris plays with her creations.

Fairies, the Fae, visit Merlotte's bar, with their usual untouchable glamour, but don't drink iced tea if you want to meet one. Fairies are as allergic to lemon juice as vampires to garlic. What? Is she just making this stuff up or something? And the mind-reading Sookie deflects the unwanted attention of an obnoxious bar patron by solemnly telling him she has x-ray vision and can read his driver's license through his pants. She's leading him on to ask the obvious next question, so he's pretty cocky as he struts back to his friends, sure she's seen what else he has in that area. Then she switches her attention back to Eric the pirate vampire, who may have information on a local shooting. Who cares, when the inventiveness and humor in this are so much fun.

COMMENTARY ON TRANSFORMATIONS IN MOVIES AND TV, by CeeViews

About those vampires and werewolves--I've realized that I like them only as literary creations, with my own imagination. Vampire movie and TV depictions are amusing and unconvincing, starting with BUFFY and going on to TRUE BLOOD and Stephenie Meyer. Sparkling Edward, anyone? At least that's a creative, if absurd, change from bursting into flames. And fangs are silly. Who's scared of them anymore? Almost every werewolf transformation filmed is slow and ridiculous, including REMUS LUPIN in HARRY POTTER, and the new Benicio del Toro film, "THE WOLFMAN." The transformation of JACOB in the movie adaptation of NEW MOON, however, shocks with its originality. Taylor Lautner goes from pouty running teen to leaping wolf in fractions of a second. The wolf head and shoulders emerge complete, with the rest of the body coalescing behind from sharp fragments. I think there may be part of one tennis shoe left in the picture as the wolf charges, suggesting the boy left behind. It's the definitive version.

BITE ME, Christopher Moore

Christopher Moore's unique blend of horror and insane humor is laugh-out-loud funny in this new book, the third in his series about the vampires of San Francisco. Abby Normal, a teen Goth and the self-styled Emergency Backup Mistress of the Greater Bay Area Night, narrates this book in breathless profanity-laced OMG and WTF style. Abby realizes pretty soon that her vampire Master and Mistress are not thrillingly ancient beings; Tommy Flood is only nineteen, and his sire, Jody, is only 26. Tommy worked the late-night shift at Safeway with his buddies The Animals, until he fell in love with Jody and was turned by her. Abby lives to serve them as their minion, taking care of their daytime business affairs and hoping to become a vampire herself. Unfortunately, she's failing Biology 102, and grounded by her mother.

Abby's boyfriend, Steve "Foo Dog" Wong, is a bio-nerd who's researching the reversal of vampirism. He's also the inventor of portable daylight-spectrum UV light mechanisms as novel vampire killing tools. Another vampire killing device is a vile ancient Chinese tea, concocted by the Animals from a grandmother's recipe, and propelled in Super-Soakers.

Now undead cats terrorize San Francisco, baffling all law enforcement except two goth-scene aware detectives. In Moore's talented hands, the creation of vampire cats seems wholly believable. Abby, Foo Dog, Tommy, the detectives, and the Animals combine strategies to defeat the hundreds of cats, and incidentally, the ancient vampires when they do appear.

Moore's plot succeeds in carrying humor and romance, of the mad monkey love-ninja type, through his horror plot. If you've never tried a Moore story before, dive in now.

KITTY GOES TO WASHINGTON, by Carrie Vaughn

New fantasy favorite! Carrie Vaughn's heroine is a werewolf, Kitty Norville, who has her own radio talk show. The Midnight Hour takes on the world where werewolves and vampires have just come out of the closet. Kitty gets subpoenaed to testify before a Senate committee whose vicious chair, Senator Duke, seems more interested in persecution than intelligent discourse.

Two things about this series intrigue me. The werewolf and vampire conditions are caused by infectious diseases. Researchers from the NIH and CDC, some unscrupulous, launch investigations to uncover the biological sources of the rapid healing and immortality of these monsters, as Kitty freely labels herself.

But werewolves are not all ravening creatures. Carrie Vaughn explores actual wolf pack dynamics and concludes that for every snarling alpha, there are twelve whose only desire is to submit to the leader. Kitty is one such beta, whose Wolf interior constantly tells her to be quiet, make herself small. No eye contact, no smiling because she might show her teeth--all these show cooperation and keep her safe within the pack. Unfortunately, she's had to leave her pack, which unsettles her. Living alone, she's in charge only with her talk show, dark in the night. She's coping with a solitary life, but submits to others in authority--such as Alette, the Vampire Mistress of Washington, DC

Psychics, dangerous wild Fae, scandal-mongering reporters, and a sexy Brazilian were-panther fill out the roster for a satisfying read. An entertaining bonus short story about a demon-infested band which visits the talk show ends the tale.

MAGIC BITES, by Ilona Andrews

MAGIC BITES' heroine, Kate Daniels, is a magic-wielding mercenary who navigates the dangerous underworld of an Atlanta which experiences waves of magic and tech. She inserts herself into the investigation of her high-ranking friend's death, in the manner of all PI's. The job takes her into some of the nastiest areas of the city, places ruined by by magic attack and by the evildoers who dwell in them. Along the way she gathers allies, including her friend Jim, a werepanther, and the Beast Lord, the leader of all the shapeshifters in the city. The plot is predictable, and we're not surprised when she experiences enormous physical damage, but rescues the city.

This book is interesting to me mainly because of the vampires, whose description and roles are far different from anything I've seen before. Far from being sexually exotic and dangerous, they're a ruined humanoid species with little brainpower, and less free will. In an insectile manner they cling to ceilings and crawl down walls. They can't even move by themselves, but are "piloted" by others who use them as remotes for observation and attack. But dang, wouldn't you know it, there are some free, unpiloted vampires after all, and when they attack, I'm very much reminded of the hordes of orcs in LORD OF THE RINGS.

It's about time someone took the undead to task, reducing them back to the monsters they were before dozens of books glamorized them.