Vampire Novels for Your Post-Twilight Fix [Books]

Vampire Novels for Your Post-Twilight Fix [Books]

Stephenie Meyer has put Midnight Sun, the fifth book in her Twilight series, on indefinite hold, meaning it could be a long time before Meyer addicts get their next dose of Edward and Bella. But bloodsuckers are rampant in modern fiction, from vampire detectives, hedonistic rockstars, and bloodthirsty children, to the Anne Rice brand of tragic immortal. We have a round up of modern vampire novels that will keep you knee deep in fangs long after Twilight’s glow is gone.

The Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris: The basis for HBO’s True Blood, Harris’ novels, which start with Dead Until Dark, are told from the perspective of Sookie Stackhouse, a telepathic barmaid in smalltown Louisiana. After an artificial blood substitute allows vampires to subsist without feeding on humans, supernatural creatures start coming out of the woodwork. Sookie strikes up a relationship with the undead Bill Compton. But when murdered humans turn up and vampires go missing, Sookie has to use her telepathic abilities to solve the mysteries.


Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter by Laurell K. Hamilton: Like Harris’ books, Hamilton’s 16 volume series exists in an America where vampires, werewolves, and other creatures have recently integrated into mainstream society. Anita Blake is a professional necromancer and licensed vampire hunter, but in Guilty Pleasures is blackmailed by the powerful vampire Nikolaos to solve vampire murders around the city of St. Louis. She starts working closely with another vampire, Jean-Claude, though, unlike Sookie, insists, “I don’t date vampires. I kill them.” That lasts about three books.


The Saga of Darren Shan by Darren Shan: Darren Shaw’s adventures begin with Cirque Du Freak, in which young Darren is taken in by a vampire circus owner and becomes his assistant. Darren must come to terms with his new life, learn about the vampires and their rival vampaneze, and becomes embroiled in a global vampire war.


Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Landqvist: The inspiration for the other vampire movie currently in theaters, Let the Right One In follows Oskar, a lonely boy who endures the regular ministering of the local bullies. He befriends Eli, a child vampire. The tenderness of their relationship and the violence of Eli’s nature stand in sharp contrast with the gray and dismal Stockholm around them.


Lost Souls by Poppy Z. Brite: A young man who calls himself simply “Nothing” never understood why he feels so different from everyone else, and runs away from his adoptive Maryland family to find himself. He falls in with a trio of vampires, realizes he is one himself, and goes on a sexed-up, pill-popping, blood drinking journey to find Nothing’s favorite band, the Lost Souls, an adventure that lands them all in that vampire mecca New Orleans.


Blood Books by Tanya Huff: Another series that has enjoyed the small screen treatment (in the form of Lifetime’s series Blood Ties), the Blood stars Henry Fitzroy, the bastard son of Henry the VIII, as its vampiric lead. Henry has set up a pleasant life for himself, working as a romance novelist and drinking blood from sexual partners of both genders. He forges an unlikely partnership with Vicki Nelson, an ex-cop-turned-private-eye who is slowly going blind. The pair team up to keep the streets of Toronto safe from demons, mummies, and any other supernatural beings that threaten the innocent,


Fledgling by Octavia Butler: For those who like a heap of science fiction and social commentary in their vampire novels, there’s the late Octavia Butler’s final novel. Amnesiac Shori appears to be a young African-American girl, but gradually learns that she is actually a decades old member of an ancient vampiric race. The novel explores issues of genetic engineering, race, and the various natures of familial and voluntary relationships.


Sunshine by Robin McKinnley: In an alternate Earth, a war with vampires has left human cities decimated and vampires in control of much of the world’s capital. One night, Sunshine, a young pastry chef, is kidnapped by a vampire gang and left as bait for Constantine, a rival vampire they have captured. But when Constantine refuses to feed on her, she frees them both, drawing upon a long-forgotten magic. When she returns home, she is unable to explain her trauma and the nature of her dangerous alliance with the vampire.


Peeps by Scott Westerfeld: Most of the vampiric creatures in Peeps and its sequel Last Days are demented monsters infected by a sexually transmitted parasite. But the protagonist, Cal Thompson, has a version of the parasite that lends him more traditional vampiric qualities. Unfortunately, he has to remain abstinate, lest he pass the monstrous infection to his partners.


The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice: Stephenie Meyer’s romantic vampires certainly owe a great debt to Anne Rice. Although Rice doesn’t write about vampires anymore, preferring to focus her literary attentions on Christ, she helped pioneer the tragic, romantic vampire. In the past decade, she has published five volumes of The Vampire Chronicles, most featuring her most famous anti-hero, the vampire Lestat.

Twelve Comic Book TV Shows That Were Never Made [Unseen Tv]

Earlier this month, the CW network announced that it was scrapping plans for The Graysons, a television series that would have followed the character Dick Grayson in the years before he became Robin. Television viewers probably lucked out on that one, but The Graysons is hardly the first comic book-based TV series not to make it past (or to) its pilot. We list some of the of the terrible and sublime shows that never made it into production.

The Adventures of Superpup (1958): The Superman TV series was such a hit that television producer Whitney Ellsworth tried to recreate the show with canine characters. The live action pilot featured little person actors in dog costumes. Reporter Bark Bent worked for Perry Bite with the Pamela Poodle at the Daily Bugle. But when danger strikes, Bent becomes Superpup. Reportedly, any humor in the pilot was completely unintentional, and the networks didn’t pick up the show.

The Adventures of Superboy (1961): Ellsworth made a second go of it in 1961, after the death of George Reeves made a planned revival of The Adventures of Superman unlikely. Like the Superboy comic, it was to follow the life of teenaged Clark Kent, his parents, and his suspicious friend Lana Lang. Ellsworth and Vernon Clark wrote 13 episodes, but only the pilot (available online) was ever produced. The next time Superboy would come to the small screen was five years later in a series of animated shorts.

The Thor Television Series (1988): In the 1988 TV movie “The Incredible Hulk Returns,” Bruce Banner learned that his former student, Donald Blake, had a mystical bond with Thor. The movie was meant to serve as a backdoor pilot for a Thor television series (with Steve Levitt as Blake and Erica Allan Kramer as Thor), but the series never went into production. Marvel may have had a similar idea for Daredevil with the follow-up movie, “The Trial of the Incredible Hulk.”

X-Men: Pride of the X-Men (1988): Before X-Men: The Animated Series, Marvel tried its hand at another X-Men cartoon. Fourteen year old Kitty Pryde joins the ranks of the X-Men (here Charles Xavier, Cyclops, Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus, an Australian-accented Wolverine, and Dazzler) and battles the Brotherhood of Mutant Terrorists (Magneto, Toad, the Blob, Pyro, Juggernaut, and the White Queen). It was animated by Toei, the same company that did GI Joe and Transformers, but the dialogue is a bit on the atrocious side.

Generation X (1996): After a few years of success with the X-Men cartoon series, Fox decided to roll the dice on a live-action show. The made-for-TV movie/backdoor pilot Generation X takes place at Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters when Banshee and Emma Frost are at the helm. They recruit Jubilee (played by the very white Heather McComb) and deal with the amoral professor Russell Tresh. The show was never picked up, probably because of scenes like this one:

The Justice League of America (1997): CBS produced a pilot for a live-action JLA show to compete with Superman series Lois and Clark. It follows Tori “Ice” Olafsdotter as she is indicted into the League. Unfortunately, silly puns, sillier costumes, and poor production values ensured that the series never took flight.

Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (1998): After nine years of Baywatch David Hasslehoff decided to return to his terrestrial action roots as Nick Fury. As with Generation X, Fox had the movie on a shoestring budget to see if anyone was interested in a series around the Hoff’s Fury. Apparently, no one was.

Bruce Wayne (1999): Before developing Smallville, Tobbins/Robbins Productions started work on a series about Bruce Wayne’s pre-Batman years. It would start when the orphaned billionaire was 17, and follow his travels to China, Korea, and France to go from spoiled playboy to crime fighting machine. Other characters would include comedian Jack Napier, psychology professor Jonathan Crane, hospital intern Harley Quinn, farm boy Clark Kent, police officer Jim Gordon, and mob boss Carmine Falcone. And Bruce’s best friend would be Harvey Dent, a bright young man with an abusive, alcoholic father. The project was shelved when rumors emerged that Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One was being adapted for the screen.

Global Frequency (2005): Survivor producer Mark Burnett turned Warren Ellis’ espionage comic into a TV pilot. Science fiction favorite Michelle Forbes (who played Ro Laren on Star Trek: The Next Generation and Helena Cain in Battlestar Galactica and is currently doing a turn on True Blood) was cast as Miranda Zero, the organizations head. The pilot was leaked online and was a bit of a hit, but Ellis claimed that the bigwigs at Warner were so annoyed by the leak that they killed the entire project.

The Amazing Screw-On Head (2006): As if you need further proof that Bryan Fuller’s projects are brilliant but doomed, we offer for your consideration The Amazing Screw-On Head. Based on Mike “Hellboy” Mignola’s comic, Screw-On Head is a steampunk adventure about a robot agent for President Abraham Lincoln. He battled the evil Emperor Zombie and his vampire lover Patience with the help of his butler Mr. Groin and reanimated pet Mr. Dog. The pilot featured voice work by Paul Giamatti, David Hyde Pierce, Patton Oswalt, and Molly Shannon, and was generally awesome. Sadly, it has never been turned into a full series.

Aquaman (2006): Looking to spinoff Smallville, Al Gough and Miles Millar looked into developing Aquaman. Justin Hartley (now Smallville’s Green Arrow) was to star as the titular superhero who learns of his Atlantian heritage during a trip inside the Bermuda Triangle. The producers planned out, but only filmed the pilot, which enjoyed some success on iTunes.

The Graysons (2008): After failing on Aquaman, the CW looked into the origin story of the Boy Wonder. The Graysons was envisioned as a replacement or companion for Smallville, and would follow Dick Grayson, the future Robin, through his days as part of a family acrobatics act in a traveling circus. The network decided it was nixing the series less than five weeks after it was announced, which is probably all for the best.

Trailer for Mega Man Fan Movie Filled with Robot on Robot Violence [Megaman]

Director Eddie Lebron announced this summer that he was producing the definitive Mega Man fan movie, based on the original video game for the Nintendo. This weekend, he released the film’s full-length trailer, which introduces the movie’s back story, shows off its multicolored battle robots, and gives us a taste of its impressive special effects.

Lebron has produced another fan movie, Ghostbusters: Generation, as well as another feature length science fiction film, Clear. He promises that his Mega Man fan film will closely follow the basic plot of the first video game in the series: Dr. Light creates several androids including Rock and Roll, but his colleague, the evil Dr. Albert Wiley, grows jealous of Light and steals Light’s robot master series, which he uses to wreak havoc on the city. Rock agrees to combat his robotic brethren and becomes Mega Man. The movie will feature each of the bosses Mega Man battles in the original game, complete with energy-based attacks and heaps of special effects lightning.

[Eddie Lebron’s MegaMan via Metafilter]

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