First off, I'm overjoyed to see Nancy A. Collins back in publishing. Oh, she's never really gone away. There have been some movie tie-ins and some short stories here and there, but Vamps is the first book that is wholly her own in some time.
Although Nancy took the genre by storm with her debut novel, Sunglasses After Dark, and some very highly regarded short stories, I think she is severely under-appreciated in the field. She has a dazzling talent and there is a humanity in her writing that sets her fiction apart from many others. Even when she is dealing with non-human characters.
Second, I know that the cover art below is pretty off-putting. Remember, the writer never (or rarely) has any input on the design of his or her book. And think back to that stupid old skeletal cheerleader from Jack Ketchum's The Girl Next Door paperback. I wonder how many potential readers decided not to buy the book because of it? I know of at least one: Me.
But don't expect Vamps to be anything like Ketchum's masterpiece. It is, after all, a Young Adult book. Vampires are hot right now with young readers, largely thanks to Stephanie Meyer and her Twilight series of books. And as sick as I have been of vampire fiction, I'm just about ready to read some more of it.
Not that Nancy's vampire books are in any way typical. The Sonja Blue books are unique and addicting. I always enjoyed them and I was sorry to see her stop writing them. But I understand that she probably didn't wish to become too typecast as a writer.
Vamps is a lot like the other vampire fiction that Nancy has published. It deals with shapeshifters and rivaling factions among the various clans of them living within our culture. The book opens with a group of young rich-bitch Vampire American Princesses that attend the highly elite Bathory Academy, which is sort of a prep school for budding vampires. The leader of the clique is Lilith Todd, whose father is a powerful businessman. Things are going well for the bloodsucking debutantes until one fateful night when they are out slumming. They meet a streetwise, poor young vampire girl named Cally, which ends with deadly results. But Cally has equally powerful connections and she ends up at Bathory, much to the chagrin of Lilith. Add in the descendants of Abraham Van Helsing, who wish to eliminate vampires and you have the beginnings of a new series of adventures. The next book is due in early 2009.
I said that the elements of Vamps are similar to Nancy's Sonja Blue books, but obviously the ferocity level is much lower. Still, there are some gruesome situations that should please horror fiction fans of all ages.
Although Nancy took the genre by storm with her debut novel, Sunglasses After Dark, and some very highly regarded short stories, I think she is severely under-appreciated in the field. She has a dazzling talent and there is a humanity in her writing that sets her fiction apart from many others. Even when she is dealing with non-human characters.
Second, I know that the cover art below is pretty off-putting. Remember, the writer never (or rarely) has any input on the design of his or her book. And think back to that stupid old skeletal cheerleader from Jack Ketchum's The Girl Next Door paperback. I wonder how many potential readers decided not to buy the book because of it? I know of at least one: Me.
But don't expect Vamps to be anything like Ketchum's masterpiece. It is, after all, a Young Adult book. Vampires are hot right now with young readers, largely thanks to Stephanie Meyer and her Twilight series of books. And as sick as I have been of vampire fiction, I'm just about ready to read some more of it.
Not that Nancy's vampire books are in any way typical. The Sonja Blue books are unique and addicting. I always enjoyed them and I was sorry to see her stop writing them. But I understand that she probably didn't wish to become too typecast as a writer.
Vamps is a lot like the other vampire fiction that Nancy has published. It deals with shapeshifters and rivaling factions among the various clans of them living within our culture. The book opens with a group of young rich-bitch Vampire American Princesses that attend the highly elite Bathory Academy, which is sort of a prep school for budding vampires. The leader of the clique is Lilith Todd, whose father is a powerful businessman. Things are going well for the bloodsucking debutantes until one fateful night when they are out slumming. They meet a streetwise, poor young vampire girl named Cally, which ends with deadly results. But Cally has equally powerful connections and she ends up at Bathory, much to the chagrin of Lilith. Add in the descendants of Abraham Van Helsing, who wish to eliminate vampires and you have the beginnings of a new series of adventures. The next book is due in early 2009.
I said that the elements of Vamps are similar to Nancy's Sonja Blue books, but obviously the ferocity level is much lower. Still, there are some gruesome situations that should please horror fiction fans of all ages.
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