I was pondering my continued enjoyment of werewolf fiction, especially in the wake of the polarized reaction to my review of Bitten, and started to wonder why were-predators and vampires seem to be still the dominant paranormal motif in romance. There are other paranormal creatures – faeries, were-amphibians, were-birds, demons, ghosts, incubi and succubi, for example – within the paranormal romance shelves, but the predominant creature, both in continued fascination and in number of titles, seems to be the weres and the vamps.
Why is that? There’s a lot of questioning as to why the Twilight series sustains its audience (which grows weirder and weirder with every movie release, holy hell) and why vampires remain so alluring, and why these creatures pair so well with romance. I think that the allure of vampires is related to the allure of were-predators: each metaphorically details and resolves a deep-seated human fear or struggle.
With vampire romance, beneath (heh) the resolution of the attraction and courtship, there’s obviously death. Whether the vampirism is explained by a virus or the creature in question is actually dead, putting aside the “Ew, necrophilia” questions, vampire romance negotiates and conquers or destroys death.
I’ve talked about why paranormal romance is so popular and related that to the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US, and I think that same resolution of fear is, in part, what makes vampire romance so continually interesting to readers. I think (and many people disagree with me here) that paranormal romance became superbly popular in the US market following 9/11/01, for two main reasons. First, the evil is easily identified. Either he wants to exsanguinate you, or he gets really hairy in compliment to her lunar cycle, but the otherness and the potential intent to harm is pretty easy to spot. Contrast that with the kid and a backpack on the subway who might be a student or might be ready to blow himself and his neighbors to bits. The easily identifiable evil is a comforting contrast.
Then, there’s the resolution of that otherness. Either the Other is tamed by the Power of Lurrrrve™ and the protagonists united through conversion (she becomes a vamp, he becomes a were, etc) or the Other is destroyed because it’s the antagonist preventing the happy ending. And when a paranormal creature is destroyed in romance, it’s not just a duel with a handkerchief in the dew. The offending Other is chopped into pieces, set on fire, beheaded, and possibly sent to an entirely other dimension, depending on the world building and mythology at work. There is no ass kicking like paranormal villain ass kicking.
So when that taming and uniting or destroying happens within vampire romance, death is being vanquished at the same time. The unification with the heroine is symbolically a return to life. In Kresley Cole’s world, the vampires regain their heartbeats when they meet their mated other – a physical return to life. With Feehan’s Carpathians, they see in color after eons of monochromatic vision, and eventually indulge in requisite doggy style sexxoring. Nothing says back to life like backin’ that ass up, right?
With were-predators, I think, the issue being negotiated with the happy ending is anger. Combining animal instinct, predatory violence, and a code of rules and behavior that are both similar and separate from human society, were-predators can make for some amazing romance fiction. Instead of death, it’s rage and anger that are tamed and directed, or vanquished all together, and I think that for women particularly, that’s compelling. Were heroines come to terms with their violent side and have a proper and sanctioned outlet for all that unladylike rage and anger. Were heroes are isolated, even in a pack, and their rage must be tamed or redirected, or destroyed altogether, lest that anger and rage dominate the person. Emotional and psychological balance often factor into were romances, as well. Perhaps, even, it’s not so much anger as it is insanity that’s being negotiated in were romances.
When I was pondering this in 140-or-less on Twitter, Syzygy Magazine (NSFW) proposed that the vampires and the weres were recast archetypes which never go out of style, thereby extending their popularity as they reappear in other subgenres. The vampires are “the same brooding, wounded noblemen that dominate the period romance market, while the weres are “the tough, somewhat dangerous wilderness-connected archetype that usedto be rendered as cowboys.” I’m not sure I agree that the popularity can be explained simply by recurrence of archetype, and certainly there are broody weres up and down the joint, but that’s definitely a factor in their sustained popularity.
So what comes next? (heh.) What paranormal creature will rise (heh) to equal the vampire and the were in stature and publishing frequency? Are succubi and incubi the next big thing, or are their predatory sexual natures not that threatening? Ghosts are about death, but they’re also not entirely corporeal – something that troubled many a JR Ward fan. Zombies? Syzygy suggests that zombies represent the underclass; I think they represent decomp.
Are faeries the next big thing, or are they too complex to capture the romance reader imagination for repeated readings, since their mythology involves a very large and complicated society already? Maybe there isn’t a creature that captures, conveys and recasts a basic fear as much as vampires and weres do already.
What I’m most curious about is what creature could come next that would attract repeated readings of similar mythologies and characters as much as weres and vamps. Readers of were romance and vampire romance so often go after more of it, and seem to revel in re-experiencing the mythology and the courtship within it in books from a huge variety of authors. In fact, it’s that repeated reading of similar creatures that made me wonder if the attraction to the creature is tied to an underlying issue. Is there a similar issue that imbues a different paranormal creature? I’m not saying that we’re all neurotic morons who have our knickers tied into origami about death and anger. I do think, however, that the commonalities are revealing, and the enduring popularity of both vampires and weres indicates that more is being revisited than just a fangsome, hairy courtship.
Zombies.
I’ve already encountered four pieces of zombie erotica (two of them anthologies) and have included zombies in a steampunk love story of my own.
They’re hot on the horror front right now. I can see the crossover coming (and have sharpened my halberd accordingly).
Vampires have peaked. There will always be a market for them (some of us even liked them back in the 70s) but the popularity is declining I think.
Weres have a couple more years left. Esp the non-wolf shifters. Skinwalkers, maybe, and other things like that.
Zombies. Ghosts. Faeries. Angels/Demons. Those are my calls the next big ones, probably in that order. Don’t look for Redcap, Wendigo or Popobawa romances to get big soon.
Me? I’m writing steampunk. And Flower Fairies. (not together)
Ooohhh robots!
Tanith Lee’s Silver Metal Lover- soooooo sweet…
AlphaLyra – I don’t much care for them, either. I think it’s because to me, all the permutations they have to go through to transfer them from villain to hero (“They don’t drink blood!” “They only drink each others’ blood!” “He’s not dead, it’s a virus!”) reach eyerolling extremes, and frankly have become cliche. I also don’t like the immortality aspect of vampires, because you just know the heroine is going to become immortal too, even if they try to build a giant conflict around whether or not she will. The idea that it can’t be a happy ending unless everybody lives forever is kind of disturbing.
That being said, I’ve really enjoyed Sookie Stackhouse.
Also, at Sarah: thank you for a classy response to my concerns about jokes about Twilight.
I love JamiSings’s post. That is all.
Which one? LOL I’m sure you mean the one before this one, of course, but I couldn’t help myself.
I’m another one for whom vamps and weres don’t work. and if the next Big Thing is angels and demons, I’ll probably go back to reading straight mysteries (and Nora) until it passes. I’m finding it harder and harder to find non-Regency non-Paranormal romances anymore.
Mercedes Lackey and Roberta Gellis have four fae/faery novels set in Elizabethan England with strong romantic elements.
This Scepter’d Isle (The Doubled Edge, Book 1)
Ill Met by Moonlight (The Doubled Edge, Book 2)
By Slanderous Tongues (The Doubled Edge, Book 3)
And Less Than Kind (The Doubled Edge, Book 4)
The love of a fae for Elizabeth is very well done. The fae in these are very alien and they have their own set of logic to follow – but they still can intersect with humans. The authors work a whole ‘nother set of motivations around the actual events of the 16th century and do it in a quite believable way.
For the love of all that is good and right, NOT ZOMBIES! Blech! Eww! Yick! Rotting bits falling off… No. Just, no.
Actually, a friend and I were having this conversation a couple of years ago, and our conclusion was demons would be the next sexxxy not-quite-human hero.
And sure enough. I can’t get enough of Carolyn Jewel’s demons. Hear that Carolyn? I can’t get ENOUGH! I’ll buy any that you write. Want MOAR!
I learned about Carolyn from the Crimson City series, which had some nummy demons. There are no religious connotations (that I could see, anyway). Just hot, dangerous goodness.
Also, gods from non-Abrahamic pantheons. Much of the hotness. I still have a big crush on Thor, as depicted by Marvel, from when I was addicted to comics a couple of decades ago. Mmmmmm. Gods.
That’s the movie zombies. Now if it was VooDoo zombies that would be a whole other matter. They’re not suppose to be dead. Just people from whom all free will has been taken. Maybe a whole new twist to it – they can only be free if they find love?
I’ve never been a fan of the rotting eating human flesh zombie. (Too close to ghouls anyway. Though ghouls eat dead people, not living.) Prefer VooDoo zombies.
Maybe I’m too much into paranormal stuff. I went through a vampire obsession after my friend died. I know more about vampires then people should and as a result also know a bit about zombies, werecreatures (besides wolves -foxes, tigers, bears, and hares – oh my! Okay, to be fair werehares are actually suppose to be witches), witches, the fae, ghouls, etc.
Just call me Jami: Queen Of Useless Supernatural Trivia!
The popularity of vampires & werewolves has risen and fallen over the years. I think that may always be the case. Just like wizards, witches, zombies, and ghosts.
The hero in my current YA wip has trouble with his parents. His mother is a witch from a different coven than his girlfriend and his dad, Satan, wants him to kill his girlfriend and her entire family.
Here’s hoping book buyers want more witches and Satan.
Has anyone mentioned something that often comes up in discussions with relation to were heroes..
A lot of people mention the family dynamic, someone mentioned that they are loners – while they may be a bit, as we all are – they are generally surrounded by a massive pack/family whom he will die for and they will do the same in return..
And the dreaded fated mate.
Fascinating discussion here—many of the points raised could be the basis for someone’s PhD dissertation, let alone the Next Great Romance Meme.
As someone who took a long break from romance (from the early ‘90s to the mid-noughties), I think part of the extraordinary growth of fangs-and-fur can be traced to the migration of the historical romance from meaty globe-trotting adventure to lighter (and leaner) Regency romp. Bad boys were no longer all that bad; heroines were no longer in danger of being tied to the bedposts by pirates and highwaymen, just brooded to death by Darcy clones. (Look, my husband broods for an hour and I want out.) Someone needed to get the adrenaline rush going again, so creatures portrayed as monsters by previous generations were rehabilitated as anti-heroes to fill the narrative gap.
Fifteen years after college, I’m still not quite sure why I majored in anthropology, but it does give me a deep appreciation for our endless inventiveness in scratching our human itches. Women are driven to tame the tiger, to civilize the uncivilizable; by bringing to heel the dangerous Other we gain both group status for ourselves and cool new genes to help our offspring crush the competition. It’s win-win!
Beatriz’s post makes me want to ask – Why the heck are bad boys so popular anyway? Yes, I keep saying I want a guy with backbone. But by that I mean a guy who’s not afraid to say he likes me, not afraid to hold my hand in public, whom opens the door for me, and doesn’t always give in to me but says “No” to me on occasion. A guy who’s confident without being an over bearing buttmunch.
But a bad boy, not so much.
Okay, granted when I was younger I would’ve gone for Lacroix rather then Nick Knight. Now, not so much. Not that Lacroix didn’t have his good points – like his hatred of blood money, he almost seemed in many ways a moral vampire, but still bad. But bad boys rarely are tamed. And the ones who are seem to me not so bad to begin with.
Oh well, I guess I’m kind of getting off topic, but I really don’t get the bad boy thing.
One question: Is a vampire baby considered a stillborn?
I don’t understand the appeal of the bad boy either. That’s possibly why vampires in particular have never appealed to me. I have no desire to save the unsave-able; I’d always much rather go out and read about (and fantasise over) the misunderstood good guy with the heart of gold. I will always root for the ‘best friend who loves her’ over the ‘domineering jerk who excites the pants off her’ because sure as eggs that best friend (at least in-book) is pretty amazing sexually too and is actually decent to the girl.
For some reason the paranormal romances I’ve read almost always contain domineering jerks who win the girl and so I’m pretty over the genre. Maybe I need to find a ‘decent guy’ type of creature to read about.
OOOH! Useless Trivia Time! *cracks knuckles*
Traditionally according to myth only male vampires can help in the conception of a baby, and only with a human woman. This hybrid is called a Dhampire. Known at birth by their see-through skin and the fact they have “no bones” at birth. (Guess they get them later.) They’re natural born vampire killers. They have all the strengths, none of the weaknesses. They can sense the resting places of vampires and are the most effective killers of vampires.
So – technically alive since they’re half mortal. Not a stillborn.
Now of course fictional vampires by various authors have different rules. Like the ones whom say “true vampires are born, not made.”
But for the actual mythology – dhampires are born, and only through male-vampire/human-female sexual unions. (Usually the vampire is newly made and the husband of the woman in question. Returning to their wedding bed at night to feed on her and have sex until she’s either dead and a vampire too, or pregnant.)
I think that the popularity of Vampire fiction goes hand in hand with the rise of AIDS awareness. Of course, vampires have been around for quite a while, but Anne Rice’s popularity really took off at around the same time AIDS became known. It’s only become more and more embedded as girls grow up who received sex ed in high school, and that one-to-one blood-to-sex connection was made in their brains. Being with a vampire is like the ultimate in unsafe sex (to the point that I’ve seen a lot of authors explain the hero doesn’t get diseases), plus extra penetration imagery. I’m not saying unsafe sex is hot (god, no) but the attraction of experience in a young-looking body and the sex/blood link goes far.
Shifters, I leave to others to explain. I don’t really get it, it works for me sometimes and doesn’t sometimes.
Hey JamiSings, I love your idea about perfect/non-perfect. I am writing something at the moment which has that theme: the perfectoids aren’t exactly aliens, just future humans that have gone too far along the “If you don’t fit this template, get surgery/take some chemicals/fix it” route. They find imperfection impossible to deal with at first and have to learn the beauty of the complicated imperfect human world…
Anyway I’m as yet unpublished and it’s only about half way there. i’ll let you know!
@JamiSings:
I don’t particularly like the jerkwad hero either, but his arc is proportionally related to the depth of the cathartic grovel at the end of the story. I understand that this jerk => grovel => redemption arc is very popular for many readers, but it doesn’t really work for me. IMO, alpha heroes are all about confidence, but this often gets mangled into just an annoying domineering guy when insecurities are directed outward—often at the heroine. I find it more compelling when insecurities are directed inward.
I just think it’s a literary fad, a cycle of sorts. People get tired of reading the same old same old (too many cowboys, Navy SEALS, playboy sheiks) so when something new (although old) comes along, people jump on it. I’m reminded of a time when Sci-Fi entered the romance genre. Even Johanna Lindsey wrote a couple of books set on other planets and spaceships. It was something different.
This vampire obsession will eventually pass although I’m not going to hazard a guess as to what will replace it. Maybe a Tarzan-type jungle nature boy will make a sudden resurgence. While that’s not new, it’s new to a generation not used to Tarzan. There, I just lied and hazarded a guess when I said I wouldn’t.
@teshara:
You made my day. I have a UF debut coming out in the spring, with genies. 😀
Absolutely! It’s easy to forget just what ‘alpha’ means: he’s the leader, the one whose intrinsic qualities encourage others to follow him. True alphas aren’t jerks at all; jerks are just the wannabe alphas who don’t know any other way to lead. Look at sports teams. You can identify the captain pretty quickly, and he’s not the wanker hogging all the playing time.
That being said, the burdens of leadership are immense, creating plenty of conflict—plenty of opportunity for failure and sacrifice and redemption—to drive a story forward. Bring on the ‘good guy’ heroes, I say! At this point, I’d be far more interested in angels than vampires.
Let me know, Mari. I happen to work in a public library and our librarian, whom doesn’t read fiction, is always teasing me about how he “depends on me” to tell him what to buy. (Though right now of course we don’t have much of a budget.) I plan on acting like I’m taking him seriously. In fact, I’ve been asking around for a list of romance novels to give him! Preferably listed between “sweet romance” and “hot erotic romance.”
Anyway, if I have to I’ll just buy your book myself and donate it! I’ve done that before.
That is the most awesome thing I’ve read today.
You know, when I was a ‘tween, I DEVOURED Edgar Rice Burroughs. Holy cow, I’d love a Tarzan resurgence. There was one in the 80’s? Greystoke, The Legend of Tarzan, introducing Christopher Lambert. Mmmmmm. Delish. It’s so hard to keep it from going totally campy and cheezy, though.
Ooh, the noble savage! I love it. You’re right, though—it would have to be done by a deft hand to avoid high camp. Paging Ms. Kinsale…?
Me too. One aspect I really enjoyed about Linnea Sinclair’s cyborg hero Branden Kel-Paten (GAMES OF COMMAND) was that he was a good guy hero *and* he was all about the angst as well. Heck yeah, bring on more cyborgs. Best of both worlds.
Other good guy heroes in science fiction romance include Soren from Jess Granger’s BEYOND THE RAIN, Thor from Katherine Allred’s CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, and Rork from Karin Shah’s STARJACKED.
Plus, I’m dying for some steampunk romance and the heroes & heroines that go with them: Automatons, cowboys, airship captains, inventors, you name it.
That said, I’d also love to see heroines get more fun roles, and those who are just as compelling as the heroes. Especially more anti-heroines, like Catherine Asaro’s android heroine Alpha from her book, er, ALPHA. I am in love with that character. She can kick my ass anytime.
JamiSings: I had no idea, though that makes sense. Thanks!
You might want to check out the Dresden Doll’s song (and video) Coin-Operated Boy.
analysis42 – I haven’t got my thoughts in order to do any analysis.
I really liked how you portrayed your demons. I’m basing my stories on Christian, Jewish and Muslim scriptures regarding the Fallen and Lucifer whilst carefully avoiding the “S” name since that comes pre-loaded with meaning for some folks. Depending on which religious texts you study, The Adversary has different roles. I’ll take heat no matter what I do, so I’m just going where the story takes me and wear flame-proof clothing.
What a nifty article.
I write paranormal romances. I’ve been fascinated with vampire mythology since my teens. I think the vampire and the wereanimal’s popularity in romance isn’t new at all; we’re simply witnessing the most recent incarnation of it.
I recall reading Frank Langella’s forward in a fancy illustrated copy of Stoker’s “Dracula.” Langella admitted he embraced the title role (on Broadway and later in film) as a romantic figure back in the 1970’s. It worked, boy did it work.
The ancient Greek myth of Hades bearing Persephone away into the Underworld has overtones of vampirism in it. Persephone’s taste of forbidden fruit contaminates her. Even the fairy tales “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves” and “Sleeping Beauty” contain vampiric elements.”
Vampires and werewolves and comparable otherworldly beings offer enormous versatility in characterisation. A vampire can be a hero and still do unspeakable things that, if a “normal” human did them, a reader might lose empathy or at least doubt their sanity. They make fabulous villains, fabulous guardians, and fabulous lovers (unless you’re dealing with Rice-esque impotence.)
I don’t think the vampire fad will ever go away. The trend’s been trendy since ancient Egypt. I think it’s possible we’ll see vampires evolve with human imagination and social cicrcumstances. We’ve already seen that through the late seventies to the present, where the vampire lost his traditional repugnance for holy symbols and gained fatal photosensitivity.
I found Twilight poorly written. I disagreed with the gender roles and I found the relationship to be abusive.
I love, love, love vamps…weres are a close second only since I started reading paranormals and that was a few years ago. Always had the hots for vamps. Really – I’m certain I could’ve redeemed David (Keifer Sutherland in the Lost Boys), seriously.
I started writing a vampire love story back in 1996, if I’d only known maybe I would’ve completed it. Alas, hindsight and all that. But I still have a vampire story to tell.
Why do I love vamps? Holy cow, I never dissected that. But given my above comment, I believe it’s because if any guy ever needed redeeming or saving or the loving of a good woman, it’s gotta be a vamp, right? And I’m a good woman.
I admit it, when I read a book half my brain is imagining I’m standing in for the heroine (I’m never her), or the hunky secondary character wants me and only me. Think JR Ward’s newest – Covet. Marie-Therese/Gretchen can have Vin, I want Jim. Damn he’s hawt.
Redemption of the bad-boy who is not really bad but misunderstood and terribly guilt-ridden over his drink of choice. How can a good girl (like me) ever really understand and come to love and accept him? It’s just how I roll.
Weres – wolves, panthers, leopards. Nalini Singh has cornered this market, as far as I’m concerned. Her changellings – rowr! Wait, Kresley Cole writes an awesome Lykae – her manipulation of mythology is pure genius. I await their books with bated breath.
Nalini’s new angle series – yikes! It’s great too. Raphael, yum. Her vamps in this series – can’t wait to see where that goes.
Am I tired of vamps – well, I’ve read a lot of shit that makes me roll my eyes, but that happens regardless. And almost every story has redeeming qualities, so I just keep reading more.
What hot in the future? Angels and demons are the future and the future is now. Hmm….I think demons as unrelated to any religion are on the rise, steep rise. Larissa Ione’s Demonica Series – fabu! Except that little BDSM-as-a-cure blip in book 2 – still scratching my head at that one. She still rocks and is on my auto-buy list, under Sydney Croft, too. (Dev and Oz. These two made me cry – I haven’t cried at a book in forevah. But they’re neither vamps nor weres…sorry, I digress).
So that’s it – I love the alpha heroes, but too much asshole-like behaviour pisses me off, so there’d better be an awesome grovel at some point.
I can save you, dammit, just find me. SWF (actually I’m married but let’s role-play) looking for a Sebastian Wroth, or Acheron, or Zsadist (not any of the other BDB, tho) type, tall, gorgeous and angst-ridden, but is good to my mom, and me, of course.
Hmmm……
Lots of great food for thought here-I do agree that since 9/11,fantasy has been more openly embraced by mainstream audiences and given a little more respect. I’m a vampire fan all the way(and yes,I love Buffy & True Blood & Twilight and even The Vampire Diaries,which has turned out to be a better show than I expected)but do appreciate the rise of werewolves over the past several years.
I remember one of the first werewolf novels I read before it became a popular paranormal fiction theme;The Wolf’s Hour by Robert McCammon,which had it’s leading man use his shapeshifter abilities to spy on the Nazis during WWII. It introduced to me the concept of a were being able to change at any time and not have to wait for a full moon,plus despite the rather cheesy sounding story line,the plot and characters were well developed and compelling.
Werewolf/shapeshifter stories seem to have become more of a female enpowerment tale on page rather than the big or the small screen so far-not only Kelley Armstrong’s Bitten but Carrie Vaughn’s Kitty Norville novels and the Mercy series by Patricia Briggs as well. While I’m loving the strong vampire resurgence of late,it would be nice if one of these fierce female were sagas were snapped up by a smart producer to bring to life either for cable TV or a major Hollywood film.
As to the next big thing,aliens do have a good shot at it,with Stephanie Meyer’s The Host featuring a love triangle between an alien parasite,the woman possessed by it and the man they both care for(sounds weird and strange,but it works).
Also,some sword and sorcery stories(that are not Tolkien) may find a stronger foothold in these turbulent times;I’ve become a fan of the syndicated series Legend of the Seeker(based on Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth books)and the show is in it’s second season right now,with a solid fanbase growing around it. While there is some humor in the show,it’s not trying to be campy like Hercules or Xena were back in the day. Keep an eye on LOTS,because I think it’s really leading towards something bigger on the horizon.
I should mention that I’ve shifters and weres before I knew what they were. My imaginary friend was a shape-shifting chicken. No lie. I was two when Fee appeared. I think it’s a natural progression for me to like the stories as an adult.
I’m going to go against the consensus here and say that I think gods are going to be in sometime soon. Not God, mind you, but Greek or Norse-style gods—incredibly powerful and entirely fallible, with enormously messed-up family backgrounds.
Why? Because I think part of the lure of paranormal romance is that superhumans of any kind are sexy as all get-out. Vampires, werewolves, in some ways it doesn’t matter, so long as the hero is too powerful and too charismatic and his struggle is all about limiting himself before someone gets hurt. Gods are ready-made for that kind of story.
Irene
Your opinion intrigues me, Irene. In the latest vampire stories, I’ve been toying with mythological beings connected to various gods. Amazons, for instance, are the half-mortal daughters of Ares. While Ares doesn’t have a role in my work (at least, not at present) I depicted Ares as a good if somewhat absentee father. The Amazons have special dogs bred by Ares to be their companions and protectors, for instance.
I worked in bits like that to present a world where the vampire main characters weren’t “ultra alpha top-of-the-food-chain.” Use of additional paranormal and/or mythological beings helps “level the playing field” and allows the vampire to become a bit more human.
Okay, for all that I “just don’t get the appeal of bad boys” this statement does make me want to confess that I’ve got a “thing” for Thorn from Bad Moon Rising by Sherrilyn Kenyon.
Thorn is kind of a minor character in it, but he is appealing. I mean, the son of Lucifer/Satan, but battles his father’s demons, seems totally evil in many ways, lives in Hell, but tries to keep demons confined and not allow them on earth? He seems like a bad boy but is really a good boy and just needs a good woman who can help him hold it together. Sort of like how Trudy kept Adrian from going totally OCD in Monk, enough for him to have a great career in law enforcement, up until her murder.
That kind of bad boy appeals to me. The kind who isn’t bad but seems like it.
That being said, IRL I’d never go for a guy like Thorn. He’s too scary in the long run. Nice to fantasize about. Not so much to actually start a relationship with.
Anyway, I’ve got my Hang Ups and Issues (there’s reasons those are capital letters) that prevent me from being in a relationship to begin with. But it doesn’t stop me from day dreaming. After all, a fictional character can’t reject me for being too fat or listening to Tom Jones.
And you’re not the only one. Sherrilyn Kenyon’s vampires are connected with the Greek and Atlantean gods. I’ve sort of stopped following the series, but I think her later books feature fewer vamps and more assorted other beings. I also remember a book—can’t bring the author to mind, unfortunately—where the protagonists were wrapped up in some sort of contest run by the goddess of paradoxes and other impossibilities. I was confused by coming in mid-series, but I thought that universe included vampires, weres, phantoms of some sort, demons, and . . . valkyries, I think? A total smorgasbord, in other words. All in all, I think you’re at the head of a trend. 🙂
Well, it also helps to answer the question, “Why don’t vampires rule the world if they’re all that?”
Obligatory disclaimer: I should point out that my opinion isn’t totally unbiased. I have a book out with Liquid Silver which features gods. It’s straight-out, no-extra-adjectives fantasy, not urban fantasy, but I think it covers some of the same themes. So, y’know, I’d really like it if gods got big all of a sudden, and that might skew my perception.
I still think I’m right about power and its problems being a huge theme in urban fantasy, though. There’s a reason wererabbits have never taken off.
Irene
Werecreatures, Greek dream gods/goddesses, but Ash and/or a Dark Hunter usually appears in every book even as a cameo. And since her vampires are really Daimons they’re not really vampires in the traditional sense.
Who says they don’t? Best way to rule is behind the scenes. Let someone else take the blame for your goof ups. Imagine a world where every country is secretly led by vampires and the humans “in charge” are just puppets not even aware they’re under control of a superior being. That all our wars are really just vampires’ being all territorial.
You mean besides the fact that in traditional mythology wererabbits/werehares are in reality witches whom take on the forms of rabbits/hares in order to drink human breast milk? Apparently in the olden days it wasn’t unusual for a human woman who’s nursing a baby to give her extra breast milk to small farm animals by suckling them. So witches would take on the forms of young rabbits/hares, go into the homes of nursing women, and wait to be suckled.
Yet more useless trivia I know. Kind of like how I know if your first finger is longer then your middle finger that mean’s your a witch because that’s your potion stiring finger.
I don’t think the genre could handle another Bunnicula or wereoffspring, though. *waves teeny Bunnicula flag*