Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

I’d honestly put down the bias in the weres down to charisma. There are charismatic animals that people like. Wolves, big cats of various kinds…Maybe a few more.

As for the rest…Well, a little bit I’d lay at Harry Potter’s feet. After HP got going, fantasy got opened up to a more general audience and people found out it can be cool. Also, fantasy is fun to write, so if it’s selling, there’s people willing to write, creating a positive feedback loop. Since the romance genre is about the framework of the story and not the actual setting, it’s pretty reasonable to see a rise in the paranormal/fantasy romances.

And, then you get things like Twilight, were it takes the tired old fantasy/paranormal/horror formula and gets the sparkle going by dusting the story up with crack like it’s powdered sugar on a donut.

So, yeah, pretty much, fantasy writing (no matter if it’s set in some other world or in the streets of your own city) is getting mainstream and it’s got stuff the mainstream has yet encountered (I am quite proud that my Weird Shit Quotient is quite high, and therefore I can mess up the normos with stuff they haven’t heard of before.)

Robots! Well, androids. Or golems. Marge Piercy’s “Body of Glass” (also known as “He, She and It”) while not romance, as such, works with the golem legend in robot form, and ever since I read it, I have had a distinct lack of robot romance in my life.

Great entry! The ass comment made me snort the water I was drinking all over my keyboard though :-)

I agree with the robot as the next frontier. Both Linnea Sinclair and Catherine Asaro have a line in relentless Cyborg manly sex bots…Of course there are Angels, a la Sharon Shinn? Also Julien May’s books, which are essentially romances, have well developed faery themes. I found this good list on Amazon, complete with mermaids http://www.amazon.com/Paranormal-Romance-Takes-wing-Shifters/lm/R176HTZGF7DE7I

Oh God, please not faeries. As my daughter has just moved past the Disney Princess & Disney Fairy phase I just can’t do it…

I like the robot angle however…

Sarah,

I’m getting very uncomfortable with the contempt for Twilight I see on this site. I’m not a huge Twilight fan - I read the books but I won’t reread them, and I haven’t seen the movies - but I believe all fans deserve respect, even if you personally don’t agree with the value or values of the works they enjoy. Or their means of expressing their enthusiasm.

When you say the Twilight audience “grows weirder and weirder with every movie release, holy hell” - well, I see that as exactly the same fifteen-yard penalty you call when news outlets call romance readers frustrated housewives and romance novels bodice-rippers. It was unnecessary and truly a bit of a cheap shot. “Twilight” seems to have become a go-to punching bag around here - witness the Harlequin Presents titles content - just like romance is on other sites.

I suppose what I’m saying is - let’s practice what we preach. If we don’t want people casually denigrating what we love, let’s not do it to others. If we want to say, “I found Twilight poorly written. I disagreed with the gender roles and I found the relationship to be abusive,” fine, those are specific criticisms, which might be relevant to their context. But could we avoid gratuitous snark?

Paranormal is fairly massive here in Australia too, most of the massive paranormal fans I know, also read normal fantasy (actually read the fantasy before the found romance as well as during) - so don’t know if that is the case with a proportion of US fans??
I also think for some, it is easier to suspend disbelief for a paranormal than it is for some other genres within romance. Or that could just be me.

We’ve already had ghosts.. early nineties is full of ghosts and time travel and even them combined. There are a lot of Demons already in e-pubs.. but futuristic seems to be making a bit of a comeback lately, so maybe it will be aliens?

Verification word mean65 - LOL

I don’t think it was necessarily 9/11 responsible for the rise in popularity of paranormal romance.  Paranormal romance was growing pretty steadily in the early ‘90’s, too.  It wasn’t as big as it is now, but it wasn’t difficult to find.

If anything, I think 9/11 accounted more for the rise in popularity of fiction with military heroes.

Hey, nothing wrong with faeries especially the way Laurell K Hamilton writes them in the Merry Gentry series.  Oh boy, hot stuff. Definitely not Disney.

I think a lot of the links to - in particular- vampire fiction in general is that reaching for the unattainable and the temptation of a bad man who can’t be tamed. Every girl worth her salt would say she wants a bad boy for her own that she can tame with her mystical magic and vampire romance makes it a good outlet for that fantasy. They are the ULTIMATE bad boy that can never truly be redeemed.
And the same goes for werewolves, the raw aggression and animal violence is something we want to be able to tame until we can pet them like little pussy cats.
Of course, the only problem then is that once you tame them you don’t really want them anymore because they’re not the bad boys they used to be…these predators will never get like that because the dark side will always be a part of them, therefore giving them everlasting appeal.
And that, I think, answers the question of “what next?” There is no “what next?” Sure you’ll have your faeries and your robots but nothing will ever have the same deep-rooted appeal as the endlessly naughty Vampire and Werewolf.

I predict angels.  Don’t know if Anne Rice’s new book is good or even what it’s about (other than the holy host), and there’s Ward’s new series (which I haven’t read either), but Hush Hush was good (a new teen book).  Part of the appeal of vampires is the “noble fallen” archetype, which one can play with quite a bit in angelic characters.  There’s also the appeal of the strong, background type of a literal guardian angel.

I think angels are more challenging, though.  Taking a religious icon that’s supposed to represent ultimate goodness and tarting it up, so to speak, as opposed to the vampirc bad boy appeal, which is already outside of the religious experience and, well, full of Bad Boyness—that just seems a little edgier to me, since people don’t really believe in vampires, but some believe in angels.  Messing with the real versus the realm of the totally fantastic.

Every “new” element in romance (whether time-travel, paranormal, werewolves, vampires, fairies, robots, what-have-you) is an attempt to up the conflict quotient and thereby make the resolution that much more intense and satisfying (in more ways than one).  The key is always finding the right combination (and it does tend to be a zeitgeist thing) to enact the eternal dance of attraction-conflict/sexual tension-false resolution-more conflict/sexual tension-final resolution.  Many of the “old” tropes that gave the romance its conflict and sexual tension (nobleman/commoner, yankee/rebel, patriot/tory, rancher/farmer, settler/Indian) have been played out, so “new” ones have been introduced.  Eventually, they too will get old and something else will replace them.  I remember about 15-20 years ago, every other romance involved time travel.  You don’t see so many of those anymore.  At some point, even vampires and werewolves will give way to some other exploration of what-makes-the-world-go-round.

As long as the stories are well-written with solid characters, I’m going to be reading romances regardless of how the love is manifested.  I’m sure I’m not alone in that sentiment.

Good article. Personally I think the popularity of the were/vamp trope is for a number of reasons, chief among these is the fact that almost everyone knows the basic vampire/were mythos (drinks blood/turns furry once a month). You would be hard pressed to find as large a group of people who know the basics of any other legendary creature (eg faeries). Angels would be perceived as taboo by many because of their religious connotations.
Paranormal romances also head straight to the grunting cavewoman part of my brain that appreciates protection with aggression (even if the heroine can take care of herself).
Wrap it all up in a big blanket of the Beauty/Beast trope and you’ve got the basics of a story that hits all my buttons.
I think that fantasy/sci-fi will continue to grow. Take a look at the most innovative and culturally significant movies and books of the last 20 years, most of them are sci-fi/fantasy. These genres allows for a re-telling of a familiar story in unexpected ways.

I think weres and vamps have appeal not only because of the danger, but because of an element I’ve seen in romances of every genre: let’s call it the “oh noes, I’m too kinky/rough/sexually demanding for this nice, sweet girl, she’ll never be able to handle me in bed, I must stay away!” trope. Basically, the hero’s animal/dark nature frees the heroine to be completely uninhibited with no fear of him thinking less of her for it, because she knows from the get-go that he is the same way, and that this makes her not only the woman he’s in love with, but his ultimate sexual fantasy as well- everything he’s ever wanted all rolled into one. (And isn’t that something we all want to discover that we are?)

What’s coming next? Well, there seems to be a growing trend towards genetically engineered superhumans. I’ve also seen a growing number of demons. If Harry Potter has inspired the paranormal industry, then why oh why has the urban magician antihero (as seen in the writings of Jim Butcher, Simon R Green, etc) never really taken hold in romances?
I WANT THAT. I would eat up those books like damn.

Maybe I should submit a book recommend thing to see if there’s anything like that out there. Yes, I think I will.

I agree with those above; evidently, the next new thing is Biblical: Angels, demons, fallen angels.  Brooks’ Guardian series has been on this for a while, and Singh’s new Archangel series is taking the mythology in a different and interesting direction.  Shinn I don’t read as Romance so much as Fantasy, but there’s no denying that she’s been down this road before, too.

With the rise of steampunk, I think the robots might have a chance…someone would really have to do it right, though, for me.  When I think robots I think Terminator and/or Iron Man (I know, he’s not really a robot, it’s a suit)...but that’s not really sexxxy to me.  (RDJ IS Teh Sexxy, tho.)

What I really love about Cole’s IAD series, though, is that there are SO MANY different mythologies included.  I love that she just takes all of them and throws them together.  I’m waiting for her to throw an angel in there…I saw it mentioned at one point, I think.

I think it would be impossible to determine what the next frontier is for the paranormal genre, because the success of Twilight can be mainly attributed to the fact that Meyers made it accessible to an audience that is not the typical paranormal romance reader.
And I think your theories about vampires representing eternal life, and werewolves representing the rage inside of us is very thought provoking.
I think the reason vampires and werewolves are so appealing is because vampires represent everlasting love while werewolves represent unbidden desire.
I was just having a discussion with another writer about the main reason that Twilight’s werewolf vs vampire works so well is because they represent Bella’s growing sexuality.
When Bella meets Edward he longed for her, had a hunger for her and eventually fell in love with her. It is a proper and sweeping romance. A love that will last forever.
Jacob comes along when Bella is older, and he represents not love but sex. He has this fantastic body, he radiates heat, he walks about with this natural sexual charisma.
Bella is 18 years old, and as a girl gets older, her longings for someone to love her endlessly are not always as strong as her natural hormonal desires.
This is why the party lines are so split between the two. What type of man are you looking for, one that will love you and treat you like a fragile little china doll for all of eternity, or one that will easily rip off his clothes and as Trent Reznor says “F*ck you like an animal.”

Brandi, that last sentence is made of Pure WIN! I couldn’t agree more.

I think vampires and weres have yet another appeal beyond the bad boy, rough side, taming the beast thing. 

You brought up death, I rather think that popularity of vampires has to do more with the universal search for immortality in one form or another. It touches a common thread in all of humanity, which makes it more popular. Just look at all the religions in the world all explaining life of one form or another after death to see the appeal.

With weres its another human basic, the freedom to release ones primal self within society. We expect weres to dominate, take what they want, be passionate and territorial. All things that if you did it at work would get you popped in the back of the head with a pink slip faster than you could crack open a book cover.

If we take these two themes further then other characters with that same immortal bent or ability to safely showcase the primal nature of humanity are going to grow in popularity as well.

On the immortal side, that would be things like angels (lets not forget Lucifer was the highest angel of them all so they do go bad on occasion), demons (which includes succubi and incubbi), fairies (the dark kind a la Melissa Marr) and ancient gods/goddesses. 

On the animal side it would include shapshifters of other types not just the canine or feline varities.

I’m not buying into the whole robot thing only because, seriously, what if it was programmed to just say it loved you? Would that really be the same thing?

Ha! Spaminator is were34. Scary. It’s like it reads minds.

I think if you want to know what’s going to be big next in terms of paranormal romance, it’s good to skim the YA shelves.  That said, I as was already said above, angels for sure and perhaps ghosts.  Fairies/fae, and I think more sophisticated retellings of fairy tales are going to gain steam again.  (Two that are making splashes right now are Ash and Fairest.)

Brandi. Thank you. Now scared.

Preteen daughter after seeing New Moon on Fri: “Mom, I don’t get why all the girls in my class like Edward. I mean he’s kind of like flour. But Jacob, Jacob is like chocolate chip cookies. Ok, more like just the chocolate.”

O.M.G. I’m screwed, aren’t I?

I think an underlying issue with vampire popularity is that they are powerful, alpha—but they are also vulnerable. There’s sunlight, vampire hunters, wooden stakes, vampire hunters, more evil vampires…and just night to night living that keeps them in a restless undead lifestyle. The love of a good woman brings changes beyond true love, it brings a way out of a dark life.

I want to see genies :D

I was rereading Patricia Briggs the other day and thought of it as a bit like paranormal romantic suspense.  In contemporary romantic suspense there has to be a reason not to go to the police.  But when you add monsters, weres or vampires, then of course the human police can’t help, and the hero gets to kick butt, instead of just picking up the phone to call the local cops.

See, now I disagree with many of the reasons people might like vampires or werewolves. But only because that’s not why I like vampires. (Not a big fan of werecreatures.)

For me it’s partly because in my freshman year of high school a lot of people died. My maternal grandmother, several friends of the family, and a friend whom was hit and killed by a car - she was 14. This left a big impression on me that made the immortality of vampires very appealing.

The other is the fact I seem to encounter a lot of wimpy men in the real world. Men who stand by, refusing to tell a woman they like her, waiting for her to make the first move. Then when she goes off with some guy who was brave enough to say “I think you’re attractive and I’d like to get to know you better” stand there and whine “Women only want a**holes!” Not realizing it’s not a matter of women liking jerks, it’s a matter of the woman liking a man with a backbone.

These same guys tell me it’s my lack of confidence, not my weight, that keeps me dateless. Yet can’t accept that their own lack of confidence also keeps them dateless. They equate being a wimp with being “a nice guy.” Plus their fear of rejection keeps them afraid. If they’d just man up and say “I like you” they’d have more dates.

Vampires don’t lack confidence. Even the most tortured one goes for the girl if he’s attracted to her.

Now as for The Next Big Thing -

Fairies have been done. Like Moning’s The Immortal Highlander. And they do have their appeal. There’s also a lot of YA novels where fairies figure in. Though usually the heroine herself is half-fairy and doesn’t know it. So they have their place.

Angels - well, they present a good source of conflict, actually. One would have to tread carefully. Plus angels, even the ones with male names, are actually suppose to be genderless. (Though some authors have suggested angels gain a gender should they “fall.”)

However, like I said - good source of conflict. Like if an angel fell in love with an atheist. Now that same atheist would have to accept the existence of God. That their life was not the random events of evolution but a life of meaning with a higher purpose and what they did here on earth, even the tiniest thing, would have ramifications both here on earth after their death and in the next world. Or if the angel fell for someone who’s belief system is fundamentalist - be it Christian, Islam, etc. The angel revealing to them that ALL religious beliefs have value in the eyes of God, that the Wiccian down the street has just as much of a chance of getting into Heaven as the minister of the church. That Hell was really only for people like Hitler, John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, and someday Casey Anthony. That being a homosexual isn’t a one-way ticket to eternal damnation. That the Jews are still the Chosen People.

It would set someone who’s beliefs are so black and white spinning and make for excellent conflict. Perhaps though, way too heavy for a romance novel.

For me - I kind of want to see aliens. (Though my idea could easily be done with angels or fairies too. BTW - I cannot write to save my life, so if this hasn’t been done and someone who does write wants to “steal” this, go for it. Just promise you’ll base a character off me. I’ll be happy to provide you with all the details. One of my long time fantasies has been to be the inspiration behind a romance novel heroine.)

I want aliens whom are perfect according to our society’s standards. Each could be a super model. They’re all around 6 feet tall. All the men have roman noses and strong chins. The women are all hourglass shaped and their hips are never bigger then their breasts and their noses are dainty. Though they very in height slightly and coloration of skin/hair/eyes not one is more or less beautiful then the other. They’re also extremely intelligent with IQs of 200+.

And when they come to earth - they chase after the imperfect. Fat women with sagging breasts, flat chested women, bald men, short men, fat men, too-thin men, bone thin women, women whom have to wax their upper lip once a week. Men or women whom have been disfigured in accidents or in the war. Etc etc. Just anything our society labels as “ugly” and makes people feel worthless.

Because perfection is boring.

It’s the physical imperfections, the wrinkles, the freckles, the acne that makes humans interesting to them. And when these same people reject them, thinking that no one this beautiful could want them and this is some cruel joke on the aliens’ parts, the aliens then have to spend time with the humans, getting to know them, and falling in love with their personalities. Their little quirks. Seeing beyond the bald heads and hairy upper lips, down to the person underneath. Falling in love with everything - good and bad. From their secret giving to charities to their bad tempers.

That’s what I want to be The Next Big Thing. Perfect beings whom fall for the imperfect.

But that’s just me and I’m weird.

I believe that since vampires and were’s are actually considered “damned” and “abominations” in mythology ,but we relate to them because they are or used to be human, that the popularity comes from having this “condition” be overcome by love and fated love.

I’m predicting angels with a significant break from religious tomes. The ingredients are there: fallen, free will, forbidden love. Think City of Angels for a younger audience.

Vampires will never go away. They make Byronic heros in a ready made package. They are dangerous and predatory and the heroine (or hero, if anyone will write that book) has to completely trust the vampire’s love or inherent goodness to master the instinct to kill. Chicks will always dig the Byronic archetype. Plus, no matter how liberated we get, evolution is at play here. Men are (usually) physically superior in terms of strength and speed and most women are attracted to that. Vampires, the way they are typically written, exagerate these qualities. Same is true for Weres.

I think you’re right on the money with the Were appeal. It’s like the early 70s rape fantasies; it lets us indulge in something we would like without the guilt. Women in 1971 did not actually want to be sexually assaulted. What they wanted was forceful, visceral, and gratifying sex to someone they weren’t necessarily married to, without the social stigma. If she really wanted it but the man didn’t give her the option of saying no then she hadn’t done anything wrong. Twisted and sick, but hey, it clearly worked for a lot of readers.

Weres do this for exploring violent and basic impulses. They are part animal, more connected to instinct and less limited by their cerebral cortices. Plus, they can go either way. Changing partners just for sex can be okay or destined to be together works, too. Wolves mate for life and have intense family bonds.

And Sarah, I think you’re right about the post-9/11 era. Fantasy always has a spike after a cultural injury. Look at what the Vietnam war did for The Lord of The Rings.

Wow. I just had a conversation with my friend a couple a days ago about why I’m not a Twilight fan, and we talked about some of the points that were brought up in this article. One of the main reasons I’m not a fan is that I’m really not that into vampires. I think a big draw of vampires is the whole eternal life thing. And that’s where I have a problem. I believe in heaven and that somday I’ll go there. So even though I have a healthy amount of fear regarding death, I’m okay with the thought of dying (after a long, happy life, of course. LOL). However, the idea of eternity has always wigged me out. I remember as a kid thinking of going to heaven and living for FOREVER and it just really freaking me out. I think the idea of eternity is really hard to relate to. The concept of eternity still bothers me sometimes, so vampires…don’t really interest me. Does anyone else have problems with eternity or am I just weird and alone in my issues?

Also, I agree that angels are making a comeback. But not the Touched by an Angel type. There seem to be quite a few bad-ass angels out there that can’t be controlled. Kinda angels being bad boys, which can be very interesting.

I think a big draw of vampires is the whole eternal life thing. And that’s where I have a problem.

LOL, lindleepw! Me, too, but for much more prosaic reasons. They are always supposed to be physical perfection, right? But the standards of beauty change. 2000 years ago people had bigger jaws and I think more teeth. But the 2000 year old vampire is supposed to be ethereally beautiful?

Charlaine Harris has the only major vampire contribution in current circulation that addresses this in any way. Older vampires don’t have perfect teeth- no fluoride, no braces=crooked and missing teeth. If they had bad skin before they were turned they still have scars. They might be short depending on heritage and nutritional status.

Sarah,

I think you’re right about some of the appeal of vamps and were, but for me, the attraction of the were story in not just about anger/primitive impulse control or lack thereof, but also about the difficulties of having two identities that do not necessarily mesh with each other, but do not exclude each other either. Maybe it’s because I myself am from a minority group with a strong cultural identity, but I’ve always seen were stories as exploring, essentially, identity politics (it’s like the weirdest immigrant experience ever, where some difference from the dominant culture will always exist). Yeah, the anger and power aspects are totally there too, but it’s the belonging/not-belonging aspects that get me the most. I’ve always thought that’s part of the appeal of were stories to everyone, not just me, but now I’m wondering. Anyone there with me?

I don’t get it.  Romance and vampires just don’t go together; it’s sort of like mixing ice cream and vinegar, isn’t it?  As for angels, in Paradise Lost, Raphael explains to Adam that sex between angels is as far above sex between humans as angels are.  Under those circumstances, it would probably be difficult for a romance author to describe!

“I agree with those above; evidently, the next new thing is Biblical: Angels, demons, fallen angels.”

I’m hearing the same from my editor and other sources. Both demons and the Fallen have considerable baggage (emotional and otherwise) and that can play well in a storyline. De-coupling them from religion might be tricky, however. I prefer to leave some of the religious elements in place because it adds more depth to their internal conflict, but then I’m a rabid fan of GOOD OMENS (Pratchett and Gaiman).

@ibm:

I agree with the robot as the next frontier. Both Linnea Sinclair and Catherine Asaro have a line in relentless Cyborg manly sex bots…

@Theresa Meyers:

I rather think that popularity of vampires has to do more with the universal search for immortality in one form or another. . .If we take these two themes further then other characters with that same immortal bent or ability to safely showcase the primal nature of humanity are going to grow in popularity as well.

There is real potential for cyborgs to be very popular in the near future, but the character type will have to mirror the evolution of the vampire/were from disgusting monster to uber-lover. The idea of a cybernetic character won’t take off until we can’t distinguish them from humans. Like vampires and weres, once (wo)man/machine characters, like the Replicators in the Stargate series for instance, can masquerade as humans the threat is more dangerous. Right now we have obviously cyborg characters like Sinclair’s Branden Kel-Paten and Asaro’s Ander (The Phoenix Code)—the former taps into the scarred Phantom of the Opera-type hero and the latter doesn’t appeal in a Romantic sense because, like Star Trek’s Data, the character is child-like. Kel-Paten is one of my favorite heroes because his body modifications have a real impact on his emotional and psychological life. Like the Phantom, he’s torn up inside figuratively and literally and that’s compelling. Combining that inner conflict with a machine indistinguishable from humans could be very compelling.

The basic ideas behind vampires and werewolves are the resolution of primal needs like sex and violence. I know Spock isn’t a cyborg, but I think he’s a cyborg prototype and his conflict with these issues is at the heart of his popularity. Like vampires and weres, a cybernetic character could have a huge amount of strength, intelligence, and a lack of consequences for their actions. Vampires at least have to strike a balance with humanity since they need humans for sustenance, but a cybernetic character has no such dilemma (unless you approach the idea as The Matrix did and use humans as a power source—not very romantic).

So, there’s opportunity for a compelling conflict on multiple levels that would resonate with mainstream Romance readers once cybernetic technology becomes more commonplace—and that will happen eventually. Right now we’re creating cybernetic limbs and connecting humans directly to computers, so it’s just a matter of time before we’re talking about these issues over our kitchen tables. Once that happens, I think we’ll see cybernetic characters more often in Romance. Science Fiction examines how these technologies will and should shape our world, but Romance can examine how these ideas could shape our relationships and individual autonomy. To have a more universal appeal, the cybernetic character has to move beyond the “battery-operated boyfriend/femme-bot” idea for such a character to be considered sexy, dangerous, and worthy of love.

I’m putting my vote in for Angels. You’ve seen the trailer for Legion with shirtless, winged, in a rain storm Paul Bettany right? The movie looks sucky but I’ll see it just for the hot Angel eye candy.

I’m currently writing about an angel and a demon having a child that Satan desperately wants control of so I’m all for Angels being the next great read. Yes, you have the taboo religious aspect. Angels are supposed to be good, but….but….even the good have their moments.

Anyone watch Supernatural? Castiel is one hot angel and i would love to see him have his own series. :)

As for vampires. Yeah, it’s the bad boy thing, the live forever, not get sick, powers and so forth that is intriguing. I don’t know that the sucking of blood is that popular but everything else about the vampire is and that is what draws the reader in. Plus, it gives them a chance to push the stress and worry of real life aside and live for the moment in a vampires skin as they read the story. We all need an escape, and vampires seem to be it these days. Personally, I’m glad. :)

@Sheila Stewart:

Anyone watch Supernatural? Castiel is one hot angel and i would love to see him have his own series. :)

Sure is, but don’t forget Dean and his liaison with fallen angel Anna.

I always want the Gargoyles from the 90s Disney cartoon of the same name to be something not created by one guy, and thus off-limits creatively. 

That whole Elisa-Goliath beauty and the beast thing was lovely. 

You’ve got life-span issues and forced nocturnal lifestyle and species issues and culture issues and….gliding.  *le sigh*  Yes, I used to write myself into the show when I was 15. 

As a writer, you could tap into a number of the things that appeal to readers who like werewolves and readers who like vampires.  Yep.  Too bad they’re off limits.

Wendy, is it sad that I tried to get someone to transfer my Gargoyles VHS tape to DVD the other day ?

I’m still a big fan of that series…

I have always thought that the paranormal male and the subsequent (sp?) taming/rescuing of him was the romance worlds back door acknowledgement of co-dependency.  “I know this guy will be THE ONE if I can just change him a little”

Now I read paranormal romances and genre almsot exclusivly for the last several years and my theory has always made me avoid like the plague the wimpy emo heros.  The ones that are just so TORTURED by the monster they are.  I read ONE Susan Sizemore that the hero was way too “Woe is me, I’m going to walk into the sun” that I have NEVER read another of her books.  I like my co-dependant hero saving but he has to be at least tough enough to survive the cure.

@dangrgirl

Oh I haven’t forgotten.  I love Anna and I thought it was perfect that she and Dean got together. See, Angels might very well be the next great thing. :)

“Sure is, but don’t forget Dean and his liaison with fallen angel Anna.”

You and me both, Debra. I loved watching the Gargoyles series. Still do. :)

Wendy, is it sad that I tried to get someone to transfer my Gargoyles VHS tape to DVD the other day ?

I’m still a big fan of that series…

One more thing, in reading comments.  I totally agree with Lilac and Igm.  Robots or more specifically Cyborgs or Bio-engineeerd super humans.  Anyone read the Ellora’s Cave books?  Alot of them are futuristic with engineered humanoids and/or aliens. 

Love me some intergalactic romances.  :0)  Angela Knights Warlord series is a gem, Trigon Rituals is the title of a fav of mine by Pillow I think.  Definitly Aliens as the next leg of the WTF romance hereos.

I’m getting very uncomfortable with the contempt for Twilight I see on this site. I’m not a huge Twilight fan - I read the books but I won’t reread them, and I haven’t seen the movies - but I believe all fans deserve respect, even if you personally don’t agree with the value or values of the works they enjoy. Or their means of expressing their enthusiasm.

I would like to say I’d agree with you, but the fans (some of them, at least) are creepy. I’ve seen reports that some of them scratch their necks open before coming into the presence of Robert Pattinson and say, “We did this for you, Edward!”

Furthermore, Pattinson isn’t enjoying that sort of attention, and is trying to just do the job and not encourage them. Any of the fans could look up his views on the matter and maybe, y’know, respect his wishes here? But as it stood when the Twilight movie came out, security asked him specifically not to make eye contact with the crowd, for fear of causing a frenzy.

Hate to say it, but if the frenzy and excitement goes further, Pattinson gets a decent chance of getting his very own, “If I can’t have him, no one can” psychostalker.

Nothing wrong with liking Gargoyles. Though I was more into Owen/Puck because he was voiced by Brent Spiner and I used to have a HUGE crush on him. (You should hear the guy sing!)

Oh, yeah.

I think the next thing is Fantasy Kitchen Sink—where all (or most) of the creatures you’ve heard about, are real. Why limit yourself to just one critter type and their trauma. Show your versatility and raise your name!

Besides vampires and weres I’m also a big fan of highlanders, make them immortal or throw in some time traveling and I’m hooked.  The mention of Fae/Fairy reminded me of the Fae Adam Black from Karen Marie Moning Highlander Series.  There is nothing Disney fairy like with him.

With his long, black hair and dark, mesmerizing eyes, Adam Black is Trouble with a capital T. Immortal, arrogant, and intensely sensual, he is the consummate seducer, free to roam across time and continents in pursuit of his insatiable desires.

http://www.karenmoning.com/novels/immortal_highlander/index.html

@Wendy:

I always want the Gargoyles from the 90s Disney cartoon of the same name to be something not created by one guy, and thus off-limits creatively.

What? Huh? I certainly hope not because I’m working on one right now. Sure, Disney owns the copyright on the specific characters and stories in that show, but there’s no reason we can’t write a story about gargoyles in general.  I think it’s a hugely compelling idea.

I don’t see it as the next thing, but I wanted to point out a wonderful book with a Goblin hero.  Clare Dunkle’s The Hollow Kingdom is a well done YA fantasy/romance where the heroine is being chased by the Goblin King.  If you like Beauty and the Beast type stories you will enjoy this one.  I enjoyed it especially since the heroine is a very intelligent and nearly outsmarts the King.

Vampires and Werewolves will never die out because they inhabit that part of the sort of dark gothic cliche, you can’t think of a dark misty romanian village without imagining a werewolf or vampire in the background. They have also been part of our imagination and culture for years, featuring in our folktales and legends and so ingrained are they that writers will instantly pick them without a second thought. They unlike other beings have been at the forefront of Gothic Literature for years, think back to books like Carmilla (http://www.answers.com/topic/carmilla), they belong to literature and in literature they will stay. Creatures like succubuses and such, don’t have this sort of background and therefore require more imagination on part of the writer and are less easy to write.

Since my own books deals with angelic like beings i’ve done alot of research on the matter and found that the most common angel “hero” as it were is Gabriel, in the romance novels i’ve read. For some reason he is the most attractive to writers (not Michael or Raphael or any of the others) and this had made me wonder why.

On my blog I went into detail about how Angelic Art more of less depicted Michael and Gabriel in equal amounts, so it can’t be that these writers are drawn in by these pictures of the “beautiful angelic man” when writing about Gabriel, so I assume that he inhabits some sort of nativity cliche, being the angel most associated with christmas, he’s the most well known and well, y’know “write what you know”.

Also as said before, angels are deeply rooted in religion, however the idea of a “man with wings” is not so much, in fact that idea was inspired by art if you look up angel in the bible, you’ll get this sort of description: “arms like bronze, face like lightning” these beings are no where near the way they are depicted in classical art, so really I’m not sure how far these writers can get away with it.

One very good story I read about angels was a chinese manwha (comic book) named Angel Myth, where the angels are as said in the above posts “genderless” and “emotionless” this causes problems for the main character’s guardian angel. Angels it says are not cast out of heaven for falling in love with humans, but that their suffering comes from the fact that their comrades begin to look on them with suspicion and draw away from them because they come to inhabit the “other”, something that they have nothing in common with and which they look down upon. Therefore they choose to abandon heaven out of the fact that they no longer belong there. 

Ghosts will never be big in romance, when you think of ghost you think of thing in a white sheet, you think of ghost stories, there’s nothing vaguely romantic about a groaning figure tied in chains (or is there ;D) I doubt this will ever be popular, but heck, prove me wrong!

Fairies as well remind us of tiny winged girly things, that’s why they aren’t so intresting. You don’t instantly equate handsome hero with fairies do you, it makes him sound so girly. Also you have to delve into a lot of celtic mythology which as said before is very difficult to understand unless you’ve had this in your background. I read a book called “Morrigan” I think it was by Nora Roberts once and I thought she got it all wrong with her characterisations.

I really think it comes down to cliches, when you think of werewolves and vampires you think of dark/sexy/gothic, when you think of fairies and ghosts you think of sparkly women in miniskirts and white sheets. Angels can be done but they are wraught with difficulty.

However what I do think no one has touched upon is the goldmine of dark spiritual beings that exist in English Folktales, such tales as “the Elf-Knight”, “Tam-Lin”, “Reynadine”, “The Outlandish Knight”, “The wife of Ushers well”-> this one deals with ghosts, and “Long Lankin”.

I want to see genies

Monica Jackson had a genie hero in Love’s Potion.

I said:

Like vampires and weres, once (wo)man/machine characters, like the Replicators in the Stargate series for instance, can masquerade as humans the threat is more dangerous.

Holy chao, I forgot to mention Blade Runner’s Replicants, which could really be subtitled Robots In Love (depending on your opinion of Decker’s true nature).

One of the reasons I doubt Faeries will really take off in paranormal romance is that the Fae are truly alien, as opposed to vampires and werewolves who were once human and presumably remember what that was like.  The Fae have never been human, they will never be human, and human logic is as foreign to them as a goldfish’s logic is to us.  Anyone who actually bothers to research the legends of the Fae will find they’re strange creatures with stranger taboos.  Having them fall in any kind of meaningful love with a human is a truly herculean feat.  I’m sure a good author could accomplish it (there’s a story by P.L. Nunn I haven’t managed to get my hands on yet but it looks promising) but ultimately the Fae are so Other that humankind has very little in common with them.

Anyway, my two cents.

Oh, correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t the Carpathians also aliens whom happen to also be able to breed with humans? But only virgins? Or was that a different series?

In regards to ghosts. I’ve actually read a couple of good ones. In one the ghost actually helps bring two lovers together and at one point him and his dead beloved possessing their bodies to be able to make love. The other a ghost was wooing a woman whom finds out in the end she’s been dead for awhile of a brain tumor. But by that time she loves her ghost hunk.

Fairies may never have the popularity of vampires, but they’ve been around awhile.

I’m still pulling for my aliens that I mentioned above. LOL If only some lovely writer would “steal” the idea!

This really is the most fascinating discussion and demonstrates once again why SMTB is a preferred hangout.

As to future areas of heroic development in the supernatural area, the one thing that I don’t recall seeing much expressed (but admitted I can’t keep up with the whole field) is heroes who are not themselves magic, but who USE magic—romantically (and erotically!) inventive grownup Harry Potters. The tricky part would be to avoid using magic that operates on the heroine’s agency (unless that were part of the villain’s modus operandi).

As to the Carnival of Weres, I suspect there are some comedicly-inclined writers who could do a lot with unlikely weres: e.g. the standard alpha hero who morphs inconveniently into a were-sloth or a were-ferret or a were-bear in the middle of hibernation. I also suspect that were-creatures too connected with the traditionally creepy (were-spiders? were-chameleons?) would require almost unimaginable skill to get the average reader to go along romantically on that journey.

@JamiSings:

Oh, correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t the Carpathians also aliens whom happen to also be able to breed with humans? But only virgins? Or was that a different series?

I don’t know about the Carpathians, but Lara Adrian’s vampires have their origins on another planet.

RE: Fairies—it’s not Romance, but one of these days I’ll get around to reading the Keeping It Real series by Justina Robson. It’s elves from another dimension AND a cyborg named Lila.

@Cyranetta:

The tricky part would be to avoid using magic that operates on the heroine’s agency (unless that were part of the villain’s modus operandi).

Easy peasy: Make it the heroine who is the magical character. C’mon, we all know Hermione should have her own stories.

Cherry Adair’s Night and Edge trilogies have heroes that remind me of what Harry Potter would be like if he grew up, became anti-terrorist operative and decided to use his powers to protect Muggle kind. I can definiately see the appeal of wizarding types as paranormal romance characters but I don’t know if they’re really on the same level as vampires or weres.

Mishmash here.

More writers need to start making up their own creatures or venturing into other mythologies.

Vampires will never die because (not to put too fine a point on it) they’re effing HOT.  Writers have proved, too, how creatively their characteristics can be manipulated.

I’ve never understood the werecreature thing.  Skates too close to bestiality for me.  Robots?  Uh, no thanks.  I have a lot of trouble seeing them in a sensual or romantic light.

It seems the reworking of traditional fairy tales has become popular.

(Yikes.  A composition teacher would so hate this post.)

Easy peasy: Make it the heroine who is the magical character. C’mon, we all know Hermione should have her own stories.

But then don’t you run the risk of being tempted to have her control him? I don’t know about the rest of you, but as the only girl out of four kids and the youngest there’s many times I wished I could control men - even now at 33 I’d still like to do it if only to get my lazy-butt brother to help me haul heavy stuff out of the car!

The gender doesn’t matter. Either way the temptation is there. Unless you put in a device that says whatever gives them their supernatural abilities, be it God or any of the minor gods and goddess that if they ever use their powers to take away another’s free will - unless it was for the greater good like getting a pedophile to turn themselves in - their powers and maybe even their life would be forfit. Much like how in Eion Colfer’s children series about pre-teen criminal mastermind Artemis Fowl, if the fairies, dwarves, sprites, etc enter a human dwelling without permission they lose all their magic.

I agree with the ones who say angels and demons will be the next big thing. Richelle Mead already has a wonderful series about a succubus who falls in love with a human, hangs out with (remarkably normal) vampires, demons, angels, fallen angels, and nephillim, and is trying to find the balance between her succubus side having to feed off sex and corrupt moral humans, and loving a human at the same time. It is actually one of my very favorite series right now. I like that she has angels and demons, but doesn’t go overboard (or really into at all) on the religious overtones.

@JamiSings:

But then don’t you run the risk of being tempted to have her control him?

Yes, absolutely, but I’d welcome a heroine conflicted over whether or not to control the hero. We’ve seen many other Romance novels where the hero tries to control the heroine in all sorts of ways, not just paranormal. I certainly, in the end, would want and expect the heroine to turn away from that, but I think it would be a refreshing internal conflict for a heroine. That’s me though, someone who is also a bit tired of the “vampire boyfriend” idea and would like to see it flipped around to more paranormal heroines paired up with human heroes.

I’ve seen a few vampire heroines paired up with human males. Usually as part of a series. Like the daughter of the vampire male in the previous book. Oh, and there was this one series years ago that mostly dealt with the same male vampire, but there was a female vampire whom he grew up with as a human child who took up with a human male (who’s description is a lot like that of singer/actor Michael Crawford - found out the author is a fan of Michael actually) and turns him semi against his will.

@ DebraDate

Personally I think the popularity of the were/vamp trope is for a number of reasons, chief among these is the fact that almost everyone knows the basic vampire/were mythos

I totally agree. Vampires and were’s are popular because, whatever characters an author creates, they are riffs on an familiar and appealing theme: dangerous, undead, attractive, amazing secks. Someone perusing the romance section for the first time could see “vampire” on the cover of a book and KNOW, more or less, what they are getting.  Now why vampires have lasted so long as literary figures, THAT gets into the whole “saving-the-bad-boy, escaping-death, alpha-male” analysis.

My personal theory as to why Twilight is so popular is that it’s the first exposure to romance (as a genre) that many readers have had. I think there are a lot of readers who would never dream of touching anything in the Romance section because of the stigma. But Twilight wasn’t marketed as a Romance, it was a YA novel.  So if someone bought Twilight, they weren’t buying a Romance, they were buying the “new Harry Potter.”  And then they got drawn into the story because, even if it’s not the BEST example of a romance, it has all of the POWERFUL elements of romance that hook and maintain readers. This certainly describes my and my friends’ experiences. The washingtonpost.com actually had an interesting article about this last week: grown-up, feminist, adult women who fell hard for Twilight even though “they knew they shouldn’t.” The subtitle is actually: “Good, smart, literary women [try] to resist the romantic vampire phenomenom [and fail.]”  You could actually substitute “Twilight” with “Romance Novels” and come to the same conclusion.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/18/AR2009111804145.html

@brandi

When Bella meets Edward he longed for her, had a hunger for her and eventually fell in love with her. It is a proper and sweeping romance. A love that will last forever.
Jacob comes along when Bella is older, and he represents not love but sex. He has this fantastic body, he radiates heat, he walks about with this natural sexual charisma.

I agree with you about Jacob representing a progression for Bella, but I come at it from the other direction. I don’t think Jacob represents sex at all - in fact, I think there is something almost asexual about Bella’s relationship with him.  (I’m referring to his character in the books, Taylor Lautner’s representation is another discussion altogether.) Yes, he’s physically and sexually maturing, and Bella acknowledges this, yet she never feels the sexual urges for Jacob that she does for Edward. She’s ALWAYS got sex on the brain when she’s with Edward, with Jacob, she has to have the “He’s a great friend and he loves me, isn’t that enough?” talk with herself. When she ultimately rejects Jacob romantically, it’s because she makes the (adult) decision to not settle for “good enough” in her romantic relationships. She pursues what she really wants, rather than what is easily available.

Oooh, I must check this out!

I really think angels and demons will be the next big thing. People are always questioning and wondering about religion. Plus I think there are so many possibilities for a series. JMO

I agree with the ones who say angels and demons will be the next big thing.
Richelle Mead already has a wonderful series about a succubus who falls in love with a human, hangs out with (remarkably normal) vampires, demons, angels, fallen angels, and nephillim, and is trying to find the balance between her succubus side having to feed off sex and corrupt moral humans, and loving a human at the same time. It is actually one of my very favorite series right now. I like that she has angels and demons, but doesn’t go overboard (or really into at all) on the religious overtones.

@JamiSings:

I’ve seen a few vampire heroines paired up with human males. Usually part of a series. Like the daughter of the vampire male in the previous book.

Yes, there have been a few and I’m always looking for suggestions on others. However, as a reader, I’d love to find paranormal heroines who do not owe their paranormal existence to a man, whether its her literal father or a vampire sire. Also, I’d like see a paranormal romance heroine be the lead character, something I seem to usually only find in urban fantasy. I basically want to flip the power structure and see what happens. Sure, I like the “vampire boyfriend” type stories where the paranormal character is the hero and his paranormal aspects ramp up his “otherness,” but we’ve been examining that structure in Romances for a long time. I’m in the mood to invert it and see what happens.

and turns him semi against his will.

Awesome. Sounds like she was a side story, though and not the main attraction. We’ve taken the monster side of men and made them sexy heroes—I’d like to see that done with women and turn them into alluring heroines deemed worthy of love too.

I wonder if the whole vampire/were-creature thing isn’t a little to do with the food chain.  We, as humans, are so used to being ‘top of the block’ that every so often we long for something to come and ‘be the boss of us’.  Something that seems to be tame but at the same time could kill and eat us any time it liked. 

Maybe, sometimes, we just get tired of being top dogs and have the urge to sublimate ourselves to something else.

Awesome. Sounds like she was a side story, though and not the main attraction. We’ve taken the monster side of men and made them sexy heroes—I’d like to see that done with women and turn them into alluring heroines deemed worthy of love too.

She was, but semi a main character in her own right. It was mostly about the male vampire (who wrote musicals, BTW) trying to return to humanity. I wish I could remember the tiles for you or the author. All I can remember is the male vampire’s obsession with Gene Kelly.

As for the other - like I said earlier. I’m weird. I like it when it’s a male vampire. I think it’s all tied up psychologically with the fact that being the youngest of four and only girl, I’ve had to be “tough.” People often see me and I have been forced many times into the role of “leader.” I hate leading people. And I’m not kidding about wimpy men around me too. I hate dishrags, male or female. When it comes to men I want a guy with a backbone. So male vampires fill that role.

Actually I could go off into a whole long thing about my psychological issues and why I like certain types of romance novel characters. But then I’d have to go entirely off topic and go into things like my medical problems, my weight, and most things people say is “TMI.” (Though they are part of the reasons why I really want to be insperation behind a romance novel heroine. After all, how many overweight 33 year olds whom still live with their parents and enjoy Star Trek, comic books, and music ranging from big band to disco do you see in romance novels?) Seriously though, anyone whom doesn’t mind a big rambling thing, writer or not, is welcome to contact me. I’m an open book. I always hope explaining my problems will help someone else.

But it comes down to I AM A WEIRD WOMAN. LOL And pretty darn proud of it. Though I tend to tick off everyone.

On a side note, probably one reason I prefer the vampire male is because I have always been attracted to older men. At three my first crush was Mr. Spock! And no, I’m not looking for a “sugar daddy” nor do I have “daddy issues.” I have a wonderful father. It’s just mainly I get along with older men better, I find them more mentally stimulating, and I find slight crows feet and slight greying at the temples really HOT! Just like some women like pecs and others butts, I find grey hair sexy. So vampires tending to live forever are often older then the women they chase. Which appeals to me in the May-December romance department.

@JamiSings:

I wish I could remember the tiles for you or the author. All I can remember is n the male vampire’s obsession with Gene Kelly.

Sounds interesting. I will definitely look for it.

As for the other - like I said earlier. I’m weird. I like it when it’s a male vampire.

I have no problem with male vampires, I’d just like to see some balance.

When it comes to men I want a guy with a backbone. So male vampires fill that role.

I can see what a male vampire would fulfill that, but let me clarify that I think a human hero with a paranormal heroine is perfectly capable of having a backbone, just not a supernatural one.

I don’t think we should treat “vampire” as a monolithic category.  The zombie-ghouls from early ghost stories were different from Stoker’s gentleman Dracula who was different from the Cullens. In fact, I think there have been significant shifts in recent history: think about how what the vampires were in Buffy the Movie vs. Buffy the TV show (I don’t remember the movie clearly, but I BELIEVE vampires were solely bad guys, whereas in the television show, they were bad guys AND boyfriends.) There are a few unifying elements (blood and dead-ness) but the image of “vampire” has changed really radically, and it’s changed because our (cultural) needs/desires have changed. For early incarnations, truly monstrous forms resonated with people for whatever reason. Whereas current versions seem to emphasize sex and relationships, because that is what resonates with current audiences. Perhaps the reason vampires have lasted so long as literary figures is their malleable nature: they easily alter, or update, to match the needs of an altering readership.

Both demons and the Fallen have considerable baggage (emotional and otherwise) and that can play well in a storyline. De-coupling them from religion might be tricky, however.

I totally agree, it’s a hairtrigger word. I was scared-stiff careful to have the demons in my book based on the demons of Sumerian myth rather than Christianity, and yet was excoriated in a Booklist article for my trendy blasphemy…

On subject, I don’t think I could picture dating an angel - Alan Rickman in DOGMA shoving down his pants and being smooth down there keeps recurring to me. But I would like to see more genies, and a spread out to a plethora of other mythologies - I just read Guardian of the Dead by Karen Healey and liked its take on Maori myth and the fairyish patupaiarehe. Plus, ghosts and magicians!

Oh and don’t forget Angel. He had his own series and he was a good vampire fighting to protect the helples. He was the ultimate in bad boys when he was first turned but when he was cursed with a soul, he went good. He was so yummy as both the good and the evil.

Buffy the Movie vs. Buffy the TV show (I don’t remember the movie clearly, but I BELIEVE vampires were solely bad guys, whereas in the television show, they were bad guys AND boyfriends.)

I can see what a male vampire would fulfill that, but let me clarify that I think a human hero with a paranormal heroine is perfectly capable of having a backbone, just not a supernatural one.

Oh I’m sure. I just haven’t seen it yet. I probably will eventually.

Other information on that series - I read it in high school and I graduated in ‘95, so that should give you an idea of the publication dates. There was either four or five in the series. I don’t remember much other then what I told you. Oh, yeah, the female vampire I mentioned - she was the first woman he ever had sex with. In fact, he was going to be a priest before she seduced him. I can’t remember if which one of them became a vampire first, but I’m pretty sure one turned the other.

I’m trying so hard to stay on topic but can’t. LOL

@jarant:

I don’t think we should treat “vampire” as a monolithic category. The zombie-ghouls from early ghost stories were different from Stoker’s gentleman Dracula who was different from the Cullens. In fact, I think there have been significant shifts in recent history: think about how what the vampires were in Buffy the Movie vs. Buffy the TV show (I don’t remember the movie clearly, but I BELIEVE vampires were solely bad guys, whereas in the television show, they were bad guys AND boyfriends.)

This is the evolution of the vampire as disgusting demon monster who looks like a Nosferatu to vampire boyfriend and dark lover.  I think the change began with John Polidori’s The Vampyre with the main character Lord Ruthven he based on Lord Byron. Polidori was Byron’s personal physician: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Polidori#Biography

Which leads us to Mary Shelley, who many see as the writing the first Science Fiction novel, Frankenstein. Ironically, Frankenstein is a golem character (didn’t someone earlier mention golems?), but he was created by science. The story came about because of a paranormal writing challenge.

Depending on the writer, both vamps and weres may or may not offer the promise of immortality. 
This is how I simplify the allure of both:
Vamps offer the ultimate surrender fantasy.  Will she surrender to his bite?  To his overwhelming power?
Weres offer the fantasy of safety.  They are fierce protectors of their own (meaning the heroine) and (is some novels) mate for life.  As well the ‘taming of the beast’ fantasy plays in, too.

This is a really interesting discussion.  I don’t pretend to understand what people see in Twilight since it turns me right off, but clearly there is something in it that resonates with a fairly significant population.  Though I think I’m a little odd in that I don’t really like vampire/human romances—possibly because I don’t like the alpha male type.  The Edward Cullen version of romantic hero is too controlling for my liking.

Interestingly enough, the one vampire/human relationship I have really loved was Hoyt/Jessica in True Blood. 

While reading this thread I was reminded of the book Tam Lin by Pamela Dean which deals with fairies (of a type) and while the ‘hero’ isn’t a fairy, there is some interesting exploration of those relationships.  One of the most interesting things is that for a good part of the book you don’t even know that some of the characters aren’t human or fully human.  Man, I love that book—must go dig it out and read it again.

I’m glad this topic is being discussed, because I’m one of those women for whom vampire and werewolf romance do NOT work. And I don’t know why!

I do love romance novels (fave authors: Elizabeth Hoyt, Suzanne Brockmann, Linnea Sinclair, Louisa Edwards, Sherry Thomas, Jennifer Crusie). I also love fantasy novels. It seems to me that paranormal romance, the melding of those two, would be the perfect genre for me. So how come every time I read a vampire or werewolf romance, I hate it? There are a few exceptions. I loved “Sunshine” by Robin McKinley. I keep trying vampire novels, because they make up such a huge part of the market now and I read a LOT, but 19 times out of 20, I don’t like them. I really should just give up on them.

So the answer I’m hoping to find in this thread is, why DON’T I like them? Why do they work for so many women, but not for me?

I have always liked vampires, even before I picked up my first romance novel.  In fact, vampires have always been my favorite fantasy, even before I got into Anne Rice’s vampire series.  I don’t like to go to bed until the last minute and I don’t like to get up in the morning.  I’d love to be able to live forever without aging or getting sick and I’d just as soon drink a meal as be bothered with all the deciding what you want, buying the ingredients, preparing, eating, cleaning up, digesting, etc.  And the superhuman strength is also a very appealing.  So vampires will always do it for me.
As far as a vampire heroine, Lynsay Sands has several in her vampire series, including at least one whose hero is a human male (the daughter who faints at the site of blood and whose name I cannot quite remember—Lianna, maybe?)
I also like werewolves because they’re sexy and wolves are very noble.  Besides Karen Marie Moning, the fairies in Marylyle Rogers’ books are very sexual so I’m totally okay with fairies as heroes.  And aren’t some of Kresley Cole’s folks also fairies?

So the answer I’m hoping to find in this thread is, why DON’T I like them? Why do they work for so many women, but not for me?

It might always be a mystery for you. I mean, I love the music of Barry Manilow and Neil Diamond, but despite what Amazon.com seems to think, I canNOT stand Barbara Streisand, Josh Gorban, or Michael Bub-howeveryouspellit, and I wouldn’t listen to any of the American Idol contestants/winners if you paid me. Heck, put a gun to my head and I’d choose death over listening to them. Yet Amazon.com keeps recommending them based on my love of Barry and Neil.

Can I explain why I don’t like them? Nope. No more then I can explain why I enjoy the Rolling Stones and The Monkees but just can’t get into The Beatles. And you’d think the fact that the Beatles were big fans of Buddy Holly and I’m a big fan of Buddy Holly they would appeal to me. They don’t. Except the song Penny Lane.

I like Star Trek (all except Voyager) and Stargate SG-1 (but only with Richard Dean Anderson) but don’t like Star Wars or Doctor Who. I love The Dresden Files but can’t even get past the blurbs for anything by Kim Harrison. I love shows like Law & Order but can’t watch CSI.

I like vampires but can’t read Twilight.

See, it’s just one of those weird things that makes us human. Just go with it, don’t sweat it. Don’t try to explain it. If people try to make you explain it just say, “I can’t. Now if you can’t change the subject, kindly bugger off.” There’s more important things in life to worry about. Like does William Shatner really wear a toupee? *winks*

@Alpha Lyra

I have the same challenge - the “paranormal” aspect of romances frequently seem forced. It’s as though the author gets so distracted by incorporating the “Other” elements into the story, that character and believability suffer. eg so much description of rippling muscles and gleaming teeth and really really bad dialogue.  At least, that’s been my experience so far. 

Have you read any of Patricia Briggs’ work? Her novels are frequently in the Sci-Fi/fantasy section, but they tend to have a lot of Romance elements (especially her Omega series.)

I prefer weres over vampires because of the dualistic nature. It seems as if the character is constantly battling inner turmoil. I think it’s something most people can understand. I know I do. I have the outward appearance that I always hear about when people first meet me (bitchy, too honest and blunt, sarcastic, maternal, often bubbly) but rarely do people actually take note of what else I’m made of (soft, insecure, tired of being in charge, etc). It sounds simple, but figuring out which one is winning out takes a lot of time and energy. Especially since the inner is far more negative and quiet than the outer.

Vamps are more simplistic for me: either eat or don’t eat humans, have sex, get hitched (or variant thereof) and live eternally. Both are very predatory, arrogant, and proprietary but vamps just don’t keep my interest. That said, I do love Frost’s Night Huntress series and a few others. I still prefer the weres with the too hairy body and more…primal fear. (You see a big hairy dog looking at you like dinner, you run. Mama didn’t raise no fool. Whereas a vampire is just a screwed up once human.)

For my part, I like oddball paranormal choices. Merpeople, for instance, or Djinn. Faeries I love, but I don’t know many writers that seem to separate them other than the Seelie and Unseelie Courts that start to sound a lot of the same. I like seeing the groups interact against each other, and not necessarily traditional choices (weres versus vamps). Say witches and merpeople or Djinn and weres. Something offbeat.

Just please don’t make a vampire sparkle in the sun and I’m good.

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.

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.

For the love of all that is good and right, NOT ZOMBIES!  Blech! Eww!  Yick!  Rotting bits falling off…  No.  Just, no.

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.

One question: Is a vampire baby considered a stillborn?

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:

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.

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.