We all know strange things have been going on with vampires recently. Authors and filmmakers have been twisting mythology, setting new rules and boundaries for the most fabulous of all monsters. Vamps seem to take on all sorts of different guises – the ones who can walk around just like you or me in the sunshine, don’t have any hassles at all with crossing moving water and might even dine out on garlic bread with their pizza. Some have fangs, some don’t; others wear crucifixes as a fashion statement. But the common link is blood. Drinking it, that is. Other than that, it seems writers can do whatever they want with the once feared and gruesome bloodsucker… but should they?

American author, Richelle Mead has delved a little deeper into the basic vampire myth, drawing from Romanian Folklore; it’s this that makes her Vampire Academy series that bit different to everything else out there right now.

The series contains six books, with Vampire Academy being the first. It’s there we meet Rose Hathaway, who narrates the series, and her best friend Vasilisa (Lissa) Dragomir. Rose is a Dhampir, a vampire/human hybrid. Dhampirs have enhanced strength, suffer none of the weaknesses of actual vampires (heck, they don’t even need to drink blood) and quite often, serve as bodyguards – called guardians – to the real vamps. Those real vampires fall into two groups, which is where the Romanian Folklore kicks in.

There’s the Moroi and the Strigoi. Moroi are actually living, breathing creatures and while they need blood, they never kill to obtain it. In fact, there’s always lots of willing humans or Dhampirs ready and willing to bend a neck and get a quick endorphin rush in return. Sunlight doesn’t kill Moroi, but it does weaken them, and while their strength and senses are heightened compared to humans, they still die natural deaths. Moroi also each possess an ‘element’ of magic. Typically, this is either  Earth, Fire or Water. But occasionally, a Spirit user pops up amongst the Moroi – and this causes all sorts of problems for both the users themselves, those around them, and those who want to capture and use the Spirit user’s unique gift.

Then there’s the Strigoi. These guys are your typical bad-arse vampires, of the undead variety. They’re evil and they’re bloodthirsty and can be killed by all the usual methods – sunlight, decapitation, stake through the heart (as long as it’s pure silver) and fire. Moroi and Dhampirs can and are turned throughout the series into Strigoi – whether it be by force, or occasionally, by choice.

In book one, we learn that Rose is not only Lissa’s best friend, but once she’s finished her training at St Vladimir’s, wants nothing more than to be Lissa’s guardian for life. Lissa is the last member remaining member of the Dragomir bloodline, a Moroi royal family. The two girls share an unusual one-way psychic bond which enables Rose to be able to see through Lissa’s eyes and read her mind. It gives the reader an interesting insight – although all the books in Vampire Academy are told from Rose’s point of view, sometimes we get a sneak peak at what’s going on with Lissa. And sometimes – that information is a little hot and heavy.

Yes, both the girls have love interests. Lissa with the dark and handsome Christian; a fellow royal Moroi. Rose’s love interest is not so straight forward, and the backdrop of the entire series. She falls for Dimitri, a world famous guardian, stronger, more lethal and feared by the Strigoi than any other Dhampir. He also happens to be Rose’s instructor and teacher. Yep, you guessed it – even in a world of vampires, this is a big no-no.

Rose, Dimitri, Lissa and a whole gang of supporting characters (some of whom are going on to ‘Bloodlines’, Mead’s next series) become entangled in all manner of sticky situations throughout the six books. There’s love, lust, loss and heartache entwined with plenty of action for our kick-arse heroine. Rose is a strong protagonist, a girl who grows into a woman with strong values and is willing to fight and kill for what she believes in, no matter how high the cost to her own heart.

So should authors like Richelle Mead play with vampire lore and rewrite the myth? Well, yeah. Everything old becomes new again… right? I think this series works most of the time. It can be a little repetitive and sometimes feels formulated, but on a whole I think those who can’t get enough of the modern day vampire and like a bit of lovin’ with their bloodsuckers will enjoy Mead’s spin on an old folktale.

Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead

Bk 1 – Vampire Academy, ISBN – 978-1-59514-174-3

Bk 2 – Frostbite, ISBN – 978-1-59514-175-0

Bk 3 – Shadow Kiss, ISBN – 978-1-59514-197-2

Bk 4 – Blood Promise, ISBN – 978-1-921518-29-4

Bk 5 – Spirit Bound, ISBN – 978-1-921518-86-7

Bk 6 – Last Sacrifice, ISBN – 978-1-921518-90-4

I’m a huge fan of a well-built world in the books I read. I love jumping in feet first, deep into an unknown culture, where everything is different; the language, the people, the clothing, the food, where a chair is not always just a chair and anything can and does happen.

All writers spend time and effort on building a believable world to set their story in, even if it’s a story set right here on earth in 2011 at your local high school. But it’s those worlds that are so different to our own that I admire so much. To pull a reader into their made-up world and suck us in, to want to be there as well-loved characters tell their stories – well, that’s a real skill, something not all authors are able to pull off successfully.

Burn Bright is an awesome example of successful world building. We can all imagine through Retra’s eyes the clubs, the churches, the landscape of Ixion. But that’s not all that goes into building a fantastical world. Think about the Gangs, the Night Creatures, the Ripers and the Uthers. So much goes into an author’s thought process, the linking of all these elements. Would Retra’s journey to Ixion touch our hearts in quite the same way if we couldn’t imagine what it would be like to grow up in the strict, suppressed Seal compound? Of course not. All these tiny pieces of the jigsaw puzzle fit together to build a world so many of us loved (and can’t wait to get back to again!)

Along with Burn Bright, some of my favourite worlds to get lost in between pages include Karen Brooks’ Venetianesque Serenissima in The Curse of the Bond Riders trilogy (Tallow book 1 and Votive, book 2 are both available now). It’s a place full of secrets and canals, danger and magic.

Alison Goodman’s duology EON and EONA are set in a land full of elemental magic in an alternative ancient China / Japan. Not only has Goodman given us the landscape and the magic, but characters that tell the beautiful (and sometimes horrific) story and history of her world.

In Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games trilogy, we’re faced with a dystopian world where teens are forced to fight to the death as entertainment for Big Brother and the masses.

And in Isobelle Carmody’s classic Obernewtyn Chronicles, we are thrust into a complex land of politics, religion, Misfits and heroes. Carmody’s world in particular is just incredible in its depth and attention to detail over many years and volumes.

What about those worlds that are just a step to the left, a little off centre? Think Melissa Marr’s Wicked Lovely series, where the Fey live among us, here and now in the contemporary world. The same goes for Holly Black’s White Cat and of course… JK Rowling’s Harry Potter books – it’s a world that exists right under the noses of us mere Muggles. These stories might be set in the ‘real’ world, but they also have their own mythology, their own rules that each author has to write, and then abide by. In turn, we, as readers, reap the benefits of all this hard work and wonderful imagination.

So tell me, what are some of your favourite fictional worlds to get lost in? Do you prefer the futuristic, the completely fantastical, the dystopian (the nightmare world) or the utopian (the ideal society)? Do you sometimes think: Huh? Where did that come from? Or do your favourite authors sweep you along for the ride, their worlds so well described and established that you can’t help wishing you were there too?

Over the last few years we’ve seen a huge rise in the popularity of vampires. But mostly, they’re a different ‘breed’ to the vamps seen around the traps until a few years ago. Suddenly, the undead aren’t so dead, they mope and moan and wish they were human, complaining about the loss of their souls and the agony of living for eternity.

Physically, they’re hotter than hot; far better looking than their human counterparts, which is not a bad deal when you consider what a 200 year old walking corpse should actually look like.  They have a tendency to be filthy rich – as you should be when you’ve got forever to learn which banks give the best returns and let’s face it; their grocery bill is always at a minimum. The modern vampire is also often a ‘day-walker’, that is, sunlight might make him a little uncomfortable, but it doesn’t turn them to a dusty void of nothingness.

Yes, it seems the true vamp is disappearing fast with our modern twist on mythology. Gone are the days of vampires being horrendously ugly monsters, like Nosferatu or The Master from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. These were creatures to be feared, to be repulsed by, the ones who used mind-warping powers to trick you into the opening the window at night and letting them in to suck your life force. Sure, there’s still a few of the old monstrous breed around. They’re not completely extinct. Just check out Marlow and his band of shark-mouthed nasties from 30 Days of Night, or, again from Buffy, the uber-vamps from series 7 – seriously unsexy. Eli from Let the Right One In has to be one of the creepiest vampires in modern tales, not to mention Salem’s Lot’s Kurt Barlow or Viktor from the Underworld trilogy.

But it’s not all black and white, sexy or unsexy, good or evil. No, bloodsuckers these days can have the best of both worlds; there’s a lot of grey in between. No longer is the vampire just a monster with an unquenchable thirst for blood, but he can have feelings too. Think Damon from The Vampire Diaries or even Lestat de Lioncourt from Anne Rice’s deliciously indulgent Vampire Chronicles. These two never pretend to be anything but primal pulse-seeking bloodsuckers – but that doesn’t make them incapable of love. Then of course, there’s the Vamp of the Moment – Eric Northman of Charlaine Harris’ Southern Vampire Mysteries (also the TV series True Blood, in case you’ve been hiding in a coffin somewhere…) Eric is about as bad-arse as a vampire can get. He makes no secret of the fact he’s a superior being, a killer with no regard for human pettiness. But oh… Eric *sigh*. With abs like that – well, he can get away with anything.

Then, there’s another breed of the modern vampire all together. The just-left-of-human one. Yes, I’m talking about those that sparkle. They might drink blood, but do they even qualify as vampires? And what about tales such as Richelle Mead’s Vampire Academy, set in a world where the (mostly) good guys – the Moroi – might be vampires, but they’re far from dead? In Claudia Gray’s Evernight series, it’s not always the vamps who are the evil doers, but the misunderstanding humans – The Black Cross; a misinformed sub-culture of slayers.

What about the bloodsuckers who don’t know which side of the fence they hang, those who are confused or bewitched, or just trying too damn hard to be good without the inevitable slip-up? Stefan from The Vampire Diaries comes to mind, as does the whole Vampire with a Soul issue that spun around Buffy and Angel for so long. I don’t know about you, but I have a soft spot for the sarcasm and evil-knows-no-bounds of Angelus versus the sweet, but sometimes predictable Angel. And while we’re in Sunnydale, what about Spike? Was he more fun as the bloodthirsty consort of Drusilla, or once he was implanted with the brain chip, effectively neutering him? And then he went and got himself a soul at the end of series 6, changing a whole lot of things.

Personally, I like a mixture of the old and new vampire stories. I’m a sucker for the evil-doer, but also a huge fan of many of today’s new-style vamps. So what about you? How do you take your bloodsucker? With a spoonful of sugar and a little on the sweet side, or straight up, bitter and twisted?

MUSIC: Marilyn Manson – If I Was Your Vampire

Mandy Says:

Vampires and Bloodsuckers. The eternal question – just why do we love them so? Vampires. What’s not to love? Well, a lot, really. They kill people. In very nasty ways. And then there’s the disgusting habit of the blood sucking. And if they’re not the type to sate their hunger via a smooth, irresistibly pulsating human neck – they suck the life out of animals. Eew. Rat’s blood, pig’s blood. So not attractive.

Not to mention the ghastly white complexion and food allergy issues (I’m thinking garlic, here, or lemons if we’re talking medieval vamps.) So… why? Why are vampires the hottest thing around right now? Why can’t we get enough of them in books, on television or at the movies?

Actually, vampires have been hot for a number of decades now. For me, the love affair (yeah, I was just fooling with you) began in earnest with Anne Rices’ Lestat and Louis too many years ago in Interview with The Vampire. Not that they were my first. Good old Count Vlad himself was my introduction to the world of the damned. (I was five. Blame the babysitter.) Before I met Lestat and his buddies, I’d also experienced sheer terror with Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot among many other ‘traditional’ type vamps. But Rice’s vampires were different. They were impossible not to love. They were deep, meaningful, intriguing and spectacularly beautiful. So where did it really begin?

Bram Stoker was certainly the first to bring vampires to popular fiction, but it’s not like he made them up. No, vampires and their equivalents have been part of our mythology since – well – forever. Most cultures have their own version of the vampire, or a similar blood-sucking fiend. There’s the Aswang from the Phillipines, the Kukudhi from Albania, the Apotamkin that Native Americans told stories of to scare their children out of wandering off at night. The Roma Gypsies had the Mullo entrenched in their folklore and the Ancient Greeks had the Vrykolakas. In China you could find stories of the blood-drinking Chiang-shih and in Romania, the Strigoi Mort.

These days, most of our vampire mythology in popular culture derives from south eastern Europe. Except… none of these being were creatures to be lusted after. They were terrifying in the extreme. So what changed? When did vamps go and get themselves all sexy?

Even Mina from Bram Stoker’s Dracula knows the answer to that one. Danger, darkness, mystery. We all want a bit, don’t we? Mina still fell for Dracula when she already had the mortal Jonathan Harker (okay, okay, she was under a spell. I choose to ignore that.) And everyone knows that vampires are ridiculously good looking, even if they are undead. Really, suntans are soo passé. Vampires are seductive, irresistible – it’s part of how the modern bloodsucker lures their prey.

Today’s vampire sleeps all day (if he/she sleeps at all) and parties all night. They’re super-strong, young and gorgeous. But mostly, it’s the immortal thing that’s so alluring. Death is the one thing none of us can escape, but vampires have that one beat. Unless, of course, a pesky slayer cuts off their head, or stabs them with a pointy bit of wood, or sets them on fire. Ahh, The Slayer.

Almost as much a part of our culture as Vampires themselves. Abraham Van Helsing is the earliest famous vampire hunter to spring to mind. There were the slap-stick  Frog brothers in the late 80’s film The Lost Boys, which of course, introduced us to the totally awesome David (Kiefer Sutherland) and his band of motorbike riding vampires. But the most famous vampire slayer of modern times has to be Buffy. And even she wasn’t immune to the allure of falling for not one, but two vampires, the brooding Angel and the way-cooler Spike (actually, it was three if you count that episode when she had a ‘thing’ with Dracula himself). Then, there’s modern fiction. You can’t go into a book shop now without running into bloodsuckers, which, in my opinion, is more than a good thing.

Vampire Academy, The Morganville Vampires, The Vampire Diaries, Twilight, House of Night, Evernight, Darren Shan and Oliver Nocturne with their myriad of vampire-themed novels, The Blue Bloods, Vampire Beach, Vampire Kisses… I could fill a page with the series that can be found in the Young Adult section alone. Bring it on, I say. The more vampire tales, the better. All have their own individual take on vamp mythology, all with different quirks and issues.

So I’ll ask again, what’s not love? The diet? Get over it. We’ve all gotta eat. How was that steak you had for dinner last night? The pale, pasty skin thing? Like I said, suntans are so not cool, we all know that. Nocturnal sleeping patterns? Pfft, I know plenty of people who sleep most of the day and wake at night. It’s called shift work. And the garlic problem? Well, who wants bad breath anyway? Yes, it’s easy to see why we love vampires so much. If you can turn a blind eye to their minor downsides, vampires are the perfect form of escapism. Seriously, who doesn’t want to be young, gorgeous and live forever?

Mandy Says:

Tobias Richard Vandevelde wakes up in a hospital bed with no recollection of how he got there, or what happened the night before. He’s horrified to learn (and so is his mother) that he was found stark naked in the dingo pen at the local wildlife park. Toby immediately blames his best friends, Fergus and Amin for setting up some sort of nasty prank, but it soon becomes clear they know nothing about it.

Things begin to get weirder after the doctors can find no good reason for Toby’s memory loss (maybe Epilepsy? Drugs? Some other kind of rare condition?) and the police are also more than a little suspicious of the teenager who claims there’s nothing wrong with him – well, not that he’s aware of, anyway. Things soon leap from just plain weird to totally bizarre when Catholic priest Father Ramon Alvarez turns up on Toby’s doorstep with the mean and scruffy looking Rueben. They seem to know things about Toby they shouldn’t – his hair grows abnormally fast, his sense of smell is almost unhuman, his reflexes are super-speedy and, most astonishingly – for Toby is adopted – he is the youngest of seven sons. Then the bizarre turns insane. The priest claims Toby is a Werewolf… and so is Rueben.

Of course, Toby and his mother know there’s no such thing as Werewolves. Their visitors are thrown out of the house and threatened with a phone call to the police. But Toby is left with a nagging feeling. What if his strange guests are right? It would explain the dingo pen thing. And the haircut problem. Toby decides to find out a little more information on his own, meeting up with Rueben and his friends. That’s when the real trouble begins…

If The Abused Werewolf Rescue Group were a movie, it would be one of those where you spend the whole time with your hands over your face, peeking through the slits in your fingers. Every step Toby takes, you just know he’s going to find himself in more trouble. The story moves along lightning-fast once it gets going and there are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments. Set in both suburban Sydney and the harsh Australian Outback, Catherine Jinks paints a great picture of Australian life, be it a little on the supernatural side. Toby is a very likeable, everyday teenager; it’s easy to go along with him in his initial disbelief of his new identity, as well as understand why he eventually comes to terms with it (and that’s without a big-bad-full-moon-change scene).

The Abused Werewolf Rescue Group is a companion book to The Reformed Vampire Support Group, also by Catherine Jinks. I have to admit, I haven’t yet read about the Vampires in Jinks’s world, and they do make a few appearances here. I was a little concerned I’d find it hard to follow without reading the first book, but the stories really are separate entities and The Abused Werewolf Rescue Group stands up well on its own. It was refreshing to read a supernatural novel with a teenaged main character who wasn’t filled with lovey-dovey angst, self-loathing or a parent with issues. Instead, I found a hysterical tale full of bumbling, dangerous characters and suspenseful drama that wouldn’t let me stop reading.

Catherine Jinks – The Abused Werewolf Rescue Group

September 27th, 2010 by Allen and Unwin Children.

Paperback – 380 pages.

ISBN – 9781742373638