The Immortal Vampire

Over the last couple of years I have had the opportunity to discuss the evolution of Vampire s in literature on panels at many different conventions. This past week I read a blog post about the end of vampires in literature. The author of the blog’s reasoning was because the market was super saturated with vampire novels, television shows and movies. The blog’s author wasn’t wrong, but he wasn’t right either. For the first time vampire are a hot topic where one can go almost anywhere and find the vampire’s influence on society.

Some believe the vampire is on the way out, leaving a vacuum for zombies, fairies and angels to fill. I do not believe that to be the case. Vampires have opened the doors to allow creative minds to write about other supernatural creatures, bringing them into mainstream imagination. Vampires are not leaving mainstream either, but have integrated into it.

Vampires no longer belong to the horror genre. They have become their own genre with its own sub-genres. The vampire has become more than a putrid animated corpse bent on feeding its insatiable hunger for human blood. Vampires have regained their humanity and all the insanity that comes with being human.

It is this return to humanity that alls authors to explore aspects of the human condition with a creature that was once human. From the romantic to the tragic; from the psychotic to the benevolent; from the irreverent to the spiritual, we see vampires playing the roles that mortals used to play.

What difference does it make to have a vampire, rather than a mortal, play the roles of protagonist or antagonist? Very simply it is the ability to study and hypothesize how certain life experiences over a prolonged period of time would impact someone excessively long lived. In other words, the author can go to the heights or to the depths of those human behaviours. It also allows the author to create a wish fulfillment fantasy of what our society demands: physical beauty (commonly found in the young) and longevity – something that can rarely occur together because of what our current notions of what is beautiful. It also allows for the author to study the descent into darkness one can travel, how one loses their humanity while not being human. In other words, to do so at a safe, imaginary, distance, rather than thinking of the real life human beings who are monsters. The flipside is to bring about redemption for even the worst; how hope can transcend the darkness.

If these sound like any other type of books, you’re not wrong. The vampire can be found in every genre now, from Romance to Horror.

If vampires are found to be every type of protagonist to any type of antagonist, what does this mean for the future of vampires? In some cases we’ll see them as not only “other” but also alien. In others, full integration. Vampires are not going away. They are here to stay, and are finding their way into every genre possible. There is no limit to where the vampire is going. It’s all in the imagination of the author. Since imagination is boundless, the vampire IS immortal.

Cheers!

Karen Dales
Award Winning Author

"The Chosen Chronicles" are now $.99 for each eBook.
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Order of The Chosen Chronicles:
Changeling: Prelude to The Chosen Chronicles
Angel of Death: Book One of The Chosen Chronicles
Shadow of Death: Book Two of The Chosen Chronicles
(Soon To Be Released - Thanatos: Book Three of The Chosen Chronicles)

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