19th Level

The town knew about darkness. It knew about the darkness that comes on the land when roatation hides the land from the sun, and about the darkness of the human soul. - 'Salem's Lot  by Stephen King, Chapter Ten There's a point of view that one should only read a book once. After that, why read it again, you know what happened. Truthfully, for some books, most even, that's definitely the case. But for me, there's certain books I read over and over again over the years. Not to find out what happened, but to experience the book again. And to take away something new from it. The best books don't give up all they have of value on the first read. I mentioned a few posts back 1984 is a book I tend to read once a year or so. 'Salem's Lot  is another book that finds its way to me multiple times. Set in the then-contemporary early 1970's, 'Salem's Lot is the story of a vampire infestation of a small Maine town. But it's more than...

I'm not sure if its's the season of the year or something else but I've definitely been in a bit of an undead kick of late. The picture here shows what my front yard looks like as we approach Halloween, with a nice zombie apocalypse in the making. Tragically, my elder daughter has told me I'm not allowed to keep the zombie display going until Thanksgiving, even with my offer of equipping them with pilgrim duds. Though my yard is decorated by zombies I've been thinking more about vampires. I recently reread Dracula  and I've been going through some of Pelgrane Press' vampire-centric Night's Black Agents , especially the Dracula Dossier . One thing I've been thinking of is some open issues introduced by the novel Dracula , all possible fodder for gaming or stories. It's worth noting that books like The New Annotated Dracula  has some great ideas for some of these open issues. One thing I wonder about is just what Dracula was hoping to achieve b...

Dracula  is a novel which has entered western culture so much that even those who have not read it are familiar with many of its essentials. However, it is a novel absolutely worth reading. Dracula  is written as a collection of journal entries, newspaper clippings, letters, etc. The narrative switches from perspective to perspective. It begins with Jonathan Harker, solicitor, narrating the tale of his visit to Count Dracula of Transylvania. The villagers of the area try to warn him against going there, warnings he of course should have heeded. Dracula appears to be an older gentleman, very friendly, who is in the process of acquiring property in London with the intention of moving there. Over the course of the first chapters Harker becomes aware that he has never seen any of Dracula's servants and he only interacts with Dracula at night. He also notices he never sees Dracula eat. And worst, he realizes he is a prisoner of Dracula and contrives a plan to escape. The narr...

Poor Richard Matheson didn't make the cut for the inspirational reading section of AD&D 1st edition. That said, his short novel I Am Legend casts a wide shadow, creating the zombie apocalypse genre in a novel with nary a zombie in sight. George Romero of zombie fame and Stephen King have both acknowledged his influence. I Am Legend  has produced three film adaptations. The first adaptation was 1964's The Last Man On Earth , starring Vincent Price, a film I've not seen. Reading its wikipedia entry it seems they stayed pretty close to the plotline of the novel. The second was the classic 1970s Charlton Heston film, The Omega Man . Finally there was the more recent I Am Legend  starring Will Smith. Both The Omega Man  and I Am Legend  have their virtues but I don't think either of them really "got" the novel. With that preliminary out of the way, let's talk about the novel itself. It takes place some twenty years in "the future", though it...

" These are not your teenage daughter's vampires. They do not sparkle, they do not look like underwear models. These are the real vampires. These are what the legend is based on. They are a biological reality. They're people infected with a terrible virus.  And infected with virus so terrible that in fact they - what's the percentage - eat nine of their victims and then leave another one infected to perpetuate the clan." - Justin Cronin, author of The Passage , during an NPR Interview , August 24, 2010 When I first heard about Justin Cronin's novel  The Passage , I was intrigued by its capsule summary - essentially a move away from the brooding vampire looking for the right lady to fall in love with. This was a return the vampire as a predator. When I heard this description I thought of Richard Matheson's 1954 vampire novel I Am Legend . This turned out to be a good comparison as it turns out as both works deal with scientific explanations for the va...