Best Vampire Novels?

I really like the house of night novels though it has some romance in it.
I have read a few night world books and they are all right
and Thirst is a pretty good
book.
And Thirsty is a good book to.
But true blood is epic!! Haha

ANYONE, IF YOU SAY TWILIGHT, I WILL REMOVE YOUR BITS ON A CELLULAR LEVEL.

I thoroughly enjoyed Of Saints and Shadows by Christopher Golden. Modern day, raunchy and bloody sex, and a twist on the usual vampire story. This is the first book in a series, but I really didn’t enjoy the second one… so I never read past that.

Necroscope / Wamphyri – by Brian Lumley. a series of books about Harry Keogh who can talk to the dead and deals with the Wamphyri – vampires from another world – it’s superb. Lumley also does other vampire stories.
The Necroscope Series

* Necroscope
* Necroscope II : Wamphyri!
* Necroscope III : The Source
* Necroscope IV : Deadspeak
* Necroscope V : Deadspawn

The Vampire World Series

* (Books 6, 7, 8 of the Necroscope Series)
* Vampire World I : Blood Brothers
* Vampire World II : The Last Aerie
* Vampire World III : Bloodwars

The Lost Years Series

* (Books 9, 10 of the Necroscope Series)
* Necroscope : The Lost Years
* Necroscope : Resurgence The Lost Years : Volume II

The E-Branch Series

* (Books 11–13 of the Necroscope Series)
* E-Branch: Invaders
* E-Branch: Defilers
* E-Branch: Avengers

his website

”oh and Twilight….....lol” runs away…..............

Well, I was going to say “Twilight”, but I don’t particularly want my bits removed…delirium seems to mean serious bidness. :)

What about “Interview with the Vampire” by Anne Rice? My mom really liked that book. It is from 1973, so it’s not too “modern”, but it’s not lovey-dovey from what I understand.

In addition, there are a few sequels to the book.

Laurell K Hamilton’s Anita Blake novels were really good for the first six or seven (I wouldn’t recommend the later ones… they turn into complete trash).

Also, I did read Christopher Moore’s Blood Sucking Fiends and I thought it was great, but I think you have to get used to his sense of humor. It’s definitely not a “serious” vampire novel.

the twilight saga

look it up on wikipedia
the new moon has just come out heard of it?

@DominicX – I read a page of “Interview With a Vampire” and gagged. My frail constitution can’t tolerate flowery pseudo 18th century dialogue.

I don’t remember reading any vampire fiction, but one of my favorite books is vampire non fiction.

@fundevogel

Ah man, my NaNoWriMo novel was filled with pseudo British 19th century language. I basically just changed all the “don’t“s to “do not”. lol

(But seriously, I read The Turn of the Screw by Henry James for inspiration on how the language of the time worked).

@jellyfishguy YOUR BITS. FEAR FOR THEM.

@delirium have you seen it?

As @DominicX suggested, Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice is an excellent novel, not lovey-dovey at all, just an extremely interesting premise. If you end up liking that, she wrote a few sequels as well, so there is more good reading there. Don’t listen to @fundevogel because reading “a page” is no way at all to get a flavor of a book. Sorry, but that was a moronic comment, I don’t think you can get any flavor of even a kid’s book by reading ONE PAGE.

I loved Salem’s Lot, by Stephen King. A classic, and Stephen King is one of the horror genre’s best story tellers, he always pays attention to character development, and has a way of making things so human. If you’ve never read one of his books, this is not a bad place to start, I think you’d enjoy it.

This one is totally out of the blue, but it rounds out my top 3 (for vampire novels). Lost Souls, by Poppy Z. Brite (I know, nice name) was an incredible novel. And it was her first. Thoroughly enjoyable, maybe just what you’re looking for. And she has written other vampire stuff too, if you end up liking that, and I think she has one or two books of vampire short stories.

Hope that helps!

@nope – I expressed an opinion and explained the reason I held it, that is hardly “moronic” just because you don’t agree with it. The fact is, if a book just isn’t right for you at all, you can tell from reading just one page. It wasn’t right for me. I explained why so people could judge whether or not the issue I had would matter to them.

If you disagree with me explain why you disagree, don’t call someone you’ve never met moronic. While that tells me a little about you it doesn’t tell anyone a thing about the book.

Guess I’m just too old school to help ya.

Twilight sucks.

Try the “Dark Castle”.

The actual book, “Dracula” by Bram Stoker is fantastic. Have you read it?

It holds steady as a really good read. It’s very horrifying (almost disgusting) yet still maintained a sexual facade.

LOLOL TWILIGHT LOLOLOL

@smack yeh i know its sooooooo cool

@smack @jellyfishguy

Last night at dinner my friend Lindsay (who’s read the books) was telling me about how Twilight is full of Mormon symbolism and propaganda and how it’s designed to brainwash girls into following Mormon teachings and such. I was just like “okay then”. Almost made me want to consider thinking about possibly being interested in reading it…

@DominicX, I heard that Stephenie Meyer got her Bishop or whoever to read through her manuscripts before her editor or something. I think it is full of Mormon symbolism too. I can go into it if you want :P

@DominicX hahahaah I’ve actually read them, though I’m being sarcastic in my above responses. It’s shameless teenage poetry, but a little cliche-ness never hurt anybody.

Since nobody has mentioned it yet, how about trying Christopher Pike’s The Last Vampire series? It’s a set of six books, focusing on the 5,000 year old vampire Sita (a beautiful woman) who is doing her best to survive in the modern world. Of course, there’s always romance (and hot sex) in the stories, as befitting the vampire genre, but she always finds her lovers eventually killed (mostly because she has to kill them herself), breaking her heart in the process. It’s told from her perspective and she gives quite a unique narrative, debunking the usual myths about vampires and recounting major historical events and people (such as meeting Bram Stoker himself).

She is always being hunted by something and of course, has to fight it, all the while trying to find her purpose and escaping the ghosts of her past (think of how many you can have as a 5,000 year old vampire). I read it when I was around 14 and thoroughly enjoyed it. You might find its premise a bit weird and out of this world (it incorporates Hinduism and New Age-ish elements into it), but I think that it’s really worth trying out. You can check out the Amazon page for it; as you can see from there, many many people really like it. In fact, thinking about it, I think I’ll go and give them another read. It has been a long time since I last read them after all.

Christopher Pike is quite a good author. He does like sex though. A lot.

I second @scotsbloke Lumley’s Necroscope series was superb, particularly the first three books. After a very long break I’ve just started getting into the E-Branch series and it’s starting off pretty well too.

Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot was excellent as was Robert McCammon’s They Thirst. The Strain by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan also kept me turning the pages, a fast paced start to what’s supposed to be a three book series. I’ve got Bently Little’s The Summoning on the shelf, can’t really recommend it bc I haven’t read it yet but I’ve read others of his and thought they were pretty good if quick and not overly deep reads.

Very handy used book store for any suggestion: http://www.abebooks.com/
Also found this site: http://www.vampirelibrary.com/lists/authors.htm

Oh, The Light at the End by John Skipp and Craig Spector; didn’t really care for that one much. Had some nice imagery at times and a couple well done moments but on the whole was forgettable. Blood+ on the other hand I thought was great on screen, never read the manga though, but it might be worth checking out.

@smack

I beg to differ. I screened all four books for my 12 year old niece, and I want those eleven hours of my life back.

If it takes me no more than eleven hours to read three THOUSAND pages of mindless dialogue, there’s a problem.

Its even worse that I mourn the loss. That’s eleven hours I could have spent re-reading The Silmarillion, or Dune, or… I don’t know… writing porn.

@Seek_Kolinahr Don’t read The Silmarillion unless you’ve psyched yourself. I tried the first page and almost died (hey, I was young, innocent and unprepared for a saga of biblical proportions and language).

@Saturated_Brain

Don’t worry. I’ve been reading Tolkien since the age of four. I could probably quote the first page of the Sil. ^_^

I love Tolkien.

@Seek_Kolinahr I just saw the important prefix ”re” in “re-read”. Dang I must be blind. Okay, I’ll try the Silmarillion again. Soon. Maybe. Hopefully.

I pray I don’t burn my eyes out this time.

@Saturated_Brain & @Seek_Kolinahr—At this point I look at Tolkien and Dune more as rites of passage than actual entertainment. I’m glad I read them, but they take a lot to get through. I made it to God Emperor and then jumped ship never to look back.

Ha ha, @fundevogel. It actually makes me sad that so many people see great sci-fi/fantasy literature that way. I suppose it’s not much different than the way people view Shakespeare or Edmund Spencer, though. I think I’m the only person born in the last 50 years who bough a copy of “The Faerie Queene” because they wanted to.

I Am Legend

I liked the vampire acedemy series,and you should read the sookie stackhouse series, even though you watch the show the books are still better.

@delirium I must heartily agree.

In other news, The Vampire Chronicles.

No one has said Sunshine yet? Come on! Sunshine by Robin McKinley. Trust me. If there is one thing I know in life, it is vampire novels, and Sunshine by Robin McKinley is the best of them.

Really? Only a couple of people have mentioned Anne Rice so far, and then almost in passing, as if her sole contribution to the genre was “Interview with the Vampire.”

Anne Rice is the person who invented the whole genre of vampire stories we are discussing here; i.e., vampire stories told from the point of view of the vampire. Before Rice, vampires were all one-dimensional monsters of incomprehensible and irredeemable evil. Rice was the first person to portray them in human terms as they resolved the problems posed by the loneliness of immortality, the morality of having to feed on humans, and the problems of falling in love with mortals.

“Interview with the Vampire” (1976) was the book that started it all, but it was just the first book in what was planned to be a five-part series. The novels which follow, branch off, telling the backstory of characters introduced in the main series. In a way, ”Interview” is kind of a prequel, which introduces Lestat, the main character of the series, and, of course, ”The Vampire Lestat.” Lestat is a darker, more tragic figure, and ultimately more compelling figure, who falls in love with Lewis out of profound loneliness. This bisexuality (if you can call it sexuality) is a hallmark of Anne Rice’s vampire novels, and is one of the reasons she has such a strong cult following, particularly among young lesbians who follow her wherever she appears.

In the “Queen of the Damned,” Rice tells the whole history of the vampires, going all the way back to early Egypt. If you ever wondered where vampires came from, this is the book for you. The movie version doesn’t tell even half the story.

The next book in the series, “The Tale of the Body Thief” won critical praise from such prestigious literary journals as “The New York Review of Books,” which elevated Anne Rice from the ranks of pulp fiction writers into the ranks of American novelists and writers of serious literature. Her genius, in this respect, was having combined two genres: the romance novel and the Gothic horror story. Her often imitated style is a combination of the steamy, florid, “bodice buster” (Oh! Mandingo!) harlequin romances that seem to interest women much the same way that pornography interests males. And the Gothic story featuring the supernatural, castles, ancient lore, an atmosphere of mystery, suspense, and high overwrought emotion. It seems a natural combination now, but she was the first person to pull it off artistically, and on a commercially viable scale.

The fifth in the Vampire Chronicle series is “Memnoch the Devil,” which tells you how vampires fit into the scheme of things angels and demons-wise. I found the book a bit anti-climactic, as no doubt many others did also, so Rice kept on writing. The sixth in the series is “The Vampire Armand” (who appears in Interview and who sacrifices himself for Lestat in “Memnoch.” There is “Blood and Gold,” the story of Marius, who was once a Roman senator, and mentor to Lestat, told in his own words. Then there are “Pandora,” “Vittorio,” “Blood Canticle,” and “Merrick,” a cross-over to Rice’s equally prolific series on the lives and loves of witches.

It’s interesting; the genre has become so successful and grown so prolific over the past 15 years that present day readers have so much to choose from that they no longer seem acquainted with the “classics,” which used to be all there was.

Oh, yuck. Anne Rice is right up there with Stephanie Meyer as far as being completely unreadable to me. And she always seems to have prepubescent cousins having sex – what’s up with that?!?

@EmpressPixie Everything Robin McKinley has ever written is awesome!

@syz – You think her normal stuff is bad, try reading her erotica (written under the nom de plume “A.N. Roquelaure”. Bland, repetitive… it reeks of suck. And not in a good way.

@Seek_Kolinahr No thanks. I avoid anything ‘Rice’.

@Seek_Kolinahr For some reason that makes me think of one of the books on my 19th century pulp, smut & melodrama reading list. But I sincerely hope The Debauched Hospodar: The Eleven Thousand Virgins is a better read than an “A.N. Roquelaure” book.

I personally hate Anne Rice, so I wouldn’t recommend anything by her. The first books in Anita Blake’s series are good, but they become horrible pretty quickly.

I would, however, highly recommend “The Hollows” series by Kim Harrison. They’re funny, serious, sexy, etc.

I can’t believe I’m saying this but for once I disagree with @DrasticDreamer on something. I like Anne Rice, one of her books is actually on my all time top 5 (as far as entertainment).
It’s called Memnoch The Devil. It is very well written and doesn’t have any brooding pussy-boys 90 year old men stalking 17 year old girls while glittering in the sun. Tres awesome.

Just saying that you don’t like (or personally hate) an author isn’t much to go on as a dis-recommendation. It rather tends to suggest one has a limited acquaintance with the author, since who reads many works by authors they hate? She is very prolific and she started out as a writer of pulp fiction; so her works are uneven and one’s adverse reaction could be simply an encounter with one of her lesser works. I read enough of one of her A.N. Roquelaure novels (“The Taking of Sleeping Beauty”) to appreciate why she wrote it under a pseudonym (it might be somebody’s idea of eroticism, but it sure wasn’t mine). I can’t really fault her for not knowing what gets me hot.

Anne Rice’s style is somewhat of an acquired taste—languid, florid, sensual, and meandering. It is not unusual for her to take a whole page to describe a tombstone or a gate, or the play of light on one of her characters. If your tastes run to “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”, then her style is going to seem cloying and dilatory because she takes her sweet time rather than getting straight to the point. For the most part, this is an attempt to settle the reader in the slower-paced rhythms of the past, when the story is set in the past. It eases up when her stories move closer to the present.

It helps if you get hooked on one of her stories. My first encounter with Rice was the movie version of “Interview with the Vampire” which, as you may recall, leaves off with Lestat (Lewis’ maker) telling the interviewer, “Lewis is such a whiner!” and begins to tell him his story, the real story. I absolutely had to find out what happened next, and went out the next day and bought “The Vampire Lestat” whose story was indeed all that it promised to be. By the time I got to “The Queen of the Damned” I had to know everything about the vampire world, and that novel did not disappoint. Much was revealed, and it was so satisfying, I waited years for the next two books to come out. Some of the later books (after “Memnoch”) struck me as less well-written—i.e., Rice milking a profitable formula—but so what? It was another chance to escape into her world for an evening or two.

I’ve read a fair amount of Rice, and I haven’t encountered any prepubescent cousins having sex.

By the way, I love the True Blood series, and if I ever get the time to read the novels, I will.

Amelia Atwater-Rhodes writes about vampires, but not in the mushy teen-romance Twilight sense. Her “Den of Shadows” series, especially In The Forests of The Night and Demon in My View, are really good. They’re actually pretty scary, gripping at best, and impossible to put down. Plus, she’s only like 26, so her novels are applicable to both young and older people.

The first one i read was way back college by Anne Rice.
She was NOT effective that i felt Lestat was looking after me
for many years.

disturbed_broken i agree. The House of Night series is fantastic but is starting to get hard to follow. Not an easy read anymore. Also, the Cirque Du Freak series is okay. I mostly just like the gore and descriptions but the rest is pretty easy to follow. However, I find that the author uses too many exclamation points for my liking and that kind of irritates me. Try them if you want a little more gore and a lot less lovey-dovey stuff. Out the many books there is only one with anything close to Twilight.

I added Bottomfeeder and Already Dead: A Novel to my reading list recently. They look promising but obviously I haven’t gotten to them yet.

Thank you everyone for the great answers

I’m old school… I had one of the first copies of Interview with the vampire when it first came out. I remember where I was, what I was doing and how I felt reading it.

*Yeah, I am that old. *Smiles.

I read Laurell K Hamilton’s Anita Blake series. The earlier books were detective stories with a side of romance, but the later books are mostly erotica.
There is a cute teen series by Ellen Shreiber; Vampire Kisses. No sparkly vampires.
Also Amelia Atwater-Rhodes wrote a nice teen series.
More erotica, Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Dark Hunter series and Black Dagger Brotherhood by J. R. Ward.
One of the best traditional vampire books I’ve ever read was The Dracula Book of Great Vampire Stories by Leslie Shepard.