Feel like you've read all the vampire stories out there? From Twilight to Dracula it's easy to feel like you've read all the good vampire novels on the shelves. Don't despair. Here are three vampire stories that are just as enticing and enthralling as the classics–they're just a lot less known.
Vampire Stories for The Classic Vampire Hunter: The Historian
By Elizabeth Kostova (Back Bay Books, 2009)
A vampire story written for book lovers, The Historian is a long, leisurely vampire novel that weighs in at 2.2 pounds, has 642 pages, and reads like a Victorian romance. Equal parts thriller, horror, mystery, travel story and romance, it has been described as "The Da Vinci Code–but with vampires!" and has proven itself popular with those lion-hearted bookworms dedicated enough to find a new vampire novel that reads like a Gothic vampire story.
Unlike other vampire stories, The Historian uses a convoluted round-robin narrative structure that uses flashbacks, letters and oral accounts to blend together three separate narratives: that of a 16-year-old girl, the young girl's father and a missing historian. As their mysterious stories unfold, the reader learns that each, somehow, is tied to the ancient vampiric evil, Drakulya–and that his evil eye is watching them. Ten years in the making, The Historian is a complex vampire story heavy with fascinating historical, geographical and mythological information, and is an eerie vampire story definitely worth its weight (and the time it took to craft it).
Vampire Stories With a Twist: Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
By Peter Suskind (Vintage, 2001)
Plenty of vampire stories become movies but few as strange as this one. Seemingly about the power of scent, emotions and alienation, Peter Suskind's chilling novel Perfume: The Story of a Murderer is the strange story of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, an 18th century Frenchman who is nothing less than a scent vampire. Born without his own personal scent but gifted with a preternatural ability to sniff out others, Jean-Baptiste's only real connection to the world is through odor, and it is through his experience of smell that the reader understands this strange, feral creature. As a young man he becomes apprenticed to a perfume maker, and not long after, he becomes obsessed with capturing the scent of a young virgin he happens upon. This is where this strange vampire story becomes truly chilling: With chemical precision and malignant intent, the scent-sucking Grenouille stalks his prey to make his perfect perfume.
Exquisitely written, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer is engrossing both in writing style and plot trajectory. Fascinating and horrifying, Peter Suskind's novel is a vampire story horrific not in its description of murder but in its vivid descriptions of Grenouille's inner life, and it makes for a fascinating, truly unique read.
Vampire Stories Where the Blood-Suckers Win: I Am Legend
By Richard Matheson (Walker and Company, 1954)
Before it was a post-apocalyptic blockbuster about vampiric zombies starring Will Smith, I Am Legend was an intense, soul-searching sci-fi vampire story about the last man on Earth, Robert Neville, and his lonely fight against the hordes of infected vampires left roaming the streets after a bacterial outbreak. Less about vampires and more about Neville's crushing loneliness and isolation as the last of a dying breed, I Am Legend is one of the few vampire stories that meditates on the isolation and alienation of the human more than the vampires.
Written before endings were decided by focus groups, the novel is cataclysmically different than the movie, so readers shouldn't pass up one just because they've experienced the other. One monumental difference is that in the film version of I Am Legend, the vampires win. This is an ending that comes as no surprise to the reader, since, as the short story progresses, it becomes clear that one way or another Neville will become a monster too. Iconic and influential to both modern zombie and vampire stories, I Am Legend is an under-read classic not to be missed.
The Next Breed of Vampire Stories
With the global popularity of Twilight, it's hard to tell what the next generation of vampire stories will look like. Will they evolve into the sparkling, soul-searching vampires of Stephanie Meyer's vampire stories or into something much darker? Either way, the best way to find the next best vampire story is to keep reading.
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Jennifer Silva - Jenn is a professional writer and editor with experience in: technical communications (medical, manufacturing and publishing ...
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