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Unashamed werewolf/vampire/witch books reader

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Vampire/Werewolf/Witch books
I thought you had better taste than that!
  
0% [ 0 ]
I like them too, but I keep it a secret
  
17% [ 2 ]
I unashamedly like them as well :)
  
75% [ 9 ]
They could be good, but I'm just not interested in that type of genre
  
8% [ 1 ]
I don't read
  
0% [ 0 ]
who?
  
0% [ 0 ]
Total votes: 12
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Estel
Post subject: Unashamed werewolf/vampire/witch books reader
Posted: Sat 15 Mar , 2008 12:34 pm
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Right, so I've never talked about liking books like this before, although anyone who's ever visited my house and seen my bookshelf will know already ;) I, of course, read other types as well. Anyone who knows me knows my love of Guy Gavriel Kay. Apocalypse sci-fi books are also fun ;) I've never been one to put down any type of book or any genre as being less than any other. I even have read the occasional fuck book.... ahem, romance novel :blackeye: Steve often teases me for the books that I read, but hey, if you read well over 200-300 books a year, some of them are bound to be not the literary genius that we all would prefer to read :help:

The vampire/werewolf/witch books though - I love books like this. They're usually "our world but not" type of things, and are light, easy but really fun reads. The ultimate escapism novels. The thing is, they're never really emotionally involving. Fun, yes, but in a good action movie sort of way.

I picked up a trilogy by Stephanie Meyer - Twilight, New Moon and Eclipse. I wasn't expecting too much more than a nice easy read. After all, these were in young adult book section, and billed quite openly as a love story. I only got them cause they had been on the best sellers list for ages and were in my typical light reading genre of vampires/werewolves/witches. My thoughts were leading me in a Harry Potter sort of direction - fun and interesting, but not all that engrossing.

I would say there wasn't much in the way of gratuitous scenes in these books at all. Most books of this genre include paragraphs of physical description, or personality description, or what clothing the character was wearing each and every day described in the book. In these books, I didn't even know the hair color of the main character until the third book and it didn't matter. I didn't feel like I was missing out on a thing. In a series that spent so little time describing the characters and instead spent it's time telling the story, I felt more like I knew the characters than any other book of this genre that I have ever read simply because I was able to create them for myself.

I was actually impressed.




So, are there any other unashamed vampire/werewolf/witch books readers out there on this board, or am I the only one?

If you have read Stephanie Meyer, what did you think?

Do you have any books in the genre that you would recommend?

Last edited by Estel on Sat 19 Sep , 2015 10:19 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Donernilwen
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Posted: Sat 15 Mar , 2008 5:06 pm
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I just finished the third Stephanie Meyers book last night ( I was consciously trying to read it slowly so it lasted longer :P) and I'm really excited for the next one. :D


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Dawnnamira
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Posted: Sat 15 Mar , 2008 7:19 pm
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I'm an unashamed reader of said books, but my Mom doesn't know simply because I don't tell her about the books I read. :D It prevents family conflict.

I haven't gotten around to Twilight or its sequels, simply because I can't afford new books and the friend of mine that had them moved back to Pennasylvania.....and I haven't found them at Goodwill yet either, and I probably never will. :D

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Crucifer
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Posted: Sun 16 Mar , 2008 8:50 pm
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Friends have told me to read twilight, but it's proving difficult to get it. Would you peoples recommend it?

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Donernilwen
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Posted: Sun 16 Mar , 2008 9:15 pm
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Yes, I would. However, the only guy I've known to read it thought it was ok, but didn't seem to enjoy it as much as the girls I know who have read it. ;)
Estel, Edward or Jacob?


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TheMary
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Posted: Sun 16 Mar , 2008 9:39 pm
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A copy of Twilight floats around this household as well but my brother is reading it before me so I'm gonna have to wait.

I love vampire books hence Anita Blake and the Vampire Huntress Legend books on my shelf!

I read these books proudly but then again I used to own a comic store so I read a lot things proudly :D.

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Soon you will see
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EdaintheRanger
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Posted: Mon 17 Mar , 2008 9:38 pm
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I've read a few Vampire (or even Vampyr ;) ) books in my time. A few of them by Anne Rice, the rest I can't really remember the titles of because i borrowed them from the library. That's my usual modus operandi borrow from library: if it is really good then consider buying my own copy.

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Estel
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Posted: Thu 20 Mar , 2008 12:12 pm
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Donernilwen wrote:
Estel, Edward or Jacob?
Edward :D


I adore Jacob, but not for Bella.


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MariaHobbit
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Posted: Thu 20 Mar , 2008 7:15 pm
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I haven't read the ones you mentioned, Estel. I have read one Anne Rice book, and my brain felt unclean for weeks afterwards! :sick: I threw it away so my kids wouldn't find it! I don't have anything against the genre, but Anne Rice's work makes my skin crawl.

I love the Dresden files books which are supposed to be "urban fantasy" genre, but which really have all sorts of magic and werewolves and lots of vampires and the like all set in modern Chicago, which really kinda weirds me out to think I'm going to be visiting that city this year! :Q I am going to have to visit some of the places mentioned. :D Even though one of them is a church, and I'm not religious- but it sounds really pretty from the descriptions. :)

I also like Fred Saberhagen's Dracula books. They are great, with the first one being a retelling of the original Dracula book from Dracula's point of view! :D He was so misunderstood! :LMAO:

Katherine Kurtz has a series called "The Adept" which is a modern setting with a lot of magic in it. Her "Deryni" series also has lots of magic- but in both cases it's a toss up whether the things going on are best described by "magic" or by "psionics". Both series are excellent.

Christopher Stasheff wrote a series called "The Warlock In Spite of Himself" that I really love. It's a great blend of sci fi and fantasy and again you can't really tell most of the time whether it's magic or psychic abilities. I guess I lean towards that sort of tale. :)

Orson Scott Card has also written some good tales that have magic users in them: "Enchantment" and the Alvin Maker series come to mind. I like most of what OSC writes, magic or no.

And, of course, the Harry Potter series. But everyone has those, don't they? :)

My shelves are filled with fantasy in which magic is used in one way or another, but these are the ones that come to mind where the main protagonist is the one practicing magic, and could thus be thought of as witches. I think perhaps "The Dresden Files" are my favorite, though. That author really knows his stuff. :)

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Dawnnamira
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Posted: Fri 21 Mar , 2008 2:41 am
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One reason I'm really looking forward to going to Chicago in the fall (other than meeting everyone :P) is that one of MY fantasy characters is from Chicago.

I love fantasy too much....even my normal writing stories end up having fantasy elements......

And I'm reading two fantasy books at once, something I never do. :D

I'm going to need someone to slap my wrist when I get my paycheck so I don't spend half of it on books.... :Wooper:

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Donernilwen
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Posted: Fri 21 Mar , 2008 8:13 pm
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Estel wrote:
Donernilwen wrote:
Estel, Edward or Jacob?
Edward :D


I adore Jacob, but not for Bella.
I agree. At first I was really annoyed with Jacob. Couldn't take a hint...or hundreds, but after the 3rd book I'm kinda like hmmm. I still think Edward, but I don't hold as much contempt for Jacob. ;)
Movie wise, I'm very skeptical about the actors they picked...I kind of pictured them differently, but whats new with book to screen films? :P


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Estel
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Posted: Fri 11 Apr , 2008 10:15 am
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One problem I have with this genre is all the pornographic sex that many of the authors seem to put in. I really hate that - when I want to read erotica, I'll read erotica. When I want to read this genre, I do NOT want to read erotica. Anyway, I'm going to make up a list of authors who are pretty good for not having a story that is pretty much massive amounts of sex linked together by very little plot, and a list of authors who do do that, so if you're like me, you can avoid them.

Good stories - not porn

Kelly Armstrong
Jenna Black
Patricia Briggs
Jim Butcher
Rachel Caine
Karen Chance
Elaine Cunningham
P. R. Frost
Laura Anne Gilman
Kim Harrison
Tanya Huff
Mercerdes Lackey
C. E. Murphy
Stephanie Meyer
Carrie Vaughn
Eileen Wilks


Good stories - tendencies towards porn

Amy Lane
  • - I should be putting her in the totally porn section, but she writes the love scenes very well. One of the few who actually seems to infuse emotion and meaning into them, plus she doesn't write them gratuitously.


Lilith Saintcrow


There was hope, but Basically just Porn

Laura K. Hamilton
  • - her series starts out ok and with not much sex, but by the end you're essentially reading a bunch of detailed sex scenes linked together by a "plot" designed only to get you to the next porn moment.

Not even hope with these authors - very graphic, can't believe it's not in an adults only store, let alone section - porn

Sunny
  • - Don't know who this person is, but she's included in one of my short story books, and in the space of that short story managed to have her character have sex with two different people two times, plus described a memory of sex with another person as well. Basically, in a 66 page story, the main character is thinking about sex from page 3, describing how turned on she is by page 10, having sex by page 14 - roleplayed rape sex at that - then there is a bit of "story" for a few pages in which the plot makes it impossible for the character to do anything but have sex again with someone else this time and again it's graphically described, and again, it's not the sort of sex I would let anyone under the age of 18 read about. That goes on till the end of the story where-upon there is a three page epilogue basically explaining why, in future stories, the character is going to need to have sex a lot.



Anyway, if you have any authors in this genre you can add to any of these lists let me know. I would have more authors to add to the porn end of the list, but honestly, I get pissed off and end up throwing all those books away. I basically can't remember all the names of all the crap people who infect this genre with their crap writing.


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TheMary
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Posted: Mon 05 May , 2008 5:59 am
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I read Laurell K Hamilton although I'm only on Burnt Offerings so it's not quite porn just yet. Some good sex scenes but not flat out porn :D. I haven't read her Meredith Gentry (her Faerie series) books but I do own a handful of those as well, but apparently those are just straight up porn. My boyfriend stopped reading the Anita Blake books after he read Obsidian Butterfly because he didn't want the series to be ruined with poor story telling :damnfunny: .

A series I stumbled upon by chance at the library one day was L.A. Banks' Vampire Huntress Legends. It didn't take me long to realize that I was reading books aimed at African Americans which doesn't matter to me, because they're really good, but I found it humorous. I went to high school with like 2 black kids one being my best friend but anyway. Damali Richards is the Vampire Huntress and she has a bad ass team to help her do her thing. There is sex but I wouldn't call it porn. The best thing is Banks cranks out two books a year!!! I'm soooo behind but I love that nearly every time I go to the book store there's a new VH book out :love: . For those interested, the first book in the series is called Minion which is pretty short, thankfully they get longer after that :D.


Thanks for the list Stella I'm always on the look out for more supernatural books :).

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Lay down
Your sweet and weary head
Night is falling
You’ve come to journey's end
Sleep now
And dream of the ones who came before
They are calling
From across the distant shore

Why do you weep?
What are these tears upon your face?
Soon you will see
All of your fears will pass away
Safe in my arms
You're only sleeping


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Impenitent
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Posted: Tue 20 May , 2008 2:30 am
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Well, finally read them (well, the first two anyway. Third is on my bedside table).

My daughter read them a few months ago and she insisted - INSISTED!!!!!! - that I should read them. She harrassed and harrassed. I resisted and resisted; generally I've found books with those themes too obsessed with the eroticism which is not to my taste at all.

However! Yes, I agree with Estel now. Meyers manages to create a most evocative, atmospheric tale in which the characters seem so real (although I have to admit that she does get a teensy bit bogged down in the emotional mire of it in book 2). Once you have suspended disbelief to enable the existence of such creatures, the plot does not require convoluted intellectual acrobats - it seems a natural unfolding.

Meyer has also achieved what Tolkien did (sorry, should I have mentioned the name?) in evoking a rich, atmospheric environment. I can feel and see Forks as a very real place, with its luxurious green growth, the dankness and glowering clouds, the mountain meadows...really, very difficult in the kind of sparse writing that she uses. No purple prose at all!

So I will now read the third book and congratulate my daughter on turning me onto Meyers. :)

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Impenitent
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Posted: Thu 22 May , 2008 3:51 am
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Back. :)

I've now read the third book and pondered a little on the saga. I'm thinking that this is becoming a morality tale - don't know yet for sure, will await the fourth book.

But I'm wondering now...Meyers is a Mormon and in interviews (and on her website) she very emphatically states that her beliefs illuminate the tale. I can see it, in the emphasis placed on the meaning of humanity, its exposition in the unfolding of the vampire state and the werewolf state. Bella becomes more aware of what it means, also - at the beginning she is almost dismissive of what she would give up in changing herself and at the end of the third book the gravity of it becomes larger in her ethical awareness. I am finding that very interesting; the hints there that love is not enough.

There are some interesting questions: what is soul? what is good? what is monstrous - what you are or what you do?

I wonder whether Meyers will apply her spiritual conscience to the outcome of the book?

By the way, have you seen the first chapter of Midnight Sun? Midnight Sun is a project Meyers has put on the backburner, but it is a retelling of Twilight from Edward's point of view, just as Twilight is from Bella's point of view. The entire text of chapter 1 is available here: http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/otherproj ... htsun.html

(It is copyrighted, so I cannot paste here as a retranscription)

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Shadowjack
Post subject: Re: Unashamed werewolf/vampire/witch books reader
Posted: Mon 03 Nov , 2008 7:08 pm
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A really good series about Vampires and such that you might like is by Brian Lumley.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b?url ... &x=19&y=19

Really a great series to Sink your Teeth into. ;)

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MariaHobbit
Post subject: Re: Unashamed werewolf/vampire/witch books reader
Posted: Tue 02 Dec , 2008 10:19 pm
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Add Anya Bast to the porn list. :sick:

Well, I should qualify that I haven't actually read anything that was labeled as "porn", but if this book were a movie- it would qualify. A short simple story just to string the lengthy, overly explicit sex scenes together into the length of a novel. "Witch Fire" was it's name.

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RELStuart
Post subject: Re: Unashamed werewolf/vampire/witch books reader
Posted: Wed 31 Dec , 2008 3:35 am
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I read the Twilight series through a few weeks back. I would say the author was very good at creating a tale that draws you into the characters and what they are thinking and feeling. There is enough action to keep the inner emotive portions of the story balanced. Overall I enjoyed them. :)

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Estel
Post subject: Re: Unashamed werewolf/vampire/witch books reader
Posted: Fri 02 Jan , 2009 5:54 pm
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I tried to reread them again and was annoyed, oddly. The first time(s) was great, but letting it sit for a few months and reading it again I just felt... irritated by the drama of it. I'll finish the series and see the movie, yeah, but I won't reread.

The other book Meyers did - The Host - was faaaaaaaar better in my opinion. I've read that one more than once, months apart, and enjoyed it every time. Better written, and more for adults, methinks.


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elfshadow
Post subject: Re: Unashamed werewolf/vampire/witch books reader
Posted: Mon 05 Jan , 2009 6:38 am
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I finally read the Twilight series a few months ago because my best friend had been bothering me about doing it. They were a fast read and definitely entertaining, but other than that...I was a little disappointed. :( Which made me sad because so many of my close and trusted friends absolutely love this series! But I just thought it was so angsty. Which, I suppose, I should have expected since I guess it's more of the "teen fiction" genre than anything else. But there were so many parts of this series that just really annoyed me.
Spoilers wrote:
Like the fact that no one seemed to care at all about Bella in Phoenix, but now that she moved to Forks she is magically the most beautiful girl on the planet. I know she's moving from a big city to a small town, but physical appeal doesn't change that much. I also found myself rolling my eyes at their intense, everlasting, goo-goo eyed love for each other. I didn't like the fact that despite how deeply Bella was supposedly in love with Edward, she didn't find it too difficult to be deeply in love with Jacob too. It took forever to get to the climax in all of the books, and then there was inevitably a relatively short but intense epic battle that resulted in almost no tragedy or harm whatsoever.

A couple of little things that bothered me. First, the fact that Jacob falls in love with Bella's infant daughter. I'm sorry, I find that a little creepy. Second, as a very good friend of mine pointed out, how does a bloodless vampire have an erection? :scratch:


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