How to be a Vampire in One Easy Lesson


Book Description

Danny and his monster friends are surprised when Stevie, the class bully, says that he wants to be a vampire.




How To Be A Vampire in One Easy Lesson


Book Description

HOW TO BE A VAMPIRE IN ONE EASY LESSON WHAT'S WORSE THAN STEVIE BRICKWALD, THE BULLY STEVIE BRICKWALD, THE VAMPIRE! When class creep Stevie starts acting friendly toward the monster kids, Danny smells a rat. Stevie says he wants C.D. Bitesky to teach him how to be a vampire. Danny's other monster friends seem to think it's a good idea. Danny's not so sure. Are his friend just playing a big trick on Stevie the bully? Or could those vampire lessons really be working? Welcome to P.S. 13 and the crazy classroom of THE FIFTH GRADE MONSTERS!







Blood Read


Book Description

The vampire is one of the nineteenth century's most powerful surviving archetypes, owing largely to Bela Lugosi's portrayal of Dracula, the Bram Stoker creation. Yet the figure of the vampire has undergone many transformations in recent years, thanks to Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles and other works, and many young people now identify with vampires in complex ways. Blood Read explores these transformations and shows how they reflect and illuminate ongoing changes in postmodern culture. It focuses on the metaphorical roles played by vampires in contemporary fiction and film, revealing what they can tell us about sexuality and power, power and alienation, attitudes toward illness, and the definition of evil in a secular age. Scholars and writers from the United States, Canada, England, and Japan examine how today's vampire has evolved from that of the last century, consider the vampire as a metaphor for consumption within the context of social concerns, and discuss the vampire figure in terms of contemporary literary theory. In addition, three writers of vampire fiction—Suzy McKee Charnas (author of the now-classic Vampire Tapestry), Brian Stableford (writer of the lively and erudite novels Empire of Fear and Young Blood), and Jewelle Gomez (creator of the dazzling Gilda stories)—discuss their own uses of the vampire, focusing on race and gender politics, eroticism, and the nature of evil. The first book to examine a wide range of vampire narratives from the perspective of both writers and scholars, Blood Read offers a variety of styles that will keep readers thoroughly engaged, inviting them to participate in a dialogue between fiction and analysis that shows the vampire to be a cultural necessity of our age. For, contrary to legends in which Dracula has no reflection, we can see reflections of ourselves in the vampire as it stands before us cloaked not in black but in metaphor.




Different Blood: The Vampire as Alien


Book Description

Different blood flows in their veins--but our blood quenches their thirst. From Bram Stoker's 1897 creation of Count Dracula, portrayed as a foreign invader bent on the conquest of England, the literary vampire has symbolized the Other, whether his or her otherness arises from racial, ethnic, sexual, or species difference. Even before the bloodsucking Martians of H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds, however, popular fiction contained a few vampires who were members of alien species rather than supernatural undead. Even more intriguing than interplanetary invaders are humanoid and quasi-humanoid beings who have evolved to live on Earth among us, often camouflaged as our own kind. The boom in vampire fiction that began in the 1970s engendered a variety of "alien" vampires, many of them portrayed as sympathetic characters. The science fiction vampire is especially suited to the presentation of vampirism as morally neutral rather than inherently evil. Different Blood surveys the literary vampire as alien, whether extra-terrestrial or a different species evolved on Earth, from the mid-1800s to the 1990s, and analyzes the many uses to which science fiction and fantasy authors have put this theme. Their works explore issues of species, race, ecological responsibility, gender, eroticism, xenophobia, parasitism, symbiosis, intimacy, and the bridging of differences. An extensive bibliography lists dozens of novels and short stories on the "vampire as alien" theme, many of which are still in print.




The Vampire Book


Book Description

The Ultimate Collection of Vampire Facts and Fiction From Vlad the Impaler to Barnabas Collins to Edward Cullen to Dracula and Bill Compton, renowned religion expert and fearless vampire authority J. Gordon Melton, PhD takes the reader on a vast, alphabetic tour of the psychosexual, macabre world of the blood-sucking undead. Digging deep into the lore, myths, pop culture, and reported realities of vampires and vampire legends from across the globe, The Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia of the Undead exposes everything about the blood thirsty predator. Death and immortality, sexual prowess and surrender, intimacy and alienation, rebellion and temptation. The allure of the vampire is eternal, and The Vampire Book explores it all. The historical, literary, mythological, biographical, and popular aspects of one of the world's most mesmerizing paranormal subject. This vast reference is an alphabetical tour of the psychosexual, macabre world of the soul-sucking undead. In the first fully revised and updated edition in a decade, Dr. J. Gordon Melton (president of the American chapter of the Transylvania Society of Dracula) bites even deeper into vampire lore, myths, reported realities, and legends that come from all around the world. From Transylvania to plague-infested Europe to Nostradamus and from modern literature to movies and TV series, this exhaustive guide furnishes more than 500 essays to quench your thirst for facts, biographies, definitions, and more.




The Vampire Almanac


Book Description

Grab a stake, a fistful of garlic, a crucifix and holy water as you enter the dark, blood-curdling world of the original pain in the neck in this ultimate collection of vampire facts, fangs, and fiction! What accounts for the undying fascination people have for vampires? How did encounters with death create centuries-old myths and folklore in virtually every culture in the world? When did the early literary vampires—as pictured by Goethe, Coleridge, Shelly, Polidori, Byron, and Nodier as the personifications of man’s darker side—transform from villains into today’s cultural rebels? Showing how vampire-like creatures organically formed in virtually every part of the world, The Vampire Almanac: The Complete History by renowned religion expert and fearless vampire authority J. Gordon Melton, Ph.D., examines the historic, societal, and psychological role the vampire has played—and continues to play—in understanding death, man’s deepest desires, and human pathologies. It analyzes humanity’s lusts, fears, and longing for power and the forbidden! Today, the vampire serves as a powerful symbol for the darker parts of the human condition, touching on death, immortality, forbidden sexuality, sexual power and surrender, intimacy, alienation, rebellion, violence, and a fascination with the mysterious. The vampire is often portrayed as a symbolic leader advocating an outrageous alternative to the demands of conformity. Vampires can also be tools for scapegoating such as when women are called “vamps” and bosses are described as “bloodsuckers.” Meet all of the villains, anti-heroes, and heroes of myths, legends, books, films, and television series across cultures and today’s pop culture in The Vampire Almanac. It assembles and analyzes hundreds of vampiric characters, people, and creatures, including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Vlad the Impaler, Edward Cullen and The Twilight Saga, Bram Stoker, Lestat De Lioncourt and The Vampire Chronicles, Lon Chaney, True Blood, Bela Lugosi, Dracula, Dark Shadows, Lilith, Vampire Weekend, Batman, Nosferatu, and so many more. There is a lot to sink your teeth into with this deep exhumation of the undead. Quench your thirst for facts, histories, biographies, definitions, analysis, immortality, and more! This gruesomely thorough book of vampire facts also has a helpful bibliography, an extensive index, and numerous photos, adding to its usefulness.




Vampires in Literature


Book Description

Traces the popularity of vampires in literature and examines different ways vampires have been presented in literature.




Paul Blaisdell, Monster Maker


Book Description

Paul Blaisdell was the man behind the monsters in such movies as The She Creature, Invasion of the Saucer Men, Not of This Earth, It! Terror from Beyond Space and many others. Working in primarily low-budget films, Blaisdell was forced to rely on greasepaint, guts and, most importantly, an unbounded imagination for his creations. From his inauspicious beginning through The Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow (1959), the construction of Blaisdell's monsters and the making of the movies in which they appeared are fully detailed here. Blaisdell's work in the early monster magazines of the 1960s is also covered.




Turned (Book #1 in the Vampire Journals)


Book Description

"A book to rival TWILIGHT and VAMPIRE DIARIES, and one that will have you wanting to keep reading until the very last page! If you are into adventure, love and vampires this book is the one for you!" --Vampirebooksite.com (Turned) The #1 Bestselling series! THE VAMPIRE JOURNALS, comprising 11 books, tells the story of 18 year old Caitlin Paine, who finds herself uprooted from her nice suburb and forced to attend a dangerous New York City high school when her Mom moves again. Before her new romance can blossom, Caitlin suddenly finds herself changing, into something she does not understand. A love between the races will risk both of their lives, and will force them to decide whether to risk it all for each other...