skygiants | (no subject)

silveraspen's magical Nineties Fantasy Book Package to me of a few months ago included The Fire Rose, Stranger at the Wedding, and Traveling With the Dead, Barbara Hambly's Book About Vampires, the last of which I have now finally read!

. . . either Aspen forgot to tell me or I forgot that she had told me that Traveling With the Dead is in fact a sequel to Barbara Hambly's FIRST Book About Vampires, so I got very confused in the first two chapters when Our Hero kept going on about that exciting time he had hanging out with vampires last year. Oops!

Anyway, Traveling With the Dead is Barbara Hambly's very earnest attempt to write a vampire book that subverts a lot of the vampire myth tropes. And I respect her for it! The basic plot goes like this:

A PLOT:

DR. JAMES ASHER: I am a mild-mannered philologist and ex-spy. And it seems foreign nations seem to be recruiting vampires into the secret service? Right on the brink of World War 1?! I must warn the higher-ups!
HIGHER-UPS: . . . riiiiiiiiiight. Yes. We will . . . get right on that . . . *cough*
DR. JAMES ASHER: . . . don't know how I didn't see that one coming. Well, I guess I have no choice but to stalk this vampire and his Austrian handler across the world, having various secret service-style across the way.
MRS. VAMPIRE: The fact that my vampire husband has suddenly taken off to work for foreign powers concerns me, would you like to team up? I promise to try not to kill too many people while we're hanging out.
DR. JAMES ASHER: . . . I mean, I guess you're a nice lady, for a vampire . . . okay, time for an awkward road trip through Europe, I guess!

B PLOT:

SENSIBLE LADY DOCTOR LYDIA ASHER: I feel like my mild-mannered philologist/ex-spy husband is probably in trouble! Sinister vampire who has some kind of backstory with us that Becca does not know about because it all happened in the first book, how about you help me find him?
DON SIMON 'SEXY VAMPIRE' YSIDRO: I will travel with you . . . but only if you bring along a chaperone!
SENSIBLE LADY DOCTOR LYDIA ASHER: . . . um, what?
DON SIMON 'SEXY VAMPIRE' YSIDRO: I refuse to travel with a lady who is not properly chaperoned, it is offensive to my delicate vampire sensibilities.
SENSIBLE LADY DOCTOR LYDIA ASHER: I am not bringing my lady's maid along on vampire hijinks! You will probably just eat her anyway! Also, please stop living in the fifteenth century, this is the Edwardian era now and we are all very up to date here!
DON SIMON 'SEXY VAMPIRE' YSIDRO: Fine, fine.

*TWO DAYS LATER*

MARGARET 'SAD IDIOT' POTTON: Hello! Don Simon 'Sexy Vampire' Ysidro is my TRUE LOVE and I have been reincarnated THROUGH THE CENTURIES to BE with him and right now he wants me to be your chaperone on our adventures. :D?
SENSIBLE LADY DOCTOR LYDIA ASHER: . . . . oh my god please don't tell me you brainwashed this poor woman into thinking she was in a tragic vampire romance just so I could have a proper chaperone. PLEASE tell me you did not do this.
DON SIMON 'SEXY VAMPIRE' YSIDRO: My easily scandalized vampire sensibilities will brook no refusal.
MARGARET 'SAD IDIOT' POTTON: TRUEEEEE LOOOOOOOOOOVE *_________*
SENSIBLE LADY DOCTOR LYDIA ASHER: Time for an extremely exasperated awkward road trip through Europe!

BECCA: Well, I really wish we would not harp so much on how poor Margaret is a sad delusional idiot, because it makes me contrarily defensive of her, but hey, good job deflating the 'sexy tragic vampire romance' myth, Barbara Hambly! Well played!
DON SIMON 'SEXY VAMPIRE' YSIDRO: And now, since we have a moment of down-time, I will write some sexy sad vampire sonnets about Lydia's hair.
BECCA: . . . oh man, Barbara Hambly, you were doing so well. ;_____;

I mean I still respect the effort! But I feel I must take a hard stance against sad vampire sonnets, NOW AND FOR ALWAYS.

All the same, I enjoyed it much more than I enjoy most vampire books, which tend to throw me out very fast; at least it is trying!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Taking a stand against sad vampire sonnets is always the correct thing to do.

INDEED. Find some other way to express your inner pain, angsty vampires! Go watch The Notebook and cry or something!

There are now two more books in this series! Which I have not read yet, because I should reread the first two, and also because I have had problems with Hambly's belated sequels to earlier books before. (Dragonsbane HAS NO SEQUELS. CERTAINLY NONE INVOLVING NONCONSENSUAL DEMONICALLY POSSESSED INCEST. NONE WHATSOEVER.)

OH GOD. I'm not gonna lie, I'm afraid to read Dragonsbane. Because I know that if I like it, I'm going to be tempted to read the sequels, and my curiosity will overcome my better judgment, and then: TRAGEDY.

For what it's worth, I found that Dragonsbane worked just fine as a standalone novel that tied up all the plot threads that needed to be tied up, and I haven't felt any interest in reading the sequels. And I'm usually a completist about serieses.

Also: You should totally read the first of the vampire books, if you ever get the chance. (It's called Those Who Hunt the Night or Immortal Blood, depending on which part of the world you're in.) It's better than this one.

I am totally going to, but I feel I need to know to be prepared before going in: ARE THERE ANY SONNETS?

Dragonsbane was intended as a stand-alone, and has a perfect ending. The horrifying sequels weren't written until something like 20 years later.

Read Dragonsbane! You will love it. The heroine is a middle-aged woman who isn't married but has kids and a long-standing relationship with the man with whom she killed a dragon 15 years before the story begins.

Man, I am going to blame ALL OF YOU if I end up loving Dragonsbane and then going on to be horrified by the sequels. You all know my weaknesses!

Run far, run fast!

I added this just for you: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/391617764

I am going to bookmark that review and visit it periodically as a perpetual aid to my willpower rolls.

I did not know there were more books in this series! I fear, but I may have to go find them.

(Becca, I did tell you! It's just that I a) still can't find my copy of the first book, so I b) could not send it to you.)

AUGH YES, regarding Dragonsbane. That book stands alone forever. I am ignoring ALL of its supposed sequels because those are JUST RUMORS. FOREVER. It took a lot of brain bleach to eradicate the majority of them, and I would like to keep it that way.

YOU CAN BE MY SEQUELS GUINEA PIG. :D

(Hee, fortunately it was pretty easy to parse out what happened in it anyway. I will see if I can hunt it out from the library sometime!)

(It's worth the read, I think; I found it pretty enjoyable, and it does a good bit of useful character development.)

AUGH SEQUELS. Keep in mind just how high my tolerance is for Works that Have Some Issues, and then compare that to my reaction to the [nonexistent NO REALLY] sequels to Dragonsbane...

(I am very curious to see how Mr. and Mrs. Married Vampire are portrayed in the first one! Because I couldn't tell how much we were supposed to know already about their happy vampire marriage, and how much we were supposed to be surprised by reveals of it.)

Nooooo don't tell me these things, then you really WILL make me fatally curious!

I have two words for you. TEAM HUMAN. You know you want to!

(There are no sonnets, but there is a ballad. And lots of mockery of the ballad, of course!)

I REALLY WANT TO. I was holding off so I could buy it at an indie bookshop, but indie bookshops keep not having it (or at least not having it in nice visible places) so it may be time to give in and just go for it!