Of Dracula and Things

So the top baby names of 2008 has already been compiled and guess what name tops off the girls list….Isabella.  Now I wonder why that name became so popular all of a sudden.  However, Edward made a weak showing by not even placing in the top 50.  Although, Jacob did reach #3.  There must have been a lot of Twilighters giving birth this year.

Samhain Publishing is looking for their top novels of 2008.  They are taking a survey, so if you have a favorite Samhain novel, head on over and cast a vote.

Speaking of voting, the Book Bloggers Top 10 of 2008 will be wrapping up at midnight tomorrow, so if you haven’t voted, then go over and do so.  There have only been 191 votes out of 1215, so we have been sadly underrepresented.

There’s an article over at the BBC News talking about a book, The Lure of the Vampire: Gender, Fiction and Fandom from Bram Stoker to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, by Milly Williamson.  I have to say, this article is really fascinating to me and I’m intrigued enough to check out the book.  Here’s a couple of quotes from Ms. Williamson:

There has been a “general shift”, she says, from the vampire as exotic foreigner – as depicted in Romantic poetry in the 19th Century and most famously in Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula – to the vampire as edgy “outsider”.

“From the 1970s, the vampire has achieved a cool, bad boy, exotic and sexy image”, she says. “And he has become a sympathetic creature, someone we feel for.”

The vampire is a rich and very flexible symbol of so many different things”, she says. “He can be a threat to us and our everyday lives – or he can be an enticement away from our everyday lives.

There’s another article over at Estdebait talking about Nosferatu: the Film That Wouldn’t Die, a History of the Vampire Film From Its Birth to the Present Day.  It actually includes a bit of history, some I’m not even familiar with, so it’s actually a really good read.

I wouldn’t say it’s in relation to the Saintcrow article of the other day, but along the same thoughts of it, here’s an io9 article titled “Science Fiction Authors That Lit Geeks Think It’s Cool To Read” that’s kind of self-explanatory. The only person on their list that I’ve even heard of is Neal Stephenson, and honestly, I had a hard time getting into Snow Crash.

CONTEST ALERT – Bitten by Books has the Men of the Otherworld of Yasmine Galenorn’s Sisters of the Otherword series as her guest today.  Three lucky commentators will win a copy of Night Huntress, which is due out this January.

Is anyone else on Twitter?  I just signed Literary Escapism for a Twitter account and I’m trying to understand it’s appeal.  It seems a lot like Facebook, yet all you do is update your status.  However, it doesn’t appear that I’m the only one having this issue.  TwiTip has an interesting article, The Misunderstood Uses of Twitter and Facebook: Are You a Friend, Follower or a Fool?, which addresses this problem.  From what I’ve read of the article, I’m definitely a friend more than a follower.  What about everyone else.  What’s your opinion on Twitter and do you love it, hate it or couldn’t care less?

It’s the holiday season and you have less than one week left to get those gifts (or today only if you’re celebrated the holidays with family the weekend before christmas like I am) and Marta Acosta has some great gift ideas for what to get that vampire fan.

I know I’ve been a little lax on the reviews lately, but I got a little busy with a new business venture.  I just became qualified as a Pampered Chef consultant, so the busy part is pretty much over.  I have a lot of great books to review – The Quincy Morris series by Justin Gustainis, the Hex series by Linda Wisdom (all three novels), the Green Stone of Healing by CL Talmadge, and What a Scoundrel Wants by Carrie Lofty – plus many others.  So they are coming, it’s just taking me a bit to get through them.