Dracula

1893

Bram Stoker's Dracula originated the vampire genre and continues to inspire horror writers, pre-teen book series adored by housewives and legions of goth freaks. And while monsters and scary stories have existed since the dawn of time, Stoker probably defined the modern horror genre better than anyone.

It is easy to understate the importance of Van Helsing, though. Dracula is full of young, healthy men and women who are pretty easily seduced, intimidated and attacked by the Count. From Helsing's earliest notes and appearances you know right away that he is The Man. Not infallable, but his overall knowledge and wisdom makes him the only thing standing in Dracula's way. And his age is what makes him so uniquely cool; the idea of him as a young Indiana Jones type totally goes against everything that makes Van Helsing awesome. No disrespect to the Twilight fans lusting over some 18 year dude with his shirt off, but back in the day being smart counted for a whole lot more.

Has Dracula ever crossed over with other fictional characters? Oh yeah. Like Sherlock Holmes, he's appeared everywhere. Including with Sherlock Holmes. He has been in 100's of cartoons, is a regular in both DC and Marvel comics (including his own popular title in the seventies, Tomb of Dracula, which itself spun off the series Blade: Vampire Hunter), hundreds of adaptations, television appearances, and of course Mr. T!



I can't resist posting this one, too:



OK, back to Dracula. Suffice it to say that as one of the most popular fictional characters ever, Drac has his spot in any fictional universe.

As for reading the book- this is another one that I had tried to read as a kid and got pretty bored with. The letters and diary format combined with the turn of the century victorianism and generally slow pace lost me immediately as a child. Picking it up again a year and a half ago was a much different experience, even without the crossover universe context. Sure, there are parts that drag along and put me to sleep, but much of the story contains imagery that is as intense and frightening as when it was written. Compared to most dumb brute monsters, vampires are sexy, invasive and... dirty. It all started here, albeit with the help of centuries of folklore and myth, building up to the southeastern european legends that inspired Stoker.

The version I read was an annotated version- a very serious take on researching every little reference in the book. This version came out around the same time as the above-average movie version of the nineties. I was excited to have so much information at my fingertips, but as the book dragged on it became apparent that most of the info in the indentation was redundant and filler. Perhaps other annotated/expanded versions are more exciting, but mine made the book much slower and harder to read, to the point that I began ignoring the annotations.

Just for good measure, here are some other semi-random Dracula pictures to make your day a little better. Because Dracula is awesome.

Pass The Co-Dependancy Please

Sunday supper at my folk's house featured homemade dinner rolls, olives stuffed with cream cheese and pecans and a big turkey with all the usual Americana trimmings. It also included the expectedly untimely flaring of unflattering behaviors.

There's the emotional blackmail being served up in full auto-pilot mode. The ever so popular passive/aggressive attitudes that are a specialty of my family whenever we get together for ritual heavy events and holidays....and everytime.

And don't forget the overbearing know-it-all bully routine (I have a secret recipe that I'm known for).

There's a warm regard that families have for their own dysfunctions. I especially enjoy the nostalgic familiarity of bickering mercilessly with people who have long since forgiven me for being me. But my dad prefers the steely silence of the cold shoulders. While my sister usually opts for the whine.

There's really something for everyone.

I think that there may actually be a certain sweetness to the dysfunction of the traditional holiday meal codependancy. What keeps it palatable enough, so that we keep showing up year after year, is the love that underlines each dirty look, pointed remark or inconsiderate gesture.

When one of my siblings stabs another in the back; it is done so with love.

Because who really cares enough about you to actually be insulted by a caustic sneer? Only your family recognizes that sneer. And who can you count on to fly off the handle when you use sarcasm at an inopportune moment? Seriously, your family are the only one's paying attention.

To truly love someone is to hold that person accountable. We all deserve to be the best version of ourselves; and our loved ones should remind us when we are being less than our best.

Today, for instance, I reminded my mom that she's much more likeable when she's not being bossy. And she in turn, reminded me, that I'm at my very best when I keep my trap shut. This is what love sounds like.

I cherish family get-togethers; because I appreciate the easy going flow of a social dynamic that takes a generation to form. I love my family and I'm satisfied with how our dysfunctions has evolved.

Remember, hate is not the opposite of love. Indifference is. And hate is not the person sitting opposite from you at the dinner table. . .that's your sister.

To Your Scattered Bodies Go

So you are Sir Richard Francis Burton. The date is October 20, 1890, and you are dying. You slip from consciousness into the cold grip of certain absolute death. And you die. Then you wake up into an alien levitating orb scene of a dark eternity of floating tubes full of humans. And suddenly, you- the reader- realize Neo's waking scene in the Matrix was written in the sixties by Phillip Jose Farmer.

To Your Scattered Bodies Go is the Hugo award winning first novel in the Riverworld series, and is fascinating to me on multiple levels.

1) This book was first recommended to me in seventh grade by my homeroom teacher, Hal H. He also gave me a cassette tape that had Remain in Light and Fear of Music on it. The man had very good taste. But honestly, I picked up the book at the Eugene library and just couldn't see myself getting into it. Too adult for 13-year old me? Yeah, that sums it up. But I never forgot about it.

2: Cool name. Certainly the rest of Riverworld is a let-down in comparison- just in the titles.

3. Historical fiction. Not something I had ever thought I'd be interested until a few years ago. But not just historical fiction- historical science fiction. Still not a niche I had thought I'd be into, but now am slightly obssesed about.

4> Crossover fiction. I have mentioned Farmer's Wold Newton family before and while Riverworld is not strictly part of that specific fictional universe, the format betrays PJ's fondness for fiction and crossovers.

5+ An elaboration on number 4. PJ Farmer does in this series something that is a favorite conceit of authors- perhaps all writers. Inserting themselves as a character, usually the main character. Most protagonists in most stories are thinly veiled alter egos of the author. But Farmer uses the plot (number 6) as a device to have authors in a crossover universe in which they may interact with each other regardless of era or historical actuality. In addition to some of these larger than life authors there are also real-life historical people who have inspired much great myth and fantasy. A great example is the romantic foil Alice Liddell, the inspiration for Alice in Wonderland.


6- So what happens next to old Dick Burton, the famous explorer who traveled the Nile, snuck into Mecca disguised and translated the karma sutra? He woke up by the side of a river, naked and in the body of himself as a perfect young man in his twenties. He is surrounded by many others in the exact same state. Not just a lot of people- everyone who ever lived on earth ever. The rest of the series is an often roundabout series of adventures as the more inquisitive and adventuresome products of the human race battle for power but more importantly to uncover the secrets of the alien world they discover themselves on for... eternity?

Well, this stumped my timeline. The actual era is not revealed until the very end of the series, and still remains obscure. I think that even if I hadn't been shying away from spoilers I still would've been unable to find anything online that reveals that particular fact. Even to assume "as far as possible in the future" doesn't really narrow it down for me: My timeline extends to 6,400,000 AD. So is it before or after that? After? Really?

I chose to kick it back from Burton's perspective. Although much of the series features Samual Clemens as the main character, the very start of the series is Burton's death- 1890. That's where I figured I would peg, partly just because I was anxious to read it. But it was also fun to come from all of that old Victorian fiction and have someone straight from that era experience people from the nineteen seventies and beyond.

Well, you made it this far through my long winded ramblings about this book, now you want a review? Obviously I wouldn't have so much to say about it if I didn't like it. The series overall has it's ups and downs, but I won't review each book in this forum. Suffice it to say that when read through, there is a general payoff as secrets are revealed and the layers of the mostly primitive Riverworld are slowly uncovered to reveal the alien tech capable of resurrecting the entire human race.

Farmer is the type of author who really gets off on having his characters spend a lot of time musing and pondering. Working through every possible angle to every problem they encounter. At times this mystery versus logic process is fun, but at other times it bogs down the pace unforgivably. Those who stick to it will eventually get to some cool sci-fi stuff with some cool stories on the way there.

I peeked at YouTube for some bits from the 2003 TV series and the 2010 mini-series coming out soon. Both versions seem super mediocre. Not even good as parody. Check it out if you want. Both are clearly influenced by the books instead of being a true adaptation. The new one has actors from other popular sci-fi shows, a gimmick which is either brilliant or a cheap ploy to capture the fanboy audience. Guess which this is...

In conclusion- I LOVE this series, and strongly recommend it to the three people who read this blog and are highly interested by my posts.

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

1886

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

This was one of the first books that inspired me to write more than a thumbnail sentence review in Facebook. I described Hyde as mysterious, hateful and scary, and he sure as hell is. I gave it a four out of five, and would have scored it higher had I not found the ending to be a rambling let-down. But I have to think that in the 1880's this story would have blown people's minds. Coming from his only other major hit, Treasure Island, Stevenson sure took a turn toward the dark side. The genre of horror fiction wasn't invented by Stevenson, or even in the nineteenth century- but, googling horror fiction lists Jekyll and Hyde as a primary example of literature intended to scare the shit out of it's readers.

Anything intended to produce such an emotional state from people must be tied directly into the human psyche, and horror has always had it's psychological aspect- a deep-seated understanding of the higher and lower functions of the brain disguised as slasher flicks. Jekyll and Hyde hits the mark in a way that has been often imitated- and the term 'Jekyll and Hyde' has become a part of English terminology. All of us have a Mr. Hyde inside of us. Oh, don't deny it. The sweetest, most innocent and cutest people I've ever known still had a hidden and usually secret part of their personality that wanted to bitch-slap and possibly murder perfectly undeserving people who happened to get in our way on a bad day. And it's okay to say it out loud- being Mr. Hyde feels good. Even if running into him in a dark alley would make you crap your pants. Freddie Krueger would be scary too, I guess, but can you sympathise with him? He's not a part of your personality, dude. The idea of Hyde killing you is only a little frightening compared to the idea that any one of us could lose control of the monster inside and go Columbine- that shit is real.

One great part of the book is that the identity of Hyde is a secret through most of the story. There is a bit of the Crying Game effect here: Grand success of the story and movie adaptations mean that everyone knows the "ending", part of why reading Jekyll's journals for the last few chapters is a let-down. It is a challenge sometimes to keep reading these old books when I know how they all end.

Whereas Alan Moore took Allan Quatermain back to his origins, he did quite the opposite with Hyde. He brought him back to life, first of all. Well, that happens a lot in comics. But Moore really pointed out the Hulk's origins by bulking up Hyde from a monstrous man into... a monster.

Here is a picture of Richard Mansfield, the actor who played Jekyll and Hyde in the stage adaptation. Hyde was originally described as smaller than Jekyll, and I think Rich nails it:


Now here is Alan Moore's rendition:


Well, you get the drift. As I stated, I think Moore was aiming for some effects beyond loyalty to the original writing, and, ah heck, I just can't stay mad at Alan. He does some incredibly cool (and monstrous) things with Hyde in the league.

It's not like me to recommend half a book, but that's what I'm doing here. Any fan of horror should be ashamed to admit they haven't at least read the first half of this book.

INVASION PIXELS by Patrick Jean

A short film by Patrick Jean (3 min) that juxtaposes our pixelated childhood distractions onto the modern world.