My 13-y-o son expressed interest in reading the Anne Rice novel I brought home from the library yesterday because, as he put it, he’d like a vampire novel and he’s sick to death of hearing about Twilight.
I told him Anne Rice was too adult for him. (If he wants to learn about incest and vampires and demons, he can do it the old-fashioned way, by reading the Bible. )
Can anyone recommend some vampires who are neither X-rated nor teeny-bopper bait?
Barbara Hambly’s “Those Who Hunt The Night” is a Sherlockian kind of tale, with a mild love story but no sexy stuff, and definitely lots of cool vampires.
Don’t know that I’d consider Anne Rice x-rated for her vampire books. I don’t remember much graphic sex in them. Obviously her Beauty series is out…it’s bondage porn published under another name.
But you may want to look at The Vampire Files by P. N. Elrod. These are relatively short books, with a vampire detective.
Tell him he’s too young to read about vampires. Vampires who aren’t completely and totally amoral are not actually vampires and have no literary merit.
I’m so glad to hear that at least one teenager is sick of Twilight.
Fevre Dream by George R. R. Martin. Vampires on a Mississippi riverboat in the late 1800’s. I’ve read it twice and I don’t remember any sex, or gory violence.
Salem’s Lot by Stephen King is pretty good. There are some intense scenes, but no explicit sex.
Kim Newman’s written some novels and short stories set in a world where humans and vampires co-exist. I’ve read the shorts but not the novels, and they’d be okay for a teenager.
I like Elrod’s Vampire Files too, but there are some pretty violent scenes in it, including some graphic torture. And AuntiePam, I remember some pretty graphic stuff in Fevre Dream, too.
Rachel Caine has a YA vampire series called The Morganville Vampires. I’ve only read the first one, but it wasn’t bad.
He might like Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files series, which has vampires in it as secondary characters.
Digital Knight (free to read online) is good. There are good and bad vampires, truly evil werewolves and others. No sex and the truly terrible violence is off screen, but a good action based story set in the near future.
Does anyone remember whether Robin McKinley’s Sunshine has R-rated material in it? I’m pretty sure it’s got at least PG-13 level stuff, but it’s been a while since I read it.
That said, it’s enough from a chick point of view that your son might be put off; depends on the kid, probably. The protagonist is a young woman, 19-ish IIRC.
Well, here’s McKinley’s take on it, straight from her Amazon blog on the book: