VAMPIRE BOOKS ARE STUPID

I signed up at this thing called Reader Views. They send you a few pages of a book each day for a week, so you can try books you wouldn't see otherwise.

Last week they sent me a book titled "Avengers." The first two days of it were intriguing: a cruise ship rescues two half-starved, dehydrated people found standed on an undamaged boat. There is something mysterious about the couple.

Then, on the third day, I realize the full title is "Necroscope: Avengers." The couple turn out to be vampires. The quality of the writing dives from golden to garbage. Gross violence is an understatement. What I learn is that vampires can do anything except sunbathe. They are infinitely strong, infinitely smart, infinitely skilled, infinitely disguise-able, and infinitely invincible (which makes them infinitely un-believable). Therefore, it is a foregone conclusion that when vampire vs. man, vampire wins. What else is there to say in such a book? What kind of person salivates over the endless gory details to follow? I've read a few of these books before. They are very pro-vampire. It's as though the authors aspire to be one!

Vampire novels have about as much redeeming social value as kiddie porn. And yet there are fans of this genre. I know some that fritter their nights away on role-playing games about this stuff. Full-grown adults, no less.

Hey vampire wannabes: that flashing thing in the mirror is your idiot light.