The Last Vampire series written by Christopher Pike is about Sita a 5000 year old vampire who learns that she is not really the last vampire. Cliché I know. Still I found it to be an interesting series. Sita finds out in the first book that she really is not the last vampire. Still the series goes on and it is a reflection of how the actions her past affect her present situations.

Sita is not like the vampires of legend- she can go out in the sun and needs to eat food. These books love to stray from the legend, but I guess it would be boring reading about vampires that were all the same. On top of that there is an explanation of how vampires came to be. So far I haven’t come across that.

I’ve read a few Christopher Pike books and they all have a fair amount of religion and mysticism. Still, from what I’ve read so far, when it comes to vampires, religion is a question because they could be evil, good, tormented, demons, and question if they have a soul or not. Usually this is done in relation to Christianity but for the Last Vampire references were made to Hinduism and Christianity. A different take on the whether the vampire is good or evil.

Overall a decent read, but after awhile it gets a bit off topic. Yeah at one point the military is involved.

Now on to Sookie.

The Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris are my favorite. Sookie lives in the small town of Bon Temps located the south during a period when vampires have “outed” themselves. They were able to do this because the Japanese invented TruBlood, a synthetic blood drink, and vampires no longer have to… ummm… feed off humans. Oh and Sookie is telepathic, which is why she is so taken with Bill the vampire and other supernatural entities because it is not so easy to read their minds. Who wants to be with someone when you know what they are thinking good or bad all the time?

This series is part murder mystery, thriller, and fantasy. It has a lot of characters and stuff going. Also Sookie’s social life is a bit screwed. The vampires follow the legend in that they sleep during the day, can get staked, hate garlic, and have the super strength agility etc. They even question if they have a soul. Some are evil vampires, some are good, and some are just far removed from humans and everything is just business.

What I like about this series is what I liked about the Anita Blake series, in that there whole supernatural world is involved. That makes sense because it would be silly to think that only the stories of vampires are true and not the ones about witches, werewolves, and fairies.

True Blood is the TV series based on the Sookie Stackhouse novels. It’s a pretty good series. The first season was basically the first book (Dead Until Dark) with some changes of course- a lot more sex, because possibly it comes on HBO. It looks like the second season is going to follow the second book.

Overall I love the series. I love the characters and how the stories are all intertwined.

Next: an Anne Rice novel… if the library gets my hold in so I can check it out. 

Jocelyn Saddler 

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