h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The series of books by Darren Shan have an interesting take on Vampirism. The vampires are just like humans except they run faster, are stronger and have heightened senses. Also they don't have pointed teeth and they aren't scared of crosses or garlic. They do die if you stake them but also if you shoot them. They aren't evil and they don't kill the humans thy feed off. It's really good!

Ciao
Cap'n A

There's another series by Brian Lumley called Necroscope, where the vampires are actually called Wamphyri, and are in fact parasites which enhance the host, but bring with it the traditional weaknesses of vampires - except for being scared of crosses. They are immortal but can only reproduce once, by implanting another organism with a spore. In order to keep living, them must occasionally drink the blood of another vampire. I've only read the first one, but it seems that later on in the series, it turns out Wamphyri are actually from another dimension. The one I read was absolutely brilliant.

That sounds quite good! I've read all ten Darren Shan books and they're all really good. But those vampires can't have any children at all once they're blooded (which is unfortunate really). I may look for that Necroscope book. I have a lot of reading to catch up with. THere are so many good books and so little time!

Ciao
Cap'n A

What does blooded mean?

It took me a long time to track down the first Necroscpe book (just called Necroscope), but the others were readily available. Now only the last two are, but I can probably get my local bookstore to order them. Must check out the Darren shan books.

Blooded means when they're turned into a vampire. That happens in quite an odd way too. I like the way that they don't stay that close to the popular vampire stories (it makes reading them less predictable, and it's good to read the religion of the vampires). And the Darren Shan books are quite readily available (I got all mine from W H Smith and Waterstones). So what is the basic plot of the Necroscope books?

Ciao
Cap'n A

PS: the Darren Shan books are quite short so that might discourage you to read them.

Well, as near as I can figure from only reading the first one and a few bts and peices about the others:

Occasionally, people are born with the ability to comunicate with the dead. These may be necroscopes, who speak to the dead, or necromancers, who dismember corpses and extract secrets from their entrails. Boris Dragosani Romanian is a necromancer working for the KGB, but has secret ambitions to become a wamphyr. However, he changes his mind when he discovers exactly what that entails, and he and his friend kill the vampire. Dragosani then embarks on a revenge campaign against the KGB.

Meanwhile, MI6 employes the services of a young boy, Harry Keogh, who is a necroscpe, and at times has the power to cause the dead to rise. He does this to get revenge on the man who killed his mother, and who also had links to Dragosani. after this, he travels to Russia to take on Dragosani, and to get there, he mkaes use on the 'Mobius Continuum,' a metaphysical universe where one can see all lifelines, which are blue for humans and red for vampires. Keogh defeats Dragosani, but is also killed in the process. He then realigns Dragosani's lifeline so that it loops around infinitely to just before he gets killed, and stes his own so that he (Keogh) is reincarnated as his own son.


I'm not quite sure what happens after this, but the wamphyri seem to start to make a comeback, and Harry Keogh II must fight them with the help of 'E-branch,' a group of psychics employed by MI6 for exactly this sort of occurence. They must also prevent the true vampires from emerging from their home dimension of Starside. At some point, they succeed, and Keogh loses his gift, then discovers that he brought a plague back from vampire world with the potential to wipe out humanity. He later becomes a vampire himself, and presumably is himself destroyed by E-branch. His son, Jake (grandson of the biologically original Harry Keogh), is also a necroscope, but must discover this for himself. Meanwhile, the most feared vampires in all the universes are planning an invasion of Earth.

Woah! That's a lot of information! I suppose I'll just have to read the book myself to understand properly. What other books have you enjoyed then? I just finished The Curious Incident of The Dog In The Night-Time by someone-whose-name-I-have-forgotten and just started Sourcery by Terry Pratchett.

Cap'n A

Not much, I'm reading more non-fiction ATM, but I also recently read Jennifer Governemnt by Max Barry, That is simpe excellent, but ends fairly abruptly.

I hardly ever read non-fiction. In fact my range hardly ever ventures outside childrens/teenage/kiddult books because of my age and attention span.

Cap'n A