Obsession with the Vampire

The smartest thing I ever saw a television channel do was last year when TNT starting airing old episodes of "Angel," that "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" spinoff.

This was last fall, I believe, when "Twilight" mania was in full swing, with the impending release of the movie and the end-of-summer publication of the last novel in the series.

The stupidest thing I ever saw a television channel do was about four months before that, when CBS announced that it would be canceling "Moonlight," its vampire / romance / drama that had tepid ratings but a cult-like following.

Something happened in that window. Actually, something’s been happening all over this country in the last year or so. We’ve become all-out obsessed with vampires.

To be sure, there was interest in vampires before last year. Just ask any teen or tween girl in the country. But consider this. This time last year – the week before "Breaking Dawn," Stephanie Meyer's final book in the Twilight series, came out – the books had sold 8 million copies worldwide.

Less than a year later, that number is 53 million copies worldwide – and counting.

That’s a heck of a jump – and I have a theory on why. It’s been widely reported that teen girls have been passing the books around for years and even sharing them with their mothers. But the last people to jump on the "Twilight" bandwagon were 20-and-30-something women.

I’m talking about those of us who had no excuse to be picking up Young Adult fiction. We don’t have double-digit-aged kids, we don’t normally browse the YA section at the bookstore, and we certainly don’t need to be spending the best years of our life fantasizing about a romance with the undead.

Or so we thought.

In my opinion Twilight Mania turned into a nationwide Vampire Obsession when we Gen-X and Gen-Y women wrenched the books out of our younger sisters’ hands, devoured the teen drama, and then went searching for more.

At least that’s how it happened for me.

I blew through the "Twilight" books over the course of a long weekend, periodically surfacing for air when my boyfriend asked me some inane question like; do you want something to eat? Or are you ever going to get some sleep?

Then I went through what I like to call the Twilight Hangover. That’s those first days or weeks, after you finish all of the books, when you sort of walk dreamlike through your life, wondering why you have to do ridiculous things like report to work and shop for groceries.

The Twilight Hangover is really a withdrawal of sorts. The books become an addiction and the best way to treat it, in my opinion, is to find another fix.

And that’s when I found something better than "Twilight." That’s right, I said better. I’m talking about Sookie Stackhouse.

The Sookie Stackhouse books, also called "The Southern Vampire Series," by Charlaine Harris, are exactly like "Twilight" in the sense that they’re about vampire romance, but better because no mother in her right mind would let her tween daughter pick up a copy.

The Sookie books are for us, they’re for Gen-X and Gen-Y women. They’re what I like to call, Vampire Porn. And, best of all, they’re still in production. The 10th book will come out in May 2010.

And then there’s "True Blood," which I count as separate from the Sookie books because Alan Ball has made the show his own. That counts as double points for those of us with a Vampire Obsession.

HBO’s "True Blood" is a delicious hybrid of the books, general vampire fantasies and great drama. In fact, I’m beginning to think it’s even better than the books.

But here’s my question. Where do we go next? What’s a Gen-X girl with a full-blown Vampire Obsession to do once she’s checked "Twilight," Sookie and "True Blood" off her list?

I find myself in an uncomfortable position. I’m not ready to give up my Vampire Obsession and I can’t wait till spring for the next Sookie book. So what do I read in the interim?

These days I find myself roaming through a section of the bookstore that I never dared enter before. That section with short paperbacks that cost $5 and feature pictures of muscled men with too long hair … that’s right, I’m talking about the romance section.

And it mortifies me. Still, I push on.

The recommendations are all over the place. Katie Macalister’s Dark Ones books; Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Dark-Hunter series; The Dark Series by Christine Feehan; Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter; The Black Dagger Brotherhood by J. R. Ward; and of course Anne Rice.

Those are the unofficial recommendations. The official recommendations, from publishers and booksellers, focus on the teen and tween audience. The problem is, once you’ve read a vampire book with some teeth (forgive the pun, I mean sex) there’s no going back.

So what do you think, Richmond? Where does the Vampire Obsession take us next? What’s on your vampire reading list?