July 12, 2007 (The Book Standard / Kimberly Maul) -- Ballantine Books paid $3.75 million for the North American rights to a postapocalyptic vampire trilogy by Jordan Ainsley, New York Magazine reported. Ainsley is a pseudonym for Justin Cronin, who previously wrote 2004's The Summer Guest and Mary and O'Neil, which won the Pen/Hemingway Award in 2001.

The deal was made by Ellen Levine at Trident Media with Mark Tavani at Ballantine and was based on a 400-page partial manuscript.

According to New York, the book is set in 2016 and is about a U.S. government project, which involves an experiment turning death-row inmates into vampires, that has gone awry and a young girl who is discovering powers that seem to be related to the current events. CAA is now representing the book and hoping to sell film rights.

"Everyone is tentative, because everyone has a nominally competing project," a source in the film industry told New York. Film projects for other postapocalyptic books like World War Z, by Max Brooks, and vampire books including The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova, are currently in the works. "But it's good, it sold for big money, and it's about vampires. Vampires are perennials."

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Posted by Vladimir Fri, 07/13/2007 - 21:48

 

The First Vampire

While she may not actually be the first, Hungarian Countess Erzebet Bathory is credited in many chronologies of vampire-related crime as the first person on record to be murderously motivated by blood. What's notable about her is that most killers with vampiric appetites are male, while Erzebet was female. She was also one of the most bloodthirsty "vampire killers" in history.

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In the Blood

Any broad exploration of pre-Industrial European society cannot help but touch upon the plethora of peasant tales that both served to entertain the populace and teach morality to the children of Europe. On surface examination, at least, this function of folklore seems apparent enough. It is a perfectly valid assessment of the function of common fable--but in many respects, it is inadequate.

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Pain Rekindled

Every time I turn around, I see your shadow.
In the background of every conversation is the sound of your laugh.
Even when I close my eyes the memory of your smile remains.
When I move, the scent of you is rekindled.
The pain remains fresh as if you leave me again every second of every day.
My mind is consumed with thoughts of you; my body stuck in the repetition of habits we once shared.
Time no longer moves forward, for I am stuck in the moment  of your leaving, the moment I realized that I had lost the very breath that once animated this dry husk.

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Requiem for the Living

Beside me on the piano bench she sat,
And we, under the watchful gaze of Frederick,
Danced upon the keys.
A language unto itself, but I tried to think of
the words.
To add a touch of intellect to this soulful moment.
I wanted to say, "She walks in beauty like the night,"
But she was too familiar with that.
The Scratchman threw those words at her in folly
Like so many dead roses.

I thought Aeschylus would be better.
With his song of a slain king, or Euripides
In all his cynicism.

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Vampire fantasy teen in court on damage charge

October 14, 2008 (The Courier-Mail / Tony Keim) -- A teenager who tried to kill her pet dog so she could drink its blood and become a vampire has been accused of trashing her mum's Ipswich home. Kayler Rose-Maree Scott, 18, appeared before Ipswich Magistrate's Court on Monday morning charged with wilful damage. Scott was arrested over the weekend for allegedly smashing 15 windows of her mother's home.

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