The recent re-release of George Lucas' epic has prompted me to compare Dracula and Star Wars. Although Dracula is an erotic horror novel and Star Wars is a science fiction adventure, there are many parallels between the world's best-selling novel and the most popular movie of all time.

From Dracula to Lestat to Mona the Vampire, the thirst for vampire novels is unquenchable. They've been examined from every conceivable angle, done to death as it were, and yet literature about them proliferates at greater speed than vampires themselves could ever hope to. So what is it about books featuring the undead that holds us so much in thrall?

A lost child sits in the lonely box.
Oppressive, cold, and dark
-- It is home.

Every day the same.
Wake before dawn,
Jump into crystalline air.
-- Shower.

No one can see
Her porcelain dress
-- When the lid is down.

A quick brush,
The right blouse
-- Work.

And yet she dances
-- For herself

Be sure to put on a show
-- For others

-- Until the music stops

Minerva
February 20, 2002

February 1, 2002 (The Guardian) - A young married couple who admitted to a ritual Satanic killing were yesterday told they could spend the rest of their lives in a secure psychiatric unit after a trial which has raised the spectre of bizarre underground occult groups in Britain.

When it happens for the first time
its so real.
It becomes repetive and slow
the same.
Repeating will make you believe?
No.
I become wary. I become nervous.
I think
you are who
You say you are.

Answering lies with lies.
I lie too
Lying about
who you are...where you are...what you do...what you stand for
I do not appriciate lies
I do not appriciate repetition
I want real.
I want truth.
I know what I want.
And its not you.
Anymore.

Vivien