The Pages of 2016

This is a little late this year, but I'm not likely to finish anything that will make the list before I post this, so this is what I liked the most of what I read throughout 2016.

Readingwise 2016 was a productive year. I managed 112 books, which is up on last year's total, also over the 100 mark. That's an average of more than 2 a week, so pretty good going. I did game the system a little, because I read a few fairly short books in there, although not as many novellas as in 2015.

I'm fairly picky about this list, so even though I read 112 books, only 7 make it here. Bear in mind that I don't include rereads here, and I did a lot of rereading in 2016, so that averages it out a bit.

Without further ado and explanation here are Elfy's favourite reads of 2016:

Radiance by Catherynne M. Valente - Radiance was an absolutely extraordinary work of fiction. It almost defies categorisation. It effortlessly switches between genres and at times the story line doesn't even matter, but that is Valente. She creates these amazing worlds with words and you don't read her books so much as you experience them. I can't explain Radiance, but I can recommend it and was left once again marvelling at the skill Catherynne M. Valente possesses. This may not ever happen, but the woman needs to go down as one the genre's greatest ever wordsmiths and we're lucky to have her. Radiance is so far the best thing she's written, and the book stays with the reader long after they've read the last page and closed it's cover.

The Secrets of Drearcliff Grange School by Kim Newman - it was actually a near run thing as to whether I was going to put both this and Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire on the list. I guess I could have included both, but they're similar and Drearcliff Grange just wins out. The only other Kim Newman I've read is Anno Dracula (which I also loved), but I never could get my head around the sequels to that. This is a standalone, or possibly the opener to a new series. Newman's covers are always arresting, and I just couldn't walk past this one without picking it up and having a look. So glad I did. It's a sort of entry into the ever growing list of superhero books, but kind of that meets Tom Brown's Schooldays with a bit of Tompkinson's Schooldays from Ripping Yarns thrown in. The twist to that being that it's an all girls school placed in a gothic mansion on a forbidding moor, it's actually more like an inescapable prison than a school. Fun, creepy and leaves the reader wanting more. Although it ties everything up neatly at the end, there is an indication that the author can take the concept and the characters forward a lot if he wants to in the future. I'd be up for a sequel.

Gemini Cell by Myke Cole - I have read and enjoyed Myke Cole's Shadow Ops series, but none of the books have ever made this list, until now. I know most readers thoroughly enjoyed Breach Zone (the end of the Shadow Ops trilogy), and find it to be Cole's best book, I did like it, but I preferred the opener to that trilogy and felt that the 2nd and 3rd books didn't quite live up to the promise shown in the first one. For that reason I took a fair while to pick up Gemini Cell. So glad I did, though. It's set in the same world, but before the events in the trilogy, so kind of a prequel. It's a great man hunt story with plenty of military action and magic thrown in to keep the story moving along. I ripped through this, as I literally could not stop reading. The sequel Javelin Rain is every bit as good, too. If you're looking for a whike knuckled thrill ride of a novel, get Gemini Cell.

Zeroes by Chuck Wendig - I'm a big fan of Chuck Wendig's Miriam Black novels (when is the next of those coming out?), and I've liked his Aftermath Star Wars books. Despite this I was a little wary of dipping my toe into something else of his (I didn't like The Blue Blazes). This was a little science fictional with a fair bit of techno thriller thrown in. A group of cyber criminals are forced to work for the government and if they can't figure things out they're all dead. Wendig's usually sharp, choppy style suits his snarky, take no prisoners characters in this and he fits really well into a modern world. I'll be getting the sequel; Invasion.

The Rook by Daniel O'Malley - it took me a long time to take a chance on The Rook, and I think I only bought it because I saw it cheap. I did want to like it from the start, because it was by an Aussie, but every time I picked it up something about the blurb said no. O'Malley needs a new blurb writer, because while it's technically correct it gives the reader no real indication of what the book actually is. I adored Myfanwy and the way she handled her new life and her way of being inserted into it with no memory of anything before waking up in a park full of dead people. It's rather like Memento meets Monty Python. There really shouldn't be this much humour in a book with the body count of The Rook, but there is. I found the sequel; Stiletto, to be quite disappointing, so I am hoping The Rook isn't a case of lightning in a bottle.

A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers - I adored The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet last year and was hoping that Becky Chambers could follow it up with a fitting sequel. I should not have worried. A Closed and Common Orbit was amazing. Totally different in style and concept, although set in the same universe, but with an all new cast, she continued her world building and introduced readers to more of this world, peopled with characters that for some reason the reader just wants to hang out with. Once again she managed to tug on the tear ducts, and leave me wanting another book from her.

New Pompeii by Daniel Godfrey - for some reason I often get a late entry into this list and in 2016 it was New Pompeii. Maybe it was because I had recently finished watching Westworld, that this hit me so hard. In Westworld the frontier town and world is an artificial construct peopled by sophisticated robots, but it's an example of using advanced tech for entertainment and monetary gain. In New Pompeii, a large tech company has developed time travel and managed to exactly replicate Pompeii complete with actual Pompeiians that they have extracted from the town before Vesuvius destroyed it and them. The only thing that they didn't count on was how smart the Romans were and that their natural instinct to conquer and control would come to the fore. A fun, smart page turner. I look forward to more from Daniel Godfrey.

I hope 2017 can live up to the standard set by 2016.

That Time of Year

December 31, also known as New Years Eve. This is the time of year when I look back over what I read throughout the year and picky my favourites. For the first time in a few years I reached triple figures. I managed 101 books, which is a pretty fair effort.

Of that 101 I chose 11 favourites. Bear in mind though that I made a very conscious effort to reread this year, so some of those comprise the 101 and it's not really fair to include them in this list. The majority of them are recent releases, although there is one older work amongst them. As always this is in no particular order, I don't rank things like that. They're listed as I read them.

 The Lives of Tao by Wesley Chu

By the time I found out about this it had already been out for a while and I had trouble finding the trilogy opener down here. It's a hard one to classify. On the face of it, it's science fiction as the Tao of the title is a member of an alien species who have to use a human host when on Earth. There's a historical fiction component as many of Tao's hosts have been figures of historical importance (Genghis Khan and Vercingetorix to name two of them) and he's an awful name dropper. Tao basically turns his host, the hapless Roen from an overweight, ambitionless slob into an ass kicking covert operative in a fight for control of the world's future. It's a wild thrill ride with plenty of humour and thoroughly entertaining. The two sequels: The Deaths of Tao and The Rebirths of Tao continue the fun and the story.

Soda Pop Soldier by Nick Cole

I loved Ernest Cline's Ready Player One, and this is in a similar vein, although it has a harder edge, and while I never really felt that the Wade in Ready Player One was ever in genuine trouble I didn't get that with Soda Pop Soldier. The title refers to what the main character does for a living. He competes in an online war game for money and works for a soft drink company. He finds out that the combat he's engaged in is very real and for a lot more than he ever thought. The action is brilliantly done and the reader feels like they've been thrown right into the thick of it and they're getting into firefights along with the online gamers. Highly recommended, especially if someone liked Ready Player One.

Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton

This is the oldie. Up until this I had only read the Hugo Award winning Among Others by Jo Walton. Tooth and Claw, which won the World Fantasy Award in 2004, is completely different to that. It is an extraordinary book. After reading this no one can ever look at dragons in fantasy quite the same way again. Jo Walton's dragons love their gold, and they're large scaly beasts who breathe fire and have ferocious tempers, but everything else comes straight from the pages of Jane Austen. If Jane Austen were a dragon then she would have written Tooth and Claw. Other authors I've read have tried to mimic Austen's style and language, but no one has nailed it the way Jo Walton did in Tooth and Claw. Recommended for lovers of dragons, Jane Austen and anyone who appreciates good literature.

Rolling in the Deep by Mira Grant

I cheated a bit this year and included a few novellas in my list. Rolling in the Deep is one of them. Mira Grant for anyone who doesn't know, is the pen name of urban fantasy (October Daye, InCryptid) author Seanan McGuire. Whereas Seanan McGuire writes dark but often amusing urban fantasy, Mira Grant has made her name writing zombie fiction (Newsflesh, Parasitology). I really loved Newsflesh, especially the series opener; Feed, but was less taken by Parasitology, in fact I bailed after the second book and didn't bother with the third. After reading Rolling in the Deep, I am convinced that Mira should give up the zombies and branch out into other weirdness. Rolling in the Deep isn't about zombies, it's about mermaids. It's written about a team going in search of mermaids for the purposes of a mockumentary. Bit by bit they discover that mermaids are in fact real and that they should never have gone searching for them. It's done so well that while reading it I was convinced I'd seen it on TV. Someone should really pick this up and make it into a one off TV special. It would hardly require any adapting from how the novella is written.

The Mechanical by Ian Tregillis

Ian Tregillis first came on my radar with the utterly brilliant Milkweed triptych (Gretel *shudder*). I was eager to read The Mechanical, the first of The Alchemy Wars trilogy. He did not disappoint. Ian Tregillis' books tend to defy easy categorisation. Milkweed had elements of science fiction, fantasy and alternate history. The Mechanical has all those and he's thrown steampunk into the mix this time. It's set in an alternate early 20th century where through their ability to control robots, the Dutch have become the world's pre eminent superpower and are engaged in a war on North America with the French, who are attempting to resist them. The story of the book follows Jax, a 'mechanical' who finds out how to resist the geas that compels him to do whatever his masters order him and thus becomes an important pawn desperately wanted by both sides for the potential and the threat that he represents. I've also read the sequel; The Rising, and if the 3rd book delivers then Tregillis has created another classic. Possibly one of the most underrated authors in the genre at present.

Vicious by V. E. Schwab

An aptly named book. It's a short, nasty little fable. Brutal in both the way it is told and the language it uses. No one gets out of this one unscathed. I was often reminded of Chuck Wendig's Miriam Black books when reading it. The short punchy way Schwab tells her story is reminiscent of Wendig's writing, although she's less visceral. Nothing is wasted, though. It doesn't use many words and the reader doesn't need them. Plenty of others could take note of the bare bones approach and their own bloated tomes may benefit from application of it. The lead characters have powers that they don't want and rather than helping them, they have become a curse that they can't escape. A book that stays with the reader long after they have finished it.

Crooked by Austin Grossman

I really enjoy what Austin Grossman writes (he's the twin brother of Magicians author Lev Grossman). The only thing that his three books so far have in common is that they're all fictional autobiographies. Whereas his first two (Soon I Will Be Invincible and You) were about fictional characters, one set in a world that most definitely wasn't real and one in a world that was, Crooked is about Richard Nixon (yes, that Richard Nixon) and is by the former President of the US himself. It sets out to put the record straight. Nixon was wronged. He spent most of his life fighting to save the world from a dimension of demons that sought to control it. It would explain an awful lot if it was true. It's funny, scary and informative. It probably won't get the recognition it deserves, although io9 did list it as one of their favourites for 2015.

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

I don't generally rank one of these books above any of the others, but if pressed I'd have to put Becky Chambers' debut on top. It is an extraordinary book. I don't generally play well with science fiction, but this one held me from go to whoa. I literally couldn't put it down at times. I laughed and I cried. There isn't a lot of story really, but it's just a wonderful tale about the crew of the small craft as they travel through space doing their job and living their lives. It's one of the few science fiction stories I've seen where it has genuinely alien races that seem real. Becky Chambers managed to create a highly believable future. I felt that I could get in a time machine, fast forward a few hundred years and I'd be in her world. Everyone should read this, absolutely everyone!

Speak Easy by Catherynne M. Valente

This is another of the novellas. I adore what Valente does with words. I'm convinced that she met the devil one night at a crossroads, pricked her finger with the point of a fountain pen, then signed a contract with her own blood to make her the best wordsmith in the world. I don't even really know what the story of Speak Easy was (it's apparently a retelling of the story of Twelve Dancing Princesses set in a lushly imagined jazz age), but I was just transported by her incredible descriptions and the concepts that she deals in. When I open up a Valente book I'm taken into a world of words and concepts so real that I can almost touch them, and I'm somewhat disappointed when I close it and know that this only exists in our imaginations.

The Builders by Daniel Polansky

At just over 200 pages The Builders is long for a novella, but that's how it's described. Considering that some pages only contain a paragraph, the page count is cheating a bit. Polansky is considered one of the wave of grim dark authors out there, and The Builders fits that. Imagine if The Wind in the Willows had been discovered and adapted for the screen by Quentin Tarantino and you'll get some idea of what The Builders is. It's a sort of blood soaked Magnificent Seven, only Yul Brunner is a world weary, one eyed rat. I was held entranced by the whole thing, it's one of those ideas that seems so mad it can't possibly work, but it does. I read it over the space of a day. Well worth taking the chance on.

Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor

This is the book based on the highly successful podcast. I hadn't actually ever listened to the podcast when I picked the book up (I have since and it's a wonderful little piece of insanity). I can't really describe the book. It's largely about two residents of the strange little desert community of Night Vale trying to escape the odd town. A town where librarians are dangerous and where angels all called Erika live with and help out Old Woman Josie. The whole thing made no sense, but at the same time was compelling in that if I thought about it I could see metaphors for everything so it therefore made perfect sense. One of the oddest things I've ever read, but also very satisfying.

That's my 2015 through the pages of a book.

Hugo nominations 2015

Now before everyone runs screaming from the screen, thinking that this is just another rant on the storm of controversy that the announcements have created, it's not. I am aware of all that, and it concerns me, but I don't dwell on it. I only look at 3 categories, because to be totally honest they're the only 3 I think I can speak with anything approaching authority on. Those 3 categories are:

Best Novel.

Best Dramatic Presentation Long Form (usually a feature film)

Best Dramatic Presentation Short Form (generally an episode of a TV show, but things like songs and even the over the top acceptance of a previous award winner have made the shortlist in the past).

Best Novel: yes that is last year's winner. As I don't have a crystal ball I thought the best way to illustrate these was to use last year's winner.

This is in no particular order.

Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie - the sequel to Ancillary Justice. I haven't read it (I've only read one of the nominated works. None of my nominations got up). I wasn't as taken by Ancillary Justice as everyone else seemed to be. Maybe it's because of my uneasy relationship with science fiction, and that's what Ancillary Justice is. I also didn't see replacing the he personal pronoun with she for everyone, regardless of gender, as ground breaking as many others did. I've heard good reports of Ancillary Sword, and Hugo voters do seem to like sequels, so this one could very well earn Ann Leckie her second rocket ship in a row.

The Dark Between the Stars by Kevin J. Anderson - another science fiction entry. It's the first book in Anderson's Saga of the Shadows series, and it follows his Saga of the Seven Suns series. I haven't read anything by Anderson, but I know people who have, and he doesn't get many positive reviews. He may have improved, I'm not sure. I suspect the nomination is a nod to recent efforts to get popular best selling work on the ballot in favour of work that does well critically, but doesn't reach as wide an audience.

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison - I actually do want to read this, but try finding a copy of it down here. The item of hens teeth immediately springs to mind. I do however have a copy on order and I'm rather excited to see what the fuss is about. From what I know about it, it attempts to do something different with the genre and it's one of only 2 fantasies on the ballot (the Hugo began it's life as a purely science fiction award, and while fantasy has made raids on it in recent times, many do still consider it an award for works of science fiction, not fantasy). Plenty think it's a debut, it's actually not. Katherine Addison is a pseudonym for Sarah Monette, who also wrote Melusine. I don't think it will win, but I am pleased it was nominated.

Lines of Departure by Marko Kloos - I have to admit when I saw this on there, my first thought was who? It's the second book of the Frontlines series, which is military SF in the vein of John Scalzi's Old Man's War. Interestingly it was originally an ebook only, via Amazon.com, and it was given a print release by Amazon's imprint 47North. I think this is a bit of a victory for epublishing and something that will become more prevalent in the future. Again, I don't think the entry will excite enough voters to get it the award, though.

Skin Game by Jim Butcher - now this one I have read. I'm quite a fan of Harry Dresden, and have read all of the books, even the short story collection of Side Jobs. I was surprised to see it on the list. For one it's urban fantasy, and that's a subgenre Hugo voters tend to shy away from. The closest any urban fantasy author has ever come to winning a Hugo was Seanan McGuire's Campbell win in 2010. I doubt it will garner many votes, despite it's best seller status. The Dresdens are a bit like the literary equivalent of fast food. Nice for an occasional guilty treat, but it's nutritional value is questionable, and you wouldn't want a solid diet of it. There's been a bit of talk about the best selling entries and how they got onto the short list, but I think they earned their nominations, and it may also have the effect of getting people who wouldn't ordinarily know about the Hugo, to take an interest and vote. Inclusion is what the genre and the award should be all about, and getting something like an entry of the Dresden Files onto the ballot may help with that.

Best Dramatic Presentation Long Form: now I personally don't really agree that either this award or the Short Form one should be part of the Hugos. They're generally films or TV shows, and these both have plenty of their own awards. It's rare that anyone connected with the film even shows up to collect the award, which shows how much meaning they attach to it. However I have seen a few of the nominated works and I feel strongly enough about it to say a few words.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier - I enjoy all the Marvel films, and outside of The Avengers, I think the two Captain America films have been the strongest entries in that particular series. I did like Iron Man (the first one), but the 2nd and 3rd didn't live up to the first one, and The Winter Soldier more than held it's own with its predecessor, and also The Avengers, which it was intimately connected to. This was like a Daniel Craig Bond movie with super powers. Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow absolutely stole the show, and it could have really been titled Captain America & Black Widow: The Winter Soldier. There was a nice connection to the first film, and the reverberations from this film were felt throughout the Marvel cinematic universe, bleeding into Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D and will also be in evidence in the upcoming Avengers 2: Age of Ultron. The winner for mine, but probably won't get the votes.

Edge of Tomorrow - I really hope this doesn't win, and not because I don't like Tom Cruise, I do, but this looked to me like a version of Replay, but with a military SF edge. Urk. How it made the ballot, I do not know.

Guardians of the Galaxy - and Marvel and Disney continue to take over the cinematic world. You couldn't not like this film. Fun and action from start to finish. A genetically engineered raccoon as a hero, who knew? The ending scene with the baby Groot dancing gets it a nomination alone.

Interstellar - this one will probably win. I haven't seen it yet, so I can't say too much, but what I have seen and heard about it didn't excite me greatly. It is however the sort of thing that gets votes at the Hugos.

The Lego Movie - this was also a huge amount of fun. Batman's voice, all the in jokes and takes from other films and games. Something that shouldn't have worked, but did. It's a shame there's no Best Song at the Hugo's because I would have nominated Everything is AWESOME. That song ear wormed me for days afterwards.

Still from last year's winning entry. Game of Thrones: 'Rains of Castamere'.

Best Dramatic Presentation Short Form: I have similar feelings on this one to the Long Form award, but a lot of those were driven by the fact that there seemed to be an unwritten rule that only Doctor Who was allowed to win it. Despite the actual quality of the seasons episodes, it seemed to get at least 3 nominations every year. Then a few years ago it became the Doctor Who V Game of Thrones award. Game of Thrones won it last year, and the producers David Benioff and Dan Weiss were on hand to accept it, which was a nice touch. I'm not going to discuss the individual episodes that were nominated, but the shows themselves. It's really pleasing to me to see 5 TV shows nominated this year and very different shows at that. The genre actually has diversity and voters have finally realised that. It's a long way from nominating things like Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury by Rebecca Bloom and Chris Garcia's acceptance 'speech' when his The Drink Tank fanzine won the Hugo in 2011, made the shortlist for this award.

Doctor Who: 'Listen' - not only did the show only get one nomination, it was actually the standout episode of the season that got nominated. Aside from brief interruptions by Game of Thrones, the evergreen British SF show has owned the award in recent times, and while it's now got more competition I still think it will be hard to beat for the award.

The Flash: 'Pilot' - I really like The Flash. I'm old enough to remember the previous attempt in the '90's to make this into a show (the on screen father of the current Flash actually played The Flash in that show, nice little nod there). Compared to it's stablemate Arrow, I find The Flash a little lightweight, and think Arrow is the better show, although I'm sure some of that is driven by the fact that the wonderful Emily Betts Rickard is in Arrow and totally makes the show as Felicity Smoak. I think the show's lightness may count against it. The Hugos are serious business, don't you know?

Game of Thrones: 'The Mountain and the Viper' - if anything is going to topple Doctor Who, it's Game of Thrones. It could very well repeat 2014's win for 'Rains of Castamere', here. I couldn't vote for it, though, not on that particular episode, actually not for the season overall, either. I do enjoy the show, but it's never improved on Season 1, which for me is still the best season of it. People and voters do like it, though, plus the show's creator George R.R Martin will definitely be present.

Grimm: 'Once Were Gods' - if I hadn't been sitting down when I read the nominations I think I would have fallen over when I saw this one. I really like Grimm, although I'd like it even better if it were the Monroe and Rosalee show. It's one of a whole bunch of eligible shows and even though it has no chance it's nice to see it there, and realise that people have woken up to the fact that genre TV does not start and end with Doctor Who and Game of Thrones.

Orphan Black: 'By Means Which Have Never Yet Been Tried' - this actually got a nomination last year, and it was well deserved. I hope it wins, I know The Flash and Grimm have no chance, but Orphan Black could. It deserves recognition purely and simply for the stunning performances by Tatiana Maslany.

So that's my take on the Hugo nominations. I'll be back in a few months to discuss the winners, hopefully Noah Ward won't make their presence too well felt in these 3 categories.

Werewolves

The other day in the first of a series of post on the stock supernatural types in urban fantasy I covered the evolution of the vampire. Today it's the turn of the werewolf.

Werewolves are often associated with vampires, they quite often occupy the same books, films and TV shows. Sometimes they're allies, but more often vampires and werewolves are enemies.

The werewolf has appeared in legends and myths for a lot longer than vampires have. This makes sense, because in many parts of the world (Australia's one of the few exceptions), people live side by side with wolves, and so legends and myths are told about them.

They tend to be associated with vampires because wolves are a big part of life in the same part of the world, eastern Europe.

Despite this werewolf fiction is not as prominent as vampire fiction and took longer to appear.

The fairytale Little Red Riding Hood is often seen as an attempt to warn children of the dangers in the woods, one of them being wolves, but in recent times it's been reinterpreted as a werewolf story. Angela Carter's 1979 short story The Company of Wolves, filmed under the same name in 1984 took that view and the 2011 Amanda Seyfried film Red Riding Hood, used that idea as well.

Some have attributed werewolf subtext to the Robert Louis-Stevenson classic The Strange Case of Dr  Jeckyll and Mr Hyde, and while the Hyde character is often portrayed as rather animalistic, I don't think there's much there to suggest that he's a werewolf.

They were the subject of a number of gothic horror serialised stories and novels throughout the 19th century, even Alexandre Dumas wrote The Wolf Leader in 1857.

It was, as with the vampire, the American film industry that brought the character into the public imagination. Again during the 1930's werewolf films proliferated. Bela Lugosi became identified with Dracula and Lon Chaney Jr. did the same with the werewolf or 'wolfman' as they were often referred to. In fact singer and songwriter Warren Zevon made reference Lon Chaney Jr's performances as a werewolf in his 1978 classic Werewolves of London. Chaney's wolf man, Lugosi's Dracula and Boris Karloff's Frankenstein appeared as a 'terrible trio' in a number of films during the period.

The werewolf, like the vampire, became a figure of fun over time. No Muppets or Sesame Street characters, but the Archie cartoon spin off The Groovie Goolies featured a hippy werewolf called Wolfie.

I think things changed a bit for the werewolves in 1981 when the film An American Werewolf in London hit the screens. While a lot of the film was quite amusing, it wasn't entirely played for laughs and it had some serious moments, plus it looked at what a curse being turned into a werewolf was for anyone unfortunate enough to have this happen to them.

In 1985 they went back to laughing at the werewolf with the Michael J. Fox film Teen Wolf. The film was actually made before Back to the Future, but released after and it rode high on the lead actor's popularity. It was successful enough to spawn a sequel in 1987 with Jason Bateman replacing Michael J. Fox as the wolfish teen, and playing the cousin of Fox's character. It has more recently been resurrected as a more serious teen drama TV series on MTV.

Werewolves started to appear as staples in urban fantasy at about the same time as vampires did. The Anita Blake's and the Southern Vampire Mysteries feature them. Both series have all sorts of weres and don't just confine it to wolves. In fact Anita slept with almost every were there was.

They popped up in Harry Potter and J.K Rowling took the unusual step of making one a fairly major character and a sympathetic one at that. I was genuinely sad when that one died in the major battle at the end of the series.

The werewolf was also in the Twilight series. Jacob completed the love triangle between Bella and Edward. It was particularly complicated with Edward being a vampire and werewolves and vampires being historical enemies.

They appeared in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, with Willow's boyfriend Oz being one for a few seasons. Angel also had a liaison with a female werewolf in his series, and it was particularly amusing in the episode Smile Time when she quite literally tore the stuffing out of him.

Both vampires and werewolves have appeared in Jim Butcher's Dresden Files and Jacqueline Carey's Agent of Hel series as well as Gail Carriger's Parasol Protectorate where the main character wound up married to one. Carriger brought up the interesting idea of making all male werewolves serve in the military at some point over the long lives.

One of the best portrayals of werewolves in TV was in the British version of Being Human. The show featured a vampire living with a werewolf and a ghost and we saw what I felt were genuine effects of turning once a month.

Suggested reading and viewing list:

Books/stories:
Little Red Riding Hood (fairytale - probably first appeared in written form sometime during the 17th century, most likely in France)
The Company of Wolves by Angela Carter (1979, part of The Bloody Chamber collection)
Discworld series by Terry Pratchett (1983 - present, generally in a book featuring the Ankh Morpork Watch as one of the members Angua is a werewolf)
Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter by Laurell K. Hamilton (as with the vampire recommendation, stop after the first few before she turns into a nymphomaniac)
The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher (werewolves first appear in the 2nd book Fool Moon, but pop in and out from then on).
The Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris (again the werewolves come in in the second book).
The Parasol Protectorate by Gail Carriger.
Agent of Hel by Jacqueline Carey.

Movies:
The Wolf Man (1931)
I Was A Teenage Werewolf (1957 worth it for the curiosity value of seeing a young Michael Landon in the main role. I think footage of it may have been used in Michael Jackson's Thriller film clip)
An American Werewolf in London (1981)
Ladyhawke (1985)
Teen Wolf (1985)
Underworld (2003)
Red Riding Hood (2011)

TV shows:
Dark Shadows (1968)
Buffy The Vampire Slayer (1997 - 2003)
Angel (1999 - 2004)
Being Human (UK version 2008 - 2013)
True Blood (2008 -2014)
Teen Wolf (2011 - now)

Urban Fantasy - character evolution

I read a bit of what is commonly referred to as urban fantasy these days (years ago it was contemporary fantasy) and my tastes also commonly overlap into what is known as paranormal fiction, although my paranormal is generally heavy on the paranormal and quite light on the romance.

I was watching Teen Wolf the other day (I actually do like the show, it's a lot better than many have given it credit for, especially since season 3, I have rarely ever seen a show click in the way it did after 2 fairly so so seasons) and I started to realise that urban fantasy has drifted from the page and onto the screen in a big way over the last 15 - 20 years.

Teen Wolf is, as the title suggests, mostly about werewolves, and it bears about as much resemblance to the teen comedy that inspired the current show as Buffy the Vampire Slayer the movie did to the TV show that bore the same name.

This got me wondering about the staples of urban fantasy and how they've evolved over the years from the stars of books that you didn't want to admit you read to horror movies that you didn't want to admit you'd actually watched to mainstream TV shows that you're actually kind of proud you do watch.

If I'm going to look at these types of creatures then I need to start somewhere and that's with the one that in many people's eyes seemed to start it all; the vampire.

NOTE: these views are entirely my own and probably won't be exhaustive as well as being fairly coloured by personal opinion.

The Vampire:

The most famous vampire is probably a Transylvanian nobleman who may or may not have been related to the real Vlad Tepes, a 15th century rule from the country of Wallachia who was rather notorious for his penchant of impaling his enemies, so much so that history knows him as Vlad the Impaler.

I am of course speaking about Count Dracula, the name has become synonymous with vampires in general.

Contrary to popular opinion Bram Stoker's 1897 gothic horror novel Dracula was not the first appearance of the blood sucking creatures in modern fiction.

That honour goes to a work published in 1819. The Vampyre by John Polidori. The author was a friend and personal physician of Lord Byron and present at Lake Geneva when Byron suggested that each of his guests write a ghost story after reading from Fantasmagoria - a French collection of German horror tales. One of the guests; the fiancee of poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, wrote the beginnings of what would become Frankenstein, and Polidori came up with The Vampyre.

The theme continued in penny dreadfuls, the best known being Varney the Vampire in 1847. I have to admit I've never been able to take a vampire called Varney seriously. It keeps making me think of Reg Varney, the British comedian who made his name by playing laddish bus driver Stan Butler in British classic comedy On the Buses, although I have to admit if someone told me that Stan's morose brother-in-law Arthur Rudge was in fact a vampire I'd probably believe them. It explains a lot about Arthur.

It was however Stoker's highly successful novel that captured public imagination and set most of what is accepted about vampires, even now over 100 years after it's publication, in place.

Vampires continued to be popular, especially in film, right up until the 1950's. There was the German cinema classic Nosferatu in 1922, but the most popular films were American and made in the 1930's starring Hungarian actor Bela Lugosi as Dracula.

Lugosi's portrayal, complete with cape and accent tended to be how people viewed vampires for years afterwards. Sesame Street's counting vampire; The Count, is clearly based on Lugosi's Dracula.

The other actor that became identified with the character was British actor Christopher Lee. Lee played Dracula in a number of films for Hammer Horror between 1958 and 1973.

In the 60's and 70's TV started to take over the job of keeping the vampire legend alive. A search for a vampire was the basis for the pilot of 70's TV horror show Kolchak: The Night Stalker. Vampires were also featured in the show Dark Shadows. By that time vampire films were also being rerun and watched regularly by modern audiences as well.

Vampires were always popular fodder for horror novels and even Stephen King had a go at it in Salem's Lot (1975). George R.R Martin (best known for the A Song of Ice and Fire epic fantasy series, adapted by HBO for it's hit TV series Game of Thrones) wrote an excellent vampire novel; Fevre Dream in 1982. Vampires probably jumped back into the public consciousness in a big way when Anne Rice released Interview with a Vampire in 1994. Her vampire books, featuring the hedonistic, androgynous French vampire Lestat gave people a different look at the creatures. It added to films like The Hunger (1983), The Lost Boys (1987) and 1992's Buffy the Vampire Slayer in taking an alternative view of the vampire.

Laurell K. Hamilton just managed to get a jump on Anne Rice with her Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series, the first book Guilty Pleasures came out in 1993. The first few books of this series weren't too bad at all, but bit by bit the books seem to become more of an excuse for Anita to sleep with as many characters as possible and the sex became more important than the story. Anita's world was the first time I can remember seeing vampires portrayed as accepted, if not well liked, members of society openly, rather than knowledge of their existence being hidden away from the general public. This was a tack that Kim Harrison took with her The Hollows series and Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampires Mysteries, starring the part fae mindreader Sookie Stackhouse and was later filmed by HBO as True Blood, also took with their entries into the urban fantasy sub genre.

Mercedes Lackey preceded them with her short lived Diana Tregarde series, which the author cut short, for among other reasons, a lack of sales. While the Diana Tregarde books did feature vampires, they were essentially about the title character who was a witch, and vampires were in that series hidden away and their existence was kept secret.

Things changed, certainly for me, and probably for vampires in general when Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy put the TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer on the WB Network in 1997. Whedon had written the original film, but maintained that it went through significant changes before it reached the big screen. The show was more what he had always intended to create with the film.

The show was initially about Buffy Summers, who like Abraham van Helsing and Marvel Comics half vampire Blade and even Hamilton's Anita Blake, was a vampire hunter, or in the mythology of the show a Slayer. However when they introduced the character of Angel, a vampire with a soul, they changed the dynamic of the show and how many consumers saw vampires. The appearance of the character Spike in the 2nd season of the show altered it further. Vampires suddenly became romantic leads with depth and not just creepy super powered blood suckers. Buffy the Vampire Slayer spawned spin off Angel and probably was responsible for the highly regarded, but unfortunately short lived Moonlighting.

In 2005 another game changer hit the market. Twilight. Vampires that don't burst into flames if they go into the sun, but instead sparkle. While the value of the books and the resultant films can be argued ad infinitum, their impact can't. Stephenie Meyer tried to do something that was different and she succeeded, although given the ridicule the idea has received I doubt anyone else will do it.

Vampires are starting to wane a little, although they're still quite popular in fiction, and they'll never go away entirely, but since the publication of Dracula in 1897 they've gone through quite a few changes and they'll no doubt go through a few more before the world is done with them, if ever.

The following list is by no means exhaustive and is as I said at the start largely coloured by personal opinion:
Essential Reading:
Dracula by Bram Stoker.
Salem's Lot by Stephen King.
Fevre Dream by George R.R Martin.
Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice.
Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter by Laurell K. Hamilton.
The Hollows by Kim Harrison.
The Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris.
The Reformed Vampire Support Group by Catherine Jinks.
Morganville Vampires by Rachel Caine.
The Parasol Protectorate by Gail Carriger.

Essential Viewing:
Film:
Nosferatu (1922)
Dracula (Bela Lugosi - 1931)
Dracula (Christopher Lee - 1958)
The Hunger (1983)
The Lost Boys (1987)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992)
Interview with a Vampire (1994)
Let the Right One In (2008)

TV:
Dark Shadows (1966 - 71)
Forever Knight (1992 - 96)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997 - 2003)
Angel (1999 -2004)
Moonlight (2007)
Being Human - UK version (2008 -13)
True Blood (2008 - 14)