Best vampire stories

[KEV67]

I am reading Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu. It's reminds me an awful lot of those Hammer House of Horror films from the early 70s. Vampire stories go back a long way. Which are the best?

[Onion Budgie]

It's been years since I've read any vampire stories, even though I was a huge fan of them in my teens and 20s.  From memory, these three stood out:

 

Dracula - Bram Stoker (of course!)

Nosferatu the Vampyre - Paul Monette

The Fantastic World of Kamtellar - R. Chetwynd-Hayes

 

I can't remember much at all about the latter two, but I do still have them on my shelf, so I need to line them up for a re-read!

[karen.d]

I enjoyed reading 'I am Legend' by Richard Matheson. It's a psychological take on the vampire genre.

[Titus Groan]

Fledgeling - by Octavia Butler 

 

[vodkafan]

I just read The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. 

[Booknutt]

Ahem!! Who has forgotten Anne Rice then?.  Take a hundred lines the whole bunch of you!  

 

Have recently had the urge to buy a few of her Vampire books, heaven knows  when I'll get to read them, though.

 

Happy Christmas  All.

[Madeleine]

I like her earlier vampire books, and the Mayfair Witches trilogy, but the newer Lestat books don't appeal, I read Prince Lestat and found it a slog, and haven't bothered with the others.

[Athena]

I quite liked Anne Rice's first few vampire books but the later ones I didn't like as much. I do have a couple of her books on my TBR (owned on my shelves), maybe I'll get around to them eventually. I don't know if it'd still be my thing, I read the earlier ones many years ago and my reading tastes have changed since then.

[Booknutt]

I suppose it's the same with many authors, an initial "rush" then readers get used to the style. 

 

It helps to leave a year or two and then have another go, I've often found my interest in certain authors reborn

Hence my habit of hoarding books while waiting for the "flow" to return. 😊

 

Happy  All

[adilahbisar]

I used to play a lot of the RPG Vampire:The Masquerade, and they had a cool shoot-off series of books I used to like alot. I have read just about all Anne Rice. I loved the Vampire Chronicles, but dislike any of the other series she has, such as Mayfair witches or her Jesus Chronicles. I think George R R Martin's vampire novel was cool, about the riverboat with a vampire on board. 

[KEV67]

What is it about vampires that is cool? Many vampires are sexy, but others are not so much.

 

There is a vampire book named after me. It's called Varney the Vampire, which was a little bit embarrassing when my school friends found a copy in the school library. I doubt any school child read it because it's thousands of pages long. Originally it was a Penny Dreadful, which I think was a forerunner of comics. I gather the quality was not that great.