The Horror Library - The Best in Horror Fiction

The Best Vampire Novels Ever. Period.
By Edmund R. Schubert

They drink your blood and then you die, but it's sexy as hell. Nobody can resist a vampire.

I guess that's why people have been telling stories about them forever. And though the printing press was only invented a few centuries ago, it seems like there are thousands of new vampire novels in print every day. Well, maybe not every day…

So what are the greatest?

Dig deeper than the obvious commercial successes such as Stephen King's Salem's Lot (which was an awesome read, make no mistake) and Anne Rice's series of books (which started out interesting, but soon ran out of anything worth saying) and even the granddaddy of them all, Stoker's Dracula , and I will contend that the two best vampire novels ever are just barely on this side of being unknown by many horror fans. By sheer coincidence they sit side by side on my bookshelf, only because their author's last names start with the same two letters: MA.

Fevre Dream by George R.R. Martin, and I Am Legend , by Richard Matheson.

My criteria for 'great'? It's simple: how often can a book pull me in and enthrall me. That gets harder and harder to do with each reading, yet Fevre Dream and I Am Legend have each managed to do so no fewer than six times.

Fevre Dream's author, George R.R. Martin, is best known as a writer of fantasy, but fellow author Roger Zelazny got it exactly right when he said, "George R.R. Martin, somehow, has managed to write a novel that will delight fans of both Stephen King and Mark Twain."

Set in the middle of the 19th century, Fevre Dream tells the story of the strange friendship that develops between river boat captain Abner Marsh and Joshua York, vampire. Marsh is a down-on-his-luck owner of a fleet of river boats that was crushed to kindling by a hard freeze on the Mississippi River; York, a vampire on a quest to unite his race with the freedom to no longer depend on blood for their sustenance. And when York seeks out Marsh and offers to buy him the boat of his dreams in exchange for the right to take that boat odd places when it suits his purposes – no questions asked - the adventure begins.

Featuring everything from quotes from the poet, Byron, - "She walks in beauty, like the night…" - to a truly disturbing banquet featuring a baby's hand offered on the end of a silver fork, Fevre Dream is rich in atmosphere, long on action, and deep in great characters. The vampires are the traditional, blood-sucking, live-forever-unless-you-drive-a-stake-through-their-heart, shun-the-daylight sort of vampires. What makes this novel stand out is the exceptionally high quality of writing, the extraordinary relationships that develop between the characters, and the perfect setting – a 19th century river boat on a Mississippi River that's about to run red with blood.

And did I mention the villain? He's the guy who skewered the baby's hand on the fork. Need I say more?

The only disappointment I experienced the first time I read it was when I got to the end – because I didn't want it to end. Ever.

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson is a completely different kind of vampire novel. Written early in the career of the man who would write many classic episodes of the Twilight Zone, I Am Legend is about a world where a virus turns every man, woman, and child on Earth into vampire-like creatures. Some victims are technically still alive, though they suffer classic symptoms of vampirism – avoidance of sunlight and the need for blood chief among them. But worse still are the ones who come back from the dead, reanimated by the virus and more determined than ever to have the blood they crave. In the middle of this nightmare world, Robert Neville has found himself immune to the virus, alone, and struggling to survive.

Matheson's novel could easily have devolved into pastiche, turning out like so many John Carpenter movies, campy fun with little more to offer. Yet I Am Legend manages to not only avoid that trap, but rise well above it.

What makes this novel of a world gone mad so compelling is one simple thing: Matheson's portrayal of his character, Robert Neville. Neville's range of reactions is exactly what you would expect. He experiences anger, despair, frustration and worse as he combats the unthinking undead who try to get at him every night.

He has turned his home into a small fortress and burned down the surrounding houses so no one can jump onto his roof. He scavenges supplies and hunts down vampires by day and drinks way too much at night. And he has to cope regularly with the memory of the death of his wife and daughter, as well as the first time they came back, forcing him to kill them again.

You can't help but feel for this man, and in the end he truly does become a legend.

I Am Legend is a scant 150 pages long, making it a quick read - one that you can start at bedtime and have finished long before the sun comes up…

Coincidentally, Richard Matheson is also author of one of the best vampire-themed short stories you've never heard of. "No Such Thing As A Vampire" was originally published in Playboy in 1967 (see, some people do read it for the short stories). And no, for the record, I'm not old enough to have seen it then, or for several decades thereafter, either; I stumbled across it in an anthology I picked up in a used book store.

Set in the Middle Ages, "No Such Thing As A Vampire" is about a doctor who gets revenge on his cheating wife and her boyfriend with the help of a vampire. It's absolutely worth seeking out, and if you find it but don't think it's nearly perfect I'll personally refund whatever you paid to acquire it - and then kick your ass for being a moron.

So, why am I telling you about these vampire novels? One, because I think they are two of the best ever written. Any book that can hold my attention six times over has to have something going for it, don't it? And two, because I know that any time you get into a discussion about the best anything, people's radars go up and they find themselves with a compelling need to tell the maker of that list how wrong they are. How they missed something really important or overlooked some worthy alternative or just plain don't know their head from a woodchuck hole (people tell me that one all the time).

So here's your opportunity to tell me any or all of the above. Know a better novel? Read one that I mentioned and thought it was so much crap? Pop over to the Horror Library Forum and let me know. I can take it. Hell, I'm a masochist; I'll probably even enjoy it.

And who knows, sometime soon I might even write an article using some of your comments – if you have anything worth saying…