I can’t be the only girl who spend her adolescence reading Anne Rice and Bram Stoker, equally lusting over Lestat and shuddering at Dracula. But the state of vampire fiction is a sad one indeed. I’ve read the first Twilight, and the eighth book from the Morganville Vampire Chronicles (it was for a review, I swear), but I don’t get it. I don’t see what’s happened. Vampires are supposed to be repulsive. They should smell like quicklime and soil and want your gross tampons. Failing that, they should be clever and handsome and look like Brad Pitt. They shouldn’t sparkle or eat tacos or take Math.
Here is what I think should be included in vampire fiction to make it engaging again:
- A vampire who meets some avid Twilight fans (fanpires?) and cheerfully bites off their heads, because that’s what vampires do.
- A vampire with OCD. In old myths, scattering small items like rice or salt into a vampire’s path caused him to spend hell of time counting the exact number before trying to eat you again. This is probably why Count von Count is so educational.
- A vampire that can change into a mosquito or a leech THAT WAY YOU CAN SQUISH HIM.
- A vampire that does not want to date a sixteen-year-old because frankly, you shouldn’t even date sixteen-year-olds outside of your teens so being 200-years-old it’s clearly out of the question.
- A vampire that is corpulent. Why are they all so fit? They gorge on pints of blood every night.
- A vampire who FIGHTS CRIME! Oh boy!
- A vampire with an addiction to Italian food who cries every five pages because he can’t eat garlic bread.
- A vampire who is thwarted by means of a sunbed. He is named Darque Tan, because children ran.
I am always in the market for a good vampire novel, so if you think I am being too harsh and that good contemporary vampy fic still exists, recommend me some in the comments! [If you’re just gonna recommend My Immortal, though, I’ve already read it and clearly Tara Gilesbie is an unrivaled genius of prose]
Faevourite 
You have a great list of potential vampire novels there. I’d love to read the one about the vampire with OCD and the one about the vampire who loves Italian food and cries over the garlic he can’t eat.
It’s not a novel, but I’d be interested in your opinion on the film, “What We Do In The Shadows”. How vampires cope with sharing a house in modern Wellington. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3416742/
i may not have a reason, but i very much dislike vampires and if i could sell my soul for vampires not to exist i would.