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AWESOME-tober-fest 2011: Dracula by Bram Stoker

Posted in books, Classic literature, Dracula, Halloween, holiday, monsters, pop culture, reviews, Uncategorized, vampires with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2011, Book Report, Dracula, Halloween, holiday, monsters, pop culture, vampires on October 13, 2011 by Paxton

Day 4 of Vampire book week. Today, we look at the original vampire novel. The one that began the popularization of the vampire myths. Let’s take a look at Bram Stoker’s original Dracula.

I really enjoy doing AWESOME-tober-fest. It has given me a reason to read and watch books and movies I’ve always wanted to but never really “sucked it up” and made the commitment to do. Two years ago I read Shelley’s Frankenstein and I was surprised at how readable it was. I thoroughly enjoyed it. And based on that success, I was anxious to read Stoker’s Dracula.

Now, to be fair, I tried to read Dracula once already. It was back in the late ’90s when I was going through my “must read classics” phase. I couldn’t get through it. I remember thinking the first third of the book was good, but it completely fell apart after that. However, being older and wiser, I thought I could better appreciate it now. Besides, while not the first vampire novel, it certainly is what made them popular. Plus it influenced the original Universal Dracula with Bela Lugosi which would further the ingraining of vampires into popular culture.

Like I said, Stoker’s 1897 book was not the first vampire story. An essay published in the periodical Ninteenth Century in 1885 called Transylvania Superstitions discussed the mythical creatures. Lord Byron created a vampire story during the same night of ghost story telling that Mary Shelley created Frankenstein. Byron wouldn’t finish the story but John Polidori would polish it up and finish it as The Vampyre in 1819. However it was Stoker’s Dracula that popularized the monster. But it wouldn’t be until Universal’s 1931 movie based loosely (and I mean loosely) on the novel that Dracula would receive the popularity it currently achieves.

(Via Draculas.info)

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AWESOME-tober-fest 2009: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein book review

Posted in AWESOME-tober-fest, books, Classic literature, Frankenstein, Halloween, pop culture, reviews with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2009, Book Report, books, classic literature, Frankenstein, Halloween, pop culture, reviews on October 19, 2009 by Paxton

Today, I review the book that started it all, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

Mary Shelley’s tale of the Frankenstein monster is perhaps one of the most classic and iconic horror tales of all time. Shelley’s book has spawned not only other books, but movies, TV shows, plays, satire and short stories. It’s a veritable horror franchise in and of itself. Her book, along with Bram Stoker’s Dracula, helped ground the incredibly popular Universal Monster stable of monster movies in the ’30s. Famously played by Boris Karloff in the Universal movies and by David Prowse (Darth Vader in the Star Wars movies) in the cult favorite Hammer films, the monstrous green, lumbering Frankenstein monster created by a mad scientist looking to create artificial life is what is most popularly known by the public at large. Is this basically what the original book is about? Are the events in the book different? Before this article, I had no idea.

Having never read the original Frankenstein novel by Shelley, I couldn’t answer that question. So I picked up the classic novel for this year’s AWESOME-tober-fest and read the original novel. I had no prior knowledge of Shelley’s book (other than it existed) and all of my imagery of Frankenstein and the monster pretty much come from the Universal movies as well as cheesy ’70s and ’80s adaptations like The Monster Squad, The Munsters and The Groovie Goolies. Let’s see how different the original novel is from the image burned into our collective pop consciousness.

Published in 1818, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is considered a horror classic. Having written the book when she was only 18, Shelley originally published the book anonymously. It wasn’t until 1831 that the book was first published with her name on it. The genesis of this novel began one night when Mary Shelley, her husband Percy and Lord Byron were at Byron’s villa telling ghost stories. They all decided they should each write their own supernatural story. Byron began to research a vampire story that would eventually be written by another author. Percy Shelley would die before he could write his story. Mary came up with her story after a vivid dream. Subsequently, hers would be the only one published as originally intended. The gist of the story centers on Victor Frankenstein and his creation of a monster from dead body parts.

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Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters: Making Romance Readable

Posted in books, Classic literature with tags books, classic literature, pop culture on July 16, 2009 by Paxton

I wasn’t going to have any more articles this week, but this news is too good not to share. After the runaway success of Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, Quirk Publishing is at it again with Sense & Sensibility & Sea Monsters. Seth Graham-Smith, the author of P&P&Z is busy writing his followup, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, so he doesn’t return for this installment, instead this book is co-written by Ben Winters who wrote a bunch of the Worst Case Scenario books. I applaud the publisher for not going the easy route and using zombies again or one of the other more obvious monsters; werewolves or vampires. The Sea Monsters epic is set to be released on Sept. 15, 2009.

My wife gave me Zombies for my birthday which will get read in the next few months and I’m really looking forward to Graham-Smith’s Abe Lincoln Vampire Hunter book. Now I have this to also look forward to. The entire idea of these books inspired my Little Women Fight Club article about making classic chick lit more AWESOME.

To help promote this book, Quirk created a trailer and it’s hilarious.

That’s how you market a book, people. F’n GENIUS!! Here’s a breakdown including a book synopsis from Quirk’s press release.

With Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, Quirk Classics has also developed a new Austen to monster ratio. Instead of featuring 85% of Austen’s work and 15% new text as in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters features 60% Austen and 40% additional monster chaos! Most importantly, this new Quirk Classic stays true to Austen’s original novel…

As our story opens, the Dashwood sisters are evicted from their childhood home and sent to live on a mysterious island full of savage creatures and dark secrets. While sensible Elinor falls in love with Edward Ferrars, her romantic sister Marianne is courted by both the handsome Willoughby and the hideous man-monster Colonel Brandon. Can the Dashwood sisters triumph over meddlesome matriarchs and unscrupulous rogues to find true love? Or will they fall prey to the tentacles that are forever snapping at their heels?

This masterful portrait of Regency England blends Jane Austen’s biting social commentary with ultraviolent depictions of biting sea monsters. It’s survival of the fittest–and only the swiftest swimmers will find true love!

As I said, you can pick this up Sept 15 at your local bookseller.

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Little Women Fight Club: Ways to make classic literature more AWESOME

Posted in books, Classic literature, humor with tags books, classic literature, humor, Photoshop on June 3, 2009 by Paxton

To completely misquote Ron Burgundy, “I love books. Books-y, books, books. Here it goes down, down into my belly.” Okay, the last half of that mis-quote didn’t make any sense, but you get the point, I love to read. You can check the ever changing I Just Read and I Am Reading book sections on my blog’s sidebar (over there —>)to see what I’m currently enjoying and what I just finished enjoying. I thought about including what books I have “on deck” ready to be read in that sidebar, but really, it’s a crap shoot what gets picked up to be read next. There’s no guarantee what I put there will, in fact, come next.

Anywho, sometimes I get on reading tangents where I want to knock out a few books that “the man” considers “classics”. Stuff I never got to read while in school, or something I did read in school that I remember liking, but don’t remember a thing about it. These are usually fun tangents and it’s allowed me to discover books like The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, which I never read in school, but is FANTASTIC (why the hell didn’t I read that in school?). However, there are some classics that I should read, but there’s no way in hell I’m going to read. Books by authors like Bronte, Joyce and Austen, while considered classics by “people in the know”, are considered flowery, boring and gay by “me”. If I fall asleep reading the synopsis on the back of the book, then there is little hope the ENTIRE book is going to keep my interest. So there was a whole section of classic literature that I avoided and I was fine with that. Until savant/genius/author Seth Graham-Smith decided he too thought classic literature needed a little help in being “less literary” and “more AWESOME”. Thusly was Pride & Prejudice & Zombies birthed upon our virgin world.

Graham-Smith infuses a subplot involving a battle with the undead into the literary classic thereby making it relevant to guys everywhere. I mean, what good is a literary classic if NO ONE wants to read it? Seriously. Besides, what is more romantic than fighting off an army of the undead? It’s okay if you can’t come up with an answer to that question, there isn’t an answer other than ‘NOTHING’.

So, I thought, in what other books would this work? The possibilities are endless. So I sat down at my desk at work….um, I mean the table at home, after I got off work….and came up with a few more twists on some boring classic literature books that would get me to read them. Come enjoy the awesome-ness with me.

Original Synopsis – Follows the lives of the four March sisters as they live, love and learn their way through life. It’s an allegorical novel that champions the strength of women during a time in America when women weren’t considered strong.

New More AWESOME Synopsis – The four March sisters, Jo, Meg, Beth and Amy, are always fighting. One day, a fight promoter, James Lawrence, happens upon one of their more viscous fights and gets an idea. Guys everywhere would pay to see these ladies just go at it in an all out battle royal. Mr Lawrence talks to the girls’ father and, having recently lost a good amount of the family’s money, he agrees to let Mr Lawrence train the girls for a traveling “girl fight” festival. The promoter recruits a few other girls from the nearby area and trains them in boxing and Greco-Roman wrestling. The girls then tour the country side with Mr Lawrence, fighting in a 10 woman battle royal 6 nights a week. The story follows the girls across the country as they live in the festival caravan and fight, love and learn in various small towns across 19th century America. This new version also shows the strength of women…in revealing clothing…in non-sanctioned bloody cage matches. Movie rights are pending.

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