Thursday, June 19, 2014

In the spotlight: Brantwijn Serrah

Welcome, Brantwijn Serrah, for your new release! It's so good to have you here on my blog.

Brantwijn, the floor is yours.



My Top 10 Least Favorite Vampires

There are good vampires and there are bad vampires. Those following my blog tour got to see my Top 10 Favorite Vampires—today, I'm going to go over my absolute least favorites. These are the vampires that just make me cringe, vamps I consider to give the genre a bad name.
Again, these vamps are chosen solely on the basis of my personal opinion. I have my own reasons for disliking them which I don't expect everyone to agree with. And I'd love to see comments letting me know your thoughts, and what vampires you think should (or shouldn't!) have made this list.
Let me start here and now by saying I'm purposely not including any characters from Twilight on this list. The reason for this is not that I like them—I think they're horrible in just about every way. But there have been probably millions of blog posts written about how terrible Twilight is, and I have no intention of letting this post descend into that. So let's just start off by saying as an author of vampire fiction, I loathe Twilight and don't consider it even remotely close to real vampire fiction. With that out of the way, here are my Top 10 Least Favorite (Actual) Vampires.

10.  Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (not Angel)

 When he was first introduced in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel was a very interesting vampire character. When he turned bad in Buffy, he was probably at his best. After that, though...he really got pathetic. Once he had his villain arc, every appearance in Buffy was pretty much a downhill decline into him being a watered-down, repetitive brooder.
I'd like to point out, though, that I don't include his portrayal in the spin-off series, Angel, in this assessment. Besides a few really bonehead instances, Angel as a character actually got much better once he was seeded in the darker, almost noir-ish LA setting. The show wasn't terrific, and not as good as Buffy, but it had some good story arcs. Ironically, when he's a bad guy in his own series, that's when he's the weakest. In Buffy, though, he definitely overstayed his welcome.

9. Selene, Underworld
In order to give credit where credit is clearly due, let me say that Selene is nothing if not absolutely gorgeous. My issue is really with Underworld, and the hype surrounding it (and therefore, her). I don't find the movie very interesting, don't think the vampires are very compelling, and Selene comes off as somewhat a bad archetype in an overdone plot. In my circles, though, Underworld is fairly well-liked, and lots of people put it at the top of their favorite vampire movie lists. So I find the movie overhyped and under-deserving. Selene's the symbol of a style of vampire I just find lackluster, all flash and no substance, and that's the reason I put her on this list. She definitely does look great in leather, though...

8.  Dracula, Van Helsing
I just...er...um...what?
Most people I know didn't like Van Helsing, and I'm one of them. This vastly disappointed me, because I was really hoping for an unforgettable supernatural creature adventure, and it constantly rises to just almost about right...then crashes. I wanted to like it, I really, really did, but alas, no.  And I blame this man.
I honestly feel this rendition of Dracula absolutely ruined the movie. Heck, I even feel like he ruined parts of the movie he had nothing to do with. Something about him just made me cringe every single time he opened his mouth. There was nothing about him that worked for me. My lady-boner for bloodsuckers died a little the day I had to watch this imbecile take on the mantle of the Vampire King.

7. Louis, The Vampire Chronicles
Louis. Beautiful but boring. That's my biggest problem with him. He's utterly and completely boring. This is another vampire I would have liked to like, but...he's so wooden. So bland. So empty.
He's tolerable in the film version of Interview with a Vampire, but still, nothing terrific. I will give props to Brad Pitt for capturing his hypnotic monotone. The most memorable thing about this character, though, in books and movies, is how he never does anything. He spends a damn lot of time complaining about his lot in unlife but he never, ever does anything to change it. The one scene where he takes any action is his revenge strike after Claudia's death. It's the only time he becomes proactive. In the Vampire Chronicles, after Interview he is essentially a deadpan background character, and meaningless. He's on this list because his whining, passive character is just so disappointing.

6. Vlad, League of Legends
Most people know by now I'm a major League of Legends fan, and I get really attached to my champs. It completely disappoints me that the 'vampire' champion is so...ridiculous.
I get the sense that Vlad's designers set out to make him a joke. And maybe that's exactly what he is: a tongue-in-cheek dig at vampires. I find his dialogue overly groan-worthy and sometimes downright disgusting, and if his abilities are a reflection of vampire power, they're a bad reflection. Although I do whole-heartedly accept that it's possible I'm just bad at playing Vlad. I've seen a lot of decent players in ranked games. I simply had extremely high hopes and found him utterly unlikeable. I'm really hoping they come up with another vamp champ, one who's a bit more serious a reflection.

5. Bill Compton, True Blood
There is just something about Bill Compton that irritates the living hell out of me. There is nothing about his character I like. I never have. Not since the first episode of True Blood, not from the first book in the Sookie Stackhouse books. Never like him, never found him attractive, never liked him with Sookie...nothing. I've never been sure exactly why, but I just loathe Bill Compton.

4. The Gorch Brothers, Buffy the Vampire Slayers
These two idiots should never have come anywhere near a script of any sort. They are obnoxious, stupid, and irredeemably just dislikable. They should have both died in the opening credits of their first episode. It's not enough that one of the two brothers survives his first episode, he comes back later and survives nearly his whole second episode. UGH. No. Just...no.

3. The Vampires of Guilty Pleasures
I have a controversial confession to make. There is a series I find even less tolerable than Twilight, and that's the Anita Blake series. Even if I find a writer to be bad, I tend to complete at least a good portion of their books before I give up on them entirely. Guilty Pleasures is the only book that so completely turned me off, I couldn't stomach the idea of attempting any of the rest of the series. It was terrible. Some of the worst storytelling I have ever read, and some of the worst writing. Just awful. I actually took out a notebook and started writing down editorial comments as I read; I have never done that with any other book. Sorry...Guilty Pleasures is just an awful, terrible book.
2. Whatever this thing is, Blade II
This is not a vampire. This is a bad predator knock-off.
Ew.


  

 
And my #1 Least Favorite Vampire of all time is....
Any Vampire Played by Rutger Hauer
Rutger Hauer isn't a bad actor. I love him in Lady Hawke and The 10th Kingdom. He's a fine man of the screen and a dashing handsome one, too.
He should never play a vampire.
He's got one strike against him as the Master in the 1992 movie, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Honestly...look at him. That hair... that smile...the costume...the painful overacting. His other strike comes from Salem's Lot, equally overacted. Dude, did you swallow a kazoo? (or is that an homage to the 1979 Kurt Barlow?). I don’t know what it is, but Rutger Hauer just shouldn't ever play vampires.

So there you have my Top 10 Least Favorite Vampires. Leave a comment, let me know if you agree or disagree, or let me know some of your least favorites and why!
Don't forget to enter our giveaway for your chance to win some e-books, a print copy of Lotus Petals, or an Amazon gift card!

Book cover and blurb

Rhiannon Donovan, daughter to the vampire Queen, would rather die than be made a bride to a demon Lord. Aijyn, courtesan to the undead Daimyo of Kansai, can think of nothing more horrifying than his promise of eternal life.  In the halls of the Blood Lotus Temple, the two women struggle against the chains of their fate, and find a solace in each other that could mean freedom for them both... or might cost each of them their lives.

Social and buy links
Buy link on Breathless Press: http://tinyurl.com/lm5qk7d
Brantwijn Serrah's page on Breathless Press: http://tinyurl.com/p4bl55r
Brantwijn's Facebook Page: http://tinyurl.com/qf2bzwk
Foreplay and Fangs on Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/q2cmnep
Find Brantwijn on Google+
And on Goodreads
Say hi to her on Twitter



Enter our giveaway!
 

a Rafflecopter giveaway



Author bio
When she isn't visiting the worlds of immortals, demons, dragons and goblins, Brantwijn fills her time with artistic endeavors: sketching, painting, customizing My Little Ponies and sewing plushies for friends. She can't handle coffee unless there's enough cream and sugar to make it a milkshake, but try and sweeten her tea and she will never forgive you. She moonlights as a futon for four lazy cats, loves tabletop role-play games, and can spend hours watching Futurama, Claymore or Buffy the Vampire Slayer while she writes or draws.
In addition to her novels, Brantwijn has had several stories published in anthologies by Breathless Press, including the 2013 Crimson Anthology and 2014 Ravaged Anthology.  She's also had a short story published in the Cleiss Press Big Book of Orgasm and the anthology Coming Together Through The Storm. She hopes to have several more tales to tell as time goes on.  She has author pages on GoodReads and Amazon, and loves to see reader comments on her work. Her short stories occasionally pop up at Foreplay and Fangs, her blog at http://brantwijn.blogspot.com.
 

1 comment:

  1. Thank you for hosting me today! I look forward to hearing what you and your readersthink on the subject.

    ReplyDelete