Blood Ties
THERE'S A NEW SLAYER IN TOWN:
Blood Ties, adapted from
Tanya Huff's Victoria Nelson
vampire series, will premiere on the
Lifetime Channel on Sunday night. Victoria is a P.I. and her crime-fighting partner is a really old vampire and sparks fly. Okay, am I the only one creeped out by the theme of the ancient vampire trying to seduce the sweet young thing? Of course, fiction and film, the old geezer looks terrific, so you're not supposed to go, "Eewh, what a total perv! I bet he's on the sexual predator hotline."
You're not supposed to wonder why some guy who is 400 years old hasn't taken advantage of his time, like in
Groundhog Day, and learned to play the piano, speak several languages, carve ice sculptures, read literature, etc. You're not supposed to wonder why an old coot doesn't get bored and annoyed with a person who's centuries younger. And the old coot is always a guy and the younger person is always a hot chick.
Well, one of the things that Francis Ford Coppola got right in
Bram Stoker's Dracula was just how gross Dracula would look: a terrible hairdo, long yellow fingernails and seriously bad dental issues.
My question is: why do women want to read stories with seriously old guys played by hot young guys who fall for young women? What is it about this dynamic that seems exciting and not repulsive?
MARIO'S SURFING UP SOME VAMPIRE FICTION:
Mario's in California on Saturday and Sunday, visiting bookstores. He'll be at Borderlands in San Francisco on Sunday afternoon.