Night World: Secret Vampire

If you've recently spotted a Night World book in Waterstone's, you probably worked out all you needed to know pretty quickly. They're black 600-page paperbacks with broody models in pale make-up on the covers. The blurb will tell you it's about vampires and werewolves, as well as providing a big hint that the fantasy and horror in the book will be secondary to the romance between monsters and mortals.

In other words, it's a lot like Twilight. Indeed, it appears as though every element has been chosen specifically to emulate what made Twilight a success in the first place. But that's not true - because the Night World series was written nearly a decade earlier.

I read several of these books at the time, and really liked them. Years later, it's fun to ring the changes with Twilight, and see what light this sheds on the evolution of teen reading from the 90s to the 00s.

Most fundamentally, Night World books are miles shorter. I find that an advantage, personally. Secret Vampire shares Twilight's eccentric structure of being solely about character stuff for the first four-fifths of the book, and suddenly plunging the characters into a mad action sequence with EVIL vampires at the end. I was much happier with 200 pages of this rather than 500 ... but how did it come to this?

My guess is that Harry Potter has changed the way kids and publishers alike view books. Goblet of Fire, the fourth book in the series, is around twice as long as the longest previous Potter novel. The next three were longer still. Potter had started at around 200 pages, like plenty of 90s young adult fiction; it ended by showing millions of kids that 700 pages didn't have to be intimidating, and showed publishers that longer books could sell.

Now, the post-Potter, post-Twilight Waterstone's sells three Night World novels in one. The word “omnibus” is nowhere to be found; neither is there a promotional “3 books in 1!” logo. It's a huge advantage if young adult fiction can convince kids they're reading something incredibly sophisticated - maybe artsy photos on black covers sell more books for that reason alone.

Spoilers in the next paragraph.

In Secret Vamire, main character Poppy has a terminal illness, so her secret vampire friend James turns her into a vampire. They fall in love along the way, Poppy learns about the secret society of monsters that is the Night World, we meet a recurring baddie and some witches who'll be important in a later book ... and that's it. It's a quick read, certainly - but it's already setting up future instalments.

If you don't care about James and Poppy, no worries - you can look forward to a totally different couple next time. And another one again next time after that. I like this - there's something slightly manic about it. How quickly Poppy goes from happy to cancer to dead to grave robbed to vampire is remarkable considering how slowly Twilight's Bella goes from meeting Edward Cullen to sort-of going out with him.

It's almost the opposite of a common criticism I've heard of modern television drama - old TV took its time, setting up mood and atmosphere, while modern TV tells loads of stories quickly so its ADHD audience don't lose interest and put on X Factor.

I'm stretching the point here, though, I must admit - Secret Vampire is very light on the ongoing material. The relationship between Poppy and James is the point of the book. It makes its point quicker, but just as comprehensively.

Just like Twilight, our main character is the only one who fits comfortably into both worlds - mortal and monster. Other vampires are awkward and odd, other humans are scared and bigoted. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to see the two worlds as a metaphor for the reading experience itself - the reader can leave the real world and spend some time imagining herself as a sexy vampire with a loyal boyfriend. Want to leave your parents and siblings behind? Just become a secret vampire.

Another difference, of course, is that Twilight was so successful that it led to films, graphic novels, and, um, the rerelease of Night World. Night World, however, faded away like so many similar young adult series of the 90s.

Was it a matter of timing? Night World's a New York Times bestseller now, according to the cover. I tend to think it's a matter of exposure. Bookshops now contain dedicated vampire romance sections. Night World stands out more than it did in the general kids' fiction section.

By now, all of L. J. Smith's 90s fiction have been republished, and she's written several new books set in those old series. They're longer books, too. This may be the most interesting aspect of young adult fiction to me - every five years or so, the market is brand-new again. A thirteen-year-old picking up Night World now wasn't even born the first time a thirteen-year-old picked up the book. And despite being written in the 90s, its concept is a huge seller a decade and a half later.

Maybe that's the trick of the Night World, then - it fits comfortably into both worlds.

Introduction 2

I won't be using this blog to review any of these books.  Partly, that's because any reviews I write will be for the benefit of the lovely Shiny Shelf, but mostly, it's because I think "is it good?" is a pretty boring question.

Also, my taste threshold is exceptionally low.

Instead, I'll just use whatever I've been reading as an excuse to talk about whatever I feel like discussing.  Hope that's alright by you.

Point Horror: The Babysitter

As a warning, there'll be spoilers below, but I'll warn you again when we come to them.

The Babysitter was the first Point Horror novel I ever read - and that's longer ago now than my birth was then. First year in comprehensive school, I was given the Babysitter trilogy for my birthday. I'd obsessively read every single Goosebumps novels, and Point Horror were seen as a major leap forward by us kids, like going from a PG film to a 15.

Reading it now, this particular novel seems quite tame, even by Point Horror standards. There's a madman, but he doesn't actually kill anyone - he just attacks babysitters, off-screen. Even so, I can see how this book - clearly appropriate for an intelligent 12-year-old - fooled me into thinking I was reading well beyond my years.

I can ring the changes with the obviously-far-more-childish Goosebumps. It's written in third person, it features a fifteen-year-old protagonist, she has a job (albeit babysitting), she's dating, and cruicially, there's no supernatural element to the story.

That last one was the killer for me. The books I'd been reading previously had lost many perceived markers for kids' fiction along the way - no more illustrations, slightly stronger language, and (this may just be me) no longer in Welsh. But books had still been full of magic and science-fiction for me.

Looking back, it's a standard slasher with all the slashing removed. I was pleasantly scared by it, but until the final chapters, all the scares come from a few creepy phone calls and an anonymous note. I remember being very impressed by the reveal of whodunnit, since I hadn't guessed at all. Reading it now, it seems completely transparent, but I don't suppose it's fair to judge the success of a mystery novel when I've known the answers since childhood.

It's an incredibly American book. Maybe that's obvious for a novel in what's essentially Hallowe'en: The Novels, but it interests me now, because most of these books didn't keep me up at night. They were thrilling rather than terrifying (though there are exceptions, which I'll hopefully come to later on). But this world was so different from mine. I was already familiar with American culture from the Goosebumps novels, and I wonder whether I started to see horror as a genre specific to the US. I can't remember ever reading a British horror novel, nor even watching British horror.

Over the years (was it years?) that I read these books, I became very familiar with its depiction of American culture, and a lot of those staples are in here. Dating. The shy main character who thinks she's ugly, unpopular and unloved ... has been asked out on a date, but isn't sure if the guy is serious enough for a real relationship. This is not my experience of feeling like an outcast. Being asked out was enough to make me feel like the king of the world for months.

Hanging out. They spend time at pizza places - certainly more time than my mates and I would've been allowed to stay in Pizza Hut after our meals. It fascinates me how little of this novel is set in the homes of these characters. Is that to make them feel older? Or do American kids genuinely spend most of their time on neutral ground?

And babysitting itself. Having a job was rare in comprehensive school, even by sixth form. Closest I came was pretending to have a paper round because I thought it made me seem outdoorsy. In the US, it seems babysitting's a common enough job that it's ideal for the everyman main character. The emphasis is on the horror, but the romance is significant - the book, and probably the entire range, belong on the same family tree as Twilight.

Spoilers start in the next paragraph.

There are three men in this novel - the three who could be the madman. There's Chuck, the new kid in school who eventually starts dating main character Jenny. There's Willers, the creepy guy next door - even though next door, as we learn, is unoccupied. And there's Mr Hagen, the father who's hired Jenny to look after his kid, perpetually nervous because he had a daughter who died.

Did you guess who did it? It was Mr Hagen. Willers was an undercover policeman, and Chuck was genuinely interested in her (and they're a happy couple at the end). So we have three roles - the creepy guy you could easily imagine had done it, the guy who's very close to the main character, and the perfectly innocent-looking character. It's easy to overlook Mr Hagen as a suspect, since he appears to be the plot device. That said, it's easy for a more experienced reader to spot him a mile away, since Jenny regularly goes through periods of being convinced it's either Willers or Chuck.

I'm interested in seeing how regularly this pattern of three suspects crops up in the series. I'm also interested in seeing how interchangeable the protagonists are. Ultimately, I'd like to uncover why this series is no longer around. What took its place? Twilight? Computer games? The internet?

Meanwhile, it's been fun to revisit this book, and in the name of full disclosure, I must admit that one night, alone in a strange house last week, reading this at one in the morning ... I went to bed scared.

Introduction

I'm StAlun - not important or notable, so odds are if you're reading this, you already know who I am.  I like books and TV.  I intend to discuss the former on this blog, and will probably end up discussing the latter.  My tastes are tiresomely mainstream - I like stuff like Doctor Who and Harry Potter.

But, y'know, I'm clever and thoughtful.  And nice.  And happy!  So stick around if you're not sickened.