Disclosure:
I received a copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review. They give me no money, nor do they in any way influence my thoughts – those are 100% my own for better or worse.
Edition:
Kindle e-book (Net Galley)
Synopsis:
Vampires of Lore explores the ways that media depictions of vampires are both similar and dissimilar to their depictions in myths and legends from around the world.
It covers multiple attributes, which are helpfully broken up by chapter. The attributes range from the basics (what a vampire is, blood drinking, etc.) to the more interesting (silver bullets, the witch/werewolf connections, and the like).
Stories of vampires (or vampire-adjacent creatures) seem to have been around for as long as humans have had the ability to communicate with one another, so there’s kind of a lot to work with here.
It covers stories from across the globe in both ancient and not-so ancient times and makes connections between the attributes of those vampires and the vampires of modern day. It is interesting to learn more about how vampires have evolved over the centuries alongside humanity.
I wouldn’t say they’ve gotten scarier per se (especially in our post-Twilight society), but they’ve certainly changed a whole hell of a lot.
My Thoughts:
This was a highly interesting book, but I wish there was more to it. It’s only 128 pages long, and as I mentioned above, there is so much vampire lore out there that I think Sylvia could have bumped this up by at least a few hundred pages, easy. I mean, the information here is good, but there just wasn’t enough for me. I expected more. More information, and more in-depth explorations of the mythology.
For the $20 USD price tag, I want a hell of a lot more than 128 pages of information that is easy enough to find on the internet. I mean, I know you can find just about anything if you try hard enough, but I feel like I could have located the information contained within this book in under an hour. For the price of the book, I need it to feel like more of a challenge, you know? Like, maybe I either couldn’t have located all of this information easily on my own, or at least that I couldn’t make some of the connections the author made without a strong existing knowledge base.
Also, I don’t remember a single The Lost Boys call-out. I mean… wait… that isn’t a good reason to be mad. But it is what it is. Tell me how sweet mullets and shirtless dudes relate to the mythology, dammit! And what’s the Alex Winter connection?? (I kid) But really, the whole ‘sexy vampire’ bit is talked about, so… I guess in a roundabout way he did cover it.
This is A.P. Sylvia’s first book, so I do have high hopes that he’ll give us something with a little more “meat” in the future. You can keep up with him and what he’s got in the works on his blog.
Rating:
There’s good information here, but not a lot of it – because frankly, it’s too short. There aren’t enough pages to really cover even a fraction of the existing lore or modern media interpretations. I know you can’t cover everything on a topic as vast and ancient as vampires, but you could certainly work beyond 128 pages.
Vampires of Lore: Traits and Modern Misconceptions A.P. Sylvia Schiffer Publishing Horror, Fantasy, Reference, Social Science ISBN: 9780764357923 Publication Date: October 28, 2019
