Customer Reviews

Something in the Blood: The Underground World of Today's Vampires

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Having worked with Jeff Guinn and Andy Greiser as they created this book, I have to say that it achieves what it set out to do: to introduce people who have no familiarity with the scene to vampire culture. The people interviewed in the book cover a wide range of stereotypes you will find in the scene. Through "Something in the Blood" we meet the vampire researcher, Liriel McMahon, who delves into vampirism in order to better understand herself; we meet the obsessive "victim", Christine Darque, whose brush with someone else's vampirism left her forever changed; the vampire celebrity is represented by Vlad of Dark Theater who wears his vampirism like a costume while on stage yet practices it quite seriously in the privacy of his own home. The only aspect of the culture that was not thoroughly explored was the more mystical and religious aspect of vampirism, as represented by such individuals as DarkRose and Cayne Presley. These women have a fully developed spiritual belief that goes hand in hand with their vampiric practices. This aspect of the scene was not adequately addressed by Guinn's book, mainly because this was a little too esoteric for Guinn's vision of his book. But in all, Something in the Blood is an adequate introduction to the vampire culture growing in the world today.

Cayne Presley found it necessary to move after the book "Something in the Blood" came out. Fortunately, she was befriend by a Wiccan known as Shadow who has brought her to covenstead to live with the rest of us. Cayne turns out to be a wonderful house companion. There is no need for turtle neck sweaters or garlic cloves (wouldn't help, she'd just put them in with her food). She has spoken to me, now her priest, about this book. While it captures some of the flavor of her life, it is no where near the truth as it preports to be. For instant, her first experience with drinking blood was with her female cousin and not a male. She confines her drinking of human blood to her current mate and feels that he will be her mate for life. She now walks a double difficult path as both a vampire and a Wiccan ...Her life is not easy and nothing like the book would lead you to believe. If you like to contact us - Virbius, Shadow, or Cayne write us at A Bard's Corner, 6115 Dyer ST, El Paso, TX 7990

I was greatly disapointed by this book. I felt it read more like a gothic diary. The research was one sided, highly opinionated and very critical of those interviewed. There could have been ( should have been ) more research into actual living vampire lifestylers,instead of those who were protrayed as freaks, loosers and tragic cases. The authors could have taken a few lessons from J. G. Melton or Martin V. Riccardo.Hopefully someday there will arrive in the literary field one such book that actally shows all sides of vampires.

I was in this book. I was totally misrepresented and misquoted. I don't know how they could have done such a poor job of writing from the tapes of my interview! They were supposed to also change the names before publication, and no names were changed in my chapter, leading to a lot of problems! A monkey could have written this book with better forethought and tact. Greiser and Guinn should've been SUED!

I loved "Something in the Blood". The book took a popular subject, vampires, and let us look at people who obsess about the subject. In my opinion, this is just as fascinating as looking at the Star Trek people or Renassaince Fair people. The book is very interesting study in modern sociology.

One character named "Debbie" reminded me of a character named Serelae from the City of Hashan in Achaea. Both caracters are dark individuals who want to appear mysterious to the outside world, but probably are fairly normal people in real life.

Thank you,
Your Concerned Friend
Your.Concerned.Friend@hotmail.com

There are parts where the author feels that so long as he doesn't name actual names, he can lie and say whatever he wants about groups/people, based on negative hearsay from somebody he interviewed. He could easily have taken a little effort to contact the parties in question to at least verify whether was being said about those parties was accurate -- or even had any basis in truth at all -- or not, before writing it down. If that is the fellow's methods of research, interviewing or investigation, I advise him to not quit his day job. I highly recommend ignoring this book. Go out and rent a movie or something.

This book wasn't half bad. It was quite amusing to hear about this group of people. Some of them are quite believable, while others seem delusional. I know Victoria says that "Malcolm" is really her girlfriend, however, he was an actual person. Her girlfriend came into the picture a few weeks later. I found it interesting to discover about a subculture that I knew existed, but was never close enough to to gather information on. All in all, it was a quite fascinating read.

Chocked full of interesting stories. I'm not a firm believer of 'vampires', but it does hold my interest for more than an hour per day.

Though the book only glossed over my life it tells the story I wanted it to very well. 'Malcom' is in fact my girlfriend whom I have been woth for six years now. She wants no involvement in my public life at the moment and so her identity was changed.We now live in Oklahoma and are doing very well for ourselves.We still keep in touch with Martin. Sorry I have been solate in getting here-the bands I work with are all time consuming! If you wish to reach me my e-mail is Catlash7@prodigy,net,AIM:vampgrrl7

The book was okay. Quite amusing, actually. Some of the people just seem to be doing it for show, but then . . . Who am I to say, eh? My real review here is on the posting put up by the subject, Victoria. The little blighter is telling blatant lies. Her "girlfriend" informed me that she missed being in that book by a week or so. Why she would feel the need to lie about it at this point is beyond me. I feel sorry for this "Malcolm" bloke. But the book is worth the read, I guess, even if some of its subjects tend to lie a bit.