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Well, Bless Your Unbeating Heart

By Brian Prisco | Posted Under Trade News | Comments (13)

true-blood-charlaine-harris.jpg

Charlaine Harris (the author of the True Blood vampire novels) kind of reminds me of John Goodman doing the Church Lady. She seems like she’d be at home at a bake sale. But she’s happy as a pig in shit about her success and she appreciates her fans. She giggles delightedly about the fact that Anne Rice and she are Facebook friends. She acknowledges the people who paved the way for her, while still joking about the “dime a dozen” state of Vampire literature. It’s a nice humility, like a mom rooting for her jock star son on the sidelines.

I thought I might finally break my Comic-con microphone cherry and finally be one of those sweaty, awkward, stuttering questioneers you see on YouTube videos. But my question was asked. I wondered how much influence the Alan Ball series “True Blood” has had on the progressing series. It’s a question I’d love to ask of several authors who get their material produced while still writing the series. I know Jim Butcher rues the day he sold the Dresden files to Syfy back when they were less stupidly spelled.

Harris claims that while she loves the series — especially the new character of Jessica — it has no bearing on what she writes. She considers them different worlds, different forms of entertainment. As much as she loves the show, and the changes and risks Alan Ball has made, she still watches it with her hands over her eyes sometimes.

So Bubba’s still safe, retardedly eating cats in the forest, rest assured. Which makes me less afeared of Hollywood snagging every galley in the publisher’s weekly.









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Comments

Hell, she probably should take some cues from Alan Ball. Have you read the latest book, Dead in the Family? She was missing A PLOT!

Posted by: Scully at July 22, 2010 7:14 PM

Amen, Scully! Though, sadly, Ball certainly seems to have taken a cue from her in the gleeful use of violence against women as a plot device.

More plot for her, less for him - WAY too much going on right now. Complex is good, but only if you do a good job of it. The TV series seems headed straight for a hot mess. The book series, on the other hand, is in desperate need of some actual storytelling. I think Ball and Harris need to meet in the middle.

Posted by: elisamaza at July 22, 2010 7:49 PM

Coolamundo. Thanks for this Mr. Prisco.

Posted by: Cindy at July 22, 2010 11:27 PM

Anne Rice is on Facebook? My head exploded. I know she went all crazy christian on us, but the little high school girl living inside me still loves her.

I recently started reading the Sookie novels, and was pleasantly surprised. They are two different worlds for sure. Bill is much manlier in the books, Sookie only slightly less annoying. I guess that's because I can't get Anna Paquin's voice out of my head.

Posted by: Teresa at July 23, 2010 12:45 AM

I was surprised how much I liked this panel. She was sweet and funny, and made even boring "why are you so awesome?" questions entertaining. Favorite parts: When asked whether she was on Team Edward or Team Jacob she said "you're joking right?" and then ignored the question. Also when asked the interpretation of an ambiguous ending to a book she told the person to decide how to take it themselves and "I am not here to spell everything out for you, you lazy people." Awesome.

Posted by: Jessimuhka at July 23, 2010 4:08 AM

Have you read the latest book, Dead in the Family? She was missing A PLOT!

Exactly. The book was okay and all, but I wish she would go back to the structure of the earlier ones, which had a single mystery dominating the plot.

Anyways, Charlaine does seem totally sweet and down-to-earth. In another interview I read she claims the TV series hasn't influenced her writing EXCEPT she gave Bud Dearborn more to do, because she loves William Sanderson so much.

Posted by: Thijs at July 23, 2010 4:32 AM

Hooray for Bubba!

Posted by: mswas at July 23, 2010 8:48 AM

Team Bubba!!!!

Posted by: MRod at July 23, 2010 1:14 PM

She looks like any number of English teachers I had as a kid. Although most of them praised the classics, you know they had a couple trashy romance novels beneath that Tennyson.

I say this because Charlaine Harris was stocked in the romance section of the Borders I worked at until vampywere-mance novels became so effing popular. Then they all got legitimized and moved to the sci-fi/fantasy section just to piss me off. Couldn't even muster up the balls to stock them in Horror proper. They gotta come dilute my epic fantasy! (pot, kettle...) section instead. Dicks.

Posted by: Ulterior Motive Girl at July 23, 2010 4:29 PM

I have absolutely devoured her books this summer, reading four in 3 months. They may not be terribly groundbreaking or moving, but they are absolutely entertaining and fun.

Posted by: futuredirect at July 23, 2010 5:33 PM

She did refer to the tv show theme song in the latest book.

And I agree - no plot! It just kind of plodded along.

Posted by: Carolyn at July 23, 2010 7:52 PM

I was all set to indignantly rebuke you Dead in the Family nay-sayers when I realized I can't remember what the hell happened in that book. Okay, so that's not good. Still, I'll keep reading them as long as she keeps writing them. And buying the hardcovers too.

Posted by: malechai at July 23, 2010 8:00 PM

Dead in the Family...yeah, there was someone who was dead, definitely. But not actually in the family, as I recall. And, um, that's all I remember.

Posted by: AM at July 24, 2010 12:32 AM