The book VAMPIRE GOD by Mary Hallab gives a superb analysis of the relation between vampires and Western culture.

Plus this reference features a section on the significance of the vampire story as written by Bram Stoker.

http://www.dabase.org/2armP1.htm#ch2

Speaking of vampires I love this image.

The vampire thus depicted sucking the life out of the USA body politic.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pantufla/114081011

Vampires are taking over everything. What happened to books where a normal boy and girl meet? Does everyone have to be supernatural or have superpowers? Must be daunting to be dating again as an ordinary mortal!

Interesting read! I must be one of the few to have never read a Twilight novel or seen the movies. But now I'm wondering if I'd be on Team Jacob or Team Edward...

I guess it was inevitable that someone slightly ambiguous would appear after the squeaky clean Harry Potter

I think one must ask whether it is mainly teenage girls and younger women who are most closely attracted to vampires - the obsession does seem awfully similar to womens attraction to the "bad boys" both in fantasying and in real life; men on the other hand are typically drawn to the physical entity or depictions of the physical entity, shall we say. It is safer behaviour for women to be attracted to the idea. Harry Potter interesting as it was was not directed at either men or women but to a common interest in a spiritual or occult world. Anyway - shoot me down but that is my opinion.

But I wonder, has the story or the audience changed, or rather is it the marketing and business machinery that now comes with these 'blockbusters'? Is there really something that different about Twilight, or is that the publishing houses have fine tuned their market research and have worked out what the target audience with the largest disposable income really wants in a fantasy novel, not to mention branded g-strings? Too cynical? perhaps.

While the Vampire does represent the ultimate bad boy, there's definitely something going on with the link to the abstinence campaigns popular in the US these days... Why not have a nice platonic relationship with a local vampire?..Then maybe you can divert him away from his blood-sucking ways(good luck with that one)...If he loves you, then you can change him...