Real Vampires: The Need For Bad Science by Horror Author Neil Benson

Undead Vampires, ranging from Dracula, created by Bram Stoker, to the more urbane Lestat, created by Anne Rice, all share two basic characteristics. They are dead, and they need to ingest blood from mortals to continue to exist. They also share common traits with mortals. They stand, talk, move, run, and carry out all usual physical activities done by mortals.

How do vampires carry out their active physical existences? Humans, mortals, have complex biological systems that provide energy to the muscles, tendons, bones, etc. that enable us to carry out activities. Vampires are dead: their hearts don't beat; their lungs don't breathe; and their former biological energy producing systems are no longer functioning. What is the source of energy for their muscles? Dr. Katherine Ramsland wrote an entire book, The Science of Vampires, speculating about how vampires function and think. Dr. Ramsland could only speculate, because neither she nor anyone else has examined a "real undead vampire."

In the movies and in novels, vampires share blood with humans to turn them into vampires. How is this possible? Without hearts that beat, what keeps vampire blood flowing? Vampires are always depicted as being cold to the touch, quite logical since they are dead. Vampires are also depicted as being impervious to the cold. However, if they are cold-blooded creatures and they are outside, or even inside, in freezing temperatures their blood would thicken. That issue has never been addressed to the best of my knowledge. It's not a matter of unanswerable questions as much as it is illogical possibilities.

We've also seen, or read about, vampires turning into some kind of dust or smoke. The transformation of matter from one form, a solid, into another form, gaseous, requires heat or a chemical process. Modern science has no means by which it can instantaneously turn a solid object into a gaseous one with the exception of a nuclear explosion. There's a lot of bad science going on when it comes to the undead vampire. The stories of these creatures arise from folklore and are given life not by some magical process, but by the creative imagination of writers. The reader also has to participate, because more than a little suspension of disbelief is required to go along with the idea. However, judging by the current popularity of vampire books, movies, and now television shows, science and logic are the furthest things from the minds of readers and viewers. A link to my vampire novel is provided below. I can write about vampires even if I don't think they exist.

http://www.amazon.com/Unholy-Embrace-book/dp/B003O2SE0O/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&qid=1339627753&sr=1-1

 About Neil:

Neil Benson: Retired early after working thirty-seven years as a psychologist in mental health and behavioral managed-care healthcare to become a full-time writer. Unholy Embrace is his first published novel.

His short story, "A Problem with Werewolves", appeared in the October, 2010, issue of Night to Dawn magazine.

Neil lives with his life partner just outside north of Atlanta, Georgia.

He has a great website that he founded on the strong recommendations from several writers. Hope you visit it:


http://neilbenson-horrorandfantasyauthor.blogspot.com

Vampire Children, a Strange and Haunting Allure!

Claudia, the child vampire in Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire is, in my opinion, the most haunting character I have ever seen portrayed in film or fiction.

She is a child that will not age, she is like an angel, but being vampiric, she is also a demon, for a monster dwells within that doll-like child, and it is that much more frightening because she looks angelic.

Her story is sad and so poignant. But I am not focusing on that. I am, instead, thinking about the portrayl of other child vampires.

I have two in my novel, The House on Blackstone Moor. They are different than Claudia, having perished during the witch hysteria that seized 16th Century France when they were raised from the dead.

And as the point is made throughout my novel, whether they be raised or created, no two vampires come back the same. That brief sojourn through hell affects each differently.

That's my take on vampire fiction. But truly, whether they come back monsterous or not, they are, because they are children, haunting.

It is so troubling. These tragic monsters, condemned to exist forever undead. Forever that is unless they are, somehow, destroyed.

And what of their memories and feelings. Do they know fear? Can they know fear? Mine do, they greatly fear the vampire destroyers for they have seen the horrific carnage left in the wake of a destroyer attack. Being undead does not mean they are not, sometimes, afraid.

Yet they have pleasure too. They enjoy sleeping for instance. They so like to dream, my Ada and Simon.

But what do they dream of? Do they dream of their living lives and also of their terrible deaths? Do they dream of hell? Do they see in their dreams Satan's own demons reaching out to draw them back?

Do they dream of an impossiblitly, a way to regain their living lives, or do they just exist from one eternal moment to the next as best they can?

And when the fierce thirst strikes, what then? Can they pretend to not feel it or do they not bother and rush headlong out in search of their sustenance?

That is their reality. Truth is truth after all, even to one who is a child and is also, sadly, a vampire.