Review: Joe Vampire

Joe Vampire by Steven Luna
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What would you do if you woke up one morning and found yourself among the living dead? Try to make the best of it? Tell your loved ones? Start a blog?

Joe Vampire is the story of an average guy and how his life is rocked by one small mistake that turns him into a vampire and his attempt to continue a semi-normal life in spite of it, told in blog format.

I liked Joe and his story. It's funny as much as sad as you read about his mini-misadventures and mistakes, often in bulleted lists. After I finished I wanted to find him and give him a hug and say "It's all gonna be okay Joe" but that would be odd...and impossible.

If you're looking for a read that's funny and easy to do in small increments, or a change from the glamor of many turned-into-a-vampire stories this is a good one to pick up.


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The Lips

Feeling chapped, despite the balm. 

Perhaps reapply, perhaps hold on?

Anyway, the latest physical attribute entry at The Bookshelf Muse is about lips and all the things they can say about us without ever mouthing a word. Useful stuff.

New Year's Eve / Make Up Your Mind Day

Hello, and happy New Year's Eve to those who celebrate it.

Today also happens to be Make Up Your Mind Day where you...make up your mind, obviously. I'm going to observe it by picking one of three short story ideas I started and working towards completion; I think it will be the short about a certain vampire anti-hero that I began freewriting a few months ago and never finished. Silly me tried to type it out first, and that's just not how my brain works.

It's the perfect day to set those resolutions too.

So happy Make-Up-Your-New-Year's-Eve-Mind-Day to you. Hope it's productive and fruitful.

Are You Ghoul, Revenant, or Zombie (Part II)

Welcome to part two of my rinky-dink series on what I've learned from brief research about ghouls, revenants and zombies. You can click here for the section on ghouls.

The Revenant

Having a revenant sounds cool, but Wikipedia defines it as a ghost or an animated corpse similar to a vampire* so not sold.

In some folklore, it's a person who returns to harass neighbors and family*. Nothing special, like another ghost there.

I do like the other definition it offers: a dead hero brought back by a wizard to go on some quest no one else would brave, under the wizard's control. It also referenced Jason (Friday the 13^th) as a revenant, and the protagonist of The Crow. Side fact: I have never actually seen that movie.

My experience with revenants has been through the Final Fantasy series, a stronger version of a zombie (causing life-drain when it attacked. Like a vampire, if I recall). They're mentioned as spreading disease among the living, which I could make use of.

I'm undecided on revenants.

*Taken from www.wikipedia.org