![]() ![]() Lyon sets his story against the backdrop of the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. I knew a little about pre-Lugosi, pre-Stoker vampires, but was still blissfully ignorant of many of the twists and red herrings you get when your protagonists are going up against the Real Deal. If you’re going to tell a fresh vampire story these days, you could do worse than to take the reader back to the source. ![]() Lyon has a PhD in Balkan History, and the tale he weaves about the restless dead drinks deep from the well of Slavic, and especially South Slavic, vampire lore. So I leaped for James Lyon’s Kiss of the Butterfly the day I found out about it. Do interesting things with them, turn their mythology on its head if you like, but first show me that you’ve done your homework. A few years ago I re-read Bram Stoker’s Dracula and wistfully thought, “I miss the days when vampires were the bad guys.” Don’t get me wrong, I love a sympathetic villain with a tortured soul as much as the next guy, but I’m kind of a purist when it comes to my folkloric creatures. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |