Similarities

I had problems falling asleep last night and laid awake for a while just thinking. Since I had just watched the next-to-the-last episode of True Blood that was Tivo-ed, vampires were on my mind. I got to thinking about the similarities between True Blood the HBO series and Twilight the books.  

A few similarities came to mind and made me wonder which came first: the novels that True Blood was based on, The Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris or the Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer. Of course, I haven't read the eight books that have been written so far that True Blood is based on, but I have read the Twilight series. Since I was in bed and didn't want to get up to research at 11:00 at night, I just pondered for a while.

So lets talk about the similarities and then I'll share what I found out when researching:

1. The main character, a female human, falls in love with a male vampire (Sookie—Bill vs Bella—Edward)
2. Shape shifters make themselves known (Sam, a dog most of the time vs Jacob, a wolf) and occur because of genetics
3. Murders are occurring all over a small town (Bon Temps, LA vs Forks, WA)
4. There are good vampires who don't attack humans and bad vampires that do in both stories
5. Mind-reading abilities (Sookie vs Edward)

Book 1 of The Southern Vampire Mysteries, Dead Until Dark was published in May 2001.  Book 1 of the Twilight Saga, Twilight was published in October 2005.  So this answers the "which came first..." question. What I wonder is if Stephenie Meyer read The Southern Vampire series before writing Twilight. The Southern Vampire series is still being written and book 9 will be coming out in May 2009. But the Twilight series is completed.

No matter what, I really enjoyed Twilight and am enjoying True Blood. The Southern Vampire Mysteries are on my wish list for "books I want to read."

~~~~~~~~~
Neat