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."

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Neat

Vampires Went Out At Night

We had fun at a party last night and were the only vampires there. Most everyone else picked a decade and dressed as they used to dress back then.  There was a couple dressed from the 50's as a T-Bird and a Pink Lady from Grease.  We had hippies and disco dancers from the 60's and 70's, plus someone dressed as Ace Frehley from the band Kiss.  And a couple dressed in 80's Madonna-like clothes (woman) and 501 jeans/Izod shirt/Members Only jacket (man). From the 90's you could put the couple dressed as Homer and Marge Simpson from the t.v. show since it was most popular then.  From today's time we had a woman dressed as Sarah Palin (accompanied by her husband who dressed as Sarah's mother--unsure of the reasoning behind that).  And, we also had a couple dressed as Genevieve and Sir Lancelot (or he might have been King Arthur) from the Camelot era.  I think the only couple that didn't fit in with the "decade" theme was the pig and farmer.  Oh, and Captain Morgan, too.  Anyway, I hope your Halloween festivities were as fun as ours!

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Neat