I read a couple of semi-entertaining vampire novels

"Dead Until Dark" and "Living Dead in Dallas" **1/2
by Charlaine Harris

If I had to sum up Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stacked, I mean, Stackhouse books on which the TV series "True Blood" is based, that word would be "opportunistic."

I will say that the first two installments I read--"Dead Until Dark" and "Living Dead in Dallas"--are better than anything in the "Twilight" series because Harris's books are a) shorter and b) have more sex. And it's not that I don't enjoy the vampire genre; in fact, I enjoy it so much that it bothers me when authors who grind out formula novels throw in a few bloodsuckers just to cash in. And I think that's what's going on here.

Sookie's a mindreading barmaid from northern Louisiana. She's ashamed of her gift (mind reading, not waiting tables) which often fills her head with too much information, especially on dates. How, she laments, can you get in the mood when you can read your date's mind? Hmmm. I think she's not really exploiting the possibilities here, and it seems like a pretty lame way to explain her attraction to vampires, who can't be "read."

Anyhow, she does meet a vampire, Bill Compton--yes, you read that right, a vampire named Bill--an ex-Confederate soldier who gives talks to the local Fallen Sons of the South Historical Society and sort of stalks/courts Sookie.

Harris tries to freshen up the vampire genre with a couple of potentially interesting ideas. In Sookie's world, vampires have new legal status as "disabled" Americans (sunlight/food allergies). Synthetic blood from a Japanese manufacturer is available, but most vamps prefer the warm human type. To get it, they live run nightclubs with semi-clever names like Club Dead for the vamp-curious and tourists. Also, vamp blood has quite a kick, and criminal "drainers" pose a danger to the vampires in an interesting twist in which the hunters become the hunted.

Still, northern Loosyana being what it is, the Stackhouse books are full of of a lot of Southern hick types we've seen before in shows like "The Dukes of Hazzard"--horny lunkheads, stupid sherriffs, sassy black fry cooks, and bigots who want to keep those uppity vamps in their place. There are also shape shifters and an appearance by The King which is played for laughs that just don't make it. Moreover, Sookie's first-person narrative is very uneven. Sometimes it's in character--and can be very funny with a kind of dry wit--but often Harris slips into a charmless neutral voice.

What's most disappointing, though, is that, despite the possibilities Harris has given herself, Sookie and Bill essentially solve rather pedestrian murder mysteries together. Yeah, Sookie can sometimes get a clue from her mind-meld thing, and Bill has super-human strength, speed and sexual prowess. But I found my mind wandering too often to larger questions about the whole fascination with vampires these days: What does it says about our society--or at least men today--when impossibly hunky undead demons are preferable to real live guys?

Here's a song about that very thing by Shallow Day.