WHY I WRITE ABOUT VAMPIRES - WILLIAM MEIKLE
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I grew up with the sixties explosion of popular culture embracing the supernatural and the weird. Hammer horror movies got me young. And the one that hooked me was Dracula.
I first saw this in about 1970, on BBC2, on an old black and white TV which was about 10 inches square and made everybody look like short fat cubes. But even that didn't detract from the power of this film.
This Hammer horror version sticks fairly closely to Stoker's original novel, and as such is a purist's dream.
Lee plays the Count as no one before or since. His flat demonic stare sems to ooze pure evil. The count has become a cultural icon in the past forty years, and has even been parodied and made fun of (Count Duckula anybody?) but I challenge anybody to look Lee in the eye when he's on the hunt and not feel a frisson of cold terror.
Vampires have been humanised recently (and have even got a soul in Angel's case), but it shouldn't be forgotten that they are bloodsucking bas*ards - that's what they are, that's what they do. The high cheekbones, sex-appeal and good clothes sense are just nice-to-have after thoughts. And in Lee's case you can believe that the bloodsucking is the important part, judging by the relish he shows for the deed.
And just because Buffy can stake a dozen or so without breaking sweat, it shouldn't be forgotten that the vampire is traditionally a great evil force of destruction. Lee never lets you forget it.
Which brings me round to The Watchers trilogy, my retelling of the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion in Britain. Bonnie Prince Charlie, and all his highland army, are Vampires and are heading south to claim the British throne. The "Watchers" of the title are the guards of the old Roman wall built by Hadrian, now reinforced to keep the vamps out. It is constantly patrolled by officers of the Watch, two of whom become the main protagonists of the series. I got the idea on a walk along what is left of the wall, and by the time I'd had finished my walk and had a few beers the first part of the trilogy was fully formed in my head. Think "ZULU" or "Last of the Mohicans" with vamps and you'll get a feel of what I was trying to do.
I was dealing with a retelling of the Bonnie Prince Charlie story, where romantic myths have subsumed the harsh reality of a coup gone badly wrong. I needed to strip all the romance out of the Highlanders and build them up from the bottom. Making them a shambling army of vamps and mindless drones seemed an obvious place to start. The Watchers series is a swashbuckler, but there is little lace and finery. What I do have is blood and thunder, death and glory in big scale battles and small scale heartbreak. I love it.
Watchers: The Coming of the King is out new in print and ebook
GIVEAWAY
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A free ebook of Watchers: The Coming of the King (MOBI, EPUB or PDF ) will be awarded to the best comment relating to this blog post, to be judged by William Meikle on Jan 31st
BOOK BLURB FOR THE WATCHERS TRILOGY___________________________________
The old wall is a border: England and Scotland, South and North, light and darkness.
It is 1745, and the long-awaited night as come. The Bloodking calls his army to battle, and armed with the powers of the undead and the damned, he will bring them South to claim his birthright: The throne of Britain.
Only the old Watchers on the wall stand in his way. They, their swords, and their faith. But too much time has passed and the Watch has grown slack and ill-prepared for the coming war. Only Martin and Sean have seen the horrors that lie ahead for humankind. Only they have the power to stop it. Now the two young officers of the Watch have a duty to perform.
Stop the Bloodking.
Or die trying.
ABOUT WILLIAM MEIKLE____________________
William Meikle is a Scottish writer with ten novels published in the genre press and over 200 short story credits in thirteen countries. He is the author of the ongoing Midnight Eye series among others, and his work appears in a number of professional anthologies. His ebook THE INVASION has been as high as #2 in the Kindle SF charts. He lives in a remote corner of Newfoundland with icebergs, whales and bald eagles for company. In the winters he gets warm vicariously through the lives of others in cyberspace, so please check him out at
http://www.williammeikle.com/
EXCERPT
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They were a rag-tag bunch for an army. From his vantage point Sean saw kilted Scotsmen, the red-tunics of those who had once been in the English army, the tattered woollen overgarments of farm workers and, down there, just beginning to climb, the recently animated bodies of fellow officers of the watch killed in the last attack. They made up little more than a screaming, disorganised, mob; men, women and older children all united in just one common cause - to get over the wall and feed.
He aimed the nozzle of the bellows down at them and pressed the handles together. The stench of garlic suddenly filled his nose and brought tears to his eyes. As the water hit the attackers they fell back, hissing and mewling, leaving long trails of greasy marks as they slid back to the earth. Screams rent the air, inhuman screeches of pain. Some of them, only their heads touched by the liquid, kept trying to climb until being hosed down further. And still the throng pressed forward, walking over the bodies of the fallen. And everywhere that water touched it brought boiling lesions to the skin and fresh screams in the air.
"This is no way for a man to fight." The Warden shouted, and Sean had to agree with him, but anything that killed the Others so efficiently was welcome at a time like this.
He saw that the Warden was managing to pump nearly double the volume of water that he was capable of; the huge muscles of his shoulders and arms bunched and knotted tight under his overshirt. The Others had fallen in their scores below him and he was now beginning to create an empty buffer zone. However the enemy were getting smarter, and more of them were moving in Sean's direction, where the flow of the killing liquid was less.
"Close up," Sean shouted, and the Warden moved nearer. Sean kept pumping water down over the wall, and further along he could see another doing the same, and the Others kept coming, and they kept dying. The smell that came off the hissing, bubbling bodies stung his eyes and threaten to make him gag as it hit the back of his throat, but he kept pumping.
"Check the barrels," he shouted at the Warden. "We can't let them run dry."
"Too late," the big man replied. There was a sucking sound as his pump brought up air. He dropped the bellows.
"To me," the big man shouted. "More water. More garlic." At the same time Sean's bellows began to wheeze.
He turned, and saw a convoy of children labouring with buckets and gourds, heading for the wall, but it would be long seconds before they would be able to replenish his weapon.
One final squeeze left barely a dribble coming from the spout. Sean dropped the bellows and unsheathed his sword as the black swarm began to slowly make their way up the wall over their twice dead.
REVIEWS FOR THE WATCHERS SERIES
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"I'm always impressed when anyone can add a new twist to the venerable vampire canon. Hugely enjoyable fun to read." --Joe Gordon, The Alien Online
"...a confident and breathless romp through an alternative Jacobean history. Aims for entertainment, and hits the mark." --Simon Morden, Vector, the magazine of the British SF Association
"The book is very well-written. The language is rich, and... I found myself carrying the book everywhere, and taking slightly longer over lunch than I should have, as I just had to know what was happening!" --The Dracula Society
"The author is relentless; just when you catch your breath, something new and exciting happens, sending you spinning into another part of the adventure, and keeping you flipping pages to see what's next." --David Wilbanks, Horrorworld
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