Vampire killer instinct prevails
HE TOPS BESTSELLER LISTS AROUND THE WORLD WITH HIS DARK TALES. AND IT’S ALL THANKS TO TIME SPENT IN A HUMBLE BOOK SHOP IN AUSTRALIA, WRITES
Iwas 10 when I first fell in love with vampires. My gateway drug was ’Salem’s Lot by the wonderful Stephen King, and while some might argue Lot isn’t a book for 10-year-olds, decades later, I can assure you I turned out OK.
My mother would do the grocery shopping every week, and to keep me out from underfoot, she’d drop me off at a newsagency with a large book section. I suppose she thought I was reading something wholesome, but instead, I’d march my 10year-old backside down the horror section and grab a copy of ’Salem’s Lot, sit in the aisle and read until she came back.
I’d mark my place with my bus ticket and hide my copy (because in my head, it was my copy) behind all the other books so nobody would buy it in the intervening week. The next week, Mum would drop me off again, and I’d keep reading.
To this day, I wish I knew the name of the fellow who ran that store – I’d have thanked him in the back of every book I’ve ever published. Never once did he tell me I was too young to be reading a book like ’Salem’s Lot, let alone point out that he was, in fact, running a business and not a library. And without that book, my own books might be very different.
In the intervening years, lots of wonderful writers have put their own spin on vampires. They became handsome antiheroes and romantic love interests and action stars. But the vampires I grew up reading about were monsters. They were the twisted reflection of our own selves, all of our baser instincts laid bare: hunger and desire and ink-black darkness. So, when I decided to write an epic fantasy novel centered around a vampiric apocalypse, those were the kind of vampires I wanted to write. A shadow to be fought. An evil to be conquered. Not a sparkle in sight.
But despite the titles, Empire of the Vampire and its sequel, Empire of the Damned, aren’t really about vampires at all. They’re about people trying to survive in a world that’s been almost destroyed by vampires. In my empire, the sun no longer shines as brightly as once it did. The trees have withered. The summers are like winters, and the winters are like ice ages. And in that darkness, monsters that have dwelt in the shadows for centuries have realised that the sun no longer hurts them, and they’ve set out to hurt us instead.
Enter our hero Gabriel, a faithless former hero, long past his days of glory, who’s dragged against his will into a quest to find the one thing that might bring the sun back to the sky. He’s quite loveable under the foul mouth and high-functioning alcoholism.
These are dark books. They’re most certainly not for everyone. I’m touring around the world at the moment, promoting Empire of the Damned, and I find myself constantly apologising to rooms full of readers for the trauma they’re about to go through. But hopefully in the darkness, there’s still a ray of hope. Despite the fact I’ve written a world full of monsters, these books exist to remind us that monsters can be defeated, no matter how frightening they are.
That was a lesson 10-yearold Jay learnt, reading a book that was far too old for him, on the floor of that newsagency in Fremantle. And he’s not forgotten it.
Thanks, Stephen. And thanks, Newsagency Guy.
■ Empire of the Damned by Jay Kristoff is on sale now, published by Voyager GB
■ Do vampires make your pulse quicken? Tell us at The Sunday Book Club group on Facebook. And our Book Of The Month is What Happened To Nina? by Dervla McTiernan. You can get it at Booktopia for 43 per cent off the RRP