Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Enough with the vampire crap already!

Please pardon this intrusion upon the normal and (hopefully) more thoughtful tone of this blog while I vent my frustrations over a recent trend that has now crept into the realm of Civil War literature.

A few years ago I noticed that Barnes & Noble was featuring a string of new books that took some of the greatest works of literature on the planet and reduced them to thoughtless drivel about vampires and zombies (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies being one of the most allegedly winsome titles from this insipid assemblage of authors who apparently couldn’t get traction for writing anything that actually mattered). Being the bitter Calvinist that I am, I was hardly surprised at this glaring example of total depravity on display.

Then, a few months ago, the world was introduced to the festering pile of retardation known as Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith (perpetrator of the aforementioned Pride and Prejudice rip off). African Americans will be happy to know that Grahame-Smith trivializes the institution of slavery by purporting that the vile system was empowered by Southern vampires who wanted to use the slaves as a source of food.

Cute.

So Abraham Lincoln, terror of all vampires (with the exception, perhaps, of Blacula?) issues the Emancipation Proclamation and enlists black troops to ward off the otherworldly threat.

Yes boys and girls, United States Colored Troops fought for freedom – against vampires. (Any suggestions as to how I could work this into my New Market Heights book? Perhaps I should change the title to Christian Fleetwood: Vampire Hunter?)

Anyway, as if this book (a top ten New York Times bestseller, by the way) wasn’t bad enough now I learn that the man who looks like every state’s number one registered sex offender – Tim Burton – is converting this vacuous stack of fecal matter into a movie. I mean, can’t we get one good – I mean really good – Abraham Lincoln movie onto the big screen before I die? The Lincoln Bicentennial came and went without anything from Hollywood except rumors of Spielberg’s epic, but still we have no new interpretation of Lincoln on the big screen

Except Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

If this is how low we have to stoop to get our current culture interested in our greatest President – or the Civil War, for that matter – I’ll be in my bunker happily awaiting the Apocalypse.

Rant concluded.

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