I work at a library. We do this thing where, every so often, we weed the collection. It hurts to see books go, but it's necessary to make sure there's room in the library for new materials.
I have seen so much support for the library in text, and I've seen folks pass around those beautiful "queer your library" flyers. Keep doing that. That's great. Nothing wrong with that. But you HAVE to turn your words into action. We MUST remember to actually go to our local organizations and libraries and actually, with our own fucking hands, interact with these materials we want to see more of.
My branch is medium-sized for a library, maybe a little small. We don't have as many materials as I'd like, but we have fundamentals. Tell me why, even with all the verbal support I've gotten from my local community for the library as a resource for our LGBT+ community, every single trans biography and a good chunk of our vaguely queer theory books were on the list. This isn't a scheme to take the books off the shelves, it isn't another bigoted American governmental push. The only thing we look at when we weed is how long it's been since the last time the item was checked out.
Three years.
No one in my community interacted in any meaningful way with the few books on trans life and history we physically had on the shelves for three fucking years.
I promise you the materials you want and need are there, but this isn't a horde. This isn't a static safety net. You have to use them. You MUST use them or, in the future, maybe in three years, they *won't* be there anymore.
This isn't a vague post, there's no one person I'm hinting at or calling out. I'm not even talking directly to anyone who's directly in my line of sight. I just want everyone to hear this. Big library, small library, whatever. Doesn't matter. Please, we cannot be losing our shelf visibility like this.
The core conceit of Lord of the Rings is pretty funny. You are a twenty three year old in a suburb of Maine. The little bracelet in your grandpa’s attic has an inscription on it that is the password to the world’s entire nuclear arsenal. It is up to you to walk to the only hydraulic press in the world, located in Arizona, before the FBI finds the bracelet, kills you, and enslaves the suburb of Maine you currently live in
If you don't already know you have issues doing so, squat down real quick. Bend your knees all the way and touch the floor. Just make sure you can do it. Okay? For me? And then stand up all the way and make sure you can balance on one foot.
Like. You don't need to blow it into some huge thing. Just. Make sure all your bits and peices still work the way you think they do.
Can you turn your head to look behind you without twisting your shoulders? What about standing on your toes? If you sit down on the floor can you get back up without using your hands?
If there was ever a tumblr post worth sending to your mom, it's this one.
Just saying, bodies are a use it or lose it kinda thing.
okay so every time I see this post crop back up in queues and notifications I end up thinking about it. Because I made the post and even I'm still doing the thing where I read the post about maintaining range of motion in my delicate meatsuit and I nod and hmm and think yeah that's a good idea and then dont move from where I'm curled up shrimp style staring at the nightmare rectangle.
So like. Thinking real hard about moving doesn't count as moving. Major bummer. Anyways. Joints.
Book recs for anyone else upset that Near Dark is one 1.5 hour long movie with an almost unwatchable last ten minutes.
Below the cut, I've listed each title with an author and synopsis.
Please consider buying from your local independent bookseller. If you're not sure about any near you, or if you would like to support independent booksellers (and therefore authors!) by ordering online instead, you can search your area at https://www.indiebound.org/
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See more notes at the end of the list.
I Travel By Night by Robert McCammon. This is technically the sub-genre of "Weird Western" rather than horror; a Civil War soldier turned vampire wanders a strange west. Mysteries, ghosts, etc. Despite being from a major voice in speculative fiction, this is only available in digital.
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones. A First Nations vampire revenge story. If you don't know the historical event it was based off of, I'd suggest going in blind but following up your read with non-fiction: this one is heavy.
In the Valley of the Sun by Andy Davidson. Pitch-black neo-noir Texas vampire novel. Takes place almost exactly in the same locales as Near Dark, only set a few years earlier. A killer is turned into a vampire, and hides out on property belonging to a young widow and her son. Gnarly and mean, the prose is rich without being flowery.
The Coffin Moon by Keith Rosson. RELEASE DATE: 9/9/25. Family tragedy, vampires, serial killers, and western vengeance set against a backdrop of the PNW and the Badlands in the 1970s.
Lost Souls by Poppy Z. Brite. Rice is the biggest name in late 20th century vampire literature, but Brite is right behind (note: he has gone by Billy Martin since the 00's, however still prefers the books to be under this name). These guys make the Lost Boys look like The Little Vampire. A punk and shock-goth classic, this southern gothic road trip is well worth the read.
Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones. Yes, he's on here twice. A young boy travels from town to town with his aunt and uncle; they are werewolves, some of the last of their kind, trying to keep themselves safe and sane by any means necessary.
Blood Like Mine by Stuart Neville. A single mother on the run with her teenage daughter becomes a serial murder suspect as she tries to dodge cops, FBI agents, creeps, and keep her strange daughter fed. The word ''vampire'' is never mentioned, but if you're into vampires to be reading this list, this is not a spoiler.
You're Always Welcome at the Bloodridge Motel by J. Hunter Richardson. A small motel off of the highway plays host over decades to a strange family comprised of people who look like they're from different eras, don't seem to age.
The Bloody Red Barron by Kim Newman. This is #2 in the "Anno Dracula" series, and does heavily rely on knowledge of the first book. An alternate history where Dracula's arrival in England and attempt to take over Europe gets farther than he did in the novel, this one makes the list because Severen actually has a very small cameo on it.
Midwestern Gothic by Scott Thomas. Four midwestern horror novels; there's one specifically that I could see taking place in the same universe as Near Dark.
American Vampire by Scott Snyder. The first volume is told in two timelines: the closing days of the American West that Never Was, and the early days of Hollywood in the 1920s. Skinner Sweet, extremely un-glamorous outlaw, becomes the first American vampire after trying to rob the wrong train. He goes on a killing spree
The Orange Eats Creeps by Grace Krilonovich. Part Outsiders, part Clockwork Orange, and part Near Dark. Teenage ''vampires'' wreak havoc in the Pacific Northwest as they wander in their respective packs. The writing for this is unique and wild and the novel is worth it for that alone.
The Lesser Dead by Chris Buehlman. Another novel where the author went out of his way to make his vampires into monsters, crooks, killers, without the frills and melodrama of the more gothic-leaning stories. Set in NYC in the 1980s.
BONUS NON FICTION: Near Dark by Stacey Abbot. A revisit of the making of, structure, and final story of the film from a pop-culture film and television critic and historian. Part of the BFI Great Films series. Yes, it's more or less a 100 page essay about the film, but if you made it this far in the list, you'd probably enjoy it. The writing wavers between that of a nostalgia review and an actual academic dive into the film.
BONUS NON FICTION: Our Vampires, Ourselves by Nina Auerbach. VITAL reading for vampire fans, tracing the development of the vampire from the early 1800s through Near Dark (a WHOLE academic chapter on the latter!) as a mirror to our own cultural and social turmoils.
Honorable mention to The Morganville Vampires series by the late and great Rachel Caine: she managed to include an evil vampire patriarch, his significantly younger blonde girlfriend, and their leather-clad attack dog/body guard/friend. They're YA novels from the 00s and the writing reflects this, the books didn't age very well, and I'm not sure I'd really suggest them, but damn did she ever pull that off and in the process get an excuse shoved in there to refer to the head vampire as "daddy."
.......if you think I'm reaching on why I'm 99% sure the trio was meant to be the gang from Near Dark, the leader's name was Bishop, and Ms. Caine was a noted Aliens fan--her short story "Broken" actually managed to get a reference in Alien: Romulus.
ADDITIONAL DISCLAIMERS AND DISCLOSURES:
-Why these titles? Because I found a couple of them and realized that there's a hyper-specific genre of vampire novels of (mostly male) authors trying to avoid the cliches of the ''gothic'' vampire novel (at least aesthetically, if we're talking gothic as a mode of literature then nearly all of these are gothic or heavily feature gothic elements).
-I have NOT read all of these, however I DO own them all, so I cannot personally vouch for most of them. Some that I read I loved despite any flaws, others I didn't care for despite them being ''good'' and three I'm still in the middle of. Unless someone specifically asks for books that I have enjoyed, I try not to let personal opinion influence recs.
-These are all adult horror novels, please check trigger warnings first.
all yall make jokes about couples and their nonromantic third wheel having fun together, but im the one getting treated to food tonight by the couple im nonromantically third wheeling. you wish you were me
I'm sorry I read this as "necromantic third wheel" and went on a very rapid powerful imagination adventure. hello lovebirds I'm the skeleton here for breadsticks
