Lord Save Me From the Twilight Fans

So I’ve been avoiding the whole Twilight… thing. I honestly was a little sickened when two Bloodlines players appeared in the Black Veil clan on Second Life with the names Edward and Bella, and really, hasn’t the whole broody vampire thing been done to death already? First there was Louis, then there was Angel. Do we really need another?

Curiosity did get the best of me, however, so I wiki’ed the synopsis of each book and I have to say I am glad I avoided them. Vampires in high school? No thank you very much. (Unless it’s Christopher Pike’s Last Vampire, cos, rock on.) And there are things they do that are so far out of what I consider to be a decent definition of a vampire anyway, so, bleh. Seriously though, reading the synopsis of the last book, it sounded like a really goopy Mary Sue fic.

I dig that times, they are a-changin’ and into each generation is born a new fad – I had Nsync and Britney, kids these days get Jonas Brothers and Miley, I get that. But just cos it’s new doesn’t mean it shouldn’t meet some sort of standard.

Really, I weep for this generation. I guess it’s cool that kids are reading – I think we have Harry Potter to thank for that (and I will not even get started on my Potterverse issues) but I think they really missed out on the glory days of YA fiction. C’mon, Fear Street? Christopher Pike, LJ Smith, Joan Lowery Nixon… and the worst of it is that they all get caught up in this one book or one series that the classics get sort of left behind. Kids aren’t reading From the Mixed-Up Files of Ms. Basil E. Frankweiller or Island of the Blue Dolphins. And the horror, good god, the horror! RL Stine’s Cheerleaders series and 99 Fear Street, Christopher Pike’s Bury Me Deep, Nixon’s A Deadly Game of Magic and of course, the ultimate, LJ Smith’s The Forbidden Game trilogy. Edward Cullen can bite it so far as I’m concerned (no pun intended) – give me Julian the Shadowman any day!

Even Melissa, the bro’s fiancée, is into Twilight. He actually took the book away from her, read a chapter and then yelled at me to write something better so she stops reading crap, heh. Bah, I say. BAH!

I dunno, maybe I’m just too used to going against the grain. I had no interest in Harry Potter at first – didn’t have anything against it, just wasn’t interested – but ended up reading them because my kids at Brickton were running around calling me a Muggle and I was a bit “WTF…?” and yeah, I enjoyed them on the face of things, but there was a lot about them I didn’t really like. I don’t understand what about them made them such a huge phenomenon, when other series like Artemis Fowl (which I adore!) were just as good, if not better, and didn’t reach that kind of popularity. Plus there was Bruce Coville’s Unicorn series, which had a heroine rather than a hero for a change, which might have been nice to see on the big screen.

It’s a bit weird to see how so much YA fiction has a supernatural/fantasy bend these days. My sisters had Babysitters Club and Sweet Valley, and then I grew up on Fear Street, and now it’s all wizards and magic and vampires. Hmm. Trends are odd that way, I guess.

Man. Now I want to read all the books I liked in sixth grade. Come to think of it, I would love to get a set of library hardcover-bound Fear Street books. I shall have to begin listing the ones I need to re-buy, as so many got ruined after I moved – a box of books somehow ended up at Becky’s house, and she put them in her SHED, which has a fucking leaky roof.

Let’s see now…

Bury Me Deep, Christopher Pike

99 Fear Street, RL Stine

Fear Street Saga 1-3, RL Stine

Cheerleaders 1-3, RL Stine

The Last Vampire 1-3, Christopher Pike

The Beach House, RL Stine

A Deadly Game of Magic, Joan Lowery Nixon

That’s all I got off the top of my head, but I’m sure there are more… open to suggestions here, people!

EDIT:
Don't take my word for it. Check out Steve's thoughts:
http://omg.yahoo.com/news/stephen-king-on-twilight-author-stephenie-meyer-can-t-write-worth-a-darn/18406?nc