Fangtasia vs. Merlotte's

Greetings Fangbangers and Tourists,

We hope most of you are well into Dead Until Dark and about to start Living Dead in Dallas. We'll try not to post any spoilers here, although if you are watching True Blood then the story is definitely spoiled. Here are the discussion topics of the week:

1. Where would you rather hang out, Fangtasia or Merlotte's?

2. Do you believe that the Sookie series is a way for the author, Charlaine Harris, to write about diversity and how people deal with differences in the South? Vampires "came out of the coffin" and are now "legally recognized undead". Many people in her story either hate vampires and want to see them die or they love them and want to have sex with them. Many others awkwardly tolerate their presence. Vampires can contract Sino-AIDS from drinking from infected victims and some intentionally try to infect vampires.

3. We noticed that Ms. Harris referenced Anne Rice on the first page of Dead Until Dark. Did the reference allow your brain to disengage from making Anne Rice comparisons throughout the rest of the novel?

4. We loved how Sookie asked questions along the same lines that we asked before we started reading this series. She didn't get too many answers but she did ask the following:

• How do vampires do laundry?
• Do they go into their coffin naked?
• Do they need to drive or can they just float wherever they want to go?
• And yes, if a vampire was made a vampire with a beard or a bad haircut then the vampire is stuck with that beard and haircut for the rest of his days.

5. Anyone else a bit envious of Gran's simple country life and her involvement in the Descendants of the Glorious Dead and the Bon Temps Gardening Society?

6. We love a hot vampire story but is it weird that vampires want to have sex with their food source? Is it strange that they aren't bored with sex after centuries of doing it?

7. Remove yourself from the HBO series for this question: after reading Sookie's description of each, if you were Sookie would you rather have sex with Sam, Bill or Eric?

8. What do you think was the main theme of Dead Until Dark: Sookie learning to come to terms with her disability, vampires and their diversity issues, or Rene and his feelings about vampires?

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