“The first three books of the awesome 90's series The Last Vampire are back in print!!
In case you have not read them/read them a long time ago, here's the gist of the series: 5,000 year old Sita is a 98 lb blonde haired, blue eyed vampire who was born in India (back when the Aryans were in India) and met Lord Krishna, who was actually some sort of space alien. The books are all filled to the brim with Hindu mysticism, which I remembered from my first readings, plus a healthy dose of Christian mysticism, which I did not. Sita is about as kickass as you can get, having had tens of thousands of canonical lovers, and probably tens of tens of thousands of victims. But she is mostly REMORSEFUL? Of course, this does not stop her from engaging in such gleeful actions as:
- smashing skulls between her bare hands
- twisting multiple necks Jenny Calendar style, notably breaking EVERY VERTEBRAE in the neck every time
- destroying a bunch of Los Angeles in a battle with the police and military, then stealing a helicopter.
- nuking an American military base (it was in the DESERT, okay?)
- involving herself in at least one situation per book that ends a description of being drenched in slippery body gore.
- etc
The books are filled with Deus Ex Machina (sometimes literally) and tons of RIDICULOUS plot twists that Pike seemed to invent as he was writing.
I am 99% sure that none of the series would stand up to even a gentle critical breeze. Somehow, they are as compulsively readable as they were when I was sixteen, and about a million times more EXPLOTASTIC than any current Popular Vampire Series That We Are All Tired of Hearing About (Yes, Especially Librarian Me).
If you can't wait until the second compilation is reissued in 2010, check your library, as they can definitely get the old editions of the later titles in this fantastic series.
--Ann”
