How HBO’s “True Blood” Should Have Ended

BillSookieFor seven seasons, the HBO series “True Blood” – based on the Charlaine Harris Sookie Stackhouse books – deviated almost unrecognizably away from the source material. Every character not killed off managed to pair up with someone, but similar to the final Harris novel that reportedly left fans unsatisfied, HBO botched a chance to one-up the author on the final outcome of Sookie and Bill.

Here’s three suggested treatments for a better ending; this is just off the top of my head, but I prefer number three.

***SPOILERS IF YOU STILL CARE!***

  1. Sookie and Bill die together in the graveyard: Unable to watch Bill’s suffering, Sookie offers herself to feed him before he dies, a willingly sacrificing to provide one last comfort before he pops; it ends with friends and family attending Sookie’s funeral revealing a headstone next to Bill’s family.
  2. Sookie begs Bill to make her into a vampire: Finally admitting to herself she would stay with him forever, Bill finally accepts Sarah’s cure before turning Sookie and burying themselves together. Sookie’s blood enables them both to survive the daylight and join in the Thanksgiving celebration: the premiere vampire couple of Bon Temps.
  3. Sookie makes Bill human again with a little help from Grampa: After hearing Bill’s thoughts, she suspects the faerie-mixed Hep-V cocktail she infected him with is turning him mortal but not fast enough to prevent his true death as a vampire. Sacrificing the last of her power and hoping it’s enough, faerie grandfather Niall secretly lends a hand to restore Bill to life. With Sookie no longer a faerie and Bill no longer a vampire, they live happily as mortals raising the family they always wanted and growing old together.

Pick one…they’re all better than what crawled out of the writer’s room.

LichheadTransparent

Ultimate Occult Showdown 2014 Highlights!

As promised: highlights from the 2014 Ultimate Occult Showdown shot at Ancient City Con. If you don’t yet know what we do, this is a good example.

A game show with no prizes and audience participation is mandatory! Vote up your favorites in a contest of characters, movies, and TV programs but be ready to tell us why. Rules are made up as we go along by your opinionated a**hole hosts Kevin A. Ranson and Brett J. Link. Presented by MovieCrypt.com and Grim D. Reaper!

LichheadTransparent

5-Star Book Review for The Matriarch: Guardians!

GuardiansRightfaceebookcover2014“Just when you think you know what to expect from a sequel, Kevin A. Ranson completely shatters predictability with The Matriarch: Guardians. The perfect pace and continuity of the different subplots fuse together seamlessly (to) deepen the pull into each character’s motives.

“Allow yourself to become emotionally charged in this modern-day vampire thriller. It is so tangible and believable that you might even second guess the intentions of every administrative professional that you put in charge of your loved ones. You might also start to desperately want to find the quality care of a qualified vampire. I now see the situation as being a Win/Win…just don’t ask too many questions. Although the first book The Matriarch delivered a dark and intense sojourn, the sequel has managed to launch the story out of the atmosphere!”

~ by Kimmie Chameleon for DarkMedia.com

LichheadTransparent

The Matriarch: Guardians is now available!

The sequel to The Matriarch has been published! The Matriarch: Guardians now available in Amazon Kindle and paperback!

“… BETTER than the original! The reader can tell that Kevin Ranson really grew as an artist between books…Vampire lovers have found their next favorite vamp series!”

http://cedarcrestsanctum.com/the-matriarch-guardians/

If you like it or enjoyed The Matriarch, please tell a fellow reader or give a copy as a gift.

Enjoy!

TheMatriarchGuardiansTexttLogo460

LichheadTransparent

Is The Matriarch a Gothic Novel?

Matriarch3DBoxCover2013OctAccording to TheGuardian.com, there are 10 specific points regarding whether or not a novel ought to be deemed “gothic,” citing Horace Walpole’s 1764 publication The Castle of Otranto as the first such work. While I had no such specific intention to do so, it appears that The Matriarch is, indeed, mostly a gothic novel! I’ll try to keep the spoilers to a minimum, so here we go!

1. The villain is a murderous tyrant with scary eyes. Check and check. +10%.
2. The heroine is a pious, virginal orphan, prone to fainting. Well, not so much. Janiss is neither an orphan nor prone to fainting, but she certainly fits the bill of “good girl” although she isn’t actually a virgin. To quoth ye olde The Cabin in the Woods, “We work with what we have.” +5%.
3. It’s set in a spooky castle or stately home. You caught me; I did this on purpose. It wasn’t done to make it gothic, but I was thinking about the equivalent of a modern-day Dracula’s castle when I created Cedarcrest Sanctum as a vampire stronghold. +10%.
4. There is (probably) a ghost or monster. Yep: vampires AND ghosts, but with the requisite twist and fresh take. +10%.
5. It’s set in the olden days. While the setup for The Matriarch does refer to century-old events, it isn’t set in the distant past; no points for this question. 5 more to go!
Continue reading “Is The Matriarch a Gothic Novel?”

“Sobriety Check” – Excerpt from The Matriarch: Guardians

GuardiansRightfaceebookcover2014Janiss’s eyes snapped open, immediately wincing at the bright red and blue patrol lights flashing in her rearview mirror. Outside of her car door, a policeman shined a light into her face.

How long had she been daydreaming?

After turning the key on her ignition to roll the automatic window down, the clock on the center console told her it was 5:30 AM. It had only been about twenty minutes and sunrise was still over an hour away. Whew! For a moment, she wondered why Travis and Cole wouldn’t have noticed her if they had passed by; she assumed they came back through Weston since she knew Cole lived in that direction.

“Are you having car trouble?” the man asked. She recognized him: Officer Strickland.

Read the rest of this excerpt at Cedarcrest Sanctum.

LichheadTransparent

Bloodletting: Vampires Shouldn’t Go Thirsty

How much is enough? Is there ever enough?

BloodSplatterA thirst for blood is arguably THE defining trait of a vampire. They drink it to exist and helpful humans are readily available; what varies from story to story is the actual need.

The first consideration is what the blood is for. In a modern twist, vampires may be portrayed as biological, needing blood due to an inability to manufacturer their own or requiring some essential element that only living blood contains. In such cases, the vampire may be susceptible to blood diseases or the effects of substances such as drugs or alcohol. For the more traditional “mystical” type, “the blood is the life,” allowing the vampire to literally take the life force of the living into themselves to empower an animated corpse.

In either case, how much is enough? How long does it last? How often must the vampire feed?

Continue reading “Bloodletting: Vampires Shouldn’t Go Thirsty”

Read “Forget Me Nots” for FREE… Right Now!

The Spooky Chronicles: Forget Me Nots
Read it for FREE – right here, right now on your browser!

Andres M. (Rating: 4 of 5 Stars) – I had my reservations… (an) undead kid who goes to school and stuff? I must confess that I was a little skeptical of how that could work. I was terribly mistaken. Yes, this story is about a young kid with an unique condition, his heart doesn’t beat, his blood doesn’t flow, and his lungs don’t breath; yep, he is an undead, but with a soul, conscience, and a spirit of adventure and investigation. We are taken to a Lovecraftian story, and we experience it from the view point of a very special kid, who is eager to “see” what’s beyond, the monsters, the horrors. All and all it was a very cool story.


The prequel to The Spooky Chronicles!
There’s something sinister about Chesterfield Mansion, and “Spooky” Spencer Lawson can’t wait to find out why. Locked inside on a stormy night, Spooky and his fellow fifth graders are tasked to find thirteen skeleton keys before the stroke of midnight, but their host and his trusted minions are secretly watching for one of those children… the one who won’t be missed.
eBook ISBN: 978-1-4762-6296-3

Purchase eBook for Download:

LichheadTransparent

Less Is More: Creating a Vampire World

I just wrote a piece over on Vamped.org about my take on vampires. Here’s a bit:

One issue I’ve noticed in a lot of paranormal fiction is scale: getting too big too fast.

All the vampires have a werewolf bodyguard, legions of angels are waiting behind every storm cloud, and the sewers are bursting with more vampires than rats.

In these kinds of stories, it’s almost a given that the protagonist will catch the eye of someone too big for them to handle, setting up a final confrontation with world-changing ramifications. To quote Riley from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, “I suddenly find myself needing to know the plural of apocalypse.”

I offer a different viewpoint: less is more.

Read the rest over at Vamped.org!

LichheadTransparent