The Rebirth Of The Un-Dead: Q&A With Dacre Stoker

By Lisa Anderson

Dacre Stoker, the great-grandnephew of Dracula author Bram Stoker, has co-written an official sequel, Dracula: The Un-Dead, along with screenwriter Ian Holt. I was fortunate enough to get to meet Dacre at a signing at Sherlock’s Books in Lebanon, TN this past December, and he graciously agreed to follow up with an interview by email.
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Legion

By Lisa Anderson

If you’ve gone to the movies in the past few months, you’re probably at least peripherally aware of Legion. It’s the movie advertised by the cardboard cutout of the winged, shirtless man with weapons in both hands. If you’ve seen the trailer, you know that its premise is that God gets fed up with humanity and sends angels to exterminate us, but that there’s a baby who can turn everything around if only it survives, and one lone angel who wants to help. Even with all of that, though, I went in not really knowing what to expect.
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Irish Things We Love: Dracula, By Bram Stoker

Ask people to name some Irish things that they love, and they may come up with a list of things that are obviously Irish, like the band U2 or Guinness beer. I would argue though, that our cultural milieu, especially these days, is heavily inspired by the work of an Irish writer, specifically, Bram Stoker, author of Dracula. Both Dacre Stoker, great-grandnephew of Bram (and co-author of Dracula: the Un-Dead), and Dennis McIntyre, director of the Bram Stoker’s Dracula Organisation, advance this point of view.
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In Defense Of Fanfiction

By Lisa Anderson

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine who is a published novelist posted a blog entry about fanfiction. He stated that he understood the ways in which it was flattering, and that it was probably good that fanfiction could not be stamped out. He also argued, though, that it was both stealing and lazy writing, because it borrowed someone else’s characters and world.

He has a right to his opinion, and in fairness, he stated it far more kindly than many others have. Nevertheless, I would like to explain why I disagree with him, and bring up some points he may not have considered. For the record, I am a writer of both original fiction and fanfiction.
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Sherlock Holmes

By Lisa Anderson

If you read my article in Popshifter about previous incarnations of Sherlock Holmes, you know that I was skeptical about Guy Ritchie’s take on the timeless detective. I got the opportunity to go to an early screening this week, and was pleasantly surprised. In fact, I was blown away by how much I liked it.
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Revelations And Resistance: The Music Of Muse

By Lisa Anderson

I’ve loved British things all my life, but my most recent discovery is the band Muse.

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Cosgrove Hall Animation: Danger Mouse And Count Duckula

By Lisa Anderson

My love for things British goes way back. Like many people my age, I grew up with Nickelodeon, the cable children’s programming network. One of my favorite shows was Danger Mouse, the first British cartoon to break into the American market, and its later spin-off, Count Duckula. Both were from the animation studio Cosgrove Hall.
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Top Five Alternative Holiday Songs

By Lisa Anderson

Carols are an inevitable part of the holiday season. Most of us have carols, whether sacred or secular, that we love, and others that we hate. It’s not unusual to end up sick of all of them by the end of the season, either—especially for someone who works in retail. I’ve decided to make a list of five of my favorite contemporary holiday songs. They all take a fresher and more realistic view of the season, as well as not being so overplayed that they barely register.
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Top Five Vampire Songs

By Lisa Anderson

As Halloween approaches, we start hearing certain seasonal songs like “Monster Mash” and “Spooky”; we may also dust off our copies of albums by supernaturally-themed acts like Rob Zombie. However, I would like to share my list of the top five vampire songs that aren’t really about vampires.

Some of these are from my vamp-loving early adolescence, but they all taught me that a song can be about more than one thing. They may be heard at any time of year, but scratch the surface, and they still remind me of everyone’s favorite children of the night. (The last one? Is just for fun.)
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Five Faves: Sherlock Holmes In TV And Film

By Lisa Anderson

There is a new Sherlock Holmes movie coming out in December, and I for one am a little nervous.

Now, I’m no Holmes expert, even though I read some of the original stories by Arthur Conan Doyle when I was younger. And I was actually excited about the project at first, because of the involvement of Robert Downey, Jr. and in spite of widespread skepticism over the director, Guy Ritchie. It was the trailer that really concerned me.
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