TUESDAY TIPS AND TIDBITS – The Immortal List

I love lists. I know a lot of you out there do too. Since reading Charles’ post about the vampire conundrum – being immortal, but having to feed off others to stay that way – I thought it would be fun to do a roundup list of some books and movies that deal with the various issues of immortal life that may include...

·         Outliving friends and loved ones and ending up alone and lonely. (And, closely related...)

·         Loving someone who’s not immortal and dealing with that person’s decline and eventual death.

·         Paying a price to maintain eternal/immortal life.

·         Keeping one’s immortality a secret over time and trying to blend with normal humans.

·         Accomplishing everything imaginable in the march of time, and ending up super bored and jaded.

There are certainly other issues to contend with, but this is just a start.

As for films and books and other creative treatments featuring the theme of immortality or dealing with it as a side issue, here again is a beginner list, not meant to be all-inclusive. The items aren’t in any particular order, just as I thought of them – or found them with a Google search! (Oh, on second thought, I’ll try alphabetizing them by first word of title). Look it over and see if you can add others.

AI (A little boy android searches for mommy-love in all the wrong places.)

All of Me (Reincarnation straight from the horse’s mouth.)

Bicentennial Man (I mistakenly remembered it as being called Millennium Man! An artificial man suffers unrequited love and fights for android equal rights.)

Blood and Sunlight (Penumbra Publishing author Jamie Wasserman’s vampire tale involving choices and consequences, and the search for true love.)

Cocoon (Old people take a dip in the pool of revitalization but cause a ripple in some aliens’ rescue plans.)

Crystal Clear: Storm Ryder (Penumbra Publishing author Dana Warryck’s science fiction romance dealing with love, loss, and moving on, in the quest to define ‘self’ and hold on to true love.)

Death Becomes Her (Dark comedy illustrating that death ain’t pretty, even in the afterlife.)

Dorian Gray (A picture is worth a thousand years.)

Dracula (Bram Stoker’s classic horror tale that started the vampire craze.)

Forever Andrew (Penumbra Publishing author Robert J. Wetherall’s take on a man who manages to cheat death.)

Freejack (Time travel meets the transferring of consciousness in the future, to preserve the lives of those who can afford it.)

Groundhog Day (Bill Murray’s not immortal but he gets a new redo every day until he gets it right.)

Gulliver’s Travels (Getting old can get ugly – maybe it’s better for everyone if you get it over with and just die.)

Hancock (Sometimes superheroes ain’t very nice. Actually this is a fun movie with a surprising twist that certainly caught me off guard.)

Harry Potter (The theme of immortality is strong for the character Voldemort whose name in French means ‘flee from death.’)

Highlander (Supposedly there can only be one. Dude! Grab your sword! The movie sucked eggs – except for Sean Connery.)

Holding Back the Day (Penumbra Publishing author Jamie Wasserman’s vampire tale involving choices, consequences, and the search for true love.)

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Nazis, Templars, and drinking from the cup of life.)

Interview with the Vampire (Ann Rice’s famous vampire chronicles.)

Jimmy Stu Lives! (Penumbra Publishing author Kent McDaniel’s futuristic look at cryogenics and living again – coming soon.)

Lord of the Rings (One subplot in this expansive fantasy – Elves put the smackdown on death.)

Methuselah’s Children (Robert A. Heinlein’s classic series dealing with longevity and its various issues.)

Peter Pan (The epitome of eternal youth and refusing to grow up.)

Red Mars (Living long’ll make you blue.)

Slaughterhouse Five (Groundhog Day the Kurt Vonnegut way.)

The Bible (While myriad religious interpretations muddy the waters, this still remains the quintessential tome on living, living forever, or living again.)

The Hunger (Yikes – what lengths a determined and insatiable woman will go to in order to preserve her youth.)

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (Nonfiction exposé of biomedical research and its implications on the people who were experimented on without their consent. Henrietta Lacks lives on in a Petri dish.)

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (Love Sean Connery. Various ‘gentlemen’ of a certain repute, and one very special lady, have an exceptional talent for survival and go one-to-one with an über-foe.)

The Lost Boys (A teen vamp cult classic.)

The Mummy (Best let sleeping mummies lie.)

The Worthing Saga (Orson Scott Card’s twist on Rip Van Winkle.)

Tuck Everlasting (Keeping secrets keeps you alive.)

Twilight (Stephanie Meyer’s teen vampire saga.)

OK, that’s my list. What else can you come up with?

Pat, Penumbra Publishing.

Who wants to live forever? Vampire immortality

Well I'm a couple of days late but it's been a busy week. Of course I can't forget about my loyal fans :) So continuing to think about vampires and their powers I wanted to discuss one of their biggest, immortality/eternal youth.

First though a message from our sponsors (namely me and Tasha): My book The Newfoundland Vampire will be on in April 2012 (working hard now on editing) and Tasha’s books (the second one I’ve read and highly recommend) are out now. Tasha also recently said on Twitter she's working on a handbook and I've already started book 2 of mine, so expect lots from both of us in the future.

Live forever? HELL YEAH! At least that's my initial reaction. Most everyone has at least some fear of death and would love nothing else than to avoid it entirely but what lengths would you really go to for life eternal? Would you be able to drink blood from the living? Would you kill other vampires? Would you kill humans? Friends? Relatives?

In my book I give the vampires the traditional eternal life/youth power but not without it's price. Joseph, the main character, is turned into a vampire without his knoweldge or permission and while he does find great comfort in the notion that he will live forever, he comes to realize that his normal human life is quickly coming to an end. He learns that vampires don't always get along and that he has to fight to survive. More importantly to sustain his life he must drink the blood of the living and while he often settles for wildlife (or livestock) the temptation of the exquistite human blood gnaws at his resolve. Regret and the knowledge that you killed someone would never go away but you certainly find ways to cope with them, especially with superhuman abilities.

I think the worst part of immortality would be knowing that you will outlive everyone you know, they would get old and die and you would remain the same. Of course that leads to the other dilemma, who would you turn? Sure some friends and realtives would love you for it but what about if you significant other hated you for all eternity? What if you made an enemy that would hunt you down or torture you for all of time? Cassandra (the other main character in my book) faces a very similar situation to this.

Obviously there would be a best part to life eternal. Aside from the superficial fact that you would never have to look older, the incredible benefit of being to take as much time as you want to do anything would be immensely satisfying. Imagine taking 5, 10 even 20 years to write the perfect book (some writers actually do this, or at least try to ;) and knowing that you could master this formula forever. Or any skill/hobbby/past-time you could literally spend an eternity on. Imagine knowing that you coudl travel the world/universe and experience every important event in history from now until...

I think that ulimately if the blood list didn't change you than the longer you lived would make you immensely detached from soceity/human nature. Unless you had some kind of immortal partner it would become an incredibly lonely life. The thought of being with someone for hundreds or more years though would be the ultimate test of any relationship.

For me I still answer yes, it would be tough I'm sure but eternal life/youth is a price I'd pay. Now I just need to find a vampire...;-) Have a nice weekend everyone, I better get back to editing =)