Pete Klein's Vampire Fiction

Why do we feel this urge to classify and compartmentalize just about everything?

I was thinking about how we put others and ourselves into group definitions. Blacks, whites, Native Americans, Orientals, etc., etc. Tall, short, thin, fat. This religion, that religion, no religion, gay, lesbian, straight, whatever.

Of course all of these categories and more do exist but what of it? Do any of them really define who we are?

I think not.

Not only do I think not, I strongly object because each and every category limits our full potential to develop as a person.

I chose the title "The End of Sexual Orientation" not because I don't believe there is such a thing. We all have our preferences. I chose it because I think we should stop making it something that defines something worth defining. It doesn't say much about a person. It ranks right up there (or should I say down there) with so and so has red hair or black hair. Who cares? Do you really care?

I hate the term "The gay community" for the same reason I would hate the term "The straight community." People who are gay are at least as diverse as people what are straight. Fact of the matter is that community is a word that defines a fantasy. Communities don't exist anywhere but in our foolish minds. We use the word to exclude as much as we use it to include.

This problem of defining people by one, blanket commonality shows itself in politics as much as anywhere. It is why we have a congress that has become dysfunctional. Republicans vs. Democrats. If you are one or the other you are supposed to think one way or the other and vote the party line. You give up your right and duty to think clearly and independently.

See what I'm getting at? It's all nonsense. It's a refusal to think on your own. You become trapped by words and sometimes find yourself excluding yourself from those you actually have more in common than with those in your so called community. This can be said of any race, creed, nationality or sexual orientation. It can also be said of economic status and levels of education.

How brave are you? Are you brave enough to love someone who belongs to one or more of the communities you have allowed yourself to be boxed into?

The basic idea behind my vampire stories is the idea that only the natural world exists and if vampires were to exist, they would be natural creatures.

Another way to put it would be to say that if vampires were to exist, they would look like human animals but would be the top predator in this world of animals with us humans coming in at a distant second.

We don't like either idea. We don't like being called animals and we don't like to think we might not be the prime predator. 

We like to think all of creation is about us. We like to think that if there is a heaven, only we get to go to heaven - if we are good little girls and boys and are members of the "correct" religion.

But what if we are just animals, god or no god, and this is all there is?

Would you be happy living your life if this were the truth? If it were the truth, would you like to become a vampire? 

This has been one long, cold winter. Just last Friday it snowed.

But today, the sun is out and the temp has reached the low 50's.

Hope I'm not being too hopeful but I took the winter tires off today.

Enjoy. Autumn is only 5 months away. 

INDIAN LAKE, NY, Ravenwolf Publishing publishes The Complete Book of Republican Wisdom and Knowledge.

The Complete Book of Republican Wisdom and Knowledge is certain to create political friends and enemies during these times of political grid lock and name calling. The book is an interactive work of a humourous and sarcastic nature.

"The Complete Book of Republican Wisdom and Knowledge" (ISBN: 1481944029 | ISBN-13: 978-1481944021) starts with a Warning - “This is not a serious exposition but is only meant for amusement” and begins and ends with the infamous quote from Indiana State Treasurer Richard Mourdock who said during his losing effort to become Senator Mourdock, “Even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that is something that God intended to happen.”

Pete Klein, author of the books, The Complete Book of Republican Wisdom and Knowledge, Adirondack Hikes in Hamilton County, The Dancing Valkyrie, The Vampire Valkyrie, And God Created Vampires, and Confession of an Online Male Prostitute, and is now working on a memoir of growing up in Detroit, during the 40's and 50's says.

Klein says, “I fully realized the wisdom and knowledge I laid bare in this book could just as easily be applied to many Democrats. But considering the fact that many if not all the leaders, movers and shakers in the Republican Party seem to be stuck in the “Just say No” mind-set that began when President Obama first was elected in 2008 and was reelected in 2012, it seems only appropriate to pick on the party that was once great and is now mired in the past.

Website: http://www.petekleinvampires.com/

The new novel, "And God Created Vampires" is now available.

Forget about vampires who apologize for being vampires and wish they weren’t. Forget about efforts to find ways to satisfy their need for blood but not kill humans to get it. Forget about there being any humans who can hunt down and kill vampires. Forget all that fictional nonsense and meet some real vampires created by God.

Indian Lake, NY--A vampire like no other, “And God Created Vampires” continues the tale of the vampire Mary Hoffman, aka Erica, the Dancing Valkyrie, who fights to protect her erotic, topless dance club and her girls from mobsters who want to control her and her club - or kill her if she resists.

But Mary’s problems are not limited to just the mob. Questions are raised and need to be solved. Because of all the killings she has done to protect herself and her human friends, plus get the blood she needs, she finds herself under suspicion by both the FBI and CIA. Complicating her problems with law enforcement, she finds herself questioning her vampire friends. Is one or more of them out to kill her?

Other issues needing to be resolved are the humans she has befriended and allowed to know her true vampire nature. Their demands on her time and sexual favors have put her at risk from both humans and vampires, causing her to wonder if she should kill them all just so she can lead the unfettered life of a vampire she needs to live.

Allbooks Review (www.allbookreviews.com) reviewer Bob Medak said of the first book in the series - The Dancing Valkyrie, "Mary might be an avenging angel from God; or she might be something else. Follow the story of Mary as she comes to terms with being a vampire and her role in the life of humans and vampires that walk among us in this tail, while appearing as much human as any other human. I would recommend this book as a good read, especially for those that read vampire stories. You will be pleasantly surprised by Mary and her friends. This is an above average book and should be on your reading list. If eroticism is not to your liking, there may be parts of this story that are not for you."

Klein says, "I wanted to expand the vampire tale by developing vampires, not demons, created by God for whatever reason God might want to create vampires. They would have to be of flesh and blood. They would have to be a unique creature not yet captured or studied by humans. Mary was the result, a vampire more deadly than any vampire I have read about in books or seen in movies.”

The novel is listed in Bowker's Books In Print ®, Ingram's database in the US; and is already available online at Amazon in print at: www.amazon.com/And-God-Created-Vampires-Volume/dp/1477527451

or in EBook format at:

www.amazon.com/Created-Vampires/dp/B0088YS3CW

and other online retailers as well at traditional book stores by order if not in stock.

From Amazon in the EBook format, it is also available for free lending by Amazon Prime members.

ISBN-10: 1477527451 ISBN-13: 978-1477527450

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Pete Klein was born in Detroit, Mich. but has been living in the Adirondacks for the past 25 years. He is married with three children and two granddaughters. Klein has been a reporter for the Hamilton County News for the past 11 years.

MEDIA CONTACT: Pete Klein: email at - ravenwolfpublishing@gmail.com, write to: Peter Klein, POB 116, Indian Lake, NY, 12842.

Pete Klein is a reporter and author of vampire fiction and Adirondack hiking guides. Call him at 518-648-0104 or visit http://www.petekleinvampires.com/ for more information.

Title: And God Created Vampires

Author: Pete Klein

ISBN-10: 1477527451

ISBN-13: 978-1477527450

Publisher: Create Space

Published: June 2012

Format: Paperback

List price: USD $15.99

Ebook: USD $4.99

Evil Empire sued

According to many recent stories in the news, Apple Inc. and five major book publishers were recently sued by the Department of Justice (:DOJ), for conspiring and manipulating e-book prices.

The civil antitrust lawsuit filed in the District Court for the Southern District in New York accused Apple, HarperCollins Publishers Inc, Simon & Schuster Inc, Hachette Book Group, Macmillan and Penguin Group of htching a secret plot to inflate e-book prices aimed at curbing Amazon’s dominance in the e-book market.

The plan by Apple and others probably began when Amazon launched its e-book reader Kindle. Amazon began to offer e-books at a lower discounted price ($9.99) much to the ire of publishers, whose retail businesses suffered significant market share loss. The move paid off for Amazon, as the company grabbed 90% of the e-book market within a couple of years since the launch of Kindle.

Poor Apple! I really feel sorry for this company that has had so much bad press recently - Not!

I guess I’m one of the few but maybe growing group who view Apple as the modern day version of the Evil Empire.

Every few months it comes out with the new and improved version of its iPad or its cell phone or its tablet. From its computers on down, everything it sells is expensive and produced with cheap foreign labor, and made old within less than a year.

I don’t own anything made by Apple, primarily because of what they charge for their products and I am not one to throw away perfectly good electronics just because there is something newer with a few more bells and whistles.

But this ebook pricing scandal really gets my goat because I know what it costs to create and sell an ebook - next to nothing after the author completes the text.

Take my books for an example.

My vampire novels and my outdoor hiking guide retail on Amazon and many other locations for $15.99 in print. As an ebook, they retail for $4.99. On the print books I earn on average about $6.82 and in the ebooks I earn about $3.47.

Yes, I make less on the ebooks but I sell more than twice as many ebooks than I sell print. This seems fair and I really don’t understand the greed of major publishers and authors who are already making a fortune.

Speaking of major authors, I won’t buy anything from them and haven’t since buying Potter books for my granddaughters. As a reviewer for Allbooks Review, I have read many good books by authors who are not famous and don’t feel the need to line the pockets of those who are living high on the hog.

I say, support the small fry and screw the big fish.

I was reading an editorial in a local weekly paper that got me to thinking. The editorial was bemoaning the current state of affairs in this country, looking back to better times when people weren't so greedy, so selfish, so sexually promiscuous, etc.,etc.

Obviously a Tea Party person who wanted his country back.

But is this true?

I know. Gas costs too much. Everything costs too much. Anyone remember "Bye, Bye Birdie"?

If I'm remembering correctly, there was the lament in the movie that ran, "What's wrong with kids today?"

The play and movie go back to 1960. Get what I'm driving at? It's the same old same old complaint. Always complaining things are horrible now and if we could only go back to an earlier time when people were morally straight and hard working?

Really? Like maybe prohibition? Or maybe the Wild West? How about slavery and the Civil War?

Sure we have problems today. Always have and always will. But I'll take this time over any of the "good old days" because they weren't all that good.

But I guess there are some who really do want to return to the "good old days" when women were expected to stay barefoot and pregnant, and submit to a beating when "their man" thought she needed it. Maybe go back to the time when kids didn't get beyond grade school if that far and worked in dangerous jobs.

Sorry but we have made progress even though it seems to be mostly of the two steps forward and one step backward variety. Maybe the glass will always remain half empty. But that's no reason to go backward to a time that wasn't as good as some would have us believe.

I don't want my country back. I want my country to go forward

The New York Times is reporting that the Encyclopaedia Britannica is going out of print.

“It’s a rite of passage in this new era,” said Jorge Cauz, the president of Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc., “Some people will feel sad about it and nostalgic about it. But we have a better tool now. The Web site is continuously updated, it’s much more expansive and it has multimedia.”

So what do you think?

As one who works for a weekly local newspaper and find myself selling more ebooks than print books, I say I learned to appreciate ebooks last year when I moved. Print books are nice, a real treasure. But if you collect books, over time they add up in pounds and you hate giving them or throwing them away. Then when you move, you quickly learn they way a ton.

Speaking of print, I had a thought just yesterday as to why daily news papers are having such a problem.

When most if not all of the daily state and national news is readily available online, on TV and the radio, the dailies continue to include this "news" in a printed form at the expense of deep local coverage. They pay good money for reports from AP and other sources and this is where I think they are making a mistake.

They need to concentrate more on local news, what you can't get from watching TV.

The ivory towers are crumbling, and not just in academia. They are also crumbling in government, religion and all forms of publishing and the entertainment media in general.

The leaders in all fields have been found to be naked.

What makes humans different from other animals?

We like to pride ourselves on our superior intelligence. I think, therefore I am. Nice try but I think I may have discovered what truly makes us different and the picture isn't very pretty.

We are the animal that tortures. We torture in many different ways. It's not just waterboarding, electric shock, blow torches and on and on and on.

We have what we call the criminal justice system where we lock people up for years and years, sometimes for life.

We multiply laws so that we have more opportunities to torture people, always for their own good and ours.

Other animals will kill, almost always in self defense, to win a mate or, most commonly, to have something to eat. But we humans have come up with many more reasons to not just kill but to torture. You hear phrases such as, "Killing is too good for them."

We excuse the torture we do, saying we do it for a higher purpose. We want to protect "society," save souls, promote moral behavior, balance the scales of justice, etc.

And not only do we do this, we use the criminal justice system to do the dirty work we are afraid to do ourselves and with good reason. We want to wash our hands of the dirty work because we don't want to find ourselves subject to the criminal justic system.

The religions of the world are partners in torture. Good people go to Heaven. Bad people are torutured forever in Hell. And let's not forget the days of the numerous inqusitions when the Church actively tortured people for their own good to save their "immortal souls." Did you know waterboarding was one of the prime tortures used during the inquisitions?

Yes, humans are profoundly different from other animals but often not in ways there is anything to be proud about.

Listening to the news this morning, I once again heard some politician say, "The American people."

It should be a federal offense for any politician to use that phrase.

First of all, Americans are a very diverse group. There is no consenses about anything. Politicians claim a landslide victory if they get over 51% of the vote and they make that claim in spite of the fact that many who cloud vote don't vote.

Let's face it. Our politicians are clueless. Much of this is due to them being among the top 5% and some even belong to the 1%. They live in a different world and so don't know much about "the American people."

I don't claim to know what the American people think. Hell, I'm not always all that certain about what I think. I've been know to flip alot on issues but I haven't done much flopping back to where I flipped from. I do know people change and I think that is a good thing. If you still have the same opinions you had when you were ten, I can only guess you haven't lived much and certainly haven't thought much.

The American people. I can't say I know the American people even though I am one and have known quite a few. Each and everyone is different in some ways and alike in others. I kind of like it that way. I know they are American people because they look human, walk and talk like humans, and live here.

I guess politicians are American people too for the reasons stated above but I really hate it when they claim to know me when most of them haven't even met me to ask for my vote.