The artificial blood, the difficult integration of vampires with human society, the prejudice against human vampire-lovers known as ‘fang-bangers’, and the attempts of some vampires to ‘mainstream’ all make for interesting new character dynamics.

Charlaine Harris had some great ideas that made her novel pleasingly different to other popular vampire fare. True Blood has actually managed to stick very closely to the plot without sacrificing any valuable detail as most film adaptations are forced to do, probably because DUD is not as rich a novel as it could have been. Oh, there are minor differences in plot of course, and the book has much more detail about Sookie putting on make-up, shaving her legs, or doing the housework but for the most part it just reads like Anna Paquin’s portion of the script with regular descriptions of what she’s wearing but with a lot less of the sass that makes her so appealing, and a lot more of the gushing that makes for a corny romance novel. If you’ve already seen the TV series, there’s absolutely no point in reading the book because DUD has almost nothing to add to the story. But Dead Until Dark, the novel on which the first season of True Blood is based, will from here on be referred to by its acronym DUD, because that’s largely what it is.

True Blood is excellent: dark, gritty, and entertaining, it’s got a gripping storyline and fantastic script with good actors playing unforgettable characters. Or in this case, the TV series, which is so good I decided to check out the source. I didn’t think I’d ever say this, but forget the book and just watch the movie.

Dead until dark preview