No sparkly vampires here: Jay Kristoff on evil bloodsuckers and his first encounter with the living dead Down Under

Jay Kristoff’s strong views on vampires have made him a global star. For him, the monsters are ‘twisted reflections of our own selves’, not tortured Twilight emos.

He’s a No1 international author, topping New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists – and he’s also an Aussie. With his dark fantasy genre on the rise, JAY KRISTOFF tells how it all began.

I was ten years old when I first fell in love with vampires. My gateway drug was ’Salem’s Lot by the wonderful Stephen King, and while some might argue Lot isn’t a book for ten-year-olds, sitting here decades later I can assure you that I turned out okay.

The OG, to many … a bad, blood-swilling Dracula, as portrayed by Christopher Lee in Hammer’s 19709 movie.

My mother would do the grocery shopping every week, and to keep me out from underfoot, she’d drop me off at a newsagency with a large book section.

I suppose she thought I was reading something wholesome, but instead, I’d march my ten-year-old backside down the horror section and grab a copy of ’Salem’s Lot, sit in the aisle and read until she came back.

‘An evil to be conquered’ … but not always. Even Gary Oldman’s Dracula, here with co-star Winona Ryder, portrayed a sensitive (ish) side in the 1992 film 'Bram Stoker's Dracula'.

When she returned, I’d mark my place with my bus ticket and hide my copy (because in my head, it was my copy) behind all the other books so nobody would buy it in the intervening week. And next week, Mum would drop me off again, and I’d keep reading.

To this day, I wish I knew the name of the fellow who ran that store. I’d have thanked him in the back of every book I’ve ever published. Never once did he tell me I was too young to be reading a book like ’Salem’s Lot, let alone point out that he was, in fact, running a business and not a library. And without that book, my own books might be very different.

Who are you calling sparkly? … Ashley Greene played Alice Cullen in the Twilight films, based on Stephenie Myer’s novels.

In the intervening years, lots of wonderful writers have put their own spin on vampires. They became handsome anti-heroes and romantic love interests and action stars. But the vampires I grew up reading about were monsters. They were the twisted reflection of our own selves, all of our baser instincts laid bare – hunger and desire and ink-black darkness. So, when I decided to write an epic fantasy novel centred around a vampiric apocalypse, those were the kind of vampires I wanted to write. A shadow to be fought. An evil to be conquered. Not a sparkle in sight.

‘Romantic love interests’ … Twilight leading couple Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) and Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart). While Jay has said previously he celebrates what the Twilight series did for vampires, you won’t find many emo types in his Empire.

But despite the titles, Empire of the Vampire and its sequel Empire of the Damnedaren’t really about vampires at all. They’re about people trying to survive in a world that’s been almost destroyed by vampires. In my empire, the sun no longer shines as brightly as once it did. The trees have withered. The summers are like winters, and the winters are like ice ages. And in that darkness, monsters that have dwelt in the shadows for centuries have realised that the sun no longer hurts them, and they’ve set out to hurt us instead.

Enter our hero Gabriel, a faithless former hero, long past his days of glory, who’s dragged against his will into a quest to find the one thing that might bring the sun back to the sky. He’s quite loveable under the foul mouth and high-functioning alcoholism.

‘He’s quite loveable’ … Jay Kristoff on his hero, Gabriel.

These are dark books. They’re most certainly not for everyone. I’m touring around the world at the moment promoting Empire of the Damned, and I find myself constantly apologising to rooms full of readers for the trauma they’re about to go through. But hopefully in the darkness, there’s still a ray of hope. Despite the fact I’ve written a world full of monsters, these books exist to remind us that monsters can be defeated, no matter how frightening they are. That was a lesson ten-year-old Jay learned, reading a book that was far too old for him, on the floor of that newsagency in Fremantle. And he’s not forgotten it.

Thanks Stephen. And thanks Newsagency Guy.

Empire of the Damned by Jay Kristoff is on sale now, published by Voyager GB.

Do vampires make your pulse quicken? Tell us at The Sunday Book Club group on Facebook. And our Book Of The Month is What Happened To Nina? by Dervla McTiernan. You can get it at Booktopia for 43 per cent off the RRP.

‘Monsters can be defeated’ … but for how long? Empire Of The Damned.

Originally published as No sparkly vampires here: Jay Kristoff on evil bloodsuckers and his first encounter with the living dead Down Under