As a male, I guess I can't be expected to have heard of these books. I am, quite frankly, as susceptible to the vampire myth as anyone. I delighted in the Rice series, mostly because of Lestat's status as a fellow seeker, unsure of much of anything beyond himself but driven to continue despite himself. Rice moved beyond the genre definition, portraying a predator who is not a sociopathic killing machine, but someone who was capable of craving human interaction, forced to inflict pain even when he most desperately desired not to do so. The psychological complexity transcended genre.

I'm not so fond of the current rash of sadomasochistic fantasies crafted by the born again pervert writers that fill the best seller list. The less said the better regarding these things, they may fill the best seller lists, but as an ex therapist, I feel that they do considerable and real harm to vulnerable persons in our society, and about the best I'll find to say about them is that as a few of the previous letters reflect, they do have "a large and deeply disturbed following".

The current fantasy boom is in large measure inherently reactionist. One of it's most popular writers is an open devotee of Ayn Rand, the prevalent theme is a return to monarchy and black/white good/evil thought, with a handful of exceptions the right wing nature of genre literature makes it hard going for anyone with liberal political beliefs. I suspect romance lit to be as bad or worse than fantasy in that respect. Rowling was exceptional in: including strong female characters, daring to question authority, reliance on teamwork rather than some sort of Nietzschian hero, and in many other ways. Harry Potter was strongly in the Western liberal tradition. The right wing hated him for it.

Here we're given a series for the Red State masses, ala Left Behind. Thankfully I had left the world of mall bookstores behind before finding myself faced with these abominations, and thus have never been forced to participate in the merchandising of "books for the subliterate". I do find their implications frightening. As we struggle with vital issues like the status of women in our society and individual responsibility in the face of government indifference or active government obstruction, the last thing we really need is to see our citizens at one end descend into a quasi-1950's reactionary fantasy world while those at the other wallow in nihilistic psychopathic violent porn. I grew up believing that reading anything was positive. I'm having to reconsider that idea.

Quite honestly, I'm no longer sure that this sort of fiction is harmless. Women's struggle is difficult enough, with the continued high rates of teen pregnancy, the financial disadvantage they labor under in the marketplace, and the struggle to consolidate the small gains of the past 40 years or so, without losing so many women to a fantasy life of a big strong male making everything better, of the idea that without the love of their chosen guy life is meaningless.

At a time when many of the regular readers of Salon, like myself, have decided that integrity is the last word to be used in a sentence with the name Obama (FISA anyone?), this note from a quasi-friend in the GOP strikes me as strikingly pathetic. How far has our democracy fallen when the candidate that reversed his own promise to do anything necessary to protect one of our core values is seen as the candidate with integrity? Obama has proven his willingness to compromise any principle in the name of electability, yet this person is choosing him on moral grounds over the GOP choice?

We're in serious deep s**t here people. It would be funny if it weren't so scary.