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| The Dead Travel Fast: Stalking Vampires from Nosferatu to Count Chocula | 
 enlarge | Author: Eric Nuzum
Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
Category: Book
List Price: $23.95
Buy New: $3.79
You Save: $20.16 (84%)
New (26) Used (25) Collectible (1) from $2.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  22 reviews
Sales Rank: 332387
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.5 x 1
ISBN: 031237111X
Dewey Decimal Number: 133.423
EAN: 9780312371111
ASIN: 031237111X
Publication Date: September 18, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
The Dead Travel Fast is about vampires, death, chickens, fear, things that smell bad, the love of a good woman, and germs… but mostly it’s about vampires.
The undead are everywhere. They’re not just in movies and books, but in commercials, fetish clubs, and even in your breakfast cereal. If you look, you’ll discover that bloodsuckers have gone from guest spots in rural folk tales to becoming some of the most recognizable bad guys in the modern world. Eric Nuzum wanted to find out why and how this happened. And he found the answer in Goth clubs, darkened parks, haunted houses, and… chain restaurants.
Nuzum was willing to do whatever it took to better understand the vampire phenomenon. He traveled across Transylvania on a tour hosted by Butch Patrick (a.k.a. Eddie Munster), sat through Las Vegas’ only topless vampire revue, hung out with assorted shady characters, and spent hours in a coffin. He even drank his own blood --just one more step in his quest to understand the weird, offbeat world of vampires and the people who love them.
The Dead Travel Fast is the hilarious result of this bloody, gory, and often foolhardy journey. With his unmatched firsthand experience, Eric Nuzum delivers a far-reaching look at vampires in pop culture, from Bram to Bela to Buffy, and at what vampires and vampirism have come to mean to us today.
And the blood? Let’s just say it doesn’t go with eggs.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 17 more reviews...
 They have travelled fast October 5, 2007
11 out of 15 found this review helpful
"'Denn die Todten reiten Schnell.' ("For the dead travel fast.") The strange driver evidently heard the words, for he looked up with a gleaming smile."
-- Dracula, by Bram Stoker
Eric Nuzum set a pretty steep goal for himself when he set out to write a book about vampires -- vampire legends, Draculean history, vampire fiction, vampire movies, and people who think they ARE vampires. "The Dead Travel Fast: Stalking Vampires from Nosferatu to Count Chocula" starts promisingly, but Nuzum's lack of interest starts showing after Romania.
And when a book opens with the author vomiting his own blood, you know it's going to be an interesting ride. Nuzum describes his own increasingly bizarre journey into vampire subculture -- online oddballs, soap opera conventions, Black Masses, vampire tours by "Mina Harker," blood-drinking fetishists, and even a trip to Transylvania itself.
And he also researches quite a bit about vampire legends and how they evolved, as well as their connections to Prince Vlad Drakula, a happily savage ruler who got off on seeing people impaled. Not to mention, of course, the seminal vampire novel, the layered, atmospheric "Dracula," and the stories that spun off from it.
You gotta admit, Nuzum immersed himself in his work -- he writes in a Dave Barryian style, with lots of wacky people (including a gambling vegephobic vegetarian) and trivia that sticks in the mind (John Kerry and George Dubya are both related to Vlad the Impaler). There are plenty of hilarious moments, such as when he's sealed inside a coffin as part of a haunted-house hazing ritual.
The problem is, Nuzum is only really interested in "Dracula," and then only in the history and original novel. When it comes to anyone else, he seems rather disgusted.
For example, his visits to various "vampiric" places don't actually offer much insight into vampire-centric popular culture, or what craving might spur people to pretend that they are vampires, or even to be fans of horror movies and books. Nah. All his investigations can basically be summated as, "Wow! Wah! Look at all the loser freaks I had to talk to!" One can almost see him dodging the "weird" cooties, lest he also become a longtime fan of a cult TV show.
His attitude towards literature and movies isn't much more pleasant. He describes all vampire fiction as a "joke," but only reads a few of the best-known/oldest books, and deems them too hard and wordy. And he insists early on that every single vampire movie -- including "Nosferatu" and Lugosi's "Dracula" -- is unwatchable. Why? Not because of quality, but because they fail to live up to the creepy-crawlies he gets when he reads "Dracula." Score one against objectivity.
Even his research seems halfhearted. There's a lot about the origins of vampire legend in Greece, Romania and other such places. But aside from a passing mention at the beginning of the book, Nuzum doesn't bother to explore vampires from any other region, nor does he explore vampire movies/books from those areas either -- anime, for example. Nope, he's busy talking about those freaky African-American "vampires" he met in D.C.
"The Dead Travel Fast: Stalking Vampires from Nosferatu to Count Chocula" is a great title and a promising book, but it slopes off quickly into a series of rather disdainful analyses. Interesting, but offputting.
 vampires suck; this book doesn't September 25, 2007
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
You'd think that when a guy writing a vampire book drinks his own blood in the opening pages, the rest of the story would pale. Not true here. This book is surprising in so many ways -- it's academic without being boring; it's hilarious without being condescending; and it's heartfelt without being sentimental. The yarn about taking a road trip to Transylvania with "celebrity host" Butch Patrick (Eddie Munster, now 50-something and vaguely indifferent re. the whole Dracula thing) is itself worth the price of the book.
Great book. Well researched and very entertaining. September 23, 2007
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Excellent book. From the first chapter it sucks you into the world of vampires. Not only is the book well-researched, but the book is written in a way that you feel you are with the author as he travels to Transvylvania, Las Vegas, and other travels in search of the truth about vampires. The book would be entertaining even if you knew little or nothing about vampires. A must read.
Great title (2 1/2 stars) November 14, 2007
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
If you're interested in vampires, then you don't have much in common with Eric Nuzum, he makes it clear in his book that he's not very interested in them, and finds those that are to be lacking in some way. And it's not just vampires, if you're interested in anything that's remotely popular within American pop culture, then he seems to think of you as less than human, he even brags about not watching television. This was especially strange because in the book jacket, it says that one of his jobs was commenting on pop culture on VH1's various celebreality shows.
You name it, Friends was a terrible show (all of those respected TV critics that liked it are wrong, the VH1 vj has spoken), Vegas is fake (ok, he has a point, but come on, everybody knows this, he acts as if he's making some deep observation), he never misses an opportunity to talk down about those that he's writing about. Except for Butch Patrick (Eddie Munster), he comes out fairly unscathed, I guess because, like the author, he pretty much makes clear he doesn't have any real interest in the subject matter either.
He goes to a Dark Shadows convention, and seems fairly horrified that people would spend their free time going to such an event, I suppose their time would have been better spent staying home and watching him on VH1, making witty observations about Gary Coleman. He does force himself to watch every episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, which he grudgingly admits isn't all that bad. He discovers that several of his co-workers are fans of the show, and this is where he makes an especially insulting observation, he muses that Buffy fans are more normal than Dark Shadows fans, and that unlike the weirdos at the convention, the Buffy fans aren't fanatic about a silly TV show. Of course, there are Buffy conventions, and for all he knows, some of his co-workers might have been to one, and really, most of the people at the Dark Shadows convention probably lead normal lives when their not getting together to socialize with others that they happen to share an interest with.
Still, I give it 2 1/2 stars because he is a good writer, and although it seems he must have hated every minute of it, he did do his research, and there is quite a bit of vampire lore that he covers. He goes quite a bit into Bram Stoker, Dracula, Vlad the impaler, and Bela Lugosi, all of which was interesting. I also have to admit, the chapter that he describes a group tour he took of Translyvania is hilarious, anybody that has been on a group tour can relate. I would have preferred that a writer with at least a passing interest in vampires had written this book, Nuzzum seems to want to make money on the publics facination with vampires, but make it clear, he does not share that facination.
 vampires only exist in pop culture October 27, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is a quick, really funny read for people interested in pop culture surrounding all things vamp related. The best parts involve the writer working at a haunted house as a vamp and hanging out with Butch Patrick in Trannsylvania! Things slow down a bit when the histories of Bram Stock and Vlad the Impaler are discussed in great detail. I didnt think I was all that interested in the history of the novel Dracula, but apparantly I am!
Plenty of various vampire movies are discussed and then tossed into various sub-genres (lesbo vamps, Hammer Horror, Gothic horror..etc) I wished Nuzum would have discussed some of the post modern vamp movies like NEAR DARK and George Romero's MARTIN.
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