Page Created: 09/25/10. Last Updated: 10/27/10. Last Google Group Page Update: 08/14/10.
TERENCE TAYLOR
Books:
Bite Marks
Blood Pressure
Links:
Official Site: http://terencetaylor.com/
Vampire Site: http://doyoubelieveinvampires.com/
MEETING SUMMARY:
Meeting Date: July 10, 2010.
Meeting Site: Barnes & Noble. Hackensack, New Jersey.
Official Attendance: 21.
Meeting Program: Talk by Horror Writer / Children's Television Writer
Notes:
Additional Material about the Meeting appears after the Newsletter Account.
Meeting Memories:
Newsletter Account:
The following account is reprinted with permission from THE STARSHIP EXPRESS Copyright 2010 Philip J De Parto:
The July 10, 2010 meeting of the Science Fiction Association of Bergen County was held at Barnes & Noble in The Shops at Riverside in Hackensack, New Jersey. The evening had an inauspicious beginning as a corporate mandated layout change eliminated our traditional meeting space. There was another suitable space in the store, but chairs did not arrive
until 15 minutes after our scheduled starting time. Fortunately, this only impacted our pre meeting Ice Nine discussion and not the talk itself. Another bit of luck was that Elaine Brown, a former work colleague of our speaker, happened to be in the store, saw the sign, and came to see if it was the same Terence Taylor she had known decades ago.
Terence Taylor is the author of BITE MARKS and BLOOD PRESSURE, the first two books of a planned Vampire Testament trilogy. The three books are set 20 years apart from each other, with BITE set in the mid 80's, BLOOD set in the present, and the third book set in the future. The human characters age. The vampires remain immortal.
Ray Bradbury, John Collier, and Roald Dahl were some of the writers whom he enjoyed both as a child and an adult. Mr Taylor once had the opportunity to meet Bradbury and remarked that he has never met anyone as happy with his life as Bradbury.
Our speaker had been an art major at St Johns University when he enrolled in the Survey of Foreign Film class which changed his life. Upon graduation, he got a job on VEGETABLE SOUP, a small, local children's television show. After a few years he moved to Los Angeles and worked for two decades on YOU CAN'T DO THAT ON TELEVISION!, LIVE WIRE, and a variety of animated series like BEETLEJUICE for Disney, PBS, Nickelodeon, and other venues.
As the century drew a close, the nature of the television business As the century drew a close, the nature of the television business was changing. More work was being brought in house at the expense of freelancers like Mr Taylor. He decided to go home and begin a new career writing fiction instead of television scripts. He returned to New York two weeks after September 11.
He received an invitation to the three DARK DREAMS horror anthologies through his friends Tananarive Due and Steve Barnes. He attracted notice with "Clay Thing" in the initial volume. The story explored the legal and ethical boundaries posed by using computer software to create child porn which involved no children.
Our guest had begun BITE MARKS in the 80s, although the story then was very different than what was later published by St Martin's Press. His vampires exhibit some aspects of traditional vampires such as being unable to face the sun. They can impose their will on people to make them see what the vampire wishes them to see. They cannot turn into bats. They are vulnerable to fire. Most drink blood because it is intoxicating (some more ethical vampires just feed off psychic energy at events like concerts and parties). The vampire community in New York has only one rule: clean up after yourself. Do not do anything to make humans believe that vampires are real.
Terence Taylor feels that science fiction, fantasy, and horror allow the writer a way to make points about things which you cannot do in traditional mainstream fiction. Blood is a drug for vampires. The overall theme of the trilogy is that actions have consequences. With power comes responsibility. The three main vampires all do different things with their power. Perenelle represents a humane use of power. She lives off crowd energy and tries to curb the worst excesses of her kind. Adam is a raging psycho. Ramon is somewhere in between.
Our guest was a terrific speaker who could have gone on for hours more. He explained "I can talk almost indefinitely on almost any topic because I spend most of my time in a room alone and I need to catch up." We plan to have him again next year.