Books With Bite - Interview With Amir Lane

1)  Tell us about your book

A Rhapsody of Rapiers takes place during the Anglo-Spanish War, mostly throughout the Mediterranean. The story starts with Elyes Jaouhari joining his brother as a privateer working under the English. In exchange, they’re offered money and free movement after the War. Except Elyes’ ship is attacked by monsters that kill almost everybody. The survivors have become those very monsters themselves.
Elyes has to figure out how to survive in a time before vampire stories were popular, with no idea what he is and a war still going on.
This novella is the first in a series of historic vampire origin stories that span the globe and take place from the 1600s to WWI.
 
 
2)         Do your vampires have any special abilities?

Generally speaking, my vampires are pretty animalistic, with super speed and strength, and heightened senses. They’re very charismatic, though they definitely can come across as unsettling. Some of them also have abilities that carried over from their human lives, like being able to stay in the same position for hours or move silently.
 
3)         Vampires vs werewolves – who would win and why

In a straight, head-to-head fight, I think vampires would win. Obviously depends on your lore, but werewolves are pretty much just bigger, stronger wolves. Vampires are faster and stronger, and are also apex predators.
I also think a vampire would have an easier time killing a werewolf in general. Werewolves might have an advantage during the day, but they’re still pretty much just people outside the full moon, with maybe some better senses.
 
4)         Who is your favorite vampire on TV or in books?

One of the first vampire books I read other than Twilight was Blackwood Farm by Anne Rice. I used it as my English class book for the year, so I spent a lot of time analyzing the characters in that one. (The next year I did Vlad: The Last Confession with the same teacher, and she had a couple concerns.) I’m always going to have a soft spot for Tarquin Blackwood. For werewolves, I think my favourite is Josh from Being Human (US and UK version). I’m a sucker for monsters who are actually marshmallows inside.
 
5)         Tell us what is next for you as an author

The first thing is the release of the Heavy Metal Blood box set, which contains four vampire origin novellas and four brand new short stories, coming August 27th. After that, I have a few things I’m working on, including an urban fantasy short story collection and book 4 in a series about heavy metal musicians who double as vampire hunters called Heavy Metal Hunters.

Amir Lane writes supernatural and fantasy with LGBT+ characters. From the frigid and mysterious land of Northern Canada, Amir is obsessed with loud music and black magic. They spend most of their writing time in a small home office or doing the circuit of local coffee shops. They live in a world where magic is an every day occurrence, and they strive to bring that world to paper.
When not figuring out what kind of day job an incubus would have or what a necromancer would go to school for, Amir enjoys visiting the nearest Dairy Queen, getting killed in video games, and watching cat videos.

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