Top 10 Web Sites

I've been planning this for a long time. A while back, when the Web was in its infancy, I did some searching and was dismayed by how few web sites on the topic of vampirism there were on the Internet. Today it is just the opposite. Unfortunately, now the problem is that even though there are thousands of vampire sites to choose from, so much of it is crap that you can literally spend endless nights traveling from site to site searching for one inhabitable ruins or even just a halfway decent cave where there might be another reasonably intelligent vamp hiding from the light. But it isn't long before you realize all there is to find are the same old lurching zombies with their putrid decay and bulging, lifeless eyes that stare through you with utter emptiness.

But I have good news because it isn't completely hopeless. If you search long and hard enough you are bound to find a few gems among the heaping piles of dung. And this, of course, is the purpose of this web page. You don't have to spend the endless hours of aimless wandering because I have already found the best sites for you. Search no further because, and I will stake my career on it, these are the best web sites on vampires the Internet has to offer. --Webhead [4/1/03]

NOTE: The LRC Standards for Inclusion is the evaluation criteria utilized for the selection of web sites for this Top 10 list.

Vampire Library www.vampirelibrary.com
The Vampire Library is simply the best Web based information resource on vampire books there is. No pop-ups, no ads, no crap at all--just excellent content and good web site design. Kudos to the person who registered this domain name and put it to appropriate use. Must be a librarian.  ; )

"The Historical Dracula" by Ray Porter www.eskimo.com/~mwirkk/castle/vlad/vladhist.html
The best I can determine, this is the most comprehensive, authoritative Web based information available on Vlad Dracul (the actual historical figure upon which Bram Stoker's Dracula is based). You will have to buy a printed book if you want to go beyond this.

Vampress.net vampress.net Forget Vampirella, Chastity, or even getting it from all the biker Vamps at once--this smokin' hot babe is for real!!! And, as if her vampish beauty wasn't enough on it's own to make this list, of course she has a ton of great content on a nicely designed web site as well. BTW, Vampress recently sent me an e-mail to chastise me for not being more on the ball. Apparently she completed her web site renovation several months ago...

VampGirl.com www.vampgirl.com
Maybe women make better vampires than men, or maybe they just understand the nature of vampirism better. Whatever it is, they certainly seem to have a lock on the top web sites on the subject that the Internet has to offer. A lot of full text works and other great content makes VampGirl.com definitely worth visiting. Who knows? You may never leave...

Vampyres Only www.vampyres.com
At first look this site has a commercialized feel to it, but if you take the time to look around you will find a good balance of content and community (which in my opinion kind of goes against the nature of the beast). Anyway, this web site sets itself apart from the others with its combination of good content and good site design.

Shroudeater.com: European Vampire Research www.shroudeater.com
If you are interested in research on the topic of vampires, look no further. The Shroudeater.com web site interface is kind of bland, but it is functional (navigation is fine), and the interface shortcoming is more than made up for by the quality and quantity of information content.

Linda Suzane's e-Vampires.net e-vampires.netfirms.com
A writer of vampire fiction herself, Suzane has done a fantastic job of putting together a web site that serves as a one stop location for finding the best vampire e-books available on the Web.

Darkness Embraced www.darkness-embraced.com
Prior to July 2003, I had this web site listed at number 12 (on the Honorable Mentions page since this is obviously the Top 10). And considering the number web sites I reviewed, this didn't seem too bad. But I decided to do a more comprehensive review of the site, and this led me to move Darkness Embraced into ninth place. Although I'm not particularly fond of the database driven layout, I like the new color scheme, and Darkness Embraced has a good selection of content in, for example, The Vampire section under headings like "Vampire Mythology" and "Classic Literature". Also, for those of you who are into the "vampire community", there is a members section and recent posts by members are displayed on the home page. This provides a great forum for those of you who don't have the power of telepathy but still want to share what's on your mind.

Cult Vampire Magazine www.bbc.co.uk/cult/vampires/
Well, if nothing else, this site ought to keep your eyeballs occupied with trying to figure out where things begin and where they might end. The unusual page design has everything tightly compacted in a series of colorful squares on individual main pages. Other than that, there seems to be a lot of cool stuff here.

Everything You Need to Know About Vampires www.angelfire.com/tn/vampires/
This web site has the very unusual (and unique) effect of making me feel like I'm getting information on the most revered of the undead from Mary Poppins. Now wait just a minute and hear me out! Please hold your fangs before you viciously attack me in an honorable defense of Keri's site. I honestly don't mean the Mary Poppins comparison in a derogatory manner. There is nothing wrong with Mary Poppins, and she is, in fact, very intelligent (at least the fictional character is supposed to be). I would suspect that if you were a kid who needed to be rescued from vampires while the parents were out, Mary Poppins would be the ideal nanny to save your butt--but I digress. This is just my opinion, but I think that Keri's web site would benefit from some simple design adjustments. Lighter backgrounds that don't interfere with the text (or no background images at all), a better navigation system, and a more logical content layout would go a long way toward improvement. Of course, if you don't give a crap about web site design and you are strictly interested in excellent original content on the subject of vampires, then by all means you should make "Everything You Need to Know About Vampires" your number one site.

[Mary Poppins measures herself with a tape measure and reads what it says.]
Just as I thought. "Mary Poppins, practically perfectly in every way." --Mary Poppins.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

These fifteen sites weren't good enough to make it into the Top 10, but I decided to provide an Honorable Mentions page to give you a few more options in case you haven't found everything about vampires you could possibly want to know in the ten sites listed above--which I find hard to imagine. (You must have one incredible appetite if you weren't able to satisfy your thirst with all the content available from the Top 10 sites.) Some of these web sites were almost good enough for the Top 10 but just missed the cut, and others are kind of crappy, but have original content that you won't find elsewhere on the web. Proceed at your own risk...