[The following is a rebuttal by Lynsay Sands to Lucia's Post about THE ACCIDENTAL VAMPIRE]

My vamps aren't dead and soulless.

I repeat, MY VAMPS AREN'T DEAD AND SOULLESS!

Here's the deal: the only reason I got into vamps in the first place was that a friend of mine suggested that she, and another friend (who did write vamps) do an anthology together. I laughed and said that if I wrote vamps, mine would have to faint at the sight of blood or something like that. I write humor, so it had to be something humorous, right?

Well, I threw out a couple more ideas at the time and then we changed the subject. But those ideas were good, they were funny, and would be fun to write, and so I started to toy with the idea of writing a vamp book.

My first problem was the whole dead and soulless bit. I mean, like I said, I AM pragmatic and you can say what you want, but a guy who's been dead for hundreds of years is gonna smell. He HAS to. And then there's the whole bit about "is he happy to see me, or is it just rigormortis causing that bulge in his trousers?". UGH!

I just couldn't do the undead thing. As for the soulless stuff, well how can some guy without a soul love anyone? So, I had a problem. I didn't want him dead or soulless. I needed another answer for my vamps. Science seemed the only way to go.

A combination of present technology (Nanos) and an old movie (INNER SPACE) led me to the idea of combining bio engineering and nanos to create little bio-nanos that when shot into the bloodstream repaired and regenerated their host. These would have been created to attack and cure cancer, a ruptured spleen, and so on, without invasive surgery. In my stories they were programmed to shut down and disintegrate when the repairs or illness were gone.

Here's the deal, though: the human body is always in need of repair. The effects of the sun, the environment, and simple time itself are constantly causing damage to our bodies. So, much to their developer's surprise, the nanos are constantly working and never shut down, keeping the body alive for...well...ever, I guess.

That solved a lot of the whole undead thing, but I also wanted my vamps to be old because that's just sexier. I mean, think about it; a guy who's 400, 500, or older whose seen and done it all, including probably numerous women, and he wants this one woman as his lifemate. Or needs her as his lifemate. It makes her special.

But this technology would be very new...unless...The mythical Atlantis solved my problem. There are all sorts of myths about Atlantis. One is that they were advanced technologically. What if this all originated in Atlantis, I thought, and my vamps were born.

Where does the blood and biting come in? Well, the nanos were designed to use blood for fuel as well as to do the repair work. But the human body can't produce enough blood to sustain these nanos, so outside sources are needed. This wasn't a problem in Atlantis where they just used blood transfusions, but when Atlantis fell and the survivors found themselves wandering around in the "before-dark-ages", there were no more transfusions.

Fortunately, the nanos were designed to help the host survive and so they evolved the host to be able to get the blood he/she needed, giving them hollow fangs to get that blood. For that same reason, they also gave them the ability to read and control minds, made them faster, stronger to make them the perfect predator. Since the sun's rays damage the body and mean the host has to find more blood, it also gave them better night vision so they could live and hunt at night.

There you have it. Not dead, not soulless, but science. Oddly enough, I've gotten two letters from people about my nanos not being far off the mark of what scientists are working on today. One was a nurse who works in experimental science, the other the mother of a young guy taking engineering at the University of Michigan, she sent me the url to an article in the University paper talking about using nanos to repair wrinkles or something. So...See how pragmatic I am? LOL.

Pick one up, Lucia, you might find it fits in with your pragmatic view.

Lynsay