The premise behind “Night Watch” is that our world is inhabited by Others, supernaturally gifted people and other beings, mostly living amongst us as human. Every other belongs either to the Light or the Dark, a choice that cannot be revoked once made. The two sides have fought for millennia, but have come to a historic accord – rather than utterly destroy each other, they maintain an uneasy peace, each letting the other side indulge in a certain amount of activity unopposed.

Series protagonist Anton is a mage and a member of the Night Watch, working on the side of the pro-human Light to monitor and regulate the forces of the Dark. Anton sits uneasily in the Light, but it’s an either-or choice, and the Dark are predatory, callous and prone to breaking the rules. A new, untrained Grand Sorceress is just starting to discover her talent, and the magical repercussions threaten all of Moscow. Meanwhile, a significant intrigue is starting to unfold around a young boy whose fate, uniquely, is entirely in his own hands – he may have the power to tip the balance one way or the other. An interesting premise and fast-paced action are blended well with a starkly realistic look at modern Moscow, and there’s a strong streak of darkly fatalistic humour. There’s also a hell of a lot of moral ambiguity — despite the set-up, there’s no nice, easy heroes and villains in this world.

The ‘Night Watch’ book was also turned into a pair of movies, Night Watch and Day Watch. They’re fun, and capture Moscow beautifully, but they’re not as engaging as the book. Lukyanenko has also done a number of sequels to his original book — Day Watch (yes, I know, but it’s not my fault), Twilight Watch and The Last Watch. They retain the trifurcated but thematically linked structure of the first book, although The Last Watch is closer to being a regular novel. They’re well worth getting hold of.

Y’see, swearing reflects the things that a culture considers taboo or abomination. It is used as a strong marker of social identity, and in-groups often rely on it (amongst other things) to identify and marginalise outsiders. How you swear reflects not only where you’re from, but your social class, your personal beliefs, and even the way you think.

Saying ‘gosh darn-it’ in a blue-collar bar can be as big a mistake as saying ‘mutha-fukka’ in church. Some cultures (including Anglo-Saxon) swear by reviling the body and its processes. Scandinavian cultures use the devil for swearing. Latin and Greek cultures prefer to insult a person’s religious icons or parents.

New vampires in vampire society are going to be looked down on, just like newcomers in any group. Their ingrained patterns of swearing are going to be one of the things that mark them out. Almost all people will attempt to conform to a dominant group they need, so the way I see it, vampire society would have developed its own language of swearing and insults, which newcomers would need to pick up swiftly to avoid sounding like hopeless wide-eyed rubes.

I don’t have anything resembling a good set of vampire curses or insults yet. However, some of the areas I’m thinking about include:

* light - “blind me”, “burn me”, “sunbeams”, “scorch you”

* weakness - “toothless”, “wannabe”

* attachment to humanity – “lost boy”, “puppy”, “teddy bear”, “meatfucker”

* human stereotypes – “twinkly”, “rock star”, “Lugosi”

What about you? How do you reckon vampires would swear?

I haven’t settled on a title yet, but the Ghostwoods project is an epic vampire novel set in a dark urban fantasy version of the modern world. I want to tell the story from the vampire point of view, rather than just having them as plot devices for a human-focussed tale. I’ve been thinking a lot about the vampire map of the Earth recently, which has yielded some interesting results. We tend to forget how much the boundaries and borders of our world change over time.

The events of the story are starting to shape up nicely, and I’ve got some fun characters starting to come together. I’ve got a good feeling about this project. It’s going to have some dark and twisty corners, but mainly I’m aiming for it being a compelling read, and an interesting look into the vampire world.

I’ll be sharing more about the project as it continues, and if you have any questions — about the process, the setting, characters, themes, whatever — then please, fire away in the comments!

Ethan Hawke is a (vampire) blood scientist who stumbles across a band of rogue vamps led by Willem Dafoe. They’ve found a (full or partial) cure for vampirism, which lets them eat food and enjoy sunlight again. I’m assuming that Sam Neill is going to be mightily pissed off at the possibility of losing his power and status, so is going to try to wipe them out before they can bring the good news to vampdom.  Certainly, lots of frenetic action ensues. It’s just a guess of course, but I’m suspecting Ethan will manage to free humanity by the skin of his teeth, killing Sam Neill in the process :)

Daybreakers is an Australian production, written and directed by Peter and Michael Spierig and released by Lionsgate.  It’s got a mid-range budget, but it’s been in post-production for two years now, so they’ve had plenty of time to cram in lots of fun visuals.

A movie with this sort of cookie-cutter adversarial premise can go one of two ways, and it’s almost always impossible to tell which from the trailer (here, via Apple). If it takes itself seriously, it will often fall flat on its face, like Ultraviolet or Jumpers. Alternatively, if it decides to just have fun and shoot for being entertaining, it can be glorious — Underworld, for example. Ethan Hawke has said in interview that the film is an allegory of humanity’s use and misuse of natural resources, but, fortunately, added that it was “completely unpretentious and silly.”

So keep your fingers crossed — it could be some great, cheesy fun! Daybreakers is out early January ‘10.