DARK VISION: Laurell Hamilton’s grim tales garner devoted following

By COREY STULCE

At her first Archon, author Laurell K. Hamilton had but one short story sold. But nearly 20 years later, she’s a rock star in the world of fantasy books, her last debuting at No. 1 on the New York Times Best Seller list.

Archon is the area’s largest science fiction and fantasy convention, held in the fall in Collinsville, Ill., and this year will be convened Oct. 3– 5. Hamilton is the guest of honor.
“Things may have changed a bit,” she laughed during a recent interview.

Back in her early days as a professional, Hamilton would sometimes sit, pen in hand, waiting for someone, anyone to come by for a signed book. These days she gets recognized in public a lot, she said, but strangely not so much in the bookstores, usually at movie theaters or events like the Renaissance fair.

Hamilton is currently about 300 pages into the 17th Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter novel, a mega-popular crime series that sees her heroine snuff out killer vamps as well as bed them — and werewolves to boot.

The first two novels in the series have been adapted by Marvel Comics, and Hamilton just announced on her Web site that a movie or TV show with Blake could be coming soon.

She and her family still call St. Louis home, and the Gateway to the West provides the setting for the Blake series as well.

Hamilton said she is getting more comfortable at sci-fi and fantasy conventions, and actually enjoyed herself at the recent DragonCon, a gathering of 20,000 or so folks annually over Labor Day weekend in Atlanta.

“If you just go and work at the cons you never get to understand why people go,” she said. “For the first time ever I actually got to go see concerts; I saw the art show and the dealer rooms.”

Hamilton said she was in her 20s before she even knew such conventions existed, where fans of everything from vampires to “Star Trek” to newer series like “Lost” gather and often dress in costume of their favorite genre.

“When you talk to people, you find out some of the most outrageous (costumed people), their day jobs are very detail-oriented. This is their chance to blow off some steam. You begin to get it,” she said.

Blowing off steam for some is coming dressed in very little clothing — perhaps just a set of glittering fairy wings and a thong — and expecting to be asked by several sweaty gentlemen to pose for photos. Hamilton found it humorous that she was asked to pose for pics donned in her Tee and jeans.

“A couple of the young ladies, your gynecologist should be the only one seeing that,” she laughed.

She said that 99 percent of her fans are wonderful, and she’s getting more comfortable with the fact that they want to share with her their experiences and love for Hamilton and her books.

“I think because it’s a continuing series and they have so much invested in it because of so many books,” she said of their devotion. “It feels very personal to them. My imaginary friends have become their imaginary friends.”

Hamilton told this reporter about a decade ago that Blake’s personality was quite similar to her own, though Hamilton cursed less. And it is because she has allowed her characters to grow and change that she has not become bored with the world she created, and plans to continue the series indefinitely.

“I gave myself enough toys to play with,” she said. “My imaginary friends, they constantly surprise me.”

Blake has not aged the same as Hamilton, and the author is curious what will happen with her character’s personality once she hits age 30. She said what she has really gained by introducing her world of a magical St. Louis is the people she has met that would likely have not entered her life if she was not writing about horrific crimes and fornicating beast people.

“I met my husband because he came to a science fiction convention and stood in line. He and my assistant are two of the four people who came to my signing when no one cared,” Hamilton said.

For more information about Archon, which will be held at the Gateway Center in Collinsville, visit www.archonstl.org.

You can e-mail Corey Stulce at frozo85@hotmail.com.