The Morganville Vampires

Last updated
The Morganville Vampires
Author Rachel Caine
Language English
SeriesThe Morganville Vampires
SubjectVampires
Genre Urban Fantasy / Vampire
Publisher New American Library
Publication date
October 2006–2014
Media typePrint (Hardback & Paperback)

The Morganville Vampires is a series of young adult urban fantasy/vampire novels written by Rachel Caine. The novels feature Claire Danvers, a student at Texas Prairie University, and her housemates in the vampire-controlled city of Morganville, Texas. [1] While the mayor of Morganville is human, the population co-exist with a group of vampires. [2] Morganville is also home to an unusually large number of second-hand thrift stores. [3]

Contents

Several of the novels have made the New York Times bestseller list. [4] In September 2009, Caine announced that she had signed a contract with Signet to write books 10, 11, and 12 in the series. The following year, in January 2010 Rachel Caine revealed that beginning with book 9, Ghost Town, novels in this series would first be released in hardback. [2] In September 2011 three further books were contracted for the series bringing the total to 15.

Series

Novels and anthology

  1. Glass Houses (October 2006, Signet Books, ISBN   0-451-21994-5) [5]
  2. The Dead Girls' Dance (April 2007, Signet Books, ISBN   0-451-22089-7)
  3. Midnight Alley (October 2007, Signet Books, ISBN   0-451-22238-5)
  4. Feast of Fools (June 2008, Signet Books, ISBN   0-451-22463-9)
  5. Lord of Misrule (January 2009, Signet Books, ISBN   0-451-22572-4)
  6. Carpe Corpus (June 2009, Signet Books, ISBN   0-451-22719-0) [4]
  7. Fade Out (November 2009, Signet Books, ISBN   0-451-22866-9)
  8. Kiss of Death (April 27, 2010, Signet Books, ISBN   0-451-22973-8)
  9. Ghost Town (October 26, 2010, NAL Hardcover, ISBN   0-451-23161-9)
  10. Bite Club (May 3, 2011, NAL Hardcover, ISBN   0-451-23318-2)
  11. Last Breath (November 1, 2011, NAL Hardcover, ISBN   0-451-23487-1)
  12. Black Dawn (May 1, 2012, NAL Hardcover, ISBN   0-451-23671-8)
  13. Bitter Blood (November 6, 2012, NAL Hardcover, ISBN   0-451-23811-7)
  14. Fall Of Night (May 7, 2013, NAL Hardcover, ISBN   0-451-41425-X)
  15. Daylighters (November 5, 2013, NAL Hardcover, ISBN   0-451-41427-6)
  16. Midnight Bites (March 1, 2016, Berkley Softcover, ISBN   978-1101989784)

Short stories

Characters

Synopsis

Glass Houses
Welcome to Morganville. Just do not stay out after dark.

Morganville is a small town filled with unusual characters - when the sun goes down, the bad come out. In Morganville, there is an evil that lurks in the darkest shadows - one that will spill out into the bright light of day.

For Claire Danvers, high school was hell, but college may be murder. It was bad enough that she got on the wrong side of Monica, the meanest of the school's mean girls, but now she has got three new roommates, who all have secrets of their own. And the biggest secret of all is not really a secret, except from Claire: Morganville is run by vampires, and they are hungry for fresh blood.

Dead Girls' Dance
Good news, girls: your dates are here!

Claire Danvers has had her share of challenges - like being a genius in a school that favours beauty over brains, dealing with the homicidal girls in her dorm and, above all, finding out that her college town is overrun with bloodsucking fiends. On the plus side, so far Claire and her friends have managed to survive getting on the wrong side of some Morganville VIPs - Vampire Important Persons. But their temporary peace is in danger of collapsing, thanks to the arrival of her new boyfriend's scary father and his vampire-fighting supporters.

Bad news, girls: they're dead.
Midnight Alley
In the third book of the series, Claire makes an important decision that determines the rest of her life. This leads her to finding out the deepest, darkest secret in Morganville, enough to destroy the city – if it falls into the wrong hands. She must learn all she can to save her best friend, patron, and those she tolerates. With Monica kicking up and Shane in more trouble than ever, Claire must work to protect her friends and herself.
Feast of Fools
In the town of Morganville, vampires and humans live in relative peace together. Student Claire Danvers has never been convinced, though — especially with the arrival of Mr. Bishop, an ancient, old-school vampire who cares nothing about harmony. What he wants from the town's living and its dead is unthinkably sinister. It is only at a formal ball, attended by vampires and their human dates, that Claire realizes the elaborately evil trap he has set for Morganville.
Lord Of Misrule
In the college town of Morganville, vampires and humans coexist in (relatively) bloodless harmony. Then comes Bishop, the master vampire who threatens to abolish all order, revive the forces of the evil undead, and let chaos rule. But Bishop is not the only threat. Violent black cyclone clouds hover, promising a storm of devastating proportions as student Claire Danvers and her friends prepare to be in for a whole lot if trouble.
Carpe Corpus
To protect her friends (as much as possible), Claire has been forced to side with Bishop as the battle for Morganville rages on. Somehow, Claire manages to save Shane, reconcile with Michael, and make up with Eve. Claire and Myrnin also may have discovered a cure to the vampire disease. Now they still have the problem of Bishop controlling the city. To save Morganville, someone unexpected has to pay the ultimate price that leaves the entire town in mourning.
Fade Out
Morganville has stabilized into a kind of peace (although it may only be skin deep), but new players are entering the scene, and the course of true love never does run smoothly, especially when an old girlfriend drops in for a visit. And the phrase "hidden camera" takes on entirely new and significant meaning for our heroes in the Glass House.
Kiss of Death
Claire Danvers and her friends have been given an offer they cannot refuse – time away from Morganville, with an escort of course. But when they encounter trouble of both the human and vampire varieties they begin to realize life outside Morganville is not all it is cracked up to be.
Ghost Town
The fragile peace between humans and vampires in Morganville is in trouble, and when Claire takes drastic action, she is put under serious pressure to re-establish the barriers that keep the town residents inside and wipe the memories of those who leave. But working with her half-crazy vampire boss Myrnin means that things do not always turn out as planned...and as the people of Morganville begin acting strangely, Claire and her friends must solve the mystery and try to put things right. But one by one, her allies are turning on her... even the ones she trusts most.
Bite Club
After discovering that vampires populate her town, college student Claire Danvers knows that the undead just want to live their lives. But someone else wants them to get ready to rumble. There is a new extreme sport getting picked up on the Internet: bare- knuckle fights pitting captured vampires against each other-or humans. Tracking the remote signal leads Claire—accompanied by her friends and frenemies—to discover that what started as an online brawl will soon threaten everyone in Morganville.
Last Breath
There is a question Claire has long been asking: why do vampires live so far out in a sunny desert when they are sensitive to sunlight? The reason does not have to do with sunlight but water - and an ancient enemy who has finally found a way to invade the vampires' landlocked community. Vampires are not the top predator on earth. There is something worse that preys on them... something much worse. Which means if Claire, and Morganville, want to live, they will have to fight on to the last breath. With her boss preoccupied researching the Founder Houses in Morganville, Claire is left to her own devices when she learns that three vampires have vanished without a trace. She soon discovers that the last person seen with one of the missing vampires is someone new to town-a mysterious individual named Magnus. After an uneasy encounter with Morganville's latest resident, Claire is certain Magnus is not merely human. But is he a vampire-or something else entirely?
Black Dawn
When a tide of ferocious draug, the vampire's deadliest enemy, floods Morganville, its eclectic mix of residents must fight to save their town from devastation. Chaos has taken over the quiet college town of Morganville as the threat of the draug rapidly spreads with the help of the city's water system. Whilst most of the locals have already fled, student Claire Danvers and her friends Shane, Eve and Michael choose to stay and fight. Things take a turn for the worse when vampire Amelie, the town's founder, is infected by the master draug's bite. Unless Claire and her friends can find an antidote to save Amelie and overcome the draug, Morganville's future looks bleak...
Bitter Blood
Thanks to the eradication of the draug, the vampires of Morganville have been freed of their usual constraints. With the vampires indulging their every whim, the town's human population is determined to hold onto their lives by taking up arms. But college student Claire Danvers is not taking sides, considering she has ties to both humans and vampires. To make matters worse, a television show comes to Morganville looking for ghosts, just as vampire and human politics collide. Now, Claire and her friends have to figure out how to keep the peace without ending up on the nightly news...or worse.
Fall Of Night
Thanks to its unique mix of human and vampire residents, Morganville, Texas, is a small college town with big-time problems. But it is not the only town with vampire trouble ...Claire never thought she would leave Morganville, but when she gets accepted into the graduate course at MIT, she cannot pass up the opportunity. Saying goodbye to her friends, especially her boyfriend Shane, is bittersweet, and her new life at MIT is both scary and exciting. Enrolled in a special advanced study programme with Professor Irene Anderson, former Morganville native, Claire is able to work on VLAD, her machine designed to cancel the mental abilities of vampires. But Morganville and its inhabitants are never really far from Claire's mind. When she begins testing her machine on live subjects, things quickly spiral out of control, and Claire begins to wonder whether leaving Morganville was the last mistake she will ever make ...
Daylighters
Something drastic has happened in Morganville while Claire and her friends were away. The town looks cleaner and happier than they have ever seen it before, but when their incoming group is arrested and separated - vampires from humans - they realise that the changes definitely are not for the better. It seems that an organisation called the Daylight Foundation has offered the population of Morganville something they have never had hope of a vampire-free future. And while it sounds like salvation - even for the vampires themselves - the truth is far more sinister and deadly. Now, Claire, Shane and Eve need to find a way to break their friends out of Daylighter custody, before the vampires of Morganville meet their untimely end ...
Midnight Bites
Six brand-new stories from the author of the bestselling Morganville Vampires. This edition sees all of Caine's Morganville short stories featured in one edition, for the first time.

Key locations

The Glass House

The protagonists of the novels are the four young adults who live in The Glass House. The house has a mind of its own and often does things for the young heroes. It is also a safe haven for those in need. It is kept safe by "founder's protection". The house is also what saved Michael Glass when Oliver attacked him a few years back. So Michael is now trapped to house for the rest of his life but can never die, because he is already dead. However, in The Dead Girl's Dance Michael, in order to help Shane, who is sentenced to death and to be able to get out of the house, asks Amelie to turn him into a vampire. As he said "I'm half-alive, Claire. There's no going back, i can only go forwards". After this he is a full-fledged vampire.

Myrnin's Lab

Myrnin's Lab is the place that Claire works at in Midnight Alley. It is also home to her boss Myrnin also known as the 'Trapdoor Spider'. It is located next to the Day house, secretly hidden from everyone but those Amelie wishes to share this information with. It is rumored if you happen to walk down there Myrnin will feast on the unprotected, which he can tell if you're not, without looking for a bracelet. Myrnin's Lab is a place of work for sciences, mostly alchemy.

Texas Prairie University

A third-tier state university, often used as a starter school by students unable to get into challenging institutions of higher education. Most of the students there are apparently unaware of the strange things that happen in Morganville. Monica's abuse of Claire here is what drove Claire to seek out the Glass House in the first place.

Common Grounds

A coffee shop located just off the TPU campus, Common Grounds acts as neutral territory for meetings between the human and vampire population. This was the place Eve Rosser worked until she found out her hippie boss was actually a powerful vampire who tried to turn Michael into a vampire. This place plays great importance throughout the entire series. It is owned by vampire mafia boss Oliver.

Founder's Houses

Houses similar to Claire's own, these houses are located throughout Morganville. They are connected to each other through Ada, Myrnin's invention that keeps up memory barriers in town (later replaced by Frank Collins, Shane's father). Amelie often makes her appearances in these houses in the early novels. Houses referred to in the novels include the Glass house, the Day house, and Claire's parents house.

Adaptations

It has been announced on the author's website that the rights to a Morganville Vampire film/TV series and any other multimedia production have been sold to the people behind the popular series Red Dwarf and Paramount Pictures.[ citation needed ]

Morganville: The Series

In June 2013, a Kickstarter campaign was launched [7] to help adapt The Morganville Vampires into a web TV series with Amber Benson attached to star as Amelie, the founder of Morganville and Blake Calhoun signed on as director and producer. Rachel Caine has also come on board as writer and producer. On July 11, 2013, the Kickstarter campaign was successful, raising a total of $81,752.

On July 26, 2013, Rachel announced that the scripts for the first season were completed. [8] On October 22, 2014, a trailer for the series was uploaded to YouTube by Geek & Sundry. [9]

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References

  1. Smith, Cynthia Leitich (October 9, 2006). "Author Interview: Rachel Caine on Glass Houses". Cynsations.
  2. 1 2 Fowler, Jimmy (January 26, 2011). "Making a Killing: A Fort Worth author turns a mythical, bloodsucking Texas town into big-time success". Fort Worth Weekly . Retrieved January 27, 2011.
  3. London, Vicky (September 12, 2006). "Rachel Caine: Glass Houses (The Morganville Vampires, Book One)". Vampire Genre.
  4. 1 2 Martindale, David (July 9, 2009). "Third name is the charm for woman who was leery of being author". Fort Worth Star-Telegram .
  5. Halvorsen, Barry (July 22, 2007). "Recommended books in young adult series". Victoria Advocate.
  6. "Hex Life: Wicked New Tales of Witchery".
  7. Caine, Rachel (11 June 2013). "Morganville: The Web TV Series" . Retrieved 11 June 2013.
  8. Caine, Rachel (26 July 2013). "@rachelcaine: MVTS scripts are done!" . Retrieved 26 July 2013.
  9. "Morganville teaser trailer". YouTube . October 22, 2014. Archived from the original on 2021-12-15. Retrieved October 26, 2014.