Chelsea Quinn Yarbro: a horror legend speaks

Chelsea Quinn Yarbro  Photo:  Charles Lucke   

Chelsea Quinn Yarbro doesn’t giggle, she laughs—rich, full-bodied, with genuine humor. You find out quickly she likes cats. The voice, which doesn’t sound sixty-seven, also doesn’t fit whatever preconceived notions you might happen to have about the author of one of the best series of vampire novels ever written. 

She was born in Berkley, California in 1942. Before her success as a popular writer she worked for her father’s cartographers’ firm and worked as a professional tarot card reader. She’s a serious student of the occult, a composer, and the author of some fifty published books. She’s also a Grand Master of the World Horror Convention, the first woman to be a Living Legend of the International Horror Guild, and has received a Life Achievement Award from the Horror Writers Association, of which she was the first woman president.

Her best-known novels make up “The Saint-Germain Cycle,” whose hero is a four thousand year old vampire. It’s the humans, however, who usually behave badly, even viciously, in her stories. Her hero is based on a real person, known to history as the Comte de Saint-Germain. He lived in the eighteenth century, generally dressed in black, although often adorned with expensive jewels, was seldom, if ever seen during daylight hours, and never ate in public. He claimed to be a magus and possess occult powers, and to be impossibly old.

Sounds like…?

She had the same idea and based a fictional vampire on him. When Saint-Germain died, and how old he was at the time, is not one hundred percent clear, which only feeds the legend. In real life, Saint-Germain probably lied about his age. Eighteenth century France did not necessarily consider youth an asset, particularly, she says, “if you were claiming to be a magus.” In any event, it’s likely no one knows more about him than Yarbro.
 

Cover art for Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's "Burning Shadows"

In 1978, she published Hotel Translyvania, placing her vampirized version of Saint-Germain in his actual time and place. The novel was acquired about the same time Anne Rice sold Interview With the Vampire. Rice’s publisher paid more than Yarbro’s, and as Yarbro says: “When they invest a lot of money, they do extraordinary things to make sure people know it’s there.”

The Palace, also published in 1978, was a prequel, and found Saint-Germain in Renaissance Italy. In 1980’s Blood Games, Yarbro went even farther back and placed him in Nero’s Rome. In Path of the Eclipse, published in 1981, Saint-Germain finally left Europe for a novel set mainly in Asia during the time of Genghis Khan. He finally made his way to the twentieth century in the longest book of the series, Tempting Fate, published in 1982, which chronicled the rise of Nazism in post-World War I Germany. In 1983 Yarbro published a collection of short stories called The Saint-Germain Chronicles, which saw the last of the character for almost a decade. But her undead count returned with a vengeance in the nineties and shows no signs of slowing down at this point. The series now numbers over twenty installments.

To be fair, he does have four millennia worth of adventures to chronicle.

Despite the vampire mania dominating both television and movies at the moment, Saint-Germain remains aggravatingly unadapted. There have been near misses. Yarbro says an Italian production company nearly made a film a couple of years back, but the deal fell through at the last minute, and as she puts it: “close only counts in hand grenades and horseshoes.”

Not that she wouldn’t love to see her hero make it to the big screen, preferably starting with Hotel Transylvania. She thinks it would be best to do the stories in the order they were written, and Hotel Transylvania, apart from being the first written, is the only one of her novels that actually places Saint-Germain in the time and place in which he actually lived.

But who should play Saint-Germain? Her response is quick: “James Mason in 1954 would have been perfect. He was the right height, had those dark, piercing eyes, and that voice.”

Unfortunately, death provides a disadvantage for mortal actors it doesn’t for the Comte de Saint-Germain. Mr. Mason is, therefore, not available. As to current actors, all she’ll say is that the ideal Saint-Germain would have to be short, around five foot six, a “grown up,” and smart, a man of short stature who can nonetheless dominate others.
 

The historical Saint-Germain 

In other words, exactly the opposite of most of the current screen vampires, of whom Yarbro says: “Most of the popular ones are angsty teenage boys, but sexually safe.”

The appeal of vampires, however is clear to her: “Sex and death are an ever-popular mix.”

Another distinction that sets Yarbro’s Saint-Germain novels apart from many of the popular novels and movies at the moment is her steadfast refusal to add werewolves, shapeshifters and other mythical creatures. Her reasoning is simple, and she quotes her friend, horror writer Tamara Thorne:

“In a story you can have only one piece of balonium—it can be big or it can be little, but readers will only tolerate one and still suspend their disbelief. Two pieces of balonium and the story loses all credibility.”

Are there any other practitioners of the vampire genre she particularly likes?

“Charlaine Harris. I like the sense of humor Charlaine has, and she’s consistent with her own rules.”

As to her own books, Yarbro is somewhat prone to poking fun at some of the cover art that’s graced the covers of some her books. She approves of the cover art her current publisher, Tor, has been providing.

Burning Shadows, the latest in the Saint-Germain series, set in the areas now known as Hungary and Romania during the early years of Hunnic aggression, is due out from Tor Books later this year. The next, An Embarrassment of Riches, set in the years 1269 to 1271, will be out in 2010.

It takes her three to six months to write a novel. “When you’re a mid-list writer,” she says, “it pays to write fast.”

Besides, her fans hate to be kept waiting.