ext_25381 ([identity profile] periwinkle27.livejournal.com) wrote in [community profile] crack_van2007-02-22 10:16 pm

The Vampire Affair by David McDaniel (G)

Fandom: MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.
Pairing: Gen
Author on LJ: unknown
Author Website: none

When I was a teen and Man From U.N.C.L.E. was originally broadcast, I bought the "tie-in" paperback books at the grocery store. I read the books so many times that I memorized them. The paperback stories were very innocent, but exciting to a young teenage girl like me.

When my daughters grew old enough they also read all the paperbacks and watched the rebroadcasts of the series. Now one of my daughters tapes the show on Amerilife Cable for me. Lately I've been walking down memory lane as my "baby" is turning 21 and my eldest is getting married. So I thought I'd do something a little different in this recommendation and point people to a website that has copied some of the paperbacks so that you can read the stories on-line. (And save the 50 cents a book it cost me.[grin])

One of my favorite stories was "The Vampire Affair" because of its humor and adventure.
From the Back Cover

The body had been drained of blood . . . .

In a remote area of the Transylvanian Alps, an U.N.C.L.E. agent had been killed in mysterious circumstances. The man's footprints in the snow led up to the base of the tree where he had been killed, but there were no pursuing tracks, no clues at all as to what doom had overtaken him.

There were only the two small holes in the neck, and a complete absence of blood.

Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin didn't believe in vampires — but as they investigated their fellow-agent's death they were forced again and again to wonder if perhaps the old terrors of the region had more reality than the world would like to think.


The story:
The Vampire Affair

The website for all the stories:
Pulp Fiction

[identity profile] rabidsamfan.livejournal.com 2007-02-23 03:47 am (UTC)(link)
What a lovely website! And what a lovely chance to remember some books I read to rags, too! Thanks.
aithine: (MfU - toys)

[personal profile] aithine 2007-02-23 05:12 am (UTC)(link)
I'm very firmly of the opinion that "authorized" books and magazine stories of series are fanfiction. *g* (Thanks for pointing out the site for folks, always gets a few more people to volunteer to type stuff up for me! And reminds me that I need to email the folks who've said they would and haven't sent me stuff yet. *vbg*)

[identity profile] rabidsamfan.livejournal.com 2007-02-23 01:00 pm (UTC)(link)
Hey, I had the paperbacks. I didn't even know about the magazine stories. (reads happily)

Cool!

[identity profile] elizabethhelena.livejournal.com 2007-02-23 04:44 am (UTC)(link)
A friend of mine had bought all of the MFU books when they first came out, and this was the last one to have survived the years, so it's the only one I've read. I didn't even think about searching the web.

I loved the little humorous asides throughout the book. This one is a fav:

"Napoleon usually left the more guttural Slavic tongues to Illya, who possessed a native ability to pronounce interminable strings of consonants as if vowels were an unnecessary bourgeois luxury."

Thanks for pointing the way.

[identity profile] jaekayelle.livejournal.com 2007-02-23 12:22 pm (UTC)(link)
I had about ten of the books and they went with me through every move -- pulled out and read about once a year, but they finally vanished in this last one. I was heartbroken. The Vampire Affair was one of my favourites. Thank you for posting about the website.

[identity profile] melodywilde.livejournal.com 2007-02-23 01:17 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm squealing in a highly age-inappropriate manner over these! I still have every single one of the books, plus The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. ones and all but one of the issues of the digest size MUNCLE magazine that came out. The sad thing about these much-loved books is that, no matter how much care you take of them (and, being incredibly AR about books, I take a lot), age is not kind to the paper. I haven't opened the box with the magazines in a couple of years, and I shudder to think what damage I'll find when I do. Even thought I'll always be one of those folks who'd rather hold the book in her hands, thank God (or the politically correct deity of your own choice) that somebody has preserved these treasures in a format that will last! Do you know if anyone's done the same for the magazines? (I may get the answer to this one when I go explore the website.)

Thank you so much for pointing us this way. I'm going right now to send this link to my other MUNCLE fans.

[identity profile] thehappygirl53.livejournal.com 2007-02-24 01:31 am (UTC)(link)
Dear heavens, but this brought back memories for me. I got "The Vampire Affair" in my Christmas stocking when I was 13 or 14. I was so thrilled, and so happy that my mother had thought of it. I read it that night and then probably fifty or sixty times through my teen years. I still have it, though the pages are pretty yellowed. In the 1980s, when my kids were really little, I'd go to used book sales, tag sales, etc, hunting for any U.N.C.L.E books. I've got quite a bunch of them in a box somewhere.

[identity profile] thehappygirl53.livejournal.com 2007-02-24 03:41 am (UTC)(link)
I haven't dug them out since I found fanfiction. Also, they're so fragile now--they weren't printed on the best quality paper and the pages are practically crumbling. I'm thrilled to find them online--and there are some that I don't have on the site. thank you a million times for bringing these to light.