BOOK REVIEWS
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the past, but some of their conclusions have been drawn from very thin evidence
indeed, which the author then uses to extend her own conclusions. However, to
her credit, she does acknowledge the tenuousness of the links, and the first two
chapters are most useful in laying down the psychological, religious, and
linguistics tools necessary for interpretation, effectively creating the link
between the profane world of vampires to that of the sacred and showing that
they have the potential for numinousness. McDonald really hits her stride when
she moves into the meatier texts of Dracula and the Vampire Chronicles. It is in
chapters three and four that the reader comes to understand that vampires are
useful figures in times of transition or a “new millennium” of human thought.
Overall, this is an important work since no other author (or at least
none found by various searches performed by this reviewer) has associated the
negative symbolism of vampires with a positive, transforming experience. There
are many theories as to why something so evil is so seductive, but nobody has
said this is a good thing.
If a complaint could be made, it would be that although this treatise
admittedly is a reworked dissertation, it could have gone further in studying the
copious amounts of contemporary vampiric tales (especially in romance and
science fiction) and relating how the possibility of a numinous, transforming
experience is available to every body, regardless of genre or literary inclination.
Reika Lee, Independent Scholar
Jacking in to the Matrix Franchise:
Cultural Reception and Interpretation
Edited by Matthew Kapell and William G. Doty
Continuum International Publishing Group, 2004
Jacking in to the Matrix Franchise provides an accessible look into the
incredible phenomenon that is the Matrix series. Drawing as it does from many
aspects of popular culture (music, religion, gaming, computers, technology, and
violence, to name a few), all of the movies and games are open to a wide variety
of interpretations. It is the editors’ intent that this work will provide
“enrichments to the first [film]—and the second and third, and all the franchise
elements in between and beyond. .. [including] a computer/video game, Enter,
and the DVD, Animatrix. . . [and] F