32 Days of Halloween VI, Day 9: Your Guide to Vampire Combat

Well, Day 9 is devoted to vampires and we're going with a book this time--it's The Vampire Combat Manual from your friend and mine, Roger Ma, who was last seen talking to you about how to fight the zombie menace. It's a logical next step, having saved countless lives with the Zombie Combat Manual, to switch to a far more dangerous foe.

The book is, quite frankly, everything you would want. Fans of, shall we say, old school vampires will appreciate the series of debunkings that Ma provides: whether or not they can fly (they can't), whether or not they want to have sex with you (they don't), and whether or not they can be repelled with crosses or the like (ask Ben Cortman). You also get rundowns on how they're built (or rebuilt or...well, you follow what I mean), how they act and what actually effectively hurts them.

Apart from setting up his own corner of the vampire mythos--and creating a story throughline that's fun to track via the Combat Reports--you also get stuff like combat exercises. There is a blog post waiting to happen somewhere about the effectiveness of a Vampire Combat Diet and Exercise Regimen. And have you considered putting garlic in a mace spray-like device? I actually hadn't, I'm ashamed to say.

For samples of the book, check out the Vampire Combat Club official site. And for swag ("Keep Calm and Crack Skulls"--nice), they have a Zazzle store. If you dig vampires or have somebody on your gift list that does, you would do well to snag a copy (also available for the Kindle). The life you save may be your own.