True Blood and Philosophy: We Wanna Think Bad Things with You

Want to take a bite out of philosophy? Here's you chance with Alan Ball's hit show 'Trueblood'.

The book takes a looks at philosophical issues behind Charlaine Harris's New York Times bestsellers The Southern Vampire Mysteries and Alan Ball's adaption True Blood television series.

Teeming with complex, mythical characters in the shape of vampires, telepaths, shapeshifters, and the like, True Blood has a rich collection of themes to explore, from sex and romance to bigotry and violence to death and immortality. The goings-on in the mythical town of Bon Temps, Louisiana, where vampires satiate their blood lust and openly comunicate with ordinary humans, presents no shortages of juicy metaphysical morsels to sink your teeth into.

Now True Blood and Philosophy calls on the minds of some of history's greates thinkers to perform some philosophical bloodlettting on such topics as Sookie and the metaphysics of mindreading; Maryann and sacrificial religion; werewolves, shapeshifters and personal identity; vampire politics, evil, desire, and much more.

True Blood and Philosophy is the perfect companion to the start of the third season on HBO and the release of the second season on DVD. It is smart and entertaining, and provides food--or blood--for thought, and a fun, new way to look at the series.

For all of our Trubies out there, True Blood and Philosophy, will be out for purchase June 2010.

Take a bite out of that!!!

Charlaine Harris needs your help! Ask Alan Ball a question about TRUE BLOOD for her Sookie Companion book

From CharlaineHarris.com

YOUR CHANCE TO ASK ALAN BALL A QUESTION

1/29/10 – 2/12/10

As part of the huge project The Sookie Companion has become, we’re offering a two-week time period in which you can send your questions to producer/director/writer Alan Ball, who will answer them in the Companion. My assistant, Paula, will collect all your questions and send them to the editor at TeknoBooks who’s responsible for coordinating all the elements going into the Companion, which we hope will be out next year. Paula and the editor will weed out redundant questions. Of course, these questions should focus on the TV series “True Blood,” and they should be sent to: askalanb@yahoo.com. This address is ONLY for this special project.

Charlaine Harris

Bad to the Bone: FRANKLIN, DEBBIE, RUSSELL

True Blood: Three Big Baddies and a Revenge Plot
Kris De Leon, BuddyTV.com >>LINK TO ARTICLE

With all the casting rounds these past couple of months, it's safe to assume that True Blood season 3 is going to be daring, bolder, and more kick-ass than ever before. Just think about it, season 3 will feature three big baddies just to dethrone last season's main villain, maenad Maryann.

"We have a triumvirate of evil this season," exec producer Alan Ball reveals to Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello. "I'm talking about Franklin Mott, Russell Edgington, and Debbie Pelt. They are all bad to the bone. They're not just crazy, they're evil." For more information about these villains, check out our True Blood spoiler section.

Among the three antagonists, Alcide's psycho ex-girlfriend, Debbie Pelt, who is yet to be cast, will have a bigger role than what was originally planned by Ball. "We actually beefed up Debbie," he says. "She's going to be in more episodes, so maybe that will have an impact on [what actress] we can get for her, which is a big question right now."

Meanwhile, True Blood fans can look forward to another side plot going into the third season of the HBO vampire series. It turns out Eric has an ongoing vengeance plot that will gradually unfold.

"I'd say it's about revenge," said Alex Skarsgard, who plays Eric on True Blood. "He will continue to explore the whole Sookie thing and what that's all about. He's trying to figure out what's different about her. He's intrigued by that. And in addition to that, there's something that happened a thousand years ago that he's still carrying in his heart. All I'll say is he's trying to avenge someone."

True Blood at least going through season 4

Highlights from an interview with Alan Ball

Taken From: Alan Ball Interview
By Abbie Bernstein, Buzzy Multimedia Publishing


As True Blood continues, Ball says, “I think we’re always going to use the books as sort of a foundation, but I just don’t see how, as time goes on, you can’t diverge from them a little bit more each season. I don’t know, though. We’re starting to work on Season Three and we actually are really, really sticking to the books, at the beginning at least.”

“Season Three is a big Eric [the vampire played by Alexander Skarsgard] season and Season Four is really big for Eric’s character, according to the books.”

“I got into Sookie and the world and the characters, and I looked forward to going to bed every night, because I knew I was going to read the book before I went to sleep, and I would tell myself, ‘Okay, I’m just going to read two chapters,’ and I would read seven. I just felt, ‘This is kind of a phenomenon.’ I read first four books, [which] at that time [was what] had been published, and I wanted more. So I called [Harris]. At that time, she had given the rights to a film producer, but those rights were set to run out in a couple of months. They ran out and I convinced her to let me take a stab at it.”

The series Ball created based on the books, True Blood, has successfully been set up at HBO and it would be fair to call the results a phenomenon. The cable network is so pleased with Ball and company that, Ball relates, "I just closed a deal to show-run for two more seasons, so I would assume that [the series is at minimum] going through Season Four.”

Read the entire article here..