For all I've heard about how much this novella was an influence on Bram Stoker when he was writing Dracula, I'd still never read it. Which was something of a loss for me, because it's fantastic. A little over-written in the purpleness of the prose, but that's something that can partly be attributed to the Victorian style, and partly, I think, as a means of talking around the fact that this is a love story between two women. I expect the culture of the time was not terribly into lesbian vampires, but it's hard to read Carmilla and interpret it any other way. That central relationship - the mutual fascination - is very well done and is the strongest point of the novella, covering up the coincidence and general gullibility that characterise the plot. But screw it, who's reading this for the plot anyway? Girl meets vampire, falls in love, death results. It is hardly an unexpected journey; there are no twists here, the plot is simple and exceedingly linear. And it doesn't matter, because - as I said - the relationship between Carmilla and Laura is so strong and so disturbing that it drowns out everything else.