I'll add my voice to the many, many others saying the Discworld series. On a more original note however, I have to say the Anno Dracula series by Kim Newman. The basic premise for the first book (Anno Dracula) can be summed up along the lines of "Jack the Ripper: Vampire Slayer", set in a Victorian England where Dracula won, married Queen Victoria, and turned a good portion of England into fellow vampires. Then some nut (labelled by the press as Jack the Ripper) starts murdering vampire prostitutes.
The first is an amazing book, but the second one (The Bloody Red Baron) gets even better. Set during WWI, it mostly revolves around the Baron von Richtofen and his squad of fliers, as well as their Allied counterparts. Oh, and the German flyers shapeshift into giant bat-things and tackle planes in mid-air.
The second and third ones in particular (the third, the Judgement of Tears, is set in Rome during the 1960's) feature the effects of long-term immortality on the world at large and individuals in particular a bit more than the first one, and the series has this devastatingly black humour running throughout it as characters mention various historical and bloody events that, from their point of view, would never have happened without vampires in general and Dracula in particular, which I personally found hilarious.
The books feature a cast of characters both historical and fictional, as well as a number of characters drawn from historical literature that have ended up in the public domain (I loved the fact that Dr Hyde was the coroner on the Jack the Ripper cases), all of which he blends with the setting reaaally well. Anno Dracula is hands down my favourite series of all time (excluding the Discworld books). They're just brilliant in every way imaginable, and not to give away any real spoilers but the encounter between a vampire called James Bond and the cat that runs the Russian spy bureau in Rome is probably my favourite scene in anything. Ever. Particularly when Frankenstein's monster and clockwork ballerinas get involved...
The first is an amazing book, but the second one (The Bloody Red Baron) gets even better. Set during WWI, it mostly revolves around the Baron von Richtofen and his squad of fliers, as well as their Allied counterparts. Oh, and the German flyers shapeshift into giant bat-things and tackle planes in mid-air.
The second and third ones in particular (the third, the Judgement of Tears, is set in Rome during the 1960's) feature the effects of long-term immortality on the world at large and individuals in particular a bit more than the first one, and the series has this devastatingly black humour running throughout it as characters mention various historical and bloody events that, from their point of view, would never have happened without vampires in general and Dracula in particular, which I personally found hilarious.
The books feature a cast of characters both historical and fictional, as well as a number of characters drawn from historical literature that have ended up in the public domain (I loved the fact that Dr Hyde was the coroner on the Jack the Ripper cases), all of which he blends with the setting reaaally well. Anno Dracula is hands down my favourite series of all time (excluding the Discworld books). They're just brilliant in every way imaginable, and not to give away any real spoilers but the encounter between a vampire called James Bond and the cat that runs the Russian spy bureau in Rome is probably my favourite scene in anything. Ever. Particularly when Frankenstein's monster and clockwork ballerinas get involved...
