Vampire

If a shrill, high-decibel squeal suddenly disrupts the Sunday peace and quiet from sea to shining sea, blame Stephenie Meyer. Probably every teenage girl you know (and more than a few of their mothers) started reading Breaking Dawn, the fourth and final volume in Meyer's vampire saga, when it was released at midnight Saturday. So these 3.2 million fanatical readers are about to discover whether the heroine, Bella, ends up with the unearthly beautiful vampire, Edward, or with the devoted werewolf, Jacob.

IT'S GOOD to be underestimated!" That's what George Hamilton says, as we sit in the dimly lit bar of Manhattan's plush Plaza Athenee hotel. He has arrived; impeccable, calm, but amused by something that he said delayed him slightly. "It's time to get married or get a butler," he laughs, "being alone is not as much fun as one might imagine." (For the record, George has been married, to Alana Stewart, and they have a son, Ashley. The rest of the time has been spent romancing great beauties who never speak badly of him once the affair is over.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is back on the big screen -- this time with a new spin. The character first appeared in the 1992 movie, which spawned a hit TV show and earned her a cult following. Now, Clinton McClung is screening a singalong called Buffy the Musical in cities around the country. It comes to the Avalon Theatre in Washington this weekend. The singalong version of Buffy started as a tribute to a single TV episode. McClung, a self-admitted "Buffy geek," ran a movie theater in Boston a couple of years ago. In November 2004, he thought it would be fun to screen the episode "Once More With Feeling" as a singalong for himself and a few of his friends.

When audiences last saw the cast of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in May 2003, Buffy and her friends had won a nearly apocalyptic battle between good and evil. Their hometown of Sunnydale, Calif. -- also known as the Hellmouth -- was a gargantuan pit as a result. After peering into the crater, Buffy, played by Sarah Michelle Gellar, walked away with a smile, and the television series came to a close after seven seasons. On March 14, Buffy the Vampire Slayer will return in comic book form. Joss Whedon, Buffy's creator, has written the first five issues and will oversee -- or "executive-produce," he says -- the whole arc as if it were a television show.

House of Meetings Martin Amis Zoli Colum McCann Random House / 352 pages / $24.95 Colum McCann has a distinct flair for history and language which serve him well in his fourth novel, Zoli. The title character, a beautiful Gypsy poet (based loosely on the actual Romani poet Papsuza) who attains heroic status, symbolizes the persecution of her people (first by the fascists, then the Nazis, then by a Communist Romania that turns on its own). Zoli, urged to learn to read and write by her grandfather (Gypsy girls are forbidden literacy)

When Wesley Snipes declined the television reprise of the half-vampire superhero he played in three respectable B-movies, fan message boards predicted Blade: The Series would be the worst sci-fi show in action-adventure history. Which would, of course, be impossible, considering that history includes such cable and syndicated monsterpieces as Earth: Final Conflict, TekWar, Andromeda and Total Recall 2070. Lost in the uproar over the loss of Snipes was the good news: David S. Goyer, who wrote all three Blade theatricals, and directed the last one, signed on to shepherd the franchise's transition to Spike, where it will be the man-boy netlet's first scripted drama.

Part vampire, a hero fights creatures of the night with the help of an inventor (Kris Kristofferson, above) in Blade (9 p.m.-11:10 p.m., Starz).

Bernie Taupin's defense of Lestat is interrupted by a piercing "Aaaiyyeeee!" as a suicidal vampire plunges into a wall of fire and disappears through a trap door. Taupin leans forward from his seat in New York's Palace Theatre to observe the rehearsal more closely. It is ensuing under the supervision of the fire department, on hand to ensure that actor Joseph Dellger is far enough behind the flames to avoid injury if an unexpected breeze should cross the set. The winds have not blown in favor of the $12 million musical thus far. The Gothic opus inspired by Anne Rice's tormented bloodsuckers was left for dead after a San Francisco tryout that prompted a review headlined "Fetch the garlic!"

Peeps Scott Westerfeld If You Decide to Go to the Moon Faith McNulty, ill. by Steven Kellogg Scholastic / ages 4-8 If you decide to go to the moon, and you're a second-grader or younger, this is your travel guide. The familiarity of Steven Kellogg's illustrating style matches the lift-off world, which appears to be just on the other side of a green field nearby to anywhere and anyone. And for astronauts young enough to want games and books and peanut butter, that familiarity is comforting.

Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt Anne Rice Alfred A. Knopf / 366 pages Three decades ago, Anne Rice published her classic debut novel, Interview with a Vampire, and with that a character nearly as iconic as Dracula was born. Rice's vampire, Lestat, was an angst-ridden, existentialist hero-villain, a vampire far more evolved than the average Hammer Film bloodsucker. Lestat had the suavity of many a vampire, but he also possessed soul and, to a degree, conscience; with Lestat, Rice had created a vampire for our time.