Oct 23, 2025
On the word 'Preternatural'
'Preternatural' was a word in a religion textbook that I had in the junior year in Catholic high school. It was a very wonderful textbook. And 'preternatural' was the word that the textbook used for the gifts that Adam and Eve had before the fall. (...) And I thought [the word] was perfect, because Lestat and Louis and Armand, my vampires, they're really not, you know, they don't shapeshift, and they don't turn into smoke, and they don't turn into bats. I mean, they are really biological creatures that share the biological universe with us, but they have preternatural gifts. - Anne Rice
I recommend checking out the preternatural word count per book by @sizeofyoursoul
