Eric isn’t the most competent vampire around. Because he
was embalmed, he has issues with his memory and forgets little things – like when
the sun is coming up. He also has his temper black-outs which has led to the
odd unfortunate massacre that’s always awkward. He also has pretty bad impulse
control issues
Hence him turning new girlfriend Tabitha into a vampire. Something he’s done before and it never ever ever works out.
And he’s annoyed the werewolves. He’s not even entirely
sure why, but his constant attempts to mollify them keep going rather awry and
escalating the problem and he can’t even be sure if someone is acting against
him or if he’s just completing his streak of colossal screw ups
I really like the world setting here – it’s one of the
best depictions of grittiness I’ve seen, because it doesn’t come with the
over-the-top grimdark that is usually so common. It’s gritty, yet light
hearted, there’s a strong sense of darkness but characters who are still just a
bit silly.
I like the world building, l we’re taking some of the very common elements of Urban fantasy – werewolves and vampires but there’s such an original twist on these so very well established themes. The degrees of the vampire power, they way they run the city, the different routes to becoming a vampire and also the very biology of vampires. A lot of books talk about vampires being dead and even bloody tears, but this takes it to the obvious conclusion – and it’s really not all that sexy (unless you have a thing for cold bodies with blood for every bodily fluid). I have to say I love this true analysis. Even more we have some actual attention paid to age gaps, I loved Marilyn outright telling someone that they’re treating Eric like a lovesick teenager when he’s an 80-odd year old man.
But it’s not just the vampires – the whole holy
werewolves is definitely an original twist which I didn’t expect. I’ve read a
lot of this genre and seeing these old staples spun in entirely new ways is
excellent to see.
Then plot was also nicely twisty – Eric finds himself in
a war with the werewolves and we’re not entirely sure why. I mean, there’s a
very good chance it could be from his own incompetence (Eric being Eric) but we
find more and more levels beyond that, and lots of little hints that turn into
more as the story develops. It had a few tangents, but in general the book kept
me hooked throughout
In terms of plot and world building, this book is a
winner. Almost. I still think the main antagonist hasn’t quite thought out his
plot or how he’s going to get away with all this without consequences, but
compared to everyone else in this book he’s a positive mastermind
I’m not as much of a fan of Eric, the main character,
especially early in the book despite generally liking his tone (as a Vlad, an
upper-echelon vampire, he’s pretty unkillable and can be pretty blasé as a
result). In fact, I dislike him sufficiently to derail a lot of my enjoyment.
Eric is a screw up, he knows this, he almost openly embraces it and he
frequently castigates himself for screwing things up. And some of the screw ups
I wouldn’t mind because they’re natural parts of his odd vampiric biology – he
has constant memory lapses and rage-based black outs (which are very very bad
because Eric is a very very powerful vampire indeed. It’s quite hard to be as
mellow and generally inoffensive as Eric when you keep waking from black outs
surrounded by torn up corpses). I could get by with a character with these
traits as his frustration with them and attempts to work around them can be
endearing elements. But that is compounded by some truly appalling decision
making. He turns Tabitha into a vampire for the utterly worst of reasons and
then makes no real effort to help her transition. She has sex with another
character and it’s such an utterly bad idea that I was literally fighting not
to yell at the book. He ignores his problems, he very much has to be forced to
act and there are far too many times when he just seems to ignored the various
things boiling around him.
