Review: The Fallen Blade by Jon Courtenay Grimwood

Few cities in the world evoke an emotional reaction in the same way as Venice – even for those of us who have never been. Sure, the world is full of great cities like London, Paris, Rome, New York, Tokyo, etc, but none hold quite the same allure as Venice – canals, romance, history, power, money….

Set in renaissance Venice, I was excited by the premise of The Fallen Blade (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound), Jon Courtenay Grimwood’s first foray into fantasy where a secret order of assassins run by the aristocracy gains a powerful new member and the beginning of The Assassini trilogy.

The Duke of Venice is incapable of ruling, leaving his aunt and uncle to reign as regents, often in opposition to one another. A young Venetian noble fights against her eventual marriage of state, German Prince Leopold (a werewolf) battles to overthrow Venice, a former slave heads the Venetian Assassini, a shadow army enforcing the power of Venice, and a boy without a memory washes up on the docks – a boy like no other, what we know as a vampire.

Ahh…Venice. Grimwood sets the stage wonderfully with his description of a multi-cultural Venice in the height of its power – but it’s a dark, dangerous city haunted by the supernatural and assassins – not the romantic setting of idealized history we know and love today. However it’s a great place to set a historical, urban fantasy – a place for witches, warlocks, werewolves and vampires.

Before the above description sours you to what sounds like another generic vampire-werewolf urban fantasy, The Fallen Blade is more. The supernatural is merely a vehicle, a secondary player in the Machiavellian politics of Renaissance Italy. The powerful city-state maneuvers to stay ahead and of course gain more money and power. And the powerful of Venice use the tools available to them.

However, in all the political intrigue, Grimwood seems to get lost. The city of Venice slowly loses its allure and story suffers greatly when it ventures beyond the shores of Venice. The city should be a major character, yet never becomes more than a cool setting, ever further in the background. And the characters at the heart of it all fail to convince more often than they succeed.

Tycho is a boy without a memory, a boy who slowly discovers he has is not mortal and the desires that make him strong. Tycho is recruited into the decimated ranks of the Assassini, yet he doesn’t know who he is. Tycho is the focus, but he’s also the least convincing of the characters in The Fallen Blade. His motivations fail to feel right – especially once he realizes just how powerful he is.  In combination with an infatuation, or possibly even love, with a spoiled, noble brat it becomes intolerable at times. It’s only the big revelation at the end of the book that begins to make Tycho an interesting character – too little too late.

Other characters hold up better – such as Atilo, the head of the Assassini and the mysterious Duchess Alexa. But many of the supporting characters seem out of place and forced, especially in the way they keep showing up in the most improbable of locations.

After a promising start, The Fallen Blade quickly falls flat and it’s hard to say exactly why. Yes it’s partly due Venice not being fully utilized, and partly due to the lack of believability in the motivations of so many of the characters, but mostly it’s due to something else, something less tangible. In the end the whole of it is simply mediocre. The setting is great (until the story leaves it behind), the politics intriguing, and the premise fun, but it lacks the binding to make it into the novel it could be. And that is unfortunate. 6.5/10

Mini Review: Half the Blood of Brooklyn by Charlie Huston

One goal I have with this blog is to write a review for each relevant book I read. However, sometimes I just don’t have it in me to write a full review. Sometimes it’s because I simply don’t have anything to say, sometimes it’s because the book is in a series and it’s hard to say something I haven’t already, sometimes I simply get behind on writing reviews, and sometimes it’s a combination of all of the above plus life throwing in a solid punch in the gut.

Half the Blood of Brooklyn by Charlie Huston (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound) is the third book in his Joe Pitt series, which are about a rogue vampire who is a private detective of sorts in the underground of New York. These books are good, fun, short and fast reads written with a unique style uncommon in the SFF genre (it’s a style much more common in mysteries and crime fiction) that stands apart from much of the urban fantasy-horror-vampire books that populate the shelves these days. The books are dark, blunt, and aimed for a mature audience. While there is an over-arching plot through the series, each books stands on its own plot arc.

In Half the Blood of Brooklyn, Pitt ventures beyond his usual haunt of Manhattan to Brooklyn where he meets with a new clan and gets particularly nasty. I read this while in the hospital where it provided an idea escape from the boredom, stress, worry, anxiety, and all the other mixed emotions I felt watching over my daughter. While Half the Blood of Brooklyn was a great book for the moment, I felt it was a bit lacking compared to some of the other books in the series, in spite of a few key moments that have been long anticipated. I think this is mainly because things felt a bit rushed. 7/10

Below is an excerpt from my review of Already Dead (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound) which sums things up rather nicely.

Charlie Huston ... takes the prototypical hard-boiled, noir detective template and injects it into a world of vampires. The result is not the Buffy-inspired urban fantasy romp that dominates the fantasy market these days, but a true noir detective tale that happens to star a vampire struggling for independence in clan dominated underworld.

This classic noir story with … a hard-ass, flawed, moralistic rogue vampire proves to be a fast-paced, engaging read that I very much enjoyed.

Related Posts: Review of Already Dead, Mini Review of No Dominion, Interview with Charlie Huston

Review: The Passage by Justin Cronin

If you haven’t heard it yet, be prepared – The Passage by Justin Cronin (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound) is poised to become the next big thing in books. It all began with a bidding war, eventually won by Random House, and a nearly $4 million advance for a trilogy, followed quickly by a nearly $2 million movie deal. With such big dollars already invested, of course the marketing push is going to be equally impressive – to begin, something like 10,000 ARCs of one form or another were distributed. The Passage will be covered in the New York Times and every other major paper press still operating in books, it will be celebrity __’s pick of the year, book club, etc, and Cronin will make the talk show rounds. When you walk into an independent bookstore, the well-read, literary bookseller will tell you that you must read this book. The Passage will re-start the tired old debates about literary writers jumping into genre and not acknowledging it and I’m sure it’ll be at the center of discussions of genre books and awards at some point down the line. This is that book that all your friends who don’t read SFF will be reading and talking about.

But for the moment let’s forget about all of that. After all, this is a decidedly genre blog and the readers around here are fans of SFF. So, what is The Passage to us? Well, first off, it’s a damn good book. It takes the loveable, dark brooding and sexy vampires that pop culture has given us and morphs them into near-immortal, militarized weapons emerging from the labs of the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID). The Passage is Apocalyptic fiction giving time to events leading up to the apocalypse and even more exploring what the world is like 100 years later, a world barely alive and still battling for survival against the Virals. Overlooking all of the expected comparisons of ‘The Stand meets The Road’, The Passage takes ownership its adopted genre and deserves to be discussed in its own right – however unique it is or isn’t. The Passage really is one of those special books.

The Passage is told in two very separate parts. In the beginning we learn of a girl named Amy and how she finds herself an orphan with no last name. Then we learn about researchers with relatively crazy theories on the how a virus may have influenced the evolution of humanity and a failed expedition into the Amazon. Next we see how Amy ends up at a secret research facility for the USAMRIID and other unnamed agencies, along the way getting a feel for the world and what is about to happen. The army is looking for super-weapons created from a virus that can wipe out terrorist threats and just maybe a by-product will be the means to live forever. Of course things go horribly wrong and the twelve subjects escape, beginning the apocalypse. Amy is something else – a survivor of the virus, potentially immortal, at least very long-lived, but a child – a child with an adoptive father on the run.

The second section is told with a very different style and tone, beginning with survivors at a fortified enclave about 100 years in the future. We see how they live and die in a harsh world under the constant threat of Virals when everything changes on the day Amy arrives at their gates. A journey ensues – a journey to save the world.

Apocalyptic fiction delves into our fears of the direction the world has taken, and The Passage is no different. The near-future envisioned just prior to the apocalypse is the pessimistic extension of our own. The specter of global warming is making itself known. The United States’ struggles in the Middle East have grown into war with Iran. India and Pakistan have used their nuclear weapons. Terrorists strike the US heartland with regularity, driving it towards something close to a police state. Then the government does something really stupid and ends the world.

In the beginning, Cronin shows of his literary roots, telling the story in heart-wrenching chunks sure to bring tears to the eyes of those so inclined. Some of this section is very hard to read – both as a father and as a human concerned for the direction of our world. Cronin builds both sections of the book in the very literary tradition of dealing with themes of human relationships. The father-daughter relationship is perhaps the most prevalent, but a good bit of time is spent exploring those of father-son, husband-wife, lovers and adoptive families/communities.

Cronin succeeds not only by spinning a vampire apocalypse into a compelling story that needs to be read, but by creating characters that truly live. In the space of only a few lines he shows fully rendered characters. These characters as often unlikeable as they are likeable, but the reader quickly develops a bond with the core group of characters – a bond that carries through the hurts and joys.

The Passage weighs in at a hefty 766 pages in hardback, and this is perhaps its greatest weakness. Some scenes may not be all that necessary, but in the least, a few don’t feel as polished as they should be – The Haven comes to mind as one, though details would be a bit too spoilerish to share. The geologist in me was a bit bothered by the presentation of some of the towns in the future – some fates seem unlikely and make me wonder if Cronin has ever visited these dots on the map. Also a few of the character revelations near the end of the novel – particularly with Alicia – felt rushed or not quite right. The result is a bit uneven, but not so much that it impacts the overall quality of the book.

As mentioned above, The Passage is the first book of a planned trilogy, with the next installment expected in 2011. As such, it doesn’t stand on its own – The Passage is a story-arc with closure, though not real resolution. More is certainly to come – more that the reader is probably going to really want to read. And the last lines are a pretty juicy cliffhanger – not mind-blowing and not enough to generate out-right anger, but just right enough to dwell on.

So, the buzz surrounding The Passage is already huge and I see it only growing. It’s a genre book from a literary writer with potential appeal to a much wider audience than either alone. For us genre readers, a vampire apocalypse novel may not seem like it should be the next great book, but as always, it’s all about the execution – and Cronin executes The Passage with near-perfection. This book earns the buzz, this book should be read and discussed widely, this book is both literary and genre, this is a book I highly recommend. 8.5-9/10

Literary Mash-Ups: What do You Think?

Last year Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound) by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith hit the shelves and became an instant success. Due to the copyright being long expired and other legal complexities that basically don’t apply to a work of fiction so old, the text to Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound) is essentially open to whatever use someone dreams up now. So, the original text is intermingled with new text from Grahame-Smith to change a classic Victorian Romance into a zombie apocalypse.

Part of me rejoices – I mean it just sounds so fun. Another part of me wonders if it’s really just an unoriginal hack job on a literary masterpiece. Is this something new and equally creative as any wholly original work? Is this a next evolution of literature? Is it a gimmick? Is this the new tie-fiction ghetto? Is this a way to get more people reading? Did that absurd high-school reading assignment just get a bit cooler? A clever idea taken way, way too far? I haven’t made up my mind on this and in all honesty, I haven’t yet read any of these new mash-ups. But I want to hear what others think on this. And should I start reading one?

Of course the success of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies has bread faster than rabbits on Viagra. The prequel, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls by Steve Hockensmith (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound) is out now and there other springing up like those listed below. Heck, we’ve even got one coming where a vampire Jane Austen is a bit pissed off by what people have done with her fiction and get revenge – no joke, for real – in Jane Bites Back by Michael Thomas Ford (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound).

Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters by Jane Austen and Ben H. Winters (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound)

Android Karenina by Leo Tolstoy and Ben H. Winters (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound)

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Slayer by Seth Graham-Smith (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound)

Mr. Darcy, Vampyre by Amanda Grange (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound)

Vampire Darcy’s Hunger by Regina Jeffers (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound)

Jane Slayre by Sherri Browning Erwin and Charlotte Brontë (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound)

Queen Victoria: Demon Slayer by A.E. Moorat (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound)

Mansfield Park and Mummies by Jane Austen and Vera Nazarian (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound)

Emma and the Werewolves by Jane Austen and Adam Rann (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound)

The Undead World of Oz by L. Frank Baum and Ryan C. Thomas (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound)

Adventures of Huckleberry Flinn and Zombie Jim by Mark Twain and W. Bill Czolgosz (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound)

Alice in Zombieland by Lewis Carroll and Nickolas Cook (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound)

Robin Hood and Friar Tuck: Zombie Killers by Paul A. Freeman (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound)

War of the Worlds: Plus Blood, Guts, and Zombies by H.G. Wells and Eric S. Brown (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound)

and many more.

Thoughts?

Mini Review*: No Dominion by Charlie Huston

Charlie Huston manages to reinvent noir crime fiction, urban fantasy, and vampire fiction with his Joe Pitt stories. No Dominion (US, UK, Canada, Indiebound) is the second book in the series of five (and counting?). While the plot differs, I honestly don’t have anything to add from what I’ve already said in my review of Already Dead (US, UK, Canada, Indiebound). 8/10

Charlie Huston ... takes the prototypical hard-boiled, noir detective template and injects it into a world of vampires. The result is not the Buffy-inspired urban fantasy romp that dominates the fantasy market these days, but a true noir detective tale that happens to star a vampire struggling for independence in clan dominated underworld.

This classic noir story with … a hard-ass, flawed, moralistic rogue vampire proves to be fast-paced, engaging read that I very much enjoyed.

*This is my first mini-review and hopefully it won’t become common. I managed to get way behind on reviews over the past couple of months and I just didn’t have it in me to write a full review for this one – particularly since I felt I would just be trying to re-write what I had already written for Already Dead, when I was quite happy with what I had said in the first place.

Jasper Kent Answers Questions Five

Jasper Kent’s Twelve (US, UK, Canada, my review) hit the stores a couple of months ago to much fanfare – in fact it’s already been through several reprints. In Twelve Kent combines Napoleon’s invasion of Russia with Eastern European-style vampires in an excellent novel that’s part historical fiction, part horror, and part war-novel and ads up to something all its own. While it easily stands on its own, it is also the first book in a planned 5-book series titled the Danilov Quintet that will combine Russian history up to the October Revolution – the second book, Thirteen Years Later, is currently under development.

I’m very pleased that Jasper took the time to answer Questions Five (and as always, reading the author’s bio may help you understand the origin of some of my queries).

If I were going on holiday to Brighton and I can only visit one pub, which pub do you recommend and why?

JK: The Shakespeare’s Head. It has good beer (of the warm, brown variety), serves about a dozen different kinds of sausages (except Sundays – boo!) and it’s within spitting distance of me. It’s not to be confused with the other Shakespeare’s Head, on Spring Street, which is good but not as good.

Joss Whedon, Anne Rice, Steven King, Laurell K. Hamilton, Bram Stoker, and Jasper Kent each walk into a pub with their version of a vampire. What happens next?

JK: I think Anne Rice’s vampires would be a bit snobby about my voordalaki; they’d probably be sitting in the lounge bar while mine were in the saloon, spitting in the sawdust. Joss Whedon’s lot, having lived the past few decades trying to pass themselves off as good, red-blooded American vampires, would suspect mine of being commies, regardless of the geographical and chronological niceties. Dracula would want a quiet word with at least one of my chaps, regarding the unconscionable past behaviour of one Pyetr Alekseevich Romanov. Everyone would laugh at the way Joss Whedon’s creation’s face’s went all funny whenever they were about to bite anybody, with the exception of Stephen King’s, who looks funny all the time.

A fight would undoubtedly break out fairly quickly, in which Dracula would have a certain advantage in not being utterly destroyed by sunlight, but the disadvantage of being vulnerable to a bowie knife, where the rest require a wooden stake. Joss Whedon’s vampire’s might do well since their natural enemies tend to be teenagers and so wouldn’t be allowed in the pub in the first place. My boys would be looking around for anyone French to attack, but if they couldn’t find any they wouldn’t be too fussed.

Luckily, Laurell K. Hamilton’s creations wouldn’t turn up, so I wouldn’t have to reveal I know nothing of her works.

What is the algorithm of Twelve?

JK: The nature of the voordalaki came about by evolution rather than design – intelligent or otherwise. That’s to say I didn’t plan anything much in advance. If the plot requires a particular vampire facet, then they get that facet, and I have to be consistent with it from then on. It’s worked pretty well so far, but by the end of the quintet I’ll be working in a rather tight straitjacket of my own creation.

Does this algorithm allow for vampiric rats in future novels of the DANILOV QUINTET?

JK: As far as I know, for the voordalaki it’s human blood or nothing, so there would be little chance of cross-contamination with another species. On the other hand, that doesn’t preclude an entirely separate but parallel outbreak of vampirism to occur within the rat community. On the third hand, for my vampires the rule is that only a willing victim can be transformed into a vampire and thus the transformees have to be evil in the first place. Since rats are inherently incapable of evil, none could ever become one of the undead.

Why should Twelve be the next novel that everyone reads?

JK: A recent survey in the UK revealed that War and Peace is second most common book for people to say that they have read when they really haven’t (behind 1984 of all things). Twelve is the perfect book to read if you want to bluff you way through a conversation about War and Peace. Just leave out the vampire stuff and everything else is pretty much the same. Honest. And even if it’s not, don’t worry; whoever you’re talking to probably hasn’t read War and Peace either – but they’ve almost certainly read Twelve!

Review: Twelve by Jasper Kent

Jasper Kent’s Twelve (US, UK, Canada) combines the tragic history of the Napoleonic Wars in Russia with an Eastern European vampire tale. This approach has been received with much fanfare – dozens of glowing reviews can be found with ease, the book has already had multiple reprints and the buzz seemingly builds by the day. While I add my voice to the chorus, I hope I’m not lost in the buzz, because I think that Twelve is a very special novel – not just as an unique take on historical fiction, not just as brilliant vampire tale in a tired sub-genre, but most notably as a war novel that deserves deeper discussion than I’ve seen elsewhere and that I can provide in a simple review.

Aleksei Ivanovich Danilov is a Captain in the Russian army and member of a covert team of four thinking soldiers at work behind enemy lines to thwart the French invasion through non-traditional means. As it becomes clear that the French march cannot be halted before reaching Moscow, the group reaches out to a mysterious band of twelve mercenaries, colloquially referred to as the Oprichniki. While the reader is well aware from the beginning that the Oprichniki are in fact vampires, we follow Aleksei as he slowly comes to realize that he has enlisted the help of inhuman monsters and then sets a course for their extermination.

In other discussions of Twelve I’ve noticed emphasis on its clever emplacement of historical context and the successful use of Eastern European vampire folklore (which stands in contrast to most of the vampire fiction in circulation these days). Sadly lacking is the realization that this is a also great war novel in the same vein as classics such as For Whom the Bell Tolls, All Quite on the Western Front, and others (even Jasper Kent’s discussions seem to concentrate on the larger historical context rather than the war). Through Aleksei’s largely internal view of conflict, we see the horrors of war, the camaraderie of soldiers, the pain of being separated from one’s family, and the solace found in the arms of another woman.

The Oprichniki play an important part is the war narrative – their role eerily mirrors that of the French. The plague of their ‘invasion’ of Russia can be clearly tracked, their impact on Moscow is in its own way equally horrific, ending in a retreat from a land that ultimately beat them. It’s easy to imagine how the inhuman and horrific nature of vampires could be utilized as a window into the atrocities committed in war (and they are), but the personal war that Aleksei declares on the Oprichniki reinforces the moral complexity of a soldier at war (and even a man being unfaithful to his wife). Kent’s vision of vampires in Russia’s defense of Napoleon’s invasion creates a complex allegory that had me thinking late into the night.

The success of Twelve lies not in the refreshing tale of vampires, the intelligent integration with historical context, or even the allegoric use of vampires in a war novel, but in its central character, Aleksei. Throughout the novel, the reader only sees events through Aleksei’s eyes and memories. While at times we see the horrors of a battle and vampiric atrocities, it is the internal wanderings of Aleksei that dominate. We follow his journeys through rural Russia, through Moscow, into a brothel and his emerging love for a whore, through the love and betrayal of his comrades, longing for his family, and into battles with faceless enemies and supernatural creatures. This Russian everyman is the wonderfully realized guide through it all and the success of Twelve rests firmly on his shoulders alone.

Whether your are looking for a beautifully told historical novel, a cunning vampire tale, or a stark war novel, Twelve will satisfy. Kent embraces both genre and history, resulting in a book that defies classification and spans multiple boundaries. Early success has already lead to the expectation of more to come – the Danilov Quintet will span important events throughout 19th and early 20th Century Russia, with Thirteen Years Later coming soon. After Twelve, I can’t wait to see what Kent throws at us next. 9/10

Related Posts: Interview with Jasper Kent

Review: You Suck: A Love Story by Christopher Moore (Audio book)

Christopher Moore writes a unique style of SFF – part satire and all comedy. It isn’t for everyone, but it’s definitely for a guy like me. The primary reason it’s not for everyone is that it’s just not serious enough on the surficial level for a lot of people – that and the large amount of what could be considered juvenile humor. Now, this doesn’t bother me, and if you look past the surface, Moore does offer at least a few serious insights into the world around us.

You Suck: A Love Story (US, UK, Canada)is the sequel to an earlier novel, Blood Sucking Fiends (US, UK, Canada) – a novel that I actually haven’t read. It follows a young couple, Tommy and Jody, who have both recently become vampires in San Francisco. As they sort out their feelings for each other they must learn how to survive as creatures of the night – they must have a minion. Tommy, the just-off-the-farm 19 year old now vampire, comes through with a 16 year old goth chick and wannabe vampire. Complicating their effort to live in peace are an old vampire who is very angry with Tommy and Jody and Tommy’s old night crew (and sometimes vampire hunters) from the local Safeway, colloquially known as the Animals.

As I mentioned above, I haven’t read Blood Sucking Fiends, but I didn’t find that a problem. Yes, it’s clear that I was missing out on a bit of history, but it wasn’t hard to piece together what happened in the that book and I didn’t feel that I couldn’t fully appreciate You Suck. The focus really is on the relationship of Tommy and Jody, but it’s the various subplots that steal the show. Abby, the 16 year old goth minion, slowly becomes a dominate force in the book. Her attitude seeks so much to be so very mature while reminding us on occasion that she really is little more than a child. Another subplot that really works for me is that of the Animals. These are a fun mix of complete slackers – we see first meet them after they’ve blown about $500,000 on a blue-skinned hooker from Vegas and from there we get see them drinking and smoking there way through quite an adventure (and there’s turkey bowling too).

Susan Bennett’s reading of this audiobook brings the story to life in ways that few audiobook readers that I’ve listened to have. She very neatly walks the line of creating unique voices for each character without becoming overly derivative and stereotypical. Her portrayal of Abby the minion is particularly well done.

Christopher Moore’s fiction is best known for its irreverent humor – as it should be – but under the surface it becomes clear that he is also a keen observer of humanity. And what better way to show humanity than through humor? Included in You Suck is a touching love story, a unique view into the adolescent goth world, and a unique view of the homeless in San Francisco. Of course there’s also vampires, a blue-skinned hooker, drunken night-shift stoners, a cornball kid from Indiana, the Emperor of San Francisco, and a giant shaved cat named Chet.

My wife can attest to just how strange my sense of humor can be, so it’s no surprise that I find books of Christopher Moore appealing. They are fun and fast and can make you laugh out loud. Moore’s writing easily translates to the audio form and Susan Bennett’s reading further brings the story to life. You Suck: A Love Story makes a great audiobook and I certainly recommend it for those who enjoy humorous books. I’ll now be on the look-out for more audiobooks by Moore. 7.5/10

Related Posts: Review of Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

Review: Already Dead by Charlie Huston

Charlie Huston's Already Dead (US, UK, Canada) takes the prototypical hard-boiled, noir detective template and injects it into a world of vampires. The result is not the Buffy-inspired urban fantasy romp that dominates the fantasy market these days, but a true noir detective tale that happens to star a vampire struggling for independence in clan dominated underworld.

Joe Pitt is fed up with the warring vampire clans and their hierarchy of rule. He ekes out an existence as a rogue living in one clan’s territory (The Society) while performing the odd job for various clients, including the dominant rival clan (The Coalition) of mid-town Manhattan. Clan tyranny and politics make it difficult on an independent in the secret underworld of vampires and Pitt walks a fine line playing the various factions off one another as he struggles to survive.

After an encounter with a trio of squatters infected with a flesh-eating strain of bacteria (aka zombies), Pitt ends up in unpleasant encounters with the leaders of both the Coalition and Society. As a result he is left with a new job through the Coalition – to find the missing daughter of a rich and powerful woman. Relatively standard progression occurs as Pitt investigates with an escalation in complexity and danger that sweeps him away, revealing the man behind the vampire and the sometimes moralistic rage encompassing both.

Huston’s world offers clever and adequate explanations for the how and why behind vampirism other supernatural phenomenon. Vampires are infected with an unknown to science virus colloquial known as the vyrus. It feeds upon human blood and gives the infected superhuman qualities that enable them to become superior hunters. The vampires of Huston’s world laugh at, subvert, utilize, and manipulate pop-culture’s embracing of vampires. Zombies result from an infection of flesh-eating bacteria that animates its dying host with hormones to keep it searching for other food sources (i.e. victims to infect). Brains are craved due to their high content of valuable hormones used to keep the host viable.

Huston envisions the dark side of Manhattan most choose to look past while creating the perfect sense of antagonistic paranoia. This world of the dispossessed, criminals, and others exists and thrives beyond the law with the vampire clans even further beneath this underworld. Here the clans both supplement and replace the organized crime networks common to the noir world where the rich and powerful, human and vampire alike, use and abuse this world to their own ends.

The best part of Already Dead is Joe Pitt – a classic anti-hero, noir detective-who-is-not-actually-a-detective. Pitt’s history brings an extra dimension of depth often missing – a childhood of horrible abuse, an adolescence and young-adulthood of abusing, a role as enforcer within a vampire clan, and finally, a rejection of it all and the attainment of a some-what flawed moral high ground and sense of justice. Much of this comes about in his introspective thoughts surrounding his girlfriend, Evie – a young HIV-infected bartender. She refuses to risk infecting Pitt, and Pitt struggles with the knowledge that his vampirism, unknown to Evie, could cure her HIV with curse of his affliction.

This classic noir story with zombies, vampires, pornography, evil corporate moguls, clan warfare, and a hard-ass, flawed, moralistic rogue vampire proves to be a fast-paced, engaging read that I very much enjoyed. I eagerly anticipate the further adventures of Joe Pitt in No Dominion (US, UK, Canada), Half the Blood of Brooklyn (US, UK, Canada), and forthcoming Every Last Drop (US, UK, Canada). 8/10

New Amsterdam by Elizbeth Bear

My review of New Amsterdam by Elizabeth Bear is here over at FantasyBookSpot. I really enjoyed this quite a bit - 8/10.

Set in a Victorian era and a New Amsterdam still apart of the British Empire, where many of the familiar vampire tropes made popular by the likes of Anne Rice and Laurell K. Hamilton, and a good bit of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle the mix, Elizabeth shows what can be produced at the hands of a talented writer. Think vampires, sorcerers, detectives, political revolutionaries, corrupt aristocracy, and a British Empire still in its prime where places like New England never achieved independence framed with a skillfully woven character study.

Guilty Pleasures by Laurell K. Hamilton

Vampires! I’ll admit, like many people out there, I do enjoy a good vampire book from time to time. Guilty Pleasures is Hamilton’s first installment in a series of books starring Anita Blake, Vampire Slayer. The books are decently popular, so I decided to give it a read.

Imagine the world we exist in, however, vampires, lycanthropes (from werewolves to wererats), zombies, ghouls, etc. are very real creatures. Vampires in the US have a bad rap, but they are gaining some civil rights – it’s now illegal to ‘murder’ a vampire. The city of St. Louis has uneasily embraced its undead inhabitants, making them a major tourist attraction – visit a vampire strip club or the circus of the damned or join the vampire church – no abstract concepts of immortality here, join and you can ‘live’ forever.

Anita Blake is an animator – someone who has the power to raise the dead. She is also a vampire hunter, contracted by the police to kill ‘problem’ vampires. In an ironic twist, Anita, the ‘executioner’, has been hired by both the police and the city's most powerful master vampire to find who has been killing some of the city’s most powerful vampires.

Anita is both strong and vulnerable, and one hell of a cynic. Vampires are soulless, powerful creatures, and Anita would love to see the world free of them. Not only is she working for vampires under the threat of the death and dismemberment of a friend (and herself), but someone is trying to kill her; things have been better. She is uneasy, scared, and angry. And when she’s angry, even a thousand-year old master vampire should take notice.

Guilty Pleasures is a quick, fun read. While it is certainly an ‘R-rated’ book, it is not the sex-filled book many seem to imply about Hamilton’s books (of course, I haven’t read any of her others). The atmosphere is dark, dirty, and a bit perverted, but Hamilton balances this well Blake’s cold wit and sarcasm, though it can be forced at times. The writing suffers from the typical awkwardness of a first book, but not so much that it can’t be overlooked.

On my 10-point rating scale, where 5 is a take-it or leave-it book, and 10 is unsurpassed, Guilty Pleasures rates a 6 to 6.5. I enjoyed this book, and will read the next installment of Anita Blake, Vampire Slayer: The Laughing Corpse. Guilty Pleasures is not a book of great depth, just a fun, quick, horrific romp through a world of monsters helmed by the darkly funny Anita Blake.

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova received a lot of hype in the summer of 2005. It was proclaimed as ‘this year’s Da Vinci Code’ or the ‘Dracula Code’ and on almost every book reviewer’s list of recommendations. The comparison to The Da Vinci Code made me nervous about a book that otherwise sounded like a great read. So, instead of rushing out and buying it, I kept my eye out and found a used copy at the local independent bookstore. It was near the top of the Stack for a while, and I finally got around to reading it.

In short, comparisons to The Da Vinci Code are unfortunate for The Historian. Yes, there are a few superficial similarities, but below the surface they quickly and thankfully disappear. This was the long way of saying that the The Historian is a beautifully written book that thoroughly entertained and even educated me, all the more impressive since it is Kostova’s first novel.

The story is told by a narrator who is a middle-aged historian about a dramatic series of events that took place in her late teens. Our historian is exploring her father’s library and discovers a book containing some old letters that are addressed to: “My dear and unfortunate successor”. The reader is immediately sucked into to the methodical and suspenseful explanation of the meaning of these words and events of her father’s life in graduate school when he became this “unfortunate successor”.

We embark into an adventure through cold-war Europe, dusty libraries, spectacular churches and monasteries, and the mystery of the undead, particularly the most famous undead of them all – Dracula. While Dracula and vampire lore play a key part in this book, the story is more of tale of coming of age, love, the clashing of cultures, the similarity of mankind, and price of hatred.

One a 10-scale, where 10 is unsurpassed and 5 is a take-it or leave-it novel, The Historian easily scores an 8, and I’m tempted to score it a 9. Parts of the novel seemed rushed after the build-up and some conveniences in the plot are unsatisfactory in their explanations, but these failings are minor at best and easily overcome through the overall quality of the storytelling. While, for a book about vampires, The Historian is low on action, it is high on suspense and I highly recommend it for any audience above the pre-teen level, though maturity and life experience will go a long way toward fully appreciating it.