I figure enough people around here have read it that it deserves a thread of its own. I just finished it and I thoroughly enjoyed myself, but it was obvious the book was Part 1 of a much bigger series.
A few other thoughts (first the bad)…
[ul]
[li]Nothing of importance seemed to happen for the first 100 pages or so (a quarter of the book). They could have been condensed down into a single chapter and the story would have read exactly the same.[/li][li]The eclipse was a bunch of hooey. People kept having feelings about the eclipse bringing with it some kind of bad omen, but in the end, the vamps were purely biological. The eclipse was meaningless.[/li][li]On that note. The only mystical thing with the vamps was the can’t cross water unaided thing, which bugged me. Everything else has a biological explanation, so why add in one bit of mystical mumbo jumbo.[/li][li]As written, the vamps were strong enough that they could have taken over the world ten times over in the past. So it makes me wonder, why now? I think because it was implied “the truce” involved not raising a vamp army against the other Ancients, but it would have been nice to get confirmation of that.[/li][/ul]
Now for the good…
[ul]
[li]The “light bomb” from Del Toro’s Blade II makes a return and it was badass.[/li][li]All of the characters were pretty good. I especially liked Fet the exterminator and Gus the gangbanger.[/li][li]All of the references and allusions were neat. ABRAHAM Setrakian, the dead plane is basically the Demeter, a few others I can’t remember.[/li][li]The writing was really good. Clever without being too clever.[/li][/ul]
I enjoyed it well enough. I thought it was an interesting idea to combine an epidemic thriller with vampire and zombie lore.
Unlike you, I liked the opening. I loved the Demeter reference and found the whole thing very creepy. I still don’t understand why the baggage car driver got her head clobbered in instead of being vamped, but whatever.
I loved Vas Fet and Setrakian. Very nicely drawn characters. I’m interested to see where poor Gus’s story goes.
One reason the ancient vampires might have a truce is that it would be ridiculously easy for them to destroy their food source unless they agree to kill all their victims. Their killing squad was totally badass and fun.
Things I didn’t like so well:
"And now let us meet **Eldritch **Palmer, head of the **Stoneheart **Group . . . what do you mean ‘he must be the villain’? Well, never mind, let’s talk about Ephraim **Goodweather **. . . "
It’s a pretty sexist book, when I think about it. Two main female characters - one is the ex-wife/damsel in distress. The other is presented throughout as an accessory to Eph’s action hero stuff. The most that is said of her, aside from “uh, and Nora was there doing the same kind of stuff,” is that she is the one person Eph knew who thought better with her emotions than with her intellect. :rolleyes: Then of course she gets left behind to be foster mother during the climax.
The two other women I can recall are the Haitian nanny, fulfilling the role of the “benighted” foreigner whose strange beliefs hold the truth, and her employer who is a horrific bitch in every way imaginable. Compared with the charming personality crafted for Fet, this was very disappointing.
It seemed a lot of the sentence structure was odd. There were lots of fragments and just strange phrasing. I couldn’t help wondering if it was deliberate style, poor writing, or an ESL issue.
I really want to read it - have read the first chapter, actually - but I hate the thought of having to wait for the next installment. Is there any word on how quickly they are going to produce the trilogy (it is designed as a trilogy, right?).
But I thought it was a slow decline to the end of the book. I will read the next one when available because I am curious enough about what is happening.
The book felt too cinematic to me, though. That’s not necessarily bad but it felt to me like it was being written with the movie in mind. Yes, more introspection than in a screenplay but most of it could be cut pretty easily. If you can find it, Del Toro’s interview with Charlie Rose about the book was interesting.
The water thing bothers me too because it really needs to be defined, preferably somewhat scientifically since everything else is. Just walking from one of Manhattan to the other will cross over water in the form of sewers and some very large water mains. And even once off an island you can’t go very far without being forced to cross “natural” water in some form.
Having read Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City’s Most Unwanted Inhabitants it was pretty obvious that the entire character of the exterminator was cribbed from that one source. Then Del Toro said int eh Charlie Rose interview that the character was entirely Chuck Hogan’s creation. Nothing horribly wrong with the character, I just felt he didn’t quite fit in well.
I read Rats about a year ago and I was amazed at the similarity between the exterminator’s debut and the descriptions of rats running. Then I get to the very last page of the book where Del Toro and Hogan praise Rats and tell everyone to read it.
It was okay. I thought the whole eclipse thing and its attempt to paint the upcoming events of the book as some sort of supernatural thing were way off base and detracted from the story.
I also liked the opening and then felt like the next couple of hundred pages could have been condensed down to about 10 or 20 pages without missing anything.
I’ll read the next one to see where they are going with the story, but so far it’s just a saturday-afternoon-matinee, not an opening-night-must-see.
I haven’t read it, but would like to. A question, though. Is the Haitian nanny just a WOBL (or a WYBL, I guess, depending)? I hate that trope more than just about any other.
The nanny isn’t especially wise. She’s a little wise, but not especially.
I agree with UC, though, that the book’s portrayal of women leaves a lot to be desired. Let’s see: there’s the sidekick love interest, the estranged wife, the rich bitch, and the nurturing old black lady. I think that about covers it, other than the odd groupie.
This has been bothering me pretty much since I finished the book.
Unless I missed something, it was never explained very well how the main vampire dude killed (almost) every single person on the plane without any of them reacting.
He never moved that fast again, not even when in mortal danger.