They Thirst

by Robert McCammon
616 pgs

They Thirst is the third vampire book I've read in the last month, which wasn't a coincidence. I had been saving all three to read around Halloween, because I figured, if any of them were terrible, I could rationalize wasting time reading them because they're the types of books that should be read at this time of year. Fortunately, Robert McCammon delivers, once again.

Andy Palatazin grew up in Hungary, where, as a boy, he learned first hand that vampires exist. His father, who had gone out with a group of men during a winter storm to hunt down a vampire who had been hunting in their village, returned in the middle of the night, having been "turned." Andy and his mother fled and eventually ended up in California, but he never forgot the terror and violence he witnessed that night. Now, decades later, Andy is a cop in L.A.. trying to protect its citizens from more mundane threats.

But a powerful vampire, Prince Vulkan, has decided to make L.A. his home as well, with plans to turn the whole city into an army of vampires before spreading to the rest of the country, and eventually, the world. It's Andy who is first to recognize the work of Prince Vulkan for what it is, and with the eventual help of a small group of people, sets out to find and stop him.

They Thirst is one of McCammon's earlier books (1981), and it reads like a book from that period. It's a little cheesy at times, but it shows the progression he was making as a writer and storyteller. I found myself both smiling as I read it and not wanting to put it down.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Blood Communion

by Anne Rice
256 pgs  (Vampire Chronicles series #15)

Fifteen books into Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles series and I think I've gone back and forth from "loving it," to "I'm done" four or five times so far. Even while reading this latest book, I found myself alternating between extremes multiple times. My dilemma is deciding whether the good parts are worth suffering through the bad, and whether Rice is her on worst enemy when it comes to crafting a story that feels like it's leading somewhere.

In this latest installment, Lestat learns that the ancient vampire Rhoshamandes, who killed Maharet, the ancient matriarch of the vampiric family, has resurfaced and is once again picking off members of the hierarchy of vampires. The confrontation between the two of them, which was one of those moments of greatness in the series, should have been the climax and ending of the the book. But instead, Rice places it at about the midway point, and then drags the second half of the book out without an equally rewarding conclusion.

A couple of years ago, when I read Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis, I said I wasn't a fan of the direction the series was going, but that I'd withhold judgment until I'd read the next one. Well, this was the next one, and the jury's still out. I'm not any clearer on where the series is going. I'm hopeful Rice has an idea and plans to get there sooner, rather than later. But I'm afraid she's just wandering around aimlessly with the cast of characters she's spent 15 books, and 40 years, assembling and telling their stories.

★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Redeemer

by Jo Nesbø
397 pgs (Harry Hole series #6)

In The Redeemer, the sixth book in Jo Nesbø's Harry Hole series, Hole is up against a professional assassin named Stankic, a former Croat soldier, who gained the nickname "Little Redeemer" during the war that broke up Yugoslavia.

The story begins back in 1991 with the rape of a 14-year-old girl at a youth camp run by the Norwegian Salvation Army. The girl's attacker was never found. The story then jumps ahead twenty-two years to the killing of a Salvation Army officer during an outdoor Christmas concert in Oslo. When the brother of the officer killed is later the target of a murder attempt, the Norwegian police believe the brothers' entire family is being targeted and Harry is assigned to the case.

Harry's investigations tie the two brothers back to the same youth camp where the young girl was raped, and eventually lead him to Croatia and onto the trail of Stankic, who has one more killing to complete before he plans to retire. As Harry closes in, Stankic becomes desperate and even more dangerous, until it's Harry's life that's on the line.

The Redeemer is a slight departure from the previous books in the series in both style and feel. I thought Nesbø held a lot of key aspects of the story back for most of the book, which ultimately led to a very satisfying conclusion, and I found my impressions of Harry changed more in this book than in any of the others so far. He's still a broken and conflicted protagonist, but I found him much more sympathetic in this one.

If you've never read any of the books in the series, this probably isn't the one to start with. It's good, but I think it's much better if you're familiar with the events that have led up to this one.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Cardinal Black

by Robert McCammon
462 pgs  (Matthew Corbett series #7)

Cardinal Black is the seventh book in Robert McCammon's fantastic series featuring Matthew Corbett. I've heard McCammon is only planning to have a couple more books in the series, which makes me both excited and disappointed at the same time. I can't wait to see how the story ultimately ends and how things end up for Corbett and the rest of the characters McCammon began introducing in Speaks the Nightbird. But at the same time, I don't want the story to end.

Events pick up in 1703, right where Freedom of the Mask left off. Matthew has found himself with no alternative but to assist the very man he's been trying to stop for months: Professor Fell. Fell has given Berry Grigsby, the girl Matthew has fallen in love with, an elixir that is causing her to rapidly deteriorate mentally to that of a child. She no longer recognizes Matthew, nor does she even know who she is anymore. Matthew has been forced to track down and retrieve a book of chemical potions, which was stolen from Fell, in order to find a possible cure for Berry.

He is joined on his search for the book by Julian Devane, one of Fell's assassins, and it doesn't take long for both of them to find themselves involved in a deadly game in London's underworld that will test both of their skill sets to their limits.

Each of the books in the series has been great, but Cardinal Black is one of my favorites so far. I found myself picking the book up every chance I could get, even if I only had a few minutes to read, and that's not something a book gets me to do very often. Once again, McCammon brings one installment of his overall story to a satisfying conclusion, only to jarringly set the stage for the next one. But that's a big reason why I enjoy his books so much.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

The Ships of Earth

by Orson Scott Card
382 pgs  (Homecoming series #3)

The Ships of Earth is the third volume in Orson Scott Card's Homecoming series. Nafai, his wife, and the rest of the group the Oversoul led out of Basilica, are traveling through the desert to where the ancient starships were left 40 million years ago. If they can get to them without killing each other first, they can take the ships back to earth.

The story Card is telling is interesting, but mostly because I'm familiar with the source material he pulled from. I'm enjoying seeing how he's taken that original religious story and converted it into an epic science fiction tale. I'd enjoy discussing the book with someone who had no idea it wasn't 100% Card's and see what they thought of it.

★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

Wanderers

by Chuck Wendig
782 pgs

When I hear a book is being compared to The Stand, and favorably no less, I have to check it out. In the case of Chuck Wendig's new book Wanderers, I'm really glad I did. There's just something about a good post-apocalyptic, dystopian story that makes me happy for some reason. So, I'm always excited when a good one comes around.

The story begins when Shanna, a 17-year-old girl, wakes up to find her young sister Nessie is missing from her bed. That in and of itself isn't unusual or alarming, but when she finds Nessie a few minutes later, just how unusual and alarming the situation is, quickly becomes apparent. She finds Nessie walking alongside the road outside the house, barefoot adn unresponsive. At first, she thinks Nessie is merely sleepwalking, but when nothing she does will wake her, and when her attempts to physically stop her and take her back to the house cause Nessie to scream, shake violently, and act as if she's about to explode--literally, Shanna quickly realized something serious is going on.

By the time she goes back, wakes her father, adn the two of them catch back up to Nessie, she's wandered even further away from the house, and still shows no sign of waking nor stopping. Within a few minutes, Mr. Blamire, Shanna's math teacher, walks out of the morning mist along side of the road and approaches Nessie. Shanna can tell he's in the same state Nessie's in, adn when he gets to her, he turns direction and begins slowly walking right behind her. Gradually others join the group one by one, usually being followed by frantic family members or friends trying to "wake" them with the same results Shanna had. It doesn't take long for the local news to get word of the strange phenomena, and very soon, the "sleepwalkers" become a national headline.

Right around this same time, the CDC identifies a strange and deadly new fungal disease. The disease infects the host's brain, initially causing cold-like symptoms, but within weeks, the person begins experiencing hallucinations, often leading to suicide. Eventually the person dies and his or her whole body releases millions of spores into the air, potentially infecting thousands more.

As the story goes on and the group of sleepwalkers and their shepherds continues to grow mile after mile, Wendig gradually and expertly lays out the scope and magnitude of the story he's telling. Government agencies become involved, along with religious zealots and white supremacists. All trying to figure out what's going on, whether it's the apocalypse, and what ethnic group is to blame for it, respectively.

I had never heard of Chuck Wendig before seeing this book at the bookstore, so I didn't know what to expect, but I was very impressed. The story is fantastic, and his characters are well developed. A lot of books this big take a few hundred pages to build up and set the stage before they set their hook. That's not the case with Wanderers. The story grabbed me right from page one, and it didn't let up until the end.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Dracul

by Dacre Stoker & J.D. Barker
493 pgs

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed reading Dracul, Dacre Stoker and J.D. Barker's prequel to the iconic book Dracula., written by Dacre's great-granduncle Bram Stoker. But before I say anything about the story, I think it's worth mentioning that the backstory of how the book came to be, which is outlined in the Authors' Note at the end, is fascinating and should not be neglected. It adds significantly to the story and explains ho anyone could have the audacity to try to add anything to Uncle Stoker's tale.

The backstory outlines Stoker and Barker's research of Dracula, which included the discovery of a lost journal of Bram Stoker's and the rare opportunity to review the book's original annotated manuscript. The manuscript interestingly begins on page 102, a fact Stoker and Barker deftly use in explaining the origins of their prequel. The story they were able to piece together from the journal and the notes is a great addition to the book and the vampire genre in general.

In the story, Bram Stoker himself plays the role of one of the main characters, and it begins in 1868, with a then 21-year old Bram hiding in the tower of a castle one night trying to ward off Dracul with nothing but holy water and some crucifixes. He's frantically trying to write down and record the events of his life, which led to this point, hoping that even if he dies, or something worse, his story will have a chance to be told.

From there the story goes back in time to Bram's early childhood and the mysterious woman named Ellen Crone who tended to him and his sister Matilda. Ellen took particular care of young Bram, who from birth had been a sickly child who spent almost all of his early childhood confined to his bed. IT wasn't until Ellen arrived and mysteriously healed him that he was able to begin living a full life. Ellen mysteriously disappeared from their lives ad Matilda made it her life's mission to find out what Ellen did to change Bram like she did.

Numerous times in her search for Ellen over the years, she would catch a fleeting glimpse of a woman in a crowd she was sure was Ellen because she looked like she hadn't aged a day since she left, but as soon as she was seen, she'd disappear again.

The story sunk its teeth into me (sorry, I tried to resist) and didn't let go. It's a vampire story that stays truer to the original character than probably any of the hundreds of other vampires stories that it inspired, and it's well worth the time it takes to read it.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆