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Vampire Rule

Book Review of K.C. Blake’s Vampire Rule

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I grabbed K.C. Blake’s Vampires Rule off of Amazon’s KDP recently, only to discover that I had already ‘purchased’ it from Smashwords at some point in the past. Guess the synopsis really appealed to me if I thought to download it twice. (Note: as I wrote this I noticed that it is currently free on both sites.)

Description from Goodreads:
They don’t call him Jackpot for nothing.

Jack has always beat the odds… at least until now. When he was attacked by a werewolf, vampires saved him. When he got tired of living the vampire life, another werewolf attack freed him, making him human again. Now Jack just wants to live a normal life, but what’s normal about a hunter girlfriend, a brother who wants to stake him to be on the safe side, and a head werewolf building an army to rule the world?

Review (with some spoilers):
I’m having a little trouble writing this review. Not because I don’t know what I want to say, but because I don’t want to write the exact same review 15 other people already have. The truth is, however, that just like a number of previous readers, I found the idea of this story fascinating but the execution lacking. Jack, Silver, and Jersey’s destiny was an interesting one, but there were a number of plot holes and a couple just curiosity holes. For example, they have to fight the head werewolf, so what about the head vampire that was created at the same time as him? He’s never mentioned. Surely he was important at some point.

I thought that the characters were a little flat and I greatly disliked the way that Silver was constantly treated as a child. She had trained her WHOLE life to be a werewolf hunter. Jack had just been introduced to the art. But everyone was willing to let him take the lead and all of the risks. Why? Was she really so weak? If so, how had she survived so long without him? I mean she’s part of the prophecy (or whatever) too. It smacked of paternalistic sexism…have to protect the precious, fragile female at all cost. Oh god, just gag me.

I did really appreciate Jersey Clifford in all of his poetry spewing badness. He felt like he had more depth than all of the other character combined. Cowboy and Lily had a lot of potential too. Similarly the interaction between Jack and his brother was thought provoking. Billy’s experience surely had to be the hardest of any other character. He deserves some credit.

It was hard to reconcile the ‘we have to save the world’ plot line with the ‘innocent love’ storyline. I suppose if I was 15 and didn’t know how much more life had to offer I might be able to relate to the importance of being a couple (holding hands, carrying her books, etc). But as an adult I found the whole thing too…too vanilla. Granted, I am an adult and this is a YA book (and I’d expect it to best appeal to the lower age brackets of the genre). But even if I could get excited about it, I have a hard time believing two people tasked with such a heavy destiny would stop in the middle of it to cuddle and declare their undying love. Not the time people.

My final and extremely inelegant say on the matter is that the book was alright and will likely appeal to Twilight‘s younger fan base.

Review of A.D. Stewart’s Black Pyramid

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I grabbed A.D. Stewart‘s Black Pyramid (Ancient Breeds, #1) off of the KDP free list. As I write this (Feb. 11), I notice that it is free again. Don’t know how long that will last, though.

Description from Amazon:
In a time, when SandWalkers fight BloodSeekers for supremacy, it’s kill or be killed!

Down through time, we thought the lost civilizations died out.
We were wrong…
Find out the truth…
The secrets of the pyramids are about to be revealed…
In the first story within the Ancient Breeds Series

Ancient Breeds Novel:

Melissa Ambers travels to Egypt with one question on her mind. Why me?

Entering the Black Pyramid with mixed feelings- unsure how or why the giant sandstone pyramid appeared out of thin air, she risks everything, her job, her reputation, and her life to unearth the mysteries within.

Entering the tomb, it becomes increasingly apparent that something or someone dwelling within the dark, confines of the Black Pyramid is trying to keep her from learning the secrets buried within.

Entrusted with the powers to protect the humans from total annihilation, Siaak, the keeper of the pyramid, must do everything within his powers to keep the evil vampire, Osiris, locked inside, and trespasser out!

When two humans force their way into his pyramid, he has no choice but to get rid of them! For if they unleash the leader of the BloodSeekers, there is nothing on this earth that can save them again!

Review:
I generally liked the book. Siaak’s genuine desire to do good in the face of evil was wonderful, while his willingness to also kill mercilessly when needed provided a well-rounded understanding of his motivations. Melissa was a little firecracker. She was smart, witty, and fearless. Much like Siaak, I found her endless chatter annoying at times, not always though. I often thought she had insightful questions and could relate to her constant desire for more information, but there were times when lives were on the line (often her own), and I thought, ‘Jesus woman, shut the hell up.’

I really wanted to see the two of them complete each other. There was very little sex in the book, which is fine. But it seemed like, though Siaak could talk a good game (some of the things he says/describes are toe-curling, in a good way), they never seemed to smolder. They didn’t seem particularly impassioned. While his whole fangy thing was smexy, there wasn’t a lot of information (beyond his adamant denials) about the difference between his Sandwalker breed and the vampiric Bloodseeker breed. I kind of got it, but you just have to pick tidbits up along the way, and I never understood where the second breed came from. Was it a mutation, a divine intervention, always been there?

The side characters were fun too. Siaak’s brothers were each good in their own way. They filled the obligatory laid-back jester with unexpected wisdom and brooding, emotionally damaged, hostile roles. I look forward to each of their books ’cause you know that there’ll eventually be one for each of them. Then there was Mark and Elizabeth and the baddies…all good.

I did have a little trouble anchoring myself in time. The book started in Ancient Egypt, but one of the characters can time-travel, so there were a number of modern references that threw me for a loop. Plus, when two of them reenter the storyline after what I think was thousands of years, they leaped right into life (they knew people, one had a job, they had homes, etc.) I couldn’t figure out how that worked, even if time travel was involved.

There were a lot of brand references (Kindle Fire HD, iPhone, iPod, Tic Tacs, Ray Bans, and that’s before even getting to the clothing & shoes) that felt really forced. Why not just an e-reader (or even just a Kindle) or sunglasses? I did appreciate all of the pop culture references, though. Some of them really made me laugh.

In the end, I’d be happy to read another one should it be published. And for the record, I’ve seen a number of covers for this book, and this one (the one with three stacked guys on the front) is by far my favorite. Honestly, it’s the reason I picked the book up in the first place. Yummy.

sunset

Book Review of Arshad Ahsanuddin’s Sunset (Pact Arcanum, #1)

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I grabbed Arshad Ahsanuddin’s Sunset (Pact Arcanum, #1) off of the KDP list.

Description from Goodreads:

By Day

Los Angeles, 2040. When the terrorist known as Medusa threatens to kill millions with a stolen nuclear bomb, Nick Jameson makes a fateful decision. He reveals himself on global television as a Daywalker – a vampire with a soul. To save Los Angeles, Nick exposes not only his own gifts but three separate cultures based on millennia-old magic.

By Night

The three metahuman races exist in careful balance, working to maintain a fragile peace. Nick and his fellow Daywalkers successfully master their natural bloodlust. The Sentinels, armed with both magic and steel, repress their warlike instincts. And even some Nightwalkers, normally their natural enemies, have deserted the Court of Shadows to join the triple alliance. Nick Jameson is deeply involved with two such Nightwalkers – handsome Lorcan and powerful Rory. Both men love Nick. But neither can protect the new Ambassador to Humanity from the events he has set in motion.

By the Sword

Jeremy Harkness was lured into Medusa’s service under false pretenses. A loner with no one and nothing to cling to, he was willing to die for his cause. But the night Medusa tried to obliterate Los Angeles, Jeremy met Nick Jameson, triggering the onset of his own psychic gifts. For Jeremy is the third race of metahuman, a Sentinel, born to kill the Nightwalkers with no quarter asked or offered. And neither Medusa nor the Court of Shadows will settle for peace when they can make war

Slightly spoilerish Review:

I don’t know that I’ve ever read anything quite like Ahsanuddin’s Sunset. It presents an extremely structured and well thought out metahuman society that lives alongside a future humanity. Honestly, I thought it was just a little too magically and scientifically advanced, but I was willing to suspend my disbelief for the sake of the fantasy. I’m so glad I did, because it was a lot of fun. I adored the characters. There was a lot of witty repartee that made me laugh, the fight scenes were tight and the adventure kept me on the edge of my seat.

What I find so unusual, however, is that I think it reads a lot like a series of interconnected vignettes. It’s not mind you, but with all of the temporal back and forth it feel that way…like watching the frames of a film go by slow enough to see each one. Snick, a new scene…snick, another one…snick, and another one. They all relate and move the story forward, but not in a smooth continuous flow. There are gaps between each one. This isn’t a criticism, just a comment on the stylised framework of the book. It works well, but is different. Once I was used to it I enjoyed it. I do think some of the characters’ depth is lost though. Important events are referred to, but as the story doesn’t cover a continuous stream from time A to time B they aren’t all relayed to the reader. Like the fact that Nick fought 47 duels to protect Jeremy and his honour, for example. It is discussed after the fact, but not shown. As a result I was really taken by surprise by Nick’s passionate desire to protect Jeremy. He had been off doing things that would have made that apparent, but the reader doesn’t know about it.

Similarly there are a number of details that make up the characters but are not particularly explored. A number of them appeared to have been quite famous in the humane world, but we don’t really know anything about that. Nick’s drug dependency could have been a big deal, but is glossed over. Prior to the events of this story Nick was apparently tortured horridly as well as suffered from a rare and extremely painful disorder that prompts him to seek out others of the same affliction. We know almost nothing of these things other than that they happened. Now, it’s a longish series, maybe some of this will be addressed in future books. I don’t know. But I was left wishing they had been been further explained. Of course, that would have made for a very long book.

All in all I really did enjoy it. It is well crafted (especially the world-building), entertaining, and enjoyable. What more could you ask for?