The Fall (Review)

Spoilers Ahoy!

Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan have written/are writing a vampire trilogy that some have dubbed "The Anti-Twilight."  Titled The Fall it picks up pretty much where the previous (first) novel left off.  New York City has been infected by a kind of vampiric disease, a mutating virus spread by worms that rewrites the victims' DNA into a kind of gigantic insect.  They still look more-or-less human.  Kinda/sorta.  Unless you get a good look at the red eyes, the hairless and earless head.  Or their hands.  If they open their mouths, the illusion is gone.  A four-foot fleshy stinger awaits its chance to burrow into a victim and draw out blood like a mosquito.

Ick.

The Fall marks a deliberate attempt to tell a tale of horror.  For the record, the writers succeed.  The unnamed (at first) Master Vampire behind this plague threatening to destroy New York has much more in common with The Master from Buffy than the same-named villain from Doctor Who.  He is a demon, a towering giant of viciousness with the patience of long years and centuries to plan.  He is one of seven original Vampires, but the one gone most rogue.  Interestingly, he is also the one most capable of seeing humanity's potential, of using what (to him) are just wonderful human ideas.

Like concentration camps.

Much of the novel consists of racing against time by our lead characters, unraveling a few of the mysteries about vampires and what The Master seems to be aiming for.  As other cities begin to suffer the fate of New York, one looms most large--what is The Master's ultimate plan?  He clearly doesn't want to turn all  humanity into vampires.  That would be stupid, and suicidal.  So what is his goal?  The Van Helsing-like Abraham Setrakian believes he knows a way to find out.  More, to learn a key to snatching some kind of victory from the gore-drenched jaws of holocaust.  It all lies in an incredibly rare book based on an obscure Mesopotamian text, a tome said to contain the origins of the Ancients, the seven eldest vampires of all.

Eph Goodweather, former head of the CDC and now a fugitive from forces allied to The Master, struggles not only to find a way to help stop a plague but to protect his beloved son from his vampirized ex-wife.  Making up a third is Vasily Fet, one-time professional exterminator and now very effective vampire-hunter.  How the lives of all these characters tend to intertwine in fascinating ways is part of what makes the novel so much fun.  A few in-jokes are a little much (if you're familiar with Mexican wrestler Santo movies, you'll soon see what I mean--but it works).  The overall impact is a dizzying roller-coaster ride through an intricate chamber of horrors.

Yes, I know that is a mixed metaphor.  I don't care.

One thing that continues to bother me is the treatment of the characer Nora, Eph's co-worker as well as once-and-future lover.  In the first novel The Strain she was something of a cypher.  We get to know her a little bit better in this film, including some hint of a tendency to place herself in orbit around others.  But at heart she's a secondary character, nothing more.  I admit to a prejudice towards stories with stronger female roles.

Elsewhere I've complained a bit about how some authors pull their dramatic punch.  Not in this book!  One expects our heroes to somehow save the day.  They don't.  They survive, most of them.  They come together towards a greater goal.  They do accomplish things, vital things.  Indeed, one can almost see the seeds of ultimate victory against The Master might have been sewn in these pages.  But if this were the story of World War Two, the novel ends with the fall of France and the Nazi blitz of London beginning its reign of death onto London.  As Eph and Nora are joined by Fet and the former gang-member Gus, as they watch the dominoes set up by The Master's plan begin to fall one-by-one, we can only hope this is the darkest hour.

It probably is not.  Hogan and Del toro accomplish what relatively few authors manage to do--surprise me.  They have primed my anticipation and hopes that one year from now I'll be writing another review in equally glowing terms.

Brides of the Impaler (Review)

Ahoy! Ahead there be SPOILERS....

Edward Lee's novel Brides of the Impaler is an example of very effective cover design. The fact is, a friend of mine was reading it at work and I asked to read it when she was done. Mission accomplished! Title and cover combined to attract a fan of vampire novels.

Fortunately, this is indeed a vampire novel. With that title and this cover one would feel disappointed upon reading an inspirational tale of Peace Corps workers in El Salvador.

And vampire novel it is! More, as implied, it deals with none other than the most famous undead of all time (so far), namely Vlad The Impaler aka Vlad Tepes aka Dracula! (say it with me, rolling the 'r' we go along -- DRRRRRAAAACUUUUULAAAAA! Wasn't that fun?)

Not all vampire novels are the same of course. For one thing, not all fall really under the same genre, not really. Some aim for eroticism, and others for humor while still others are essentially gothic versions of Harry Potter or Romeo and Juliet. This one aims at horror, at a sense of malignant evil which has a real chance of triumph, of ruthlessly destroying/corrupting the innocent and good. It doesn't try to define evil very much, going after the relatively straightforward stuff of cruelty and wanton destruction. Nor is this a novel that particularly focuses on character -- the hardest thing in the book is to keep the two lawyers apart in the mind. Ditto the two cops. The insane homeless women? Good luck. They wear different clothes and one of 'em has the least teeth, but that is about it.

Which is not meant as a severe criticism. This novel isn't really so much about the nuances of what makes people tick, but about the stuff that happens to them. Along the way, the author actually accomplishes some interesting effects.

For example, the title and cover hints in some subtle way about lesbian vampires. Maybe it is the reminder of a Dracula's harem in the book and movies, with the indelible image of all three practically gang-raping Jonathan Harker. Such elements do exist in Brides of the Impaler. A successful artist (of grotesque little dolls) finds herself haunted by dreams and then hallucinations about an almost-nude vampire nun offering sensual pleasures. Eventually these dreams start to intrude upon reality, including a moment when she "wakes" to find herself mid-coitus with her foster sister! Yet this is ultimately not erotic at all. It isn't intended to be, save in the most fleeting of ways. In fact, by then we realize that both young women had had vicious foster parents who used them in child pornography, forcing them to do things to each other. That drains pretty much all the titillation out of that scene, as is intended. The erotic becomes ugly, threatening, even sadistic. Likewise, fantasies about lesbian vampires licking you all over really get spoiled when said vampires are filthy, covered in scabs, missing teeth, their nails uncut and grimy, etc. Instead of sexy, this is pretty nauseating. Again, as evidently intended.

Mind you, I will say the horror of books like this would be even more powerful if we really felt these characters were in any sense real. Hardly a one comes "alive" on these pages, and the few who almost approach it are minor characters at best -- a security guard, an archeology student, a certain priest horrified by what he sees as a dark prophecy coming to fruition.

I'll also nitpick about the history intrinsic to the story. While far from an expert on medieval Wallachia, the stories about Vlad the Impaler bear very little resemblance to all that I've read. On the other hand, how much of a valid criticism is that really, when you get down to it? This is a novel, not a history tome. Its avowed purpose to make you feel creepy, not to leave the reader with a greater understanding of Eastern Europe during the 15th century.

Some cool ideas, some chills and thrills, some moments when your skin crawls. That is the promise of this novel and that is the promise it keeps.