Fiction: “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” by Seth Grahame-Smith

I think it’s been pretty well established at this point that I am not a historian. As much as I’d love to have a business card that proclaims me to be a “Master of the Occult and Obtainer of Rare Antiquities,” what I don’t know about history — both American and non — would fill about a frillion books. So while it was — oh wow, coincidence — this time last year that I spent the entire month of April reading about the first third of Theodore Roosevelt’s life, apparently April became American History Month over here at That’s What She Read, because this month I read Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

Now, as you can tell by the title, it’s not exactly actual history. After all, while it would be freaking amazing for our sixteenth president to have been a vampire hunter — and Mr. Grahame-Smith does make a convincing argument for it — it probably didn’t actually happen. Probably.

So anyway. I was proud of myself — I didn’t look up anything about Lincoln on Wikipedia until after I finished reading the book. And I was pleasantly surprised at how many events in Lincoln’s real life could be explained (and, in some cases, better explained) by events in Vampire Hunter. For instance, Lincoln’s mother died when he was nine of something called “milk sickness.” In the book, however, “milk sickness” is merely a synonym for “drained by a vampire.” Lincoln learns from his father everything about vampires and the chaos that vampires have brought to his family. Lincoln’s grandfather was killed by vampires and his father observed the death; Lincoln’s father borrowed money from someone that turned out to be a vampire, and when he couldn’t pay the guy back, the vampire killed Lincoln’s mother as repayment. At that moment, Lincoln vows to devote his life to killing vampires.

He meets Henry Sturges, who is a very old vampire. But Henry is … well, he’s like … Angel, I guess? If Angel was fully devoted to ridding the world of evil vampires and less devoted to a perky blonde vampire slayer who’s too young to realize when she’s in love with the wrong person. Anyway, Henry sends Lincoln names of vampires that he wants exterminated, and Abe does his bidding.

What I found both interesting, appropriate, and trite was that the Civil War (and therefore, slavery) was fought over vampirism. According to this worldview, slave owners were typically vampires, and they would buy up poor, unhealthy slaves along with stronger slaves and use the latter in the fields and feast on the former. As time marches further along towards 1861, Lincoln learns that the vampires of the South want to enslave the human race, much like the human race enslaved … well, slaves. He and Henry get a Union together to fight the South, and thus, the Civil War is born.

Much like Titanic, you know what’s going to happen at the end of the story. And you can probably guess what Mr. Grahame-Smith does with John Wilkes Booth, so I’m not going to go into that here. I will say that while the climax is expected, the denoument was not, and pleasantly surprising at that.

Now, I loved Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, but I think the main reason why I loved PPZ was because I had read Pride and Prejudice a couple of times and always put it back on the shelf in a wistful manner; I always felt something was missing. And PPZ made me realize what was missing: zombies. Pride and Prejudice always needed zombies, and Seth Grahame-Smith gave me Pride and Prejudice and Zombies! It was perfect! And while I really enjoyed Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, I guess I didn’t have a need for Abraham Lincoln to be a vampire hunter, and that’s why I didn’t love it as much as PPZ.

Don’t get me wrong: I love the idea that Abraham Lincoln could have been a vampire hunter. But I didn’t open the book — or finish it, for that matter — thinking Yes; this is what Abraham Lincoln needed.

Grade for Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter: 3 stars

Fiction: “Circus of the Damned” by Laurell K. Hamilton

Well, add this title to the growing list of Bad Books Alaina’s Read So You Don’t Have To. And before I figuratively rip this book to shreds, allow me to point out to everyone that, while it’s currently not a vacation, I have flown to Annapolis for training for my new job, and I think everyone knows what it is mandatory for me to read when I’m in an airport. Oh yes, that’s right. Coming up shortly: the next Patricia Cornwell.

Bring it on.

But first, let’s discuss these vampires of St. Louis once more. When we last left Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, she had just cleaned up the mess left behind by a rampaging, man-eating zombie. Now it’s shortly before Halloween, she’s up to her ears in zombie raisings, and a couple of dudes come to her workplace, asking for the daytime resting spot of the Vampire Master of the City so they can go kill him. Except that the Master of the City (yeah, that’s the actual title — and can I say, I would have loved to have seen Spike attempt to be the Vampire Master of Sunnydale. That would have been fun!) is Jean-Claude, the vampire that has given Anita two of the four marks necessary to turn someone into a human servant, and also, Anita kind of has friendly feelings towards Jean-Claude, even if he is a vampire, so she doesn’t want to give up the resting place.

And then there’s some more murders, this time by a gang of rogue vampires following a second Master. And what I’d really like to know is: How does one become a Master Vampire? I mean, what are the qualifications? Do you actually have to have control of a city to be considered a Master Vampire? Is it determined by the number of human servants you have? Or the quality of the animal you can control? For instance, I would bet that being able to control and ‘call’ wolves to do your bidding would put you up higher on the Master path than, say, Labradoodles. Is it simply a matter of how old you are? Is it, like, “Oh, congratulations, Vlad! Not only are you five hundred years dead, but you have also acheived the rank of Master Vampire!” Is it a matter of levelling up? The number of victims you’ve accumulated over the years? Do you need a Master’s degree in Vampirism? What night school offers that type of curriculum? Can humans attend, or must you be the living dead and a bloodsucker to enroll? THESE ARE THE QUESTIONS AND I DEMAND ANSWERS.

Oh god, what else. So everyone wants the resting location of Jean-Claude so everyone can kill him, but Anita holds tight to the information. Meanwhile, her boss, Bert, has hired a new animator: his name is Larry, and he’s twenty. Anita becomes extremely protective of little Larry, because apparently, he’s an innocent and she is not and if she can keep someone innocent from learning of the horrors associated with raising the dead, by gum, she’s gonna protect them. Except Larry doesn’t want to be protected, because he wants to be a Vampire Executioner too.

But then one night, Anita and Larry get ambushed by the Rogue Master Vampire (and now, all I can hear is Cordelia asking Wesley, “What’s a rogue demon?” when he described himself as a rogue demon hunter. What’s a rogue master, and why does he need a vampire?) named Alejandro, and no, I am not making that up. And every time I read the name, two things went through my head: the Lady Gaga song “Alejandro” which I didn’t even like that much, but also my pronunciation of Alejandro, which consists of dropping my voice down into my lower register and trilling the ‘r’ in ‘–andro,’ because I am a ditz. So ANYWAY, Alejandro wants the location of the Master of the City too, because it’s like crack for those people, but when she doesn’t give it up, he gives her the first mark to be his human servant.

And THEN, as if that WEREN’T ENOUGH, ANOTHER vampire that happens to be a million years old — and again, I swear I am not exaggerating for the sake of the story — the novel claims that Oliver (yes, that’s the name) is indeed a million years old. But anyway, Oliver ALSO wants the resting place of the yada yada, and for some reason Anita likes Oliver, so she says she’ll think about it.

But she gets lured into a cave (don’t ask) by Alejandro and Melanie, a lamia, which is not a llama but a half-woman, half-snake and it’s just as gross as it sounds (two things: unlike Fry’s romance with Ambrielle in that underwater episode of Futurama, the snake half is the bottom half and the woman half is on top. And secondly, how cool would it have been if they have a dangerous half-woman, half-llama running around? I MUST WRITE THIS NOW), and on the way out of the cave she gets bit by another lamia, and an hour later she starts bleeding all over the place — including through her eyeballs, if the dialogue is to be believed. And Richard, the guy Anita is thinking she might want to date, takes her to Jean-Claude to save her life, but the only way to save her life is to give her the third mark of a human servant, and apparently that’s what does it, and she gives up the resting place to Oliver, who it turns out was in cahoots with Alejandro all along, and he wants to become Master of the City so that he can have vampires hunt humans again instead of fight for equality legislation, and OH MY GOD REALLY THAT’S WHAT THIS BOOK WAS ABOUT

In the end, Jean-Claude takes the marks away from Anita, which doesn’t make any sense. Also, I know that the third mark is that the vampire has to drink the human’s blood. But nowhere does it say explicitly what the first two marks are or what they’re supposed to do or how one is supposed to get them. Again, are tests administered? What are the requirements? And my biggest question around these types of supernatural canon: does the author even know?

Because, look: I bitched a lot about the Twilight novels. A LOT. But while I may have bitched that the sparkly vampires weren’t real vampires, and that werewolves can’t shapeshift at will, and that their canon doesn’t resemble Earth canon, I can guarantee with almost 90% success that I never bitched that Stephenie Meyer’s canon didn’t hold up to itself. Meaning, yes, Edward sparkles where Angel and Damon do not, but there was never a moment where Edward was in the sun and he didn’t sparkle. Or, that she didn’t completely explain how things worked in her world. The world Ms. Meyer created, love it or hate it, at least had some good continuity. (I refuse to look at the last twenty pages of Breaking Dawn where it’s revealed that Jacob and his clan are actually shapeshifters and not official werewolves, because that just seems tacky and also, I don’t care that much. Look, Ms. Meyer, for once your shoddy craftsmanship is helping me prove a point!) I’m not entirely convinced, after reading three books in this series, that Ms. Hamilton is as sure of what causes what in her world. I’m a bit scared, actually, that she creates things to create drama in the moment, but then can’t go back and explain how those things happen or what the importance of having them happen is.

So there’s that. I’m not sure I have anything to add to that, aside from the fact that Ms. Hamilton still plays fairly fast and loose with grammar. But I could almost — almost — overlook the grammar if the rest of it was making sense. And I’m not sure I can say that it does.

But, y’all know me — you know you’re going to see me read the next one within a year. Because I’m — say it with me now — a masochist.

Grade for Circus of the Damned: 1 star

Fiction: “The Laughing Corpse” by Laurell K. Hamilton

I’m not sure if I’m suffering from Book ADD or just overall ennui, but after finishing Guilty Pleasures, it seemed ‘good enough’ to continue with The Laughing Corpse.

One of the reasons I’ve read Guilty Pleasures so often is because I keep trying to get back into the series, but I’ll get about fifty or sixty pages or so into The Laughing Corpse and give up. [In fact, you'll notice that I was attempting to reread this particular title back in 2009.] Why? A number of reasons. Boredom, for one. Mainly because this entry in the series is particularly gory, and gruesome in ways that it probably didn’t need to be. After completing it again today, I would like to add a third option: her writing skills don’t improve.

But let’s talk about the plot first. Anita Blake is still an animator for Animator’s Inc., and this book begins with her and her boss, Bert, meeting with a potential client. The client, Harold Gaynor, is an old man in a wheelchair that wants her to raise a 300-year-old corpse, and he agrees to pay her and her company one meeeeellion dollars [/Dr. Evil]. Except that in order to raise such an old zombie, Anita would have to sacrifice ‘the white goat’ – human sacrifice. And to quote one of the great philosophers of my generation, Homey don’t play that.

She continues on her merry way until there is a massacre of a family in town. She is called in for her expertise on the Spook Squad (a division of the St. Louis police department that investigates supernatural crimes), and … it’s brutal. How Ms. Hamilton was able to give that level of description without horking all over the place is beyond me. Turns out the culprit is a flesh-eating zombie, and when I say ‘flesh-eating,’ I mean ‘there’s not too much body left to discern that it was human before-eating.’ It’s kind of gross.

Anita proposes that the only animator strong enough to raise such a zombie would be Dominga Salvador, a voodoo priestess so scary that even Anita is afraid of her (but more on that tangent later). Dominga wants Anita to join her in her zombie making factory: Dominga has figured out how to raise zombies and put their souls back in the bodies so the corpses won’t decay. Anita (rightly) sees it as a desecration and refuses to have anything to do with it. She offends Dominga Salvador with her bravado and refusal to bow to threats, and now she has the threat of a very pissed off voodoo priestess coming after her, in the guise of two zombies attacking her in her home.

As the book continues, she ends up with another problem: Jean-Claude, the vampire from Guilty Pleasures, wants her to capitulate and become his human servant (she already bears two of the marks, whatever that means – he bit her or imprinted on her in the first book to bring her under his power, but it’s never very clearly defined). Of course, she wants nothing to do with him and refuses, but that shakes his new power in front of the rest of the vampires, and also, he lurves her.

In the end, everything comes together (as it always tends to do). Anita is able to figure out why the zombie killed the families without provocation, she is able to dispatch both Dominga Salvador and Harold Gaynor, and she’s even able to continue to keep Jean-Claude at a distance. What I experienced in this novel was a continuation from Guilty Pleasures around Anita not wanting to do something, really not wanting to do something, but then being forced to do it anyway — and she knew she was going to be forced! If you know you’re going to be forced to do something, why do you continue to bitch about it?

Speaking of continuing to bitch: here’s something that will continue as I continue through the Anita Blake series. {“But Alaina! Why are you continuing to read this tripe if you are complaining about it so much?” [turns to a non-existant audience, a la Craig Ferguson] “Irony is not my strong suit!”} Remember how I said that Anita does things she doesn’t want to do? And she bitches about it constantly? I almost think it’s a direct result of being paid by the word. Because there is no reason for some of this repetition.

Here’s a classic scene. I apologize for the length of the quote, but I feel it’s necessary to make my point:

“You slew the white goat for me, more than once.”

I turned towards Manny. It was like that moment in a movie where the main character has a revelation about someone. There should be music and camera angles when you learn one of your best friends participated in human sacrifice. More than once she had said. More than once.

“Manny?” My voice was a hoarse whisper. This, for me, was worse than the zombies. The hell with strangers. This was Manny, and it couldn’t be true.

“Manny?” I said it again. He wouldn’t look at me. Bad sign.

“You didn’t know, chica? Didn’t your Manny tell you of his past?”

[...]

“Shut up!” I screamed … She stopped, her face thinning with anger. Enzo took two steps into the altar area. “Don’t.” I wasn’t even sure who I was saying it to. “I need to hear from him, not from you.”

The anger was still in her face. Enzo loomed like an avalanche about to be unleashed. Dominga gave one sharp nod. “Ask him then, chica.”

“Manny, is she telling the truth? Did you perform human sacrifices?” My voice sounded so normal. It shouldn’t have. My stomach was so tight, it hurt. I wasn’t afraid anymore, or at least not of Dominga. The truth; I was afraid of the truth.

He looked up. His hair fell across his face framing his eyes. A lot of pain in those eyes. Almost flinching.

“It’s the truth, isn’t it?” My skin felt cold. “Answer me, dammit.” My voice still sounded ordinary, calm.

“Yes,” he said.

“Yes, you committed human sacrifice?”

He glared at me now, anger helping him meet my eyes. “Yes, yes!”

It was my turn to look away. “God, Manny, how could you?” [58-59]

Having typed this all out, all I can see in my head is an atrocious “Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter” sketch on SNL where Anita Blake is played by Kristen Wiig, and all she does is keep asking Manny if he committed human sacrifice, in increasingly annoying voices, and not believing it even when he proves it in front of her by slitting Andy Samberg’s throat.

I do like how Anita creates her world. For instance:

“I hope you appreciate how many dragons I had to slay to save that seat for you,” [Irving] said. [...]

“Dragons are easy, try vampires sometimes,” I said.

His eyes widened. Before his mouth could form the question, I said, “I’m kidding, Irving.” Sheesh, some people just don’t have a sense of humor. “Besides, dragons were never native to North America,” I said. [97]

Dragons! In North America!

Here we see her like me: making rules for everyday things:

Rule number three hundred sixty-nine when dealing with unfamiliar magic: when in doubt, leave it alone.

I left it alone. [52]

And right on cue, here’s my problem with this: Why would “leaving something alone when in doubt” NOT be RULE NUMBER ONE?

She also gives advice to the readers regarding how to deal with supernatural beasties, but I seem to feel that she may not be the expert that she claims to be…

Important safety tip with most of the spiritual world: if you ignore it, it has less power. This does not work with demons or other demi-beings. Other exceptions to the rule are vampires, zombies, ghouls, lycanthropes, witches … Oh, hell, ignoring only works for ghosts. But it does work. [120]

Is it me, or does it sound like Ms. Hamilton had a good solid thought, but then her own logic and worldview fucked it up? Or, rather, it’s like when I try to name my favorite movie. “Die Hard. And Back to the Future. But my favorite Bond movie is Goldfinger. And Raiders of the Lost Ark, which is never Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, by the way. And also Empire Records. Wait, only one favorite movie?”

Her problems with grammar continue, as well.

The night sky was a curving bowl of liquid black. Stars like pinprick diamonds gave a cold, hard light. The moon was a glowing patchwork of greys and goldish-silver. The city makes you forget how dark the night, how bright the moon, how very many stars. [114]

This one needs an adverb in the last sentence, or something. No — it needs the main part of a helping verb.

There are more instances of this, but this was apparently the only one I dogeared. Ms. Hamilton definitely has a problem with question marks:

I really didn’t know what you did to repair bullet holes? [147]

In context, she’s not disbeliving of herself – she’s actually stating that she really doesn’t know what one does to repair bullet holes. Ms. Hamilton just thinks a question mark belongs there.

And this one wins the Stephenie Meyer Dust Moat Award. I refuse to dignify it with a response; I’m just going to let this sit here in the ether:

I use to come to the morgue fairly regularly. [222]

Finally, the whole zombie thing. In this universe, the only way to create a zombie is to raise another from the grave:

The paramedics warned me to get a tetanus booster. Zombies don’t make more zombies by biting, but the dead have nasty mouths. [140]

So, good to know that there won’t be a mad zombie apocalypse brewin’ in this iteration of St. Louis. But, it brings up the thought that was this year’s topic of supernatural discussion at New Year’s: Resolved: The threat of a zombie apocalypse would create an uneasy alliance between humans and vampires. And I’m no longer talking about Anita Blake’s universe: I’m talking about ours. I believe that to be true. In the event that zombies rise up and begin chasing after us, looking for brains, I have to believe that an uneasy alliance will be formed between humans and vampires. Humans will have to rely on vampires for their preternatural strength, and vampires will rely on us for food. Once the zombie threat is eliminated, humans and vampires will most likely go their separate ways (unless romantic relationships have formed, in which case, sign me up for the Mystic Falls chapter). There’s a lot more I could get into, but I’m crossing my fingers that eventually, a zombie uprising will occur in these books so I can dig into it at that point.

The best piece of advice I can give a reader of this blog who might be looking at this series is: it is not for the faint of heart nor for the weak of stomach. Some of these murder scenes are particularly gruesome, and I had to fast-read a few paragraphs to move along. I can’t recall what any of the other books are like, but this title always stood out as one of the goriest. So: caveat lector.

Grade for The Laughing Corpse: 1 star

Fiction: “Guilty Pleasures” by Laurell K. Hamilton

Not sure if everyone’s aware, but I’m kind of into vampires. And by ‘into,’ I mean ‘know a lot about them.’ Having cut my teeth on The X-Files‘s episode “Bad Blood,” starring Luke Wilson as a sheriff who may or may not have buck teeth and may or may not be a vampire but certainly has David Duchovney singing the theme to Shaft, I progressed rather quickly through Dracula and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In fact, it was due to a blurb’s description of this novel as “An R-Rated Buffy the Vampire Slayer” that I purchased this book in the first place, back in November 2003.

Since then, I have read this stupid book three times (this is numero tres). You’re probably asking yourself, “why has she read this three times if she calls it stupid?” Well, let me refer you to my statement at the beginning of the entry for when I attempted to read Wideacre: I am a masochist.

And really, here’s why I chose to read Guilty Pleasures again: a), I had just finished reading Jane Eyre and wanted a little more substance in my brain dessert than the Regency romances I usually frequent in these instances; b) I found myself in the Border’s romance aisle giving serious contemplation to a vampire/human romance (why? WHY???); c) The Vampire Diaries has been on hiatus TOO FUCKING LONG; d) I never actually finished reading this series the last time round, back in 2006 — hell, I didn’t even get to the part where Ms. Hamilton starts transitioning the series from a horror-filled private detective series into a supernatural midwestern philosophy series.

And where else to start, but at the beginning?

Anita Blake is an animator for Animator’s Inc., a supernatural help-center of sorts in St. Louis. Animators are those that can raise zombies. So yeah: Anita’s job is to raise the living dead. It’s kind of gross, killing chickens and feeding the zombies blood, but there’s not a lot of zombie-raisin’ in this book. (The Laughing Corpse, however, is all about zombies. That’s the next title.)

Anita also freelances as the city’s Executioner – she is responsible for the legal execution of vampire criminals. See, in this series, vampires have been ‘out of the coffin’ (same as in the Sookie Stackhouse vampire series, but meaner and more evil) for a couple of years, and are pretty much regarded citizens of the United States. Meaning, vampires are the legal undead — they just can’t vote. St. Louis is a hotbed of vampires, including the Vampire District, where tourists can mingle with honest-to-goodness vampires. Guilty Pleasures is actually the name of a vampire strip club, owned and operated by Jean-Claude No-Last-Name, a vampire who has a special connection with Anita. Mainly, he enjoys pissing her off by calling her “ma petite.” Because she’s short. Which we hear a lot. (Jean-Claude lurves Anita, be tee dubs.)

So Anita goes to Guilty Pleasures as the designated driver for the small bachelorette party, thrown for her friend Catherine, who is getting married. When she’s called out to a crime scene (murdered vampire) and returns, Catherine has been compelled by a vampire as blackmail for Anita to find the vampire murderer. For under the current new laws, vampires are people too, and killing a vampire is murder, not protection (Buffy would have been screwed). So Anita agrees to look into the murder to save her friend. But she’s not happy about it.

Other characters: Phillip, the sweet man who has a thing for being bitten by vampires; Edward, who if Anita is the Executioner, then Edward would be Death himself to vampires – a former hit man who now gets his jollies by killing vampires; Ronnie, Anita’s private detective friend who looks into a red herring for her; and Nikolaos, the vampire master of the city, who is apparently a 1,000-year-old child vampire. So, y’know, Kirsten Dunst in Interview of the Vampire, but even more awful and sadistic. And she scares the shit out of Anita.

Here’s what I like about Anita: she’s tough, and even when her instinct is to run and hide, her … whatever it is takes over. In this snippet, she’s trying to sanitize a vampire bite with Holy Water (look! a vampire story that involves Holy Water and other Catholic artifacts as weapons!), and it’s akin to pouring acid on herself:

If we hadn’t cleansed the wound with enough Holy Water, the cross would burn me, and I’d have a fresh scar. I had been brave above and beyond the call of duty. I didn’t want to play anymore. I opened my mouth to say “No,” but it wasn’t what came out. “Do it,” I said. Shit. I was going to be brave. [222]

But here’s what I don’t like about Anita. And really, I guess, it’s not something about Anita I don’t like, but how Ms. Hamilton writes. I haven’t been bothered to look up to see if this was her first novel (I don’t think it was), but what she does here is try really, really hard to make it sound like a pulp fiction, hard-boiled detective novel. But what happens is that she fails miserably.

Here’s an example:

Valentine was instantly there, kneeling by the body. “What have you done?” He couldn’t see the knife. It was shielded by Aubrey’s body.

“I killed him, you son of a bitch, just like I’m going to kill you.”

Valentine jerked to his feet, started to say something, and all hell broke loose. The cell door crashed inward and smashed to bits against the far wall. A tornado wind blasted into the room.

[...(later on down the page)...]

[Nikolaos] shrieked. “Look at me!”

And I did. I fell into the blue fire that was her eyes. The fire burrowed into my brain, pain. Her thoughts cut me up like knives, slicing away parts of me. Her rage scalded and burned until I thought the skin was peeling away from my face. Claws scrapped the inside of my skull, grinding bone into dust. [214]

So, so many things wrong up there. So many things.

And then there’s just grammatical errors:

We were standing just below a landing, a turn in the stairs. There have been times when I wished I could see around corners. This was one of them. The scrape of cloth against stone, the rub of shoes. [72]

This paragraph could be fixed with a semicolon, and a couple of verbs. Because what did the scrape of cloth against stone and the rub of shoes signify? Were they heard? Were they the precurser to, I don’t know, someone following them up the stairs?

This one bothered me from its pure laziness:

Theresa strode over to us in a swish of cloth. “Enough of this, animator. He can’t do it, so he pays the price. Either leave now, or join us at our … feast.”

“Are you having rare Who-roast-beast?” I asked.

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s from Dr. Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas. You know the part, ‘And they’d Feast! Feast! Feast! Feast! They would feast on Who-pudding, and rare Who-roast-beast.’” [155]

I just … what’s the point of going through the whole spiel? I can see being a wise-ass and asking about rare Who Roast Beast, but going through the actual lines from the show? If you’re so damned scared of that vampire, Anita, why are you running your mouth off about random shit? It just bugged me. (Obviously.)

I’ve already started The Laughing Corpse, and the writing is kind of better. Not by much. But the book is longer than Guilty Pleasures, so we’ll see.

To get back to the vampires: these vampires are legitimately scary. Their powers aren’t completely divulged in this book, but: they can compel humans to do their bidding; they can create human servants by progressing through a series of bites and other rites that are kind of skimmed over; they can control their appearance to others using mind-control (having typed all these out, I see that these vampires are more mental and telepathic than ‘normal’ vampires); they enjoy doling out pain and using humans to satisfy their needs.

In short: they don’t fucking sparkle.

Grade for Guilty Pleasures: 2 stars