Customer Reviews

Absence of Faith: A Vampire's Lesson in Betrayal

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

San Antonio, Texas, provides the setting for a power struggle among vampires. We immediately see the tension between Prince Ramses and Zapporoah, the sister he fears. All of the vampires in this novel find victims by appealing to the human needs for sex or company, or by preying on the most sinister representatives of the human race. The vampires seem as authentic and as unlike each other as the real people in our real lives. In fact, Jones carefully creates a mythic world that seems strangely ordinary, as if this violent drama could actually lurk around any corner, potentially disrupting our safe existence.

Since I live in Lubbock, Texas, I was happy (or maybe disturbed) to learn that Lubbock has a vampire on the Council of Ramses! Jones constantly and skillfully weaves familiar places and familiar mythology into the narrative, compounding that feeling that this world seems oddly like our own.

Among some members of the Kindred, the thirst for power rivals the thirst for blood, making them even more dangerous to humanity and to their fellow vampires. The ensuing battle threatens ancient codes of honor and tradition, revealing the meaning behind the book's subtitle: "A Vampire's Lesson in Betrayal."

Five-star reviews for unknown, self-published writers always set off my spidy-sense. The reviews can be sincere efforts by a discerning reader or (more often than not) are from well-meaning friends of the writer attempting to help sales by praising it to the skies.

The latter is certainly in operation here.

Friends of the writer--please stop telling such big fibs. You are NOT helping your buddy by validating such bad writing.

This is a waaaaay over-the-top execution of a scenario all too clearly inspired by the Vampire the Masquerade role-playing game and a cancelled TV series. Tip off--the use of the word "Kindred." Make up your own universe, erstwhile author, you'll avoid copyright infringement suits that way.

Sometimes this can work. Other writers have been able to take a gaming session, file off the serial numbers, and spin it into a good story, but this person's effort just isn't up to the task. It's one of those cases of too much enthusiasm vs. too little talent.

Dialogue? More like a series of declamatory speeches, not real conversation.

Characters? Hmm. Her cover copy says they're as real as can be, but only in the writer's mind. Real people don't talk and act like that, sorry. When was the last time you hung out with a guy pacing back and forth raving about "having" a woman? Sheesh. Watch a few episodes of Xena and see how that plays.

Plot? I'm not sure there IS one. Political machinations between vampires (interrupted by long speeches) might fascinate live action roleplay gamers, but not me.

Writing style: if you're into passive voice, clumsy sentence structure, flashbacks told in present tense, head-hopping viewpoint shifts, and other proofs that the writer was fast asleep during 5th grade English, then--hey!--is this SO your book!

Sad to say, I circulate this turkey in my writing seminars as proof of the e-vuls of self-publishing, print on demand, e-books, and other forms of vanity press. Read it out loud and just try to keep from chewing the scenery like Gary Oldman on a riff.

It's been a few years since publication; I'm hoping the writer got to attend some of those workshops or even read Strunk & White's Elements of Style to learn how to put a sentence together without getting lost.

Maybe YOU are a would-be writer. If you're curious, ask for a free interlibrary loan of this one. (You'll have to write the title down as it is MUCH too long to remember--or believe!) This book is educational concerning what NOT to do. Don't buy it as it might only encourage the writer to inflict us with more political rants and lesbian sex scenes written by a virgin.