Customer Reviews

Bound In Flesh

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

 

 

This book, similar in ilk, surpasses its predecessor. To set first-comers expectations, please see the lot of Bound in Blood reviews.

There is an *unmistakeable* leap forward in quality of writing here -- I could have written the first book, but not this -- and an equally unmistakeable lapse in quality of editing. It's not grammar, as another review bemoans, but density of prose that makes for occasional discomfort.

Your life won't change, but enjoy. And enjoy the growth of true talent. Congratulations!

I bought this book on a Sunday, and consumed it with frevor by Tuesday afternoon. It was superbly written and very sensual. You could almost hear the story through the paper. I'm glad that the follow up was so well written and thought- and image-provoking. David, the wait was well worth it. I am sorry to hear about your accident. I hope you have survived from it. And I am sure your fans appreciate the effort you have placed in writing the book.

BOUND IN FLESH, the second installment in Lord's epic vampire saga (reportedly a five book series), raises him to the zenith of the modern vampire fiction mountain. This may be one of the most inventive takes on the classical vampire archetype I've read in many years. Not since Anne Rice's classic vampire fiction have I found myself so immersed in a fictional vampire world.
In the first novel, BOUND IN BLOOD, we met Jean-Luc Courbet (Jack to his friends and victims), a seductive predatory gay vampire living in New York City. On the international lame from his murderous mother, he played 'serial killer' across the Big Apple, dining on the hottest of NYC gay society. As the victims piled up, the story came to an end in true tragically operatic fashion, a literally fiery denouement.
BOUND IN FLESH flashes forward a month, and Jack's last victim, ex-cop Michael O' Donald, finds that his dead lover is only the beginning of his problems, as vampire slave Claude Halloran entraps him and plans to use him to finally destroy Jack's super powerful monster of a mom, Noel Courbet.
This tale alone would have made a decent enough story to captivate his fans, but, for Lord, that's just the tip of the fang. From France to New York, and then to The City of Sin, BOUND IN FLESH runs the gambit, from soulful introspection, as O' Donald must come to grips with his new undead powers and limitations, to the fantastical in the shape of Purity St. Martin, The Red Witch, and Baum and White, freakishly tall albino undead twin lovers who oversee all of Jack's legacy and estate, inhuman creatures with their agenda.
Jack and Claude form a union of sorts, and switch their old bodies for new (now Apollo and Loki) to become the toast of Las Vegas as a duo of impossible and mysterious show magicians. O' Donald and Purity form their own union to hunt down the vampires and destroy their evil plans to perform a Black Mass to gain ultimate undead power. We have blood, lust, magic and betrayals enough to keep any Greek tragedian racing through to the last page. The end will not disappoint even the most jaded of vampire fiction fans.
With BOUND IN FLESH, Lord changes the pace of the story, dropping most of the ponderous sex scenes from BOUND IN BLOOD, and using more dialogue to carry the exposition. Proving himself more than a 'vampire writer', or even an eroticist, with this newest installment, he impresses that even the stall tropes of the weary vampire sub-genre have yet to be completely sucked dry. Using a classical style- with just enough sexual edginess to titillate- he manages to break beyond the standard horror fare to create his own fiction- an admixture of horror and fantasy, and undeniably his forte. His characters are flawed beings, and can never know perfection, but move on instinct and emotion. His villains are more than simplistic bloodsuckers looking for a fresh meal; these creatures are Machiavellian masters infused with immense mental and physical powers. And it is during these moments, that we see what a true classical education can do for a serious examination of good and evil. There are many emotional levels to his villains, more so even than his undead hero, Michael. Acceptance leads to rage; rage leads to a cool clinical dissection of human life. To his lead villain, Apollo (once Jean-Luc), death is a means to an end- not an end in itself- and he undergoes several transformations to illustrate his newfound belief in something beyond even himself. Flesh and mind are paper barriers, to be ripped apart for discovery's sake.
Lord also takes time to examine the modern incarnation of Goth culture, a fetish-like underground movement that has embraced Rice's fiction with childlike acceptance. A once literate cult of dark music and bleakly existential literature, now sadly a pitiable reflection of its former self, Lord creates a sensual master and servant scenario to illustrate this modern disconnection with Old Goth vs. New Goth. His 'children of the night' posers become the ultimate, and willing, fodder for Apollo and Loki's dreams for world domination, as they trade in their self perpetuated shadows of the dance club world for the true blackness of death and eternal hunger.
If this second novel illustrates what's coming down the pike from this talented writer of dark semi-classical fiction, then one can only salivate for the third in the series. I have high hopes what may lie beyond in Lord's fantastically dark worldview.


--Nickolas Cook

This book is so bad I can't get past page 22. I have tried and tried but I can't do it. I have read several books with weird premises (sci-fi fan) but this one is just too ridiculous. This book is going in the trash. I will never read anything from this author...the writing style is not for me. I should sue for pain and suffering. Skip this one. Try the author Sunny instead.

Art critic Jean-Luc "Jack" Courbet and his lover model Claude Halloran (Jack changed Claude in BOUND IN BLOOD) have literally taken a bite out of the gay communities of the Big Apple, the Vegas Strip, the Big Easy, and Paris to name a few of their haunts. The two vampires dine on the blood of their homosexual victims, but leave Manhattan since word spread about the "Horror of West Street". As they leave behind mostly dead but some enslaved undead, they make a mistake that might prove divine intervention for them if they can control and convert NYPD cop Michael O' Donald. He has turned but thirsts for revenge especially against those who changed him. Claude thinks Michael is perfect to finally eradicate Jack's violent much more powerful then them mother Noel Courbet.

However, not only is Michael a shockingly independent thinker, "mother dearest" is coming for them as they failed to obtain as she demanded the Charnac's grimoires for her. Meeting red witches and switching bodies to hide their "souls" from Noel, Claude and Jack become Vegas stage magicians so they can dine in style. Still both wonder how they seem to be in hell in a hand basket quicker than nipping some mortal gay's neck.

Changing the scope from the Greenwich Village sexual gay kills by Jack of underdeveloped prey in BOUND IN BLOOD yet keeping the morality of a creature hunting humans as food, BOUND IN FLESH is a terrific vampire fantasy focusing on the two vampires hiding from Mommy Dearest. The key cast members are fully developed especially Jack, Claude and Michael so that the audience can accept gay vampires traversing the world's hot spots. Sub-genre readers will enjoy the second Bound thriller as David Thomas Lord writes an exhilarating vampire tale.

Harriet Klausner

I really wanted to like it, there were moments, but all in all, didn't even finish it.