Customer Reviews

Brides of the Impaler (Leisure Fiction)

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

 

 

I've been reading a lot of Leisure Fiction's horror novels this year, and even before I read a page of Edward Lee's Brides of the Impaler, I had decided that, at the very least, it had the best title in the bunch. With the Impaler reference, it has to be a story about Dracula (a.k.a. Vlad the Impaler), it is also reminiscent of the old Hammer Films titles, particularly Brides of Dracula.

The horror allusions don't stop there, as Lee also names characters after Euro-horror cult figures Paul Naschy and Jess Franco among others and even has a Ketchum Hotel, an obvious nod to writer Jack Ketchum. So Lee pays his tribute to the genre, but is the book any good? My only other experience was the weakest story in the anthology Triage (with co-writers Ketchum and Richard Laymon); this was a more positive experience.

As the title hints, this is a Dracula story, though the character is off-stage for most of the novel, relegated to historical accounts by other characters. The villains are the title characters, an unappealing bunch of homeless women who are recruited by the mysterious New Mother to assist in a secret ritual. This ritual will involve, among other things, the brutal impaling of several people and the use of some ancient artifacts.

These artifacts are currently buried in the basement of the newly purchased home of Cristina Nichols and Paul Nasher. Paul is a loving fiance but otherwise a typical wealth-obsessed lawyer who wants the best of everything. Cristina is the designer of some morbid figurines that have become popular collectibles. Something in the house is affecting Cristina, giving her ideas for new figures and hypercharging her sex drive, but also giving her nightmares and putting her in trances.

Though the sex and violence is more than you would ever have seen in a Hammer Film, Brides of the Impaler does evoke memories of the studio's old Dracula films. But even you've never seen one of those movies, this is a nice read. Lee shows that you can write a good Dracula story without even much Dracula in it.

Edward Lee has dealt with many a subject, but one of the things he hasn't dealt with are vampires (to my knowledge he hasn't at least - unless there was a short story I missed in the process). Since he is working off his home turf, I could not only tell that there were problems involved but I could also see flaws in the story he was presenting. I keep telling myself that was the reason that the tale may have suffered, and why I did not find much of the author that can switch topics and still keep on keepign on.

Amongst some of the problems i found was the fact that I did not get the feeling that this was a vampire tale through and through - it dealt with the subject and it had a vampire pop up, but it really did not have that much vampire in the story. What it did have was locations and extra description, reminding me of one of the tricks that authors use to keep a story alive and kicking. That was sad for me to see, too, because I really wanted to like this book. I say that because I'm accustomed to Lee having something tremendous to add to the mix, and i'm not accustomed to the thriller not being something deadly and depraved. It really hurt to find that some places felt like filler instead of answers, and that other places seemed disjointed and not really on the proverbial ball. That made me feel like some of the tale was a bit weak, and it made the read slow and somewhat hard to hold onto.

When Edward Lee writes something, I normally like it and i normally finish it quickly. I also want to normally give it more than one read, but this book had none of those elements. It took a week to finish the book and did so simply because I found parts of it i liked enough to keep going. That said, this book reminded me of the things i found in the book Coven, where I found repeats here and things that were put in for the sake of filling pages in others, and all to complete a book.

The one reason I said that i liked it was because it had a good story for a time, and it did have some of the Edward Lee staples that I seek out quite often. Still, those staples were not the sexy little storylines that I long for but were instead detours that made me less-than-happy. I really felt like this was a shorter book and, if the book was missing around 200 or so pages, it would have been better. That was not the case at all, however, and the filler constricted much of what I wanted to find.

If you want to pick up something new by Lee, go for the Black Train or something older. If you are new to the whole experience, then go get Creekers and see what can be accomplished when Lee puts his mind to it. He has this ability to make horrific things with beauty marks, and i have always liked that about him. I also like the fact that he does not turn away from the death but instead forces energy on whatever devils are walking through his storyline. Here, however, the devils were not what I expected and the vampire was not really strong enough to be the center of the book's attention. It was as if he was writing for the sake of writing, and i cannot recommend someone pick up a book that does not have the strength that Lee normally brings to the table.

Let me begin by saying that I read this book today, while very sick, so that my have tempered my ability to fully enjoy this book. Needless to say, I really didn't enjoy this book... I have actually been struggling to read through it for 3 days, which is a record for me since I usually read about 300 pages a day and this is only a 330 page book. As far as I am concerned, this story commits the ultimate sin that a horror novel can commit, it's BORING.

I would like to do a summary but it's hard since this book flips back and forth between so many different people. First we have the couple, Christina and Paul who have just bought a new house in NYC that used to belong to a Catholic Church... something that the church long ago forgot was hidden there. Then we have a pack of junkie prostitutes who suddenly have a new leader that is guiding them to commit strange acts, including murder. We've got the cop trying to figure out how the theft of Christmas tree stands and whittling knives combine to create murder, then we have the priest who remembers what's buried in Christina and Paul's house and doesn't know what to do about it... and we have an archeologist who shows up just long enough to get the ball rolling then to tell us what is actually going on later in the book.

Lee is famous for being an "Extreme Horror Writer" unfortunately there really isnt' anything extreme in this book. The gore is pitiful, never once did I even raise an eyebrow or consider what I was reading was gross. The sex, though plentiful is boring rather than entertaining. I would NOT advise this to an Extreme Horror fan.

For all that is going on in this tale, there is really about only 100-150 pages of the actual story, the rest is filled up with sex, sex and more sex... when it's not sex its someone playing with themselves or fantasizing. The problem is that it's not even GOOD sex, by the third time you're reading about it... it's boring, and you've still got about 200 pages of it to wade through. Perhaps Lee thinks we're all 14 and get a kick out of it... but more than likely he needed a lot of padding for what is actually a very short and sadly uninteresting story. The characters aren't entirely unlikable, but at the same time only two of them are worthy of our interest, but they are busy playing with themselves through most of the book so we don't get much meat on them.

I really wish there was more I can say, but I don't want to come across as a complete hater... the idea was good, the second coming of Dracula should have been an exciting topic... but it took a second seat to the padding of the story. I can't really advise this for Vampire fans, because there aren't any vamps until the last 20 pages, Extreme Horror fans will be disappointed in the gore level, people looking for story will be bored as I was.

I considered giving this a single star, but it did have a lot about Vlad the Impaler, which is a personal obsession of mine so it got bumped up to a 2 star story for that purpose only. I'm very disappointed because Lee is capable of so much more.

This is my third and last book by this author. I will admit I am really annoyed because I routinely only buy books if I really like the "free sample" which I get with my Kindle. In this case, the free sample is most of the storie's prologue. I loved the sample, it starts with a research expedition to the land of the inspiration for Bram Stoker's Dracula and really good mixture of historical and interesting information mixed with intriguing fiction. So when I reached the end of the sample, I bought the book right away. WELL...I should have remembered that a "prologue" is not the same as a "Chapter 1". Often the story line changes completely after a prologue and I do know that. But I will fault the distributor for not providing a better or longer sample and remain angry that I was 'duped' lol into buying this book based on the sample. I wont even go into the rest of the book, it was just garbage. Its really like someone wrote a go prologue and then gave the rest of the book to their hyper-active, sex-crazed teenager to finish. I have kind-of-liked this author so I hate to so negative but I really hated this book and hate even more that I paid for it, because otherwise I would not have even finished it.

I've not read an Edward Lee book I haven't loved; this is just another winner.

I was really looking forward to this book. Sadly, it was a real disappointment.

As other reviewers have noted, there is a lot of sex, but it is bland and repetitive. There are no scares. There is no gore. There is nothing disturbing or haunting about it. I hesitate to even call it horror. Worse yet, the plot is predictable and (frankly) not very interesting.

Descriptions of dreams are repeated over and over and over. The main characters are uninteresting, not very bright, and naive in unbelievable ways. Many of the mundane character and plot details are almost as unbelievable as the idea of Vlad Tepes as a vampire.

I love reading Edward Lee's books, but this one was simply horrible. His writing has never been perfect (far from it, in fact), but I have always found it entertaining, well paced, and fun. This one is just dull.

I hope his next book gets back to the type of stories he told in "Flesh Gothic" and his Hell series.

- Jesse

Edward Lee presents pretty brutal material in his writing and this book is no exception although it is tame in comparision to some of his other works.

The premise of the book is pretty good, delving into the Dracula legend with a modern day approach. Lee obviously did a lot of research into the myths surrounding Vlad Tepes so as with his other works, there is a great depth to the story.

Where the book fails is the actual plot. Most of the plot is actually contained in about 100 pages and the book could have been that long and not lost any of the story. The rest of the 300+ pages are filler and don't add all that much to the story. The book dragged on in several sections.

I also found the end and the "twist" poorly conceived, almost like it was added at the last minute.

When I read the synopsis of this book, it seemed interesting, but synopsises are sometimes the best parts of a book...not in this case!!
Brides of the Impaler was an awesome book. It could be subtitled, Rosemary's Baby Meets Dracula. Rarely was there a lull in the story. The characters were believable and the ending, oh the ending was as much of a surprise as any ending in any book I've ever read before. I would strongly recommend this book to the true horrow afficianado.

I very much enjoyed Edward Lee's Infernal trilogy and most of his other work, but I thought this was a lackluster attempt at a predictable story. While there were a couple moments that shocked me, most of the character's actions were very repetitive and slow. If strange things continue to happen to a character over and over, why do they act so ignorant and not take any initiative until the last few chapters? I'm really tired of reading apathetic characters in horror.

On a small side note, I was annoyed at the reference of "zooming in with the binoculars" that was constantly done by one of the characters. Zooming in with a video camera, sure, but not a pair of binoculars. This didn't make any sense and made me wonder if the author ever used a pair before. The book had some decent gory moments, but the lack of atmosphere and especially the scares were disappointing. Explaining all the mythology in the last 40 pages seemed forced and heavy-handed. The ending, also, felt rushed and inadequate. No doubt one of Lee's weakest efforts.

I liked the book, It has a good story line and is fun to read.