Customer Reviews

Dead on My Feet

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I've been waiting a long time for this book to come out, as I very much enjoyed its predecessor "one foot in the grave". Chris Cséjthe the almost-vampire is back. Now living in Monroe he's working as a part time private investigator and university lecturer, and life is pretty good for him with the exception that his werewolf lover, Lupé, has left him because she couldn't stand the competition from his late wife's ghost taking up Chris's attention.

Things unexpectedly start to unravel for Chris when he takes a case to investigate if a local psychic is the real thing. It turns out she is and she has some dire warnings for him. Then another vampire turns up in town and tries to kill him and the local corpses start turning up on his doorstep asking him to dispense justice for them because he stands between life and the undead - and the local police are NOT impressed.

This is a wise-cracking, literary and fast moving novel. Chris reads like an old friend. Once you start this book you'll want to see how it ends as Chris is pushed to his limits and finds out more about himself and his new powers than he ever guessed.

I'm already looking forward to the next book in this series, and hoping its as much fun as the first two books. If you like your vampire/supernatural novels with a twist that doesn't rely on sex and excessive blood then these books are worth reading, but start with the first book to get the most out of this one. Though I do hope the next book will tie up some threads left dangling at the end of this one. (eg what happened to his secretary and her sick nephew etc)

For some reason, between this story and One Foot In The Grave, Simmons developed an agenda. Chris Csejthe is a good guy who gets bitten by Dracula, loses his wife and child, and then gets bitten again, this time by a werewolf. In the original story this was more than enough and the question of spiritual implications really never became an issue. This time a significant amount of the story is dedicated to Csejthe's insistence that there's no soul to lose and no God to upset. The biggest part of this argument occurs between Chris, who is a compulsive vampire do-gooder and a regular vampire, who, incidentally, runs a camp for monsters that are spiritually deprived. So the discussion perplexes more than it resolves.

The action part of the story is about the machinations of Elisabeth Countess Bathory, who is running the vampires of New York and is trying to take over the universe in her spare time. Chris, who is descended from the Bathory blood (among other things), is one of the loose ends she wants to tie up. The countess has taken over a research foundation that is working to create a set of viruses that will some problem populations from the world (most of the humans) and she has managed to get in league with some fringe military groups in the process.

Chris has serious woman troubles. A ghostly ex-wife and a werewolf girlfriend aren't enough. Now a beautiful vamp he inadvertently sired, and an equally attractive research scientist enters his life when he goes searching for a cure for the vampire-werewolf flu. Be prepared for a strange combination of moralizing, blood drinking, and civil war reenactment. I'll leave it to you to decide if the mix is a little too thick to wade through.

While the first volume was successful, Dead On My Feet is a little too much. The vampire virus 'science' is strained, and the question of the existence of a deity is really extraneous to the story as well as a little silly in a world with ghosts and zombies. While the genetic explanation for vampires isn't new, I have to give Simmons credit for almost making a credible story out of it, something no one has ever really accomplished before. And he does come up with a lot of truly awful puns and in jokes to distract you from the metaphysics. By all means give the book a try.

Wm. Mark Simmons has done it again. He's managed to weave all the major literary monsters into one compelling story complete with bad puns and a history lesson.

Csejthe has to battle not only the great demons of history but also his own genetic past as he tries to figure out his genetic past and his future. Being neither dead nor undead, he has his own issues to work out - including the ghost of his dead wife and a werewolf girlfriend - while saving the world.

The story is complex and engaging. Simmons has created characters you genuinely care about and want to know what he's going to do with Csejthe next. Csejthe has all the good elements of the reluctant hero and as such is a joy to see put in precarious and unique situations just to see how he'll get out of them.

Cudos to Simmons and his warped sense of humor.

A year ago, Chris Csejthe (pronounced "Chay-tay") was completely human - then a blood transfusion from the Lord of the Undead changed everything. Now he is a hunted man, sought by human and vampire alike for the secrets he knows and the powers that his mutated blood may bestow. So far he's dodged undead assassins, werewolves, a 6,000-year-old Egyptian necromancer, and Vlad Dracula himself. But now he's really got problems.

The dead are turning up on his doorstep after dark to ask for justice and the police want to know where all those corpses are coming from. Undead terrorists are testing a doomsday virus on his new hometown and he's caught in the crossfire between a white supremacist militia and the resurrected Civil War dead. His werewolf lover, jealous of his dead wife's ghost, has left him. And the centuries-old and still very beautiful (and very deadly) Countess Bathory is determined to have his uniquely transformed blood for her own dark purposes.

Now, more than ever, life sucks!

Dead on My Feet (2003) is the second novel in the HalfLife Chronicles, following One Foot in the Grave. In the previous volume, Chris Csejthe and Bassarab, the Prince of Wallachia, killed the almost unkillable Kadeth Bey by first bringing him back to life. Then they faked their own deaths by demolishing the old Mount Horeb Hospital on top of them.

In this novel, Chris has assumed the identity of Samuel Haim and has settled in the small community of Monroe in northeast Louisiana. He has bought a well-secured house on the river and started After Dark Investigations as a hobby. He is doing well in his new life, despite his half-vampirism and the imaginary ghost of his dead wife.

His new troubles began with a visit to Mama Samm, a vodoun psychic, who foresees problems with Je Rouge and Marinette Bois-Cheche. He is obsessed with thoughts of Erzebet Bathory and Castle Csejthe. Then he encounters a red eyed vampire and is saved only by the intervention of a dead man.

On the way home, Chris encounters a dead man who wants to call home. Others among the dead petition him -- as Baron Samedi -- to bring them justice. Still another group of cursed troops -- from both sides in the Civil War -- talk of gray men and a conspiracy. Then the ghost of his dead wife is driven away.

Chris also has problems with the vampire enclaves. First Deirdre shows up and declares that he is her Sire. Then the Seattle Doman appears with a few enforcers. Finally, the New York enclave enforcers start ambushing him; at least the Chicago enclave stays away. Bullets and blood fly everywhere and Chris spends a considerable amount of time recovering from his wounds.

While there is plenty of action in this work, the protaganist expounds upon human free will, love and other intellectual subjects to considerable length. The novel becomes a treatise on fidelity and companionship. Lupe had better hurry home before Chris blows a gasket!

Recommended for anyone who enjoys action adventure involving vampires, demons and lunatics.

-Arthur W. Jordin

Over the past year Chris Csejthe has learned hard lessons about life or more precisely death. He realizes that it is all about the blood of who you know, but in his case the sera inside him changed by the transfusion from the Lord of the Undead is valuable to one and all. That very special blood type makes Chris the donor of first choice for most of the otherworldly populace and some of those still mortals. It also keeps the police busy interviewing him about a non-zoned gravedigger side business as corpses seem to grow on his front lawn like weeds in the front of Chez Klausner.

Chris just wants to enjoy life with his new squeeze, but fears his former were-woman might cause problems. Besides being the target of jealousy and the mark of every creature around, Chris is caught in the crosshairs of the development of a deadly virus. All in a day's survival mode for the tyro bloodsucker except that now the Blood Countess Bathory has her own ideas how to use Chris' rarest of blood types.

Readers who desire something off beat but humorous in their fantasy-horror literature will want to read DEAD ON MY FEET, an amusing tale that focuses on the misadventures of a vampire in a world that wants to borrow his blood. Chris remains the center of the Simmons universe while the human and inhuman populaces that graze within his spheres make for a fun tale. Though it would be beneficial to fans to read the prequel (see ONE FOOT IN THE GRAVE) for a fuller flavoring, this book is fun.

Harriet Klausner

Dark humor with biting sarcasm, Wm. Mark Simmons has poked fun and taken a bite out of almost everybody from Goth enthusiasts to Star Wars to Marilyn Manson. Sly dry wit keeps the book on a fast pace but some of his writing makes you stop and think. The book is full of laughs and wonderful visualization. So sit back and enjoy a good read.

This picks up where book one leavs off.
With some new characters and a highly detaled plot.
If you enjoyed the first book then you are in for a real treat.
While this is more detaled than the last one, it is well worth the read and a must for any fan.

I enjoyed this book a great deal. Although it drags in places, for the most part the pace is steady and enjoyable. The author has a wonderful sense of humor and the unexpected. A discussion of what good and evil are during a bullets-flying car chase? This author got more than one laugh from me. Good details, interesting characters, plots and twists, and witty snark. I'm going to purchase the rest of this series.

The follow-up to One Foot in the Grave, and as far as this reader is concerned even better. Chris's character has developed and while dealing with ancient history from hundreds of years ago he is also faced with bio-weapons of the future right here and now. All of the characters are so expertly developed and Chris continues to be the reluctant hero you keep cheering for. There are enough reviews giving you pieces of the story line, I am just simply stating the obvious. Read this series if you want a new twist on vampires with a hero who has a wit sharper then his fangs.