Customer Reviews

Fade Out (Morganville Vampires 7)

5 star:		(41)
4 star:		(26)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Rachel Caine has done it once again with the latest installment of her Morganville Vampire Series with Fade Out.

Just when Claire Danvers thought she could finally get a rest after having dealt with Amelie's father, Bishop, Kim show's up in her life like a sudden black hole. Eve gets a part in the town play with Kim. Claire feels like Eve is ignoring her to deal with her new friend, almost like she is now the third wheel. To make matters worse, she finds out that Shane used to date Kim for all of two seconds but their more to that story. When Claire finds out what Kim is really doing with all the video cameras that she has, Claire and her friends must find them all and confront Kim before everything is destroyed. But that's not all, Ada, Myrnins computer, starts to go all haywire more than usual and Claire has to deal with that as well.

What I liked about Fade Out was how Rachel Caine let all four characters explore more emotions than they ever have. With Eve and Michael, there is more emotion with what they are going through through out the book and the same with Claire and Shane. Just like in the previous books, Rachel sticks true to each characters dialogue and uniqueness. A few more characters are introduced in the book along with the original.

Through out the book, you can sort of tell what the next book will be about but not know at the same time. If you enjoyed the previous books in The Morganville Vampire Series, then you are bound to enjoy the newest addition, Fade Out.

The Other Books In The Series:
Glass Houses (Morganville Vampires, Book 1)
The Dead Girls' Dance (Morganville Vampires, Book 2)
Midnight Alley (Morganville Vampires, Book 3)
Feast of Fools (Morganville Vampires, Book 4)
Lord of Misrule (Morganville Vampires, Book 5)
Carpe Corpus (Morganville Vampires, Book 6)

The next book, Kiss of Death, will be released in late April or early May and book nine is also due out in 2010.
The series will have a total of 12 books total. (Numbers may change)

Now "Bishop" is gone and everyone is friends (we will see how long that last). ;)
Any hoo - Eve gets involved with the theatre company in Morganville. Eve makes a new friend but she goes missing. Eve finds out that she was doing a documentary of the town of Morganville. The gang - tries to fix everything before all the vamps "freak out" and start eating everyone again. The biggest surprise is that Claire, Shane, Eve, and Michael find out that they have a staring role in this little documentary that even makes Myrnin blush. Literally, blush!!!!


I loved this book!!!! Rachel Caine is the best author or atleast created the best story!!! There was plenty of romance, jealousy, drama, and danger! It had plenty of Myrnin, which I love. There are so many things I want to say about the book but I don't want to spoil it for the people that haven't read it yet.


***Spoiler***
1. The jewelry box that Shane got/showed Claire and told her it was for later (on the last page of the Carpe Corpus) is not even mentioned in this book. Not at all! WTF - Rachel never leaves us hanging that long!
2. I hope in the next book, Shane starts to get a little jealous of Claire, it is his turn. Claire has been the jealous girlfriend twice now. I want Shane to get a little jealous himself. I mean you have good looking Michael saving Claire and holding her hand often and Myrnin (who is described as "very good looking") but who clearly told Claire he is not attracted to her. Maybe Myrnin will start thinking of her different after he saw the sex tape. I just would like to see Shane squirm a little. I guess that is mean because he is very faithful to Claire and always tells her that he loves her - I would just like him to get a little jealous to keep him appreciating Claire.

How wrong is it that I stretched a 220+ page book out for five days because I didn't want to see it end? Hopefully not too wrong, because once I was back in Morganville, I didn't want to leave.

Fade Out is book # 7 in Rachel Caine's Morganville Vampire series, coming after the drama with evil Bishop has ended and things are supposedly "back to normal" (or as normal as it can be when the town is run by vampires). Main character Claire Danvers is back in class at Texas Prairie University, still with boyfriend Shane, and again working with slightly off-center vampire Myrnin. Michael's adjusting to life as a vampire, and Goth girl Eve has earned a part in the town's new play. The problem comes when castmate Kim suddenly shows up and inserts herself between not only Claire and Eve, but Claire and Shane. Something's just not quite right about Kim, but Claire starts to feel as though she's the only one who sees the problem...until Kim goes missing and her dirty little secret comes to light.

Love, love, love the characters in this tremendous series, and I love that our vampire friends are showing more range in emotion and fallibility. Amelie, the vampire who founded Morganville, is still mourning the loss of lover Sam; Oliver, Eve's former boss and Amelie's next in command, is showing signs of irritation over the way things are being run; and Myrnin, dear, odd, funny Myrnin, is in denial about computer Ada's intentions. Sides are being drawn once again between those vampires in charge and those who have gone rogue, and Claire and her friends are finding themselves caught firmly in the middle.

It's a testament to Ms. Caine's imagination that this series is improving instead of becoming stale, and the fact that both brains and loyalties are being tested shows that she's not willing to settle for the obvious. There is lots of action but also lots of humor in this novel; it's Myrnin's antics that made me laugh and long for my own set of vampire bunny slippers. Claire's dedication to doing what's right, even when it doesn't necessarily feel right, moves the book subtly along, and the growing relationship between Shane and Claire also is well done. The book ends on a cliffhanger (sigh), so naturally I'll be waiting restlessly for the next installment. Here's hoping it's a bit longer so I won't feel the need to ration myself while reading in order to stay in Morganville.

My thoughts...There is something to be said about an author's writing when you can jump right into a story without feeling lost. Even though it has been months since I read Carpe Corpus, within about 10-15 pages I was right back into the series. These are easy, fun reads with a unique story line. In this installment, the characters continue to show character growth and development. This story had tons of excitement and several new characters increased the drama, making me feel badly for poor Claire.

Without giving away any spoilers, I can tell you that there are big changes in several characters. They have been influenced by event in previous books. The story wraps up current problem, but leaves several dilemmas to be solved in future Morganville Books. I cannot wait for the Spring 2010 release of Kiss of Death.

Crazy computers, Goth rivals, and vampires in bunny slippers. Rachel Caine certainly knows how to write a weird urban fantasy story -- and while her seventh Morganville Vampires novel starts with a tangle of seemingly unrelated plot threads, she expertly lashes them all together into a pulse-pounding story that brings about some shocking new developments. And there's more than a little tinge of horror in there too.

Claire is having a rough time -- she gets a UV bomb in the face, then nearly freezes her to death when Amelie has a suicidal depression fit. Some rough, brutal new vampires are prowling around town, and the computer hologram Ada is acting bizarrely jealous of Claire merely being around Myrnin. And because of Amelie's unhappiness, other vampires are starting to question her fitness to rule Morganville... and Claire finds herself in the middle of it.

Perhaps most distressingly, Eve has a new best buddy -- the manipulative, gorgeous "cool-girl" Goth Kim, who is also an ex-hookup of Shane's, and still holds a torch. When you have a bad sunburn, that is NOT what you want.

Unfortunately, Morganville is starting to splinter apart without Amelie's guidance -- the streets are full of brutal vampires and even more brutal vampire-killing mobs. When Kim goes missing, Claire and her friends discover a secret scheme that threatens the very existence of Morganville... and not only must Claire stop it, but she must avoid being killed by an increasingly crazed Ada, who wants Myrnin all to herself. And she's becoming too powerful to stop.

"Fade Out" starts off relatively fluffy, with Claire effectively having the worst day in the world, while her friends prepare for a rock concert and a goth production of "A Streetcar Named Desire." And for the first two thirds, Caine spins out a series of subplots that just go flying in every direction, seemingly unconnected to each other... until she lashes them together, and the plot blossoms into a brilliant, action-packed triple finale.

And Caine's writing is up to the task, since she's equally good at blending stories of romantic rivalry and rock concerts with horrific tales of vampiric invasion. She conjures some truly horrendous moments that might make your skin crawl (the giant spider, "tunnel rats," and Ada's frequent homicidal shrieks and mad laughter), but also peppers her story with generous amounts of humor, a lot of which comes from Myrnin's crazy outfits (pirate hippie!) and hilarious dialogue (""Goodness. I don't think I should be watching this. I don't think I'm old enough").

And there are some big changes in Morganville by the end. Not epic ones (the status quo is pretty much the same), but things will be different for the main cast and the vampires.

And despite being at the center of vampire power struggles, Claire remains a pleasantly ordinary character -- she's nerdy, she feels jealous, she attends classes, and she walks around for half the book with peeling skin. But she has a lot of backbone, facing down potentially homicidal vampires with nothing more than guts and a pointy object. And the kooky Myrnin adopts a spider ("I shall call him Bob"), gets electrocuted, and is fleshed out even further with a bittersweet loss.

"Fade Out" is a delicious urban fantasy read that seems fluffy at first, but quickly accelerates into a dark, funny, deeply creepy little novel. Here's hoping for many more...

Getting a new Morganville Vampire installment is like getting your birthday and Christmas presents all at once. Its a treat that doesn't come along nearly as often as you crave. That said, each book is intense and well written. The books have always been disappointingly short in legnth, but Rachel Caine packs each page. There are no fillers in this series. I really wondered about "Fade Out" because when we last left our Glass House inhabitants, they had just helped boot evil vampire Bishop from his reign of terror over the town. Bishop's daughter Amalie was restored to power and Claire helped find a cure for the disease plaguing the vamp population. "Carpe Corpus" tied up the previous storylines in a pretty bow. Apparently life in a vampire-run town with limited access to the rest of the world can't stay calm for long. This story has the four friends trying to figure out who has planted a ton of cameras around town, and in private residences, hoping to unveil the vampire town to the world. Add in some drama between Eve and Michael, and a showdown with Ada, the computer/human hybred, and tons of my favorite Mernin and this was another surefire Morganville tale. If you can't tell by my lush praise, this is my absolute favorite series right now...adult or YA. Keep them coming Rachel Caine! I will also mention that I do also enjoy Caine's Weather Warden series...so pick both of them up starting with the first in each series if you haven't already.

I really enjoyed this book. The story is fast moving and exciting. I like that the relationship between Claire and Shane seems to be maturing. Sometimes after 5-6 books a series can get a bit boring but this is book 7 in the Morganville Vampire series and I found it anything but boring! Keep them coming Rachel Caine! Can't wait for book 8.

This wasn't one of my favorite books in the series, but I still enjoyed it a lot. I agree with a previous poster that I'd like to see Shane get jealous, too, for a change. Claire's always the one who has to get jealous. Of course, that could be because Shane has 9 billion ex-girlfriends.

I thought the story was well-paced, and as with all of Rachel Caine's books, there was tons of action. Never a dull moment in Morganville. I really enjoyed this book.

Usually when a series lasts as long as this one has the characters and stories start to get stagnant. Not at all the case with Morganville Vampires!!! True, this book seemed like a transition to a new BIG story since everything with Bishop was resolved. But the transition was beautifully executed. We STILL are learning about the main characters and their relationships. In this installment there was a ton of Myrnin. It almost seems as if he's starting to care for Claire. That was kind of fun. It's seemed to me in the last couple of books that maybe something is brewing with Michael and Claire. While their relationship doesn't seem romantic it seems more than "just friends". It was nice to mostly have a break from Monica in this story as she just grates on my last nerve. And lets not forget the "new girl". We didn't learn a whole lot about her except for her feelings for Shane. I'm wondering if her story is finished or not. I kind of felt like I was left hanging there. All in all a great story though. Can't wait to start the next one!

Now that Bishop is gone, life in Morganville is a lot different, and a lot better. Amelie, the ruling vampire, is changing the way things are, and now, humans have a lot more rights that the vampires must respect. Day-to-day life is safer than it's ever been, and Claire and her friends actually have the opportunity to do what they like for once since they don't have to be running from danger all the time. But life in Morganville never stays boring for long, and soon, someone goes missing. Yet when Claire and her friends start to investigate, they uncover a secret documentary project on vampires, a project that could have deadly repercussions for all the residents, both human and vampire, of Morganville.

Though I still quite enjoyed this seventh installment of the Morganville Vampires series, after the nonstop action and thrills delivered in Lord of Misrule and Carpe Corpus, the story and plot of Fade Out really can't compare. There are several fascinating developments regarding Ada, the vampire computer, Myrnin, Morganville's favorite half crazy vampire, and Kim, a tough new girl to the series, but I felt the overall plot didn't really grab my attention as the previous Morganville Vampires books did. This doesn't mean that Fade Out is not good; the plot is still exciting and entertaining and the characters are well developed and interesting. I will likely continue to read the Morganville Vampires series, but I have a feeling that it's not likely to get much better anymore.

The Morganville Vampires series will still be enjoyed by fans of the Dark Elite series by Chloe Neill.