Fangland [Paperback]

John Marks (Author)

Book Description

Release date: January 29, 2008

As the popularity of Elizabeth Kostova's bestselling The Historian proves, there's always an audience bloodthirsty for quality, page-turning horror. Now, in a marvelously horrifying turn, John Marks-a former 60 Minutes producer-sinks his satirical teeth into twenty-first- century media. In Fangland, Evangeline Harker is an employee of the legendary TV news magazine The Hour. Sent on assignment to Transylvania, she delivers more than a story when mysterious e-mails, coffins, and a creepy guy named Torgu descend on the New York office. This darkly funny tale will appeal to vampire and horror aficionados as well as anyone who's fed up with what passes for "news" today.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The unusually large cast that reads Marks's multiperspective, modern vampire story helps make up for the lack of special effects one might expect. There is no creepy music, no doors creaking or wind shrieking through the trees to augment the tale of what happens after Evangeline Harker, a lovely assistant producer of a venerable TV news show, travels to Romania to meet a fabled gangster. Her trip goes horribly wrong and soon her colleagues in New York are afflicted as well. Marks, a former 60 Minutes producer, is at his best when writing about the life of the newsroom, which we witness through the conversation and thoughts of people who are all concerned about Harker's disappearance and the horrors that have followed, but who observe each other and the rest of the show's staff with keen distrust and disdain. This reading adds little to the chilling story aside from the varied voices, yet as a novel take on the worn-out vampire story, with a steady drumbeat of macabre events alternating with dryly funny commentary, it is sure to hold listeners until the end.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

From Booklist

Professional and personal aspirations collide when Evangeline, an ambitious associate producer of The Hour ("the most successful news show in American television history") accepts Robert's wedding proposal just before jetting off on an assignment she would rather dodge. Her uber-producer dismisses her protestations, so it's off to Transylvania to evaluate a possible story on Romanian reputed crime lord Ion Torgu. Marks' sense of place (a horse and wagon in front of a Coke sign symbolizes the transition from communism) and tone-setting emphasis on blood and bloodlines kick in early as Evangeline mulls over blending her Italian Irish heritage and Robert's mix of Creek Indian and the U.S. marshals who fought them, a union represented for her by the engagement ring she insists on wearing to meet the small, pale Torgu, who proves a kind of terrorist, and who infects her "like a virus" when she is abducted. She resurfaces months later, recuperating in Transylvania and recalling nothing. A scary twenty-first-century take on the stuff of Dracula, worthy of its rightful place among others. Whitney Scott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Books (January 29, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0143112538
• ISBN-13: 978-0143112532
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #972,274 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Once, years ago in Belgrade, I met a beautiful blonde Serbian nationalist named Simonida, and we got to talking vampires. I knew from my own research that the vampire of American popular culture had its roots in Serbian folklore, and she offered to do more than confirm the truth. She asked me whether I'd like to meet a few vampires in person. I declined, but out of my cowardice, my latest novel Fangland was born. A few hundred kilometers to the west, the Bosnian war was unfolding, with images of violence and brutality that wouldn't have been out of place in a saga of the undead.


Aside from vampire-hunting, I've been a 60 Minutes producer and a Berlin bureau chief for US News & World Report. My books include three novels and one work of journalistic memoir, Reasons To Believe: One Man's Journey Among The Evangelicals and The Faith He Left Behind.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars So you thought you knew all about vampires... January 19, 2007

By Zoyd

Format:Hardcover

Well, think again! In this amazing, weird, genre-bending and -blending, different-from-any-other-book-you're-likely-to-read novel, you'll get to know a particularly nasty specimen. Forget the teeth - this vampire uses a saw and a bucket. But FANG LAND isn't only a smart and frankly terrifying retelling of Bram Stoker's classic (which it is indebted to on a structural level, too); Marks uses the foil of the vampire novel to say some pretty serious things about why our media suck. (Excuse the pun.) And he does so with a satirical edge that is all the sharper because he used to be a producer for 60 Minutes himself. A great read and more profound than you'd think. The cover is spectacular, too.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Starts off with great promise - ends up in the recycle bin August 8, 2010

By Clarice Marchman-Jones

Format:Paperback

This novel started out with so much promise. I really liked the fact that Marks was telling the story with emails, journals, newspaper clippings, etc. in the style of Bram Stoker. Unfortunately, it was soon apparent that EVERY character spoke in the EXACT same voice. Even worse, emails were so lengthy and written in such elegant prose that it was just unbelievable. And a personal journal that one of the characters was being FORCED to keep as a therapy tool by his psychiatrist, (again, written in the same voice as every other character - are they ALL mental?) was also written eloquently - as though it was something he expected to publish rather than something he was writing under duress.

Even though the "vampire" was very different than Stoker's Dracula, and the way to render him helpless was sort of interesting (if you don't have too puritanical a mind-set), reading this novel finally became too tiresome because of the "one voice" writing style and slightly annoying due to numerous plot holes

Not only did this book not go back on my shelf to take up precious space, I could not even in good conscience donate it to Friends of the Library. I put this one in the recycle bin.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Dracula updated! May 18, 2007

By Jessica S.

Format:Hardcover

Fangland can basically be described as an updated Dracula. In fact the main character, a young woman is named Evangeline Harker, just like Stoker's classic Jonathan Harker. There are even a few names that are re-used as well. Evangeline is a reporter for a TV show called the Hour. She is sent to Romania to interview a possible crime lord named Ion Torgu, who presumes the role of Dracula. Although it is never said if he is truly a vampire, he is something else that is not of this world however.

Similar to Stoker's tale, Evangeline remains too long on her trip and doesn't return at the appointed time, but for some reason someone is taking over Evangeline's life and sending emails in her name and shipping strange crates back to the office. Evangeline loses her memory of the duration of the trip and when she returns home her memories slowly return to her and the terror of them drives her insane. A horror has taken over the people of the Hour and Evangeline must do all that she can to defeat the monster.

Overall a very good book. If you've read Stoker's classic Dracula you'll love this modern new twist. As mentioned before there are a few names that are similar if I'm remembering correctly. A must read for all Dracula fans, you won't be disappointed.