Customer Reviews

March in Country: A Novel of the Vampire Earth

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

E.E. Knight's ninth entry in the Vampire Earth series, March In Country, is a pleasant surprise after the last few clunkers but still fails to advance the story in any real fashion. While a major Kurian in Atlanta has designs on taking over wartorn Kentucky, Major Valentine has his own plans to repopulate the area with Golden Ones. Will Valentine be able to locate and move grogs from a faraway enclave while just about every faction is allied against him?
While the story and prose kept my interest, the plot for these books just barely continues to plod along. The usual cast of secondary characters are involved (Duvalier, Ahn-Kha, Lambert) but none of them are fleshed out. Blake is seen briefly. A 4th type of hunter is mentioned and is almost immediately discarded. Ahn-Kha and Valentine swear vengeance against General Martinez but this will probably not happen until somewhere around book no. 22.
I admit that I love end of the world tales and Vampire Earth is a doozy. Aliens and their giant nigh-unstoppable soldiers who literally suck the life out of you? Heck yeah? The earth is destroyed through natural disasters, disease and famine and the human population has been reduced to virtual slavery? Tell me more! From the high of the first few books, this series has been something of a letdown. By the ninth book, our hero, Valentine, is already an old man at 30, who loves killing, is an absentee father to his half-alien "son", Blake, but is someone who will risk everything for the sake of his companions and of the innocent.
Is this it for humanity? Besides a relatively small area of the central southern U.S. most of humanity is allied with their alien overlords. And even Southern Command is in a defensive posture. Valentine and his crew are virtually cutoff from any meaningful support. And while virtually every book features the death of a Kurian or two, there doesn't seem to be a shortage of more aliens to fill in the gap. At this rate, E.E. Knight could write fifty books and still not a lot would happen.
I like this series; I always have. But I definitely am not looking forward to reading the next edition anywhere near as much as I used to.

The last few books in the Vampire Earth series haven't been particularly good. In fact I'd go so far to say that the previous entry, Winter Duty, almost made me give up on the series. It just seems that Valentine has been either depressed, or in depressed circumstances for so long, that it's hard to enjoy the series.

I'm happy to say that Knight once again got "it" right with March In Country. Old characters are reintroduced, new ones are added in almost perfectly, and enemies made several books ago are finally starting to show their hand. The majority of the book is spent with Valentine, venturing once again into Kurian controlled land, only this time to "rescue" some old friends. While the premise is fairly simplistic, the journey helps to flesh out the Vampire Earth world, as well as fill in plot holes from previous books.

Overall I'm quite satisfied with March, it's a short read that once again gets the formula right. I enjoyed it from cover to cover.

**The only real problem I had with the purchase was the price. Seriously, $12 for an ebook? I realize publishers are trying to protect their precious hardcover sales, but all they're doing is pushing me into only buying from my favorite authors, instead of being more adventurous with my purchases. Not exactly a brilliant economic plan.**

How long are we going to keep going without getting anywhere? There has been no closure in the past three books of this series. I have loved this series since the beginning so I still gave this a 4 star but for someone that does not have time and money invested in this series and author wait until the cheaper priced edition comes out for Kindle.

I thought that since we have spent the last two books on the same story line that we would see some movement in the series. There are still TONS of un-resolved story lines in this book. Did finally see about a new hunter group but not fleshed out much at all. I am really still waiting for a real Bear moment from Valentine. He has had a few but I would really like to see him finally cut loose and see what would happen. The story line IMHO is setting up for another betrayal with Martinez in charge of Southern Command. The story line needs to get something done with this, in previous books, Valentine did not leave anyone behind him that he had a personal grudge with, now it seems that the author is simply seeing how many enemies he can line up at one time, Martinez, Seattle Kurian, etc... Want to see some more movement in the story line. There is some in this book but we really need to see Valentine in the trenches again not in a strategic position....

I have been a VERY faithful reader of EE Knights "Vampire Earth" series. I was hoping for a bit more from this book. Even though this book is a little short, it doesn't forward the story that much if at all. Unless Mr. Knight comes up with a blockbuster for his next book, this will more than likely be the last book that I will read in this series. He either needs to end the series within the next couple of books or really forward the story.

Honestly, I love this series. I've enjoyed every book, even fall with honor and winter duty because i believe those books added another layer to David that he had never encountered and that was failure. Not everyone succeeds all the time and it was important to show that David couldn't allows win the day for Southern Command. However, this book is lacking in many areas. First off their seems to be some holes in the story. Some characters are introduced and then kind of handled off page, like Blake and the whole thing with the Raven. I'm not going to get into too much detail because i don't want to spoil it but i think they are handled poorly. Some of the action sequences make little sense and even skip a battle like with the first strong point not even being mention and jumping directly to the second one. I think the book was rushed and edited very haphazardly, honestly I would have gladly waited another month if it would have meant better quality. With that being said I still enjoyed the book and I see where the series is going. A lot of people have questioned Mr. Knight's pacing and frankly said he should get on with the story but he is setting the story up quite nicely with David Valentine basically amassing a giant army with anyone willing to fight. Something like that would take time so i can understand this pacing.

On a side note, the publisher are getting out of control with the ebook pricing. If the ebooks go up any more, I'll simply just stop buying them. Reading is fun and all but i can spend my time playing mindless video games and be just as happy.

Not quite the utter rubbish that was Winter Duty; but you'll still find the style and technical accuracy of the book lacking when compared to the earlier novels.

I'd say: read the early novels if you can bring yourself to jump ship before you hit Winter Duty. THOSE at least, are well worth reading.

I really enjoy this series and enjoyed this book for the most part. Although the editing was rough. Thoughts didn't seem to wrap up, paragraphs jumped from one point to the next with no transition and sometimes I was left wondering if a page was missing. I reread parts thinking I must have skipped some lines or missed some major points and often wondered what the heck was going on. Because necessary descriptive details were lacking and lead ins and transitions were absent it made this book hard to follow.

That said, I still very much enjoyed this book, but I do hope EE Knight and his editor can do a better job on the next edition.

I have faithfully read every Vampire Earth novel. The concept was brilliant. The characters were fully framed. The descriptions were poetic. The action was often swift and utterly consuming. The theme of "collaborators" was timeless. This series began as a wonder of "world building". Understandably, some entries in the series were more riveting than others. However, the first novels captured you until their close--leaving you asking for more.

However, I felt that this installment repeatedly lost focus. I would finish a page, and then move on only to ask myself: "Did I miss something? This does not really follow what I just read." New characters appeared, without seeming to really do anything. Then too, the whole meme of "Martinez of Southern Command" as a wimp seemed rather tiresome. There were also innumerable references to earlier events which, given the years that pass between novels, require either a photographic memory or a "cheat sheet" of some kind--the dictionary of terms at the end is only beneficial to those for whom this is a first read--something I could not recommend. And now Knight has added a new layer of "entity" to his mix.

Overall, I wish I had just borrowed this novel from the public library, but YMMV.

I have enjoyed reading this series over the years. Yes some were better than others but the basic concept and story line has been pretty good. The copy of this book I bought however either had horrible editing or was a draft copy. Midway through the book there were jumps in the story line that didn't make sense, sentences that were incomplete thoughts and a jarring sense of moments of incoherence. Could of been slightly better than average in the series if wasn't for the irritatingly bad editing. Did the copy editor even read the final draft or the author?

I mainly read female authors as I am not a fan of violent or extreme sex but I love this series there is some of the sex but the story line just takes you to that world. I love this series and am ready for the next visit to Vampire Earth.