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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Acevedo Takes Us On Another Wild Ride, January 25, 2009
"The Undead Kama Sutra" is Acevedo's third installment in the Felix Gomez series and while I have some minor quibbles, the overall effort shows growth and maturity in the writing and in the character development. Acevedo's Felix Gomez is an Iraq War vet turned vampire who has become a hard boiled private investigator in a classic noir sense. He lazily relies on his supernatural powers (hypnosis, stealth, etc.) to solve everyday cases and make a living while trying to balance his past as a human with his needs as a vampire.
Acevedo has created a plausible world of modern vampires that rivals that of Charlie Huston (see "Half The Blood In Brooklyn"). Both series portray the vampire world as coexisting in our modern world but in highly secretive fashion, with Gomez governed by and assisting, at times, the Araneum, a governing council for vampire behavior. While the texture and mood of their modern day vampire worlds are clearly different in the renderings of Huston and Acevedo, the vampire/human relationships and interactions and the philosophy, "laws", and governing structure underpinning their worlds are fun to unravel.
In this third installment, Felix is searching for the complete "The Undead Kama Sutra", a manual of sexual positions that promises great psychic benefits for vampires. This search ultimately teams him with Carmen Arellano, a sex driven vampire already deep into research on the manual. Their search is interrupted by the death of an alien who issues a cryptic warning to Felix to "find Goodman and save the Earth women".
This dying request launches an extended investigation that ultimately involves vampires, other extra-terrestrials, governmental and military conspiracies, a cosmetic industry conspiracy with aliens, a pretty darn good mystery, and some heavy discussion of sexual encounters that remain more talked about than fulfilled. Wow! If all that does not scare you off, then jump into the strange world of Mario Acevedo...it is a fun world to visit.
I enjoy reading the details of the rules and procedures for vampires living among the humans in Felix's life. For example, his joy at eating hot Mexican food laced with whole blood, or the various outcomes of his "fanging" a human along with how he controls the enzymes that have various functions in the process. Acevedo creates interesting fully fleshed characters and his plots are often unique to this genre. He still has problems with pacing at times, but that is becoming a minor quibble as his works matures. I recommend this series to fans of vampire literature or of supernatural noir.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
The title is the best part of the book, April 21, 2008
This review is from: The Undead Kama Sutra (Paperback)
For a novel called "The Undead Kama Sutra," you'd expect this to be a fun read in that guilty-pleasure sort of way.
Unfortunately, that's just not the case with the latest installment in the Felix Gomez series. Gomez is a former soldier who was turned to a vampire in Iraq. He comes home and becomes a sort of supernatural private investigator who had previous encounters with aliens in area 51. His latest escapades find him searching for the mythical undead kama sutra that is supposed to have powers for the undead set based on the release of sexual energy. Before he knows it, he's caught up in following the mysterious death of someone at the apparent hand of aliens and looking into matters for the council that rules vampires in Max Acevado's universe.
On paper, all that sounds like the makings of fun read that would be almost perfect for the upcoming beach season. It should be a book that you'd recommend to people because the title is so good and the book is a trashy, guilty pleasure kind of fun.
But beyond the fun title, there's not a lot of fun to be had here. The story plods along and it's hard to really care much about the plight of Gomez. Plus there's only so many descriptions of vampire Carmen's chest that one can read before you start rolling your eyes and go, "Come on, already."
In a lot of ways, this reads like a bad knock-off of Jim Butcher's far superior Harry Dresden series. And with the success of Dresden, there is room on the shelves for the same type of fun, fantasy reads. Unfortunately, this one isn't one of them.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
zany paranormal Noir, March 15, 2008
This review is from: The Undead Kama Sutra (Paperback)
In a Sarasota, Florida motel room that caters to hookers and pot buyers, Gilbert Oldon the alien lies dying. He called vampiric private investigator Felix Gomez to come to his death bed immediately. Gomez wonders how his former client who hired him to handle THE NYMPHOS OF ROCKY FLATS outbreak in Colorado knew he was on the Florida Interstate on a more personal case, finding THE UNDEAD KAMA SUTRA tome that allegedly provides instruction on increasing psychic power through sex; still this is the alien so he rushes to the motel. There the dying Oldon directs Gomez to "find Goodman" in order to save the women.
Felix is confused by Oldon's last words so he remains on his case, which leads him to the Florida Keys where he meets researcher Carmen Arellano. When three women vanish without a trace and an alien blaster kills a guest at a nearby vampire resort, Gomez and Arellano team up to learn what is going on starting with seeking out Goodman; who is a former US Army colonel. Still not concerned even when he considers how knowledgeable his original source was, Felix finding the missing females has turned personal when aliens abduct Carmen.
The third Gomez paranormal Noir (see X-RATED BLOODSUCKERS) is as zany as ever as the private investigator struggles with the Goodman affair as that intrudes on his collection of THE UNDEAD KAMA SUTRA pages. The story line is fast-paced and filled with action from Sarasota to the Keys. However, an improbable late twist will disappoint fans as that takes a major bite out of what had been a strong thriller.
Harriet Klausner
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