2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The 411 on the Fanged, October 23, 2009
This review is from: Vampires (Paperback)
Vampires is a non-fiction reference novel that covers the phenomenon that is the Vampire in stark detail with in-depth analysis. Vampires goes into an intense look at peoples perceptions, beliefs and notions regarding the vampire from the modern day seductive vampire, to the revenant of the past that plagued villages and tormented the faithful. It is a must read for fans of the vampire and authors planning on using the vampire in their novels. It is a reference novel for all things blood-suckerish, covering everything from the edimmu of Mesopotamia to Twilight.
I was highly impressed with this book. My first impression was the great design. As a graphic designer, I know the intricacies of laying out a manual such as Vampires. I once spent six months of my life designing a "Blow Out" manual for the oil and gas industry, in both English and Portuguese. The job of designing Vampires would be a dream job for me, and I am highly jealous of Ms. Sadler! She did a wonderful job, each page is done with precision and consistency, which is the hardest part of manual design. The book is beautiful Ms. Sadler - and the spot varnish of the cover came out wonderful.
The writing of Ms. Taylor was also done spot on. The tone is informative, yet not drugged down with monotonous lecturing. Topics are touched upon quickly, without dragging you down with useless facts and explanations that show-off the author's vast knowledge. I learned a lot from this book, which surprised me since I have dedicated more than a decade to the study of vampires as a hobby. Most of it, yes was review, but there were some topics that were new to me. One of which was the vampires of other cultures, including Japan and Africa. It was interesting to see how vampires are not just a European myth.
I recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the undead.
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2.0 out of 5 stars
Ok not great, December 15, 2010
This review is from: Vampires (Paperback)
As an avid vampire enthusiast I thought I would be learning new facts or insights but was sorely disappointed. The only thing that impressed me was the cool artwork and design of the book. As a graphic designer I'm constantly watching out for these things so overall the book looks very well designed. Other than that the book reads like a dumbed-down high school manual for people who don't know what a vampire is. One aspect I did like though was that it gave a good summary of past and current vampire movies, books and TV series. I added a few I hadn't heard about to my Netflix and one or two authors I hadn't come across yet. But even then it's a very basic summary of popular media and literature. There's tons more out there it didn't even mention. To me the book's content seemed incomplete and put together with little effort.
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