erastes

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http://www.torquerepress.com/fiction/vampirefred.html

I’m reviewing this here, as obviously it’s not a gay historical. I rarely read anything else these days as I wade my way through The List, but I saw the blurb for this book and RW bought me a copy.

Fred is not terribly pleased to be a vampire, and he doesn’t, as the title suggests, fit the stereotype. Involved in a "fatal” car accident-and his life was “saved” by Daniel, a mysterious and hugely annoying—to Fred—vampire sire who alls him “Fledge” and who has promptly moved in with him and hogs the TV.

It starts in an amusing vein, (excurse the pun) Fred’s pissed off with his undead life and with Daniel, his job and the fact that he’s not Brad Pitt and rolling in dough, but the story soon develops a life of its own as Demont layers this vampire mythology with touches of his own. Vampires can be seen in mirrors, they don’t get rabid when hungry, simply weak, becoming a sire is a serious thing, while keeping some other vampire mythology in amusing way—there’s a great part where he chucks sunflower seeds at a rival vampire and he has to pick them all up.

It might be because I am not used to reading vampire stoires but I found the first section a little confusing, where Daniel explains (and doesn’t do a good job – why he doens’t just tell Fred what he needs to know rather than talking in riddles) about the society they live in. Felt as confused as Fred, if not more so. If I was Fred I’d be demanding explanations. It took me a couple of readings to get the gist of what was going on, but once I was sorted out, I was back on track, but it did pull me out of the story a little bit.

Pickiness-wise, it annoys me when vampires don’t breathe. OK – I know they are dead, but if they are going to smell, (as if smell things, not stink) smoke cigarettes, sigh, gasp, get an erection – TALK – etc, then they need to breathe. This isn’t a poke at this book, btw, just a general “I don’t get it” rant about vampire books in general. Considering that blood is the essence of a vampire’s life, then the circulation system would be pretty damned important, I’d think - (ok, yes, I’m a geek) – and breathing is central to that. Without circulation we’d look like ticks and that’s not pretty. And erections don’t happen from dormant blood, I’m sorry. And it would coagulate. And. yes. I’ve squicked myself now.

I got a little confused with some of the shifts in time and perception, too, but then my attention span isn't great reading books on the PC. But I like the world that Demont has set up, and I assume that, as the books is called The Vampire Fred: Wicked Game, that there are more to come with this character. I like the humour, the self-deprecating manner Fred talks in, and I was rooting for him throughout.

So, overall - I did enjoy The Vampire Fred. Demont shows that he can really write because Fred (in a way I can’t explain without spoiling) speaks in at least two different voices, one in a hard-bitten, Harry Dresden way, and the other in a more high-fantasy manner and both of them work well.

Personally, I don’t think that—and I know I generally always say this with novellas—120 or so pages was enough time to pull the whole thing together, there’s a lot of backstory here, a whole new world, as they say, it’s not Earth as we know it and as I have said with books like Ginn Hale’s Wicked Gentlemen, there’s enough material in The Vampire Thread to make a saga, let alone a full novel, so I for one hope that Demont considers perhaps, when the digital rights are up, expanding it into a full-sized novel and selling it to the print press, because I would buy it again like that, and I’m sure others would.