Friday, July 23, 2010

Way of the Wolf

Way of the Wolf (The Vampire Earth, Book 1)Are you tired of the sparkling vampires of Twilight?  Do you want some vampires that you can be afraid of?  Way of the Wolf by E. E. Knight should take care of those two things in an entertaining quick read. 

This book follows the adventures of Dave Valentine as he becomes a wolf (a scout for a freedom fighting group) in a post apocolyptic world where vampires rule.  The vampires in question are actually alien beings that feed off of life aura.  They have not only infected our planet but through a use of a star gate like technology have invaded the universe.  There are some non evil Kurians that didn't go down the vampiric road that helps hummanity by awaking humanities more savage nature. 

This is the first novel in the Vampire Earth series and as so it is more concerned with world building and really only develops Valentine as a character.  It intentionally mixes science fiction and fantasy, giving fantasy aspects with science fiction explanations.   An example are the grogs.  They are your basic orc but Knight has them genetically created. 

It was a pretty good book and makes me want to read the others in the series.  This one isn't for the kiddies as the end of the book has to do with rape and prostitution.  Fantasy and Science Fiction fans should enjoy it.  Not sure about twilight fans as the vampires are not romanticised at all. 

4 comments:

SteveB said...

Having never read (or watched) any of the Twilight series, I can't say that it's ruined vampires for me -- though it is sort of hard to stay away from the cultural phenomenon.

You might actually argue that "Buffy" and "Angel" started the whole vampires-are-people-too arc, which is weird to say because I like both of those shows.

Budd said...

I would say that Anne Rice and that ilk started it, and actually did it quite well and it was novel. Buffy and Spike sealed the deal, but everything after that was on a slippery slope. Making vampires monstrous enough without making them lame. Buffy did this by giving Vampires souls or chips or souls. other writers have not been so clever.

SteveB said...

Budd -- good point about Ann Rice. Yeah, I thought that the Whedonverse did a good job of making the Angel-Spike's the far outliers in their mythology and not the norm.

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