I did not finish this at 10 percent. I got nothing to say besides the writing hurt my head. I either love Robert R. McCammon or I don't. This is definitely one of the ones I don't love. There is too much thrown out and none of it makes much sense. This is a shame though because the prologue was so freaking good. And then when it moves to LA I just started to feel overwhelmed. Since I only got up to 10 percent I can say that the characters are too many and the book should have just been vampires. Instead it just jumps around a lot and I had no idea what was going on.

These seem to be vampires as we have known them in older horror novels (Dracula) and not the Twilight and Discovery of Witches vampires. I still cannot get over vampire yoga. Seriously? So that part was good. I just thought that the writing was a bit much and I didn't have a character to really follow to anchor the story. This book read to me like "Swan Song" though with vampires which caused me to drop it quickly. 

I really could not deal with another long read this weekend (this is 531 pages) so gave up around page 55. I did skim to the end and woo boy, that ending was just odd. And also borrowed heavily from "The Stand." So now I get why other reviewers were complaining about. 

...um. I may just pull a transfiguration card cause this book is not for me. This is practically unreadable to me. The first few pages of a boy and a young mother on the run from his father who has come back as something else was great. Everything after that...yikes. 

I’m not sure what to make of McCammon’s vampires. They do all the fun things and play by the same rules as classic vampires, so there’s plenty of neck biting, fangs flashing, mesmerizing/seducing, eyes glowing, coffin sleeping, and bat transforming. McCammon also gives us all the best vampire hunting scenes, too, with the crosses and the holy water and the stakes and the sunlight burning.

But I’m just not sold on the Grand Plan. It doesn’t make sense. I mean,

Maybe it’s just me, but these kind of things bug me.

I also had some trouble really connecting with all the characters. I’m not sure if he just tried to cram too many into one book so that I ended up with character exhaustion, or if he just hadn’t yet fully developed his character development skills at the time this book was written.

Still, I did enjoy this one very much. There was plenty of engaging action, satisfying evilness, and unlikely heroing. And the audiobook was read by Ray Porter, who gives an absolutely outstanding performance.

I read this book for the Booklikes Halloween Bingo 2019, for the square Vampires: Vampires, preferably non-sparkly, in all of their glorious fictional permutations.

Prior Updates:

Oct09 – 6%

Oct11 – 27%

Oct12 – 44%

Oct12 – 50%

If a mysterious person calling himself Prince Vulkan invites to you dinner at an abandoned castle famous for a historical murder, it's probably a good idea to decline. Politely.