Gosh, this book brought back so many memories! I used to be so into white wolf and have many memories of chilling in my friend's cosy cottage on the weekends and playing the game that was known as "Vampire: The Masquerade" it was a crazy game system and you had to know everything about your clan. World of darkness had many systems, From mummies to Fairys. This book brought all of that flooding back. From the Politics to the History of the clan's.

 

This novel takes course of one night and the story packs in a lot into that one night. We follow the story of a newly embraced Torador "Leopold" who is trying to understand the things most newly embraced childe's try to understand. The story moves back and forth between other character's and plots that finds the standing stones to what happens in the other 13 novels.

All in all I really liked this book.

This was one really, really, good setting. However it is a shame that it brought a lot of Goths out of the woodwork which ended up polluting the roleplaying community. Sometimes I wonder if Mark Rein-Hagen was a Goth himself, because this setting is very dark and gloomy that has strong political overtones. Hagen had pretty much set the roleplaying world in a new direction with this creation, and in turn, had opened the roleplaying community up to a lot of newcomers.

I used to play LARP a while back, which is live-action roleplaying. Vampire is actually a really good setting for a LARP as it does not involve adventure like normal roleplaying games but political machinations. People don't go on adventures, but rather they work to move themselves up the social ladder by whatever means necessary. The only problem with LARPs is that there tend to be a lot of posers involved, and as it is with many roleplaying games, people used it to flee the real world and create an imaginary world around them that nobody is allowed to pierce. It was good for social interaction, but there was just too much backstabbing and resentment to make it an enjoyable experience (at least in my experience).

The setting involve vampires, and in a way they are traditional vampires, but in another way they are not. The first vampire was Caine (that was his curse) and the entire race was created from him. A vampire's power is determined by their generation, that is second generation vampires were turned by Caine, and the third generation were turned by Caine's children. These vampires are known as the antediluvians, so called because they lived before Noah's flood. The third generation vampires all became the fathers of the clans that many of the lesser vampires are gathered into.

There are two main factions, the Sabbat and the Camarilla (though I suspect that later editions pretty much destroyed the Camarilla). The Camarilla, while being vampires, try to keep themselves hidden and try to retain as much of their humanity as possible. The Sabbat are the opposite: they believe that they are more powerful than humans, and as such should be humanity's masters. Much of the setting involves the war between these two factions, though there are other powers and entities out there that are just as bad. As it turns out, vampires are the weakest of all of the supernatural monsters in the World of Darkness.

This is one really good game in one really good setting. However the catch is that it can be difficult running it like a normal tabletop roleplaying game. It is more about politics than it is about adventure. Further, it has set such a high standard with regards to vampires that pretty much anything to do with vampires that I have seen since (and in many cases beforehand) just simply does not compare.

Eternal Kiss of Darkness follows the romance of Mencheres (a side character from Frost's Night Huntress series) and Kira, a private investigator.

 

Mencheres has grown weary of life and has put into action the means for him to commit vampire suicide. At least that's his plan until Kira stumbles into his life and unwittingly saves him from going through with his first attempt.

This would have been a really boring book if it hadn't been for Mencheres and eventually Vlad. I felt Kira was way too "mary-sue" for Mencheres. I loved that she was portrayed as level-headed and strong, but nothing about her was interesting. She had no grief about her past (despite being abused by an ex-husband) and selflessly devotes a large chunk of her income towards her dying sister. Kira just had no emotional settings aside from acceptance and concern. She found out vampires existed and was like "oh okay". In fact, that was basically her reaction to everything in this story. "Oh Mencheres you can fly? I guess that's okay." "Oh, some bad ass vampire is framing you and trying to force you into killing yourself and giving him your power? Well, okay then." "Oh! You're being forced to kill me and make me into a vampire and I have no say in the matter? Hmmm okay. I won't even be upset when I wake up." I mean holy crap lady, have a reaction about something that's happening around you!

Other than that, the story was okay. I always love a Chicago setting and a large chunk of the book takes place in that area. I also really loved Mencheres penchant for water, for some reason I found it rather cute. I just really really wish that he had been paired with a more interesting female character.

I would recommend this to fans Frost's Night Huntress series, because I think that without having a familiarity with the characters from the other books some of the charm would be lost.

Does anyone else find it impossible to open books from their shitty old version of IE which their employer makes them fucking use in spite of the fact that it is shitty and old?

 

In order to work around, I seriously have to add the books to a post, then open them from my blog page to get the bookpage open to shelve them.

 

Whaaat? Bitches.

 

Oh, and by the way, even that doesn't work reliably. Fuckety fuck fuck fuck.

 

Also, the shelving page is buggy as shit. Color me irritated.

I'm actually really surprised by my rating for this one. I enjoyed it quite a bit, despite - or possibly because of - Mencheres being one of my least favorite characters from the NH series. I didn't really cut him any slack here; hot sex or no, I wanted a decent story...and there WAS hot sex. My goodness, it made Spade and Denise from the last NHW book look like they were awkward gropey teens... and that's just not sexy at all.

Mencheres... well... I may not give up my preference for Bones... but one could do a lot worse than to read about Menchere's naughties. He's GOOD at them.

And on top of that, I actually came to kinda like him toward the end. I realize now that what I didn't like about him before was his monotone aloofness. He's the all-knowing, wise, father-figure who shows up to provide strength, but doesn't really do much else but brood a lot. And for a goodish chunk of this book, he continued on that road... but Kira brought out a new side of him... a lighter side. And I LIKED it. I like seeing Mencheres laugh and tease and enjoy himself.

And I liked that there was no fucking instalove. YYYYYAAAAAAAYYYY!!!!
(O_O)/

Kira and Mencheres didn't just see each other and fall head over heels in lust-I-mean-love - they actually formed a kind of relationship and interest in each other before that. There was a progression of attraction and liking and interest! It actually took me a while to recognize why I was feeling like this was just a better book than FDOC - but toward the end, around the time that Kira realized the significance of the situation in which she met Mencheres, I realized that there's just been this growing connection between them that actually consisted of something more than just saying that there was one.

They have things in common. They have similar pasts (though, admittedly, one's is much more vast than the other's), and similar betrayal experiences, and similar consciousness of the powerless people who could be hurt by their actions... or inaction. There's a base of commonality that their relationship stood on, and I really liked that a lot.

Kira, also, was no moronic girl who couldn't be trusted to tie her own shoes without a man guiding her. I liked her a LOT. She has personality, and spunk, and her own will and damn the consequences. And when those consequences actually bite her in the ass, she doesn't back down or run away or whine or cry about it, but stands her ground and holds her head up, because she is willing to take the responsibility for herself. So good.

I do feel like I would have liked more closure with Tina though - just a quick follow-up meeting with her after everything, to meet the boyfriend as promised. See how she's coping with her new knowledge and family and whatnot.

And I do feel like the resolution was just a little rushed - but still enjoyable.

Definitely much better than I expected for this one to be, and I'd recommend this one over First Drop of Crimson any day.