David Lee Summers

This was not a good book.

I mean, honestly, I didn't expect it to be a good book. But it's really not a good book. The writing is pretty amateurish; the plot is rambling, ridiculous, muddy, and thin; the characters are unconvincing and uninteresting; and it manages to include some sex that is simultaneously both gratuitous and deeply unsexy. I will say this for it, at least: it does come up with some actually kind of original ideas about the origins of vampires and how they work. They're not good ideas, mind you, but at this point it's so difficult to come up with anything new on the subject of vampires that that's almost impressive. Almost.

It did have a couple of points of interest for me, though. One is that one of the characters works at a job very similar to mine, and the other is that it's set in various places in my adopted home state of New Mexico, including some significant events that happen in the town I live in. No doubt people from, say, New York City are used to seeing their own stomping grounds depicted in fiction, but that generally doesn't happen when you live in Middle of Nowhere, New Mexico. So I got a little bit of a kick out of that (and, indeed, it was the only reason I picked this book up in the first place).

That doesn't help make it any better of a book, though.… (más)

audiobook, action-adventure, steampunk, alternate-history, western, cultural-exploration, aliens, historical-figures

Really prods the reader to dig around and examine some of the real history included in the story! There's a samurai turned farmer, the Clanton brothers and some other outlaws, Geronimo, ornithopters, Russians, aliens, bigotry, greed, philosophy, and lots more. And it's STEAMPUNK! Well written fun for all with very interesting characters and clear imagery.
Edward Mittelstedt does a fine audio interpretation with clear speech and good definition of the characters.… (más)