Thunder and Blood-Review

I have been sitting on this review for over a month waiting for the Nov 5th tour stop with the author Stacey Voss.

Due to issues with the author there will be no tour stop this week. Sorry.

Plot: Two sisters are on a weekend get away when they suddenly find themselves lost in a fog. With their car having broken down, they head for the nearest house for shelter. Right off the bat there is something odd about the place given the style is over a hundred years old with no running water.

The sisters soon learn that they are in a parallel universe where vampires rule the world and blood is the only form of currency.

Each sister then goes on her own way, and each of them gets involved with a vampire. Which one of the sisters will come out alive and which one of the vampires will gain control of the land.

Now you know me, I am always up for a vampire anything so I was really looking forward to this book. As well the premise of this story isn't bad, it's fairly good.

Now before I tell you what I liked about it, I have to tell you what I didn't like about it.

Thunder Bay.

For someone living in the city of Thunder Bay, I found the first chapter really difficult to sit through. I understand for anyone living outside of the area, this will be a very new and interesting plot part, but for people like myself who have been in the shadow of the Sleeping Giant for years it's dry very dry.

Now what I liked about it.

I found the idea of having a world run on blood to be a nice story line, (yes I am aware of Repo Man the Genetic Opera has a similar plot) and the head villain Lord Radek to be worthy of the title of vampire. There was something of a flavour that reminds me of Anne Rice's character Armand. Lord Radek is the strongest character in the book with the most interesting back story and seems to have the most depth to his personality. It's a shame he's only given a small slice of actual page time.

The element of the fog (no pun intended) being a key to the space/time travel was also an interesting way to get the characters from Thunder Bay to Donner, though it does lend one to think of Shadow Over Innsmouth by H.P. Lovecraft and Evil Dead 2 and the fog sequence that Bruce Campbell encounters.

Not placing the story in this century was also a good idea, as it gave a second conflict for the two sisters in their need to adapt.

Mixing pieces that seem to be right out of the author's real life helped to ground the story in reality even though this is a sci-fi story. The good qualities out weigh the bad, but there is still something lacking for vampire fans.

It's hard to miss the shades of Vampire Masquerade and Kindred the Embraced; as the subplot stems up to offer the sectioning of land ruled by a vampire lord , but still does not hold the same edge that either offered back in the early 1990's. Or the placement of a Renfield-esque character (Gervis) in the castle of Lord Radek , who seems contented to be the male-servant to the vampire. Anyone who has seen the movie Blood and Donuts will see the psychic vampire undertones used by Lord Radek for seducing Christine into letting him drink her blood. (Again the scene in Interview with the Vampire where Louis turns Madeleine jumps to mind)

For anyone just coming into the genre of vampires this is indeed a slick and deserving take on the theme but for those who have been hanging around coffins for awhile, will find it to be treading on old ground.

As far as having vampires in Thunder Bay, it's not that far fetched, one just has to look at International Wrestling Superstar Vampiro, to know it's been done before.