Sabrina, Gregg and James go to a comic convention – only Gregg
is there by choice but they both lost bets. Damn cheating vampire.
But a vampire can’t even rustle up comics back issues without running into a supernatural nasty to take out. And that doesn’t include the guys follow Sabrina around in her short shorts.
In many ways I think this novella is a lot like Movie
Knight. It has a good introduction to the characters, a sense of the weird
and the wonderful things they face, a good idea of how everyone interacts, how
they think, their tones and natures as well as a decent exploration of the
world.
Like Movie Knight, it also presents an opening to some of
the more weird and unusual things James and Greg face above and beyond the
normal. A quick little adventure so that those who have already read the series
still have something of interest to see and be interested in; while at the same
time not being so different and new as to leave completely new readers
floundering and unable to keep up
It strikes the right balance between having enough story
there to be interesting to people who are already reading the series while
still providing a nice introduction to people who are thinking about checking
the series out. It would be, like Movie Knight, a great anthology novel,
introducing new readers to the series who have never come across it before.
And yes, the world building and information continues to hit that balance between filling in all the gaps necessary for a new reader to keep up while, at the same time, not completely inundating an old reader with stuff we already know. That takes some real skill.
It’s also kind of gloriously fun to have vampires at a
geeky comic convention.
Unfortunately, this book also show cases some of the
problems that the series has as well. Like Gregg being a fat vampire – which is
nicely rare and I love that he’s included, but I’m less thrilled with it being
something constantly referenced – especially when he wears spandex. It’s a
short book and there are an awful lot of cracks about his weight within it.
And then there’s Sabrina. I’ve said before how much I
love Sabrina and James’s relationship, I like how its developed, I like how its
flirted close to several tropes but never quite gone over the edge. There’s a
lot to like here. What I don’t like is that James has a severe case of Dresden Goggles.
It’s rare for him to meet a woman without assessing her sexual attractiveness
and that then becoming a major element of his description and interaction with
her. In this novella we have both
Sabrina cosplaying as Lara Croft with the inevitable mass appreciation of her
skimpy outfit and we have a big bad of a super-seductive beautiful woman who enthrals
men to make them do her bidding
That’s an awful lot of female sexiness crammed into a
small book. And yes, Sabrina is still capable and strong and snarky and funny
and saves the day – but we still spend as much time describing just how very
very very hot she is as Lara Croft as we do anything else.
In all, it’s funny, it’s fun and it’s a great
introduction to the series. If you are considering reading these books (and I’d
suggest it) then read this and Movie Knight, they’re cheap and great
introductions to the tone and setting. They’re extremely good at introducing
this series to a new reader and whetting the appetite of an old reader waiting
for the next book to come out
But this one also serves as a warning, sadly, because
both the treatment of Gregg and sex women are also a pretty good primer to the
series as well.
