Light has had a tumultuous life as a vampire. From his
original Election by Ruby he has gone through the decades discovering what it
means to be a vampire, how that differs from humanity and the new rules –or lack
thereof – of his existence
Until a new era and a new love opens his eyes to the
potential of humanity while he also learns that vampire reality has far more
rules than he originally imagined
This book reminded me very strongly of Anne Rice’s Vampire
Chronicles Series.
Unfortunately, as people who’ve read me reviews will
know, I absolutely hated that series.
The similarity is that we have our protagonist, Light,
recounting his long long long history in overly elaborate language and
including a lot of detail that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense in someone
recapping their own experiences. In between the very elaborate recounting we
have musings of philosophy (again, very reminiscent of The Vampire Chronciles) only this is very focused on the difference
between Blood Life and First Life and what being a vampire means.
The difficulty I have with the philosophy is it feels
both unnecessary (since, ultimately, it comes down to Light valuing creativity
and originality and discovering who has it while at the same time being the
most clichéd rebel you ever did see) at the same time it feels shallow. Like if
you’re going to of this route and look at the evolution of humanity and
examining the differences between the vampires and humans then do it – don’t
just have this aside that turns up now and then but is never really explored in
I think one of my main issues with this book is the
format. Because it is set out as Light’s autobiography. And we start with Light
and his now elderly human lover and the very beautiful poignant emotion he has over
her slow loss to disease. It’s beautiful and it’s sad and it… doesn’t really
explain why he’s writing a long history of himself addressed to the human lover
who is no longer in a position to read it. But more, it’s like a story that
begins at the end. The rest of the book tells us Light’s story – but we already
know what happens to him. We know he falls in love with a human and moves
somewhere isolated to spend the rest of their lives together. This is told to
us in the first chapter. The rest of the story becomes… prequel? A plot whose
tension is lost because we know pretty much exactly what is going to happen
That’s not always a killer – I mean the journey can
definitely be more interesting than the arrival… but I honestly don’t like
Light. I mean Aralt, one of the antagonists, calls him a baby… but he’s not
wrong. Light’s whole “rebel without a clue” schtick is dull – and he makes a
big point about vampire originality but his chosen clothing for 50 years is the
Rocker outfit he stole off one of his victims without any real investment in
the lifestyle or culture that goes with it. That’s the very definition of a shallow
conformist! He listened to music because he liked the music – but there was no
sense of what that music meant to him or if it had meaning at all beyond the
fact he liked music. His rebellion comes down to not wanting anyone to tell him
what to do, stealing shit even when he has the money to buy it and just wandering
around not doing a whole lot except having sex. That’s not “rebel”, that’s “lazy
slacker”.
Don’t get me wrong, there are some excellent moments
here. Light’s conflicted relationship with his creator Ruby is quite fraught
and layered (but becomes tiresome towards the end where, yet again, I find
myself agreeing with Aralt that he needs to actually sort his own stuff out and
not being so desperately co-dependent). Ruby’s exposition of her past, the
misogynist Elizabethan culture she came from that traded her as an object and
how excellently vampirism saved her and liberated her… but then Aralt appears and
she seems to lose all agency altogether! Why make that excellent point of her
past and not develop it at all? Light’s relationship with his lover was
poignant and desperate towards the end. The depiction of vampires was certainly
interesting – but the over-elaborate writing just made it so clunky.
In terms of diversity, I can’t remember any meaningful
POC, which is depressing considering how much of this took place in London of
all cities. We do have a bisexual character who exists to catch lots of
homophobic slurs and to be predatory towards Light, a straight man, who
definitely doesn’t want Donovan groping him. Predatory bisexual – who is also a
pretty ineffectual hedonist doing pretty much nothing. This is not good
inclusion, not even close
On top of all this, there’s another unfortunate part of
this book that nearly drove me to DNF it so many times. The language. Oh gods
the language. Light has one of the worst Dick
Van Spike accents ever – and this whole book is written in his voice. Eyes
are mentioned repeatedly, Light really likes to mention eyes – but he refers to
them as “Peepers” every single time. Peepers. Heads are “nuts”. ALWAYS. Noses are
“nebs”. Faces are “mush”. Women are “bints”
or “birds.” It’s awful, it’s like someone fed a cockney hallucinogens, beat him
soundly around the head and then made him recount this book. It’s painful. I
feel slightly impressed that I managed to drag my way through it.
Also, why "blood dragons"? And why the cogs on the cover? That screams steam punk
