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amesjo's review
4.0
It's been a while since I read a vampire novel.
I ended up liking this - Lord Wolfgang seems as though he should be supernatural, himself, with everything he is hit with - makes you wonder how he survives!
There were several creatures that were new to me in the book, and I liked that. The world in the book is overrun by all sorts of supernatural creatures that threaten the humans. Lord Wolfgang has spent his life as a hunter trying to help and protect people. One day, out of no where - things go crazy and his loved one's are attacked. His sole mission now is to find his missing son.
I liked where they left the book off, and it does make me want to buy and read the next one!
I ended up liking this - Lord Wolfgang seems as though he should be supernatural, himself, with everything he is hit with - makes you wonder how he survives!
There were several creatures that were new to me in the book, and I liked that. The world in the book is overrun by all sorts of supernatural creatures that threaten the humans. Lord Wolfgang has spent his life as a hunter trying to help and protect people. One day, out of no where - things go crazy and his loved one's are attacked. His sole mission now is to find his missing son.
I liked where they left the book off, and it does make me want to buy and read the next one!
canada_matt's review
3.0
First and foremost, a large thank you to F. D Gross for providing me with a copy of this publication, which allows me to provide you with an unbiased review.
Having been asked by the writer to read through this book, I gladly took the opportunity to do so, waiting for the ‘ghoulish’ time to approach, when I would inundate myself with other tales of a similar nature. Lord Tenor Alvadine Wolfgang is a heroic vampire hunter like no other. Armed with all the tools of the trade, Wolfgang sets out to slay Lord Egleaseon, a powerful vampire. Completing the task, Wolfgang can only hope that peace has finally been established in the area. Fast-forward sixteen years and Wolfgang has started a family, including his lovely wife, Diana, and son, Dorian. When he returns from one of his missions, Wolfgang is stunned to see his house in flames and Diana clinging to life. Worst of all, Dorian is nowhere to be found, presumably kidnapped. Wolfgang sets out to locate his son, crossing paths with many ghoulish beings. With nothing to live for if Dorian cannot be saved, Wolfgang will stop at nothing and shed copious amounts of blood to track down the fiendish individual who captured his son. As he follows the path that may lead him towards Dorian, Wolfgang discovers a plot to deceive him that has been years in the making. With this knowledge, there are even fewer he can trust during his time of need. Gross does well to lay the groundwork for this series, sure to pique the interest of readers who enjoy vampires and their associated slayers.
I agreed to take the gamble and try this book, in hopes that it would prepare me for the season. While I admit that this is not a genre I read regularly, or really find a passionate connection to, Gross has done well painting a literary picture that is sure to keep those who love vampires keenly interested. Wolfgang appears to be one of those men who have the brains and brawn, particularly when it comes to slaying bloodsucking monsters. His love of killing seems only to be eclipsed by his passion for family, though that foundation is all but gone now. Using numerous tools at his disposal, Wolfgang sets out to rid the world of evil, one creature at a time, but his motivation is quite specific. How he will evolve in the novels to come remains to be seen, but Gross has much that he can do, given the time to develop this character. The other secondary characters serve a decent purpose, including the creatures he encounters on his mission, though I admit they held little interest for me. The plot is decent and the narrative pushes forward at a decent pace, even if I was not fully enthralled by the content. While the book was not up my alley, I can recognize great work and Gross surely has much to offer those who love a good vampire hunter. While no Stoker, he is surely an author to be noticed with a series worth the curious reader’s time.
Kudos, Mr. Gross, for an excellent effort. I may not rush out to continue the series, but I hope many will, enjoying each twist along the way!
Like/hate the review? An ever-growing collection of others appears at:
http://pecheyponderings.wordpress.com/
A Book for All Seasons, a different sort of Book Challenge: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/248185-a-book-for-all-seasons
Having been asked by the writer to read through this book, I gladly took the opportunity to do so, waiting for the ‘ghoulish’ time to approach, when I would inundate myself with other tales of a similar nature. Lord Tenor Alvadine Wolfgang is a heroic vampire hunter like no other. Armed with all the tools of the trade, Wolfgang sets out to slay Lord Egleaseon, a powerful vampire. Completing the task, Wolfgang can only hope that peace has finally been established in the area. Fast-forward sixteen years and Wolfgang has started a family, including his lovely wife, Diana, and son, Dorian. When he returns from one of his missions, Wolfgang is stunned to see his house in flames and Diana clinging to life. Worst of all, Dorian is nowhere to be found, presumably kidnapped. Wolfgang sets out to locate his son, crossing paths with many ghoulish beings. With nothing to live for if Dorian cannot be saved, Wolfgang will stop at nothing and shed copious amounts of blood to track down the fiendish individual who captured his son. As he follows the path that may lead him towards Dorian, Wolfgang discovers a plot to deceive him that has been years in the making. With this knowledge, there are even fewer he can trust during his time of need. Gross does well to lay the groundwork for this series, sure to pique the interest of readers who enjoy vampires and their associated slayers.
I agreed to take the gamble and try this book, in hopes that it would prepare me for the season. While I admit that this is not a genre I read regularly, or really find a passionate connection to, Gross has done well painting a literary picture that is sure to keep those who love vampires keenly interested. Wolfgang appears to be one of those men who have the brains and brawn, particularly when it comes to slaying bloodsucking monsters. His love of killing seems only to be eclipsed by his passion for family, though that foundation is all but gone now. Using numerous tools at his disposal, Wolfgang sets out to rid the world of evil, one creature at a time, but his motivation is quite specific. How he will evolve in the novels to come remains to be seen, but Gross has much that he can do, given the time to develop this character. The other secondary characters serve a decent purpose, including the creatures he encounters on his mission, though I admit they held little interest for me. The plot is decent and the narrative pushes forward at a decent pace, even if I was not fully enthralled by the content. While the book was not up my alley, I can recognize great work and Gross surely has much to offer those who love a good vampire hunter. While no Stoker, he is surely an author to be noticed with a series worth the curious reader’s time.
Kudos, Mr. Gross, for an excellent effort. I may not rush out to continue the series, but I hope many will, enjoying each twist along the way!
Like/hate the review? An ever-growing collection of others appears at:
http://pecheyponderings.wordpress.com/
A Book for All Seasons, a different sort of Book Challenge: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/248185-a-book-for-all-seasons
wanderinglynn's review
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
2.0
The story started out okay but quickly devolved into what felt like an old school video game where the protagonist is in a dungeon fighting different beasts around every corner. With so many lucky escapes, I eventually started skimming the book just to finish it.
The overall plot isn't terrible. A fairly standard trope. A vampire hunter, a la Van Helsing, fighting monsters to save his son. The story has potential, but it needed a good editor and maybe some beta readers to help flesh it out.
The world has monsters galore including vampires, will-o-wisps, hellhounds, werewolves (or something like werewolves), ghouls, bogarts, ghosts, and more, but there is no real world building. No explanation of how the world works, including the relationship of the church to the world and fighting the monsters. At one point, one of the religious types plays the organ and that somehow succeeds in scaring away the monsters. Things like this are just dropped into the story with no context and thus become simple convenient plot devices that "miraculously" save the hero. Doing that once or twice is okay, but this happens far too many times to count.
And there's no real character development. Granted, the story takes place over only 3 days. But no explanation is given as to how or why the protagonist became a vampire hunter. The small bit of backstory there is on Wolfgang mostly focuses on his wife Diana, but there's not nearly enough to provide any context at all. As for the other characters, there's a little bit of backstory on Jochiam, but none on Kronklich. He's just a convenient plot device most of the time. And they all read rather flat, like 8-bit old school video games—two-dimensional and pixelated.
The fight scenes, of which there were a lot (see above comment on this being videogame-esque), had no emotion, no real sense of urgency. The tone for the most part was dry and bland. Even Wolfgang shows little emotion. He talks about his emotion (granted his wife was just killed and his son kidnapped), but the story fails to show the emotion. In fact, most of this is all tell and no show and that hurts the story.
A lack of world-building and character development combined with too many convenient escapes, too many well-timed appearances and disappearances make this a 2 star read.
The overall plot isn't terrible. A fairly standard trope. A vampire hunter, a la Van Helsing, fighting monsters to save his son. The story has potential, but it needed a good editor and maybe some beta readers to help flesh it out.
The world has monsters galore including vampires, will-o-wisps, hellhounds, werewolves (or something like werewolves), ghouls, bogarts, ghosts, and more, but there is no real world building. No explanation of how the world works, including the relationship of the church to the world and fighting the monsters. At one point, one of the religious types plays the organ and that somehow succeeds in scaring away the monsters. Things like this are just dropped into the story with no context and thus become simple convenient plot devices that "miraculously" save the hero. Doing that once or twice is okay, but this happens far too many times to count.
And there's no real character development. Granted, the story takes place over only 3 days. But no explanation is given as to how or why the protagonist became a vampire hunter. The small bit of backstory there is on Wolfgang mostly focuses on his wife Diana, but there's not nearly enough to provide any context at all. As for the other characters, there's a little bit of backstory on Jochiam, but none on Kronklich. He's just a convenient plot device most of the time. And they all read rather flat, like 8-bit old school video games—two-dimensional and pixelated.
The fight scenes, of which there were a lot (see above comment on this being videogame-esque), had no emotion, no real sense of urgency. The tone for the most part was dry and bland. Even Wolfgang shows little emotion. He talks about his emotion (granted his wife was just killed and his son kidnapped), but the story fails to show the emotion. In fact, most of this is all tell and no show and that hurts the story.
A lack of world-building and character development combined with too many convenient escapes, too many well-timed appearances and disappearances make this a 2 star read.
kittyg's review
2.0
This is one of my #SPFBO reads and it's a Vampire hunter story with a lot of potential, but sadly I don't think it really worked out for me. Personally I find Vampires aren't my favourite type of character, so I was quite happy to watch someone go around hunting them, but it felt quite repetitive to me and in the end I found myself a little bit too detached and estranged from the character to really be invested.
This follows Wolfgang, a famous hunter of Vampires who has been killing them for years and who, in the beginning of this book, has just slain a very old Vampire Lord. We follow Wolfgang six years after this killing when he returns home to find that his family is gone and his village is burned and in disarray. He quickly sets out to hunt down his lost son, and that is where the story begins.
What I liked about this was the concept, it's a story about a man who tries to do good by ridding the land of an evil unparalleled. However, sadly I just wasn't a fan of the battle scenes in this, they all seemed very...'lucky'. Wolfgang would easily escape situations that seemed hopeless and I found that the book was mostly made up of pure battle and fight scenes between him and various monsters. This would have been okay if there was a little more depth to the world-building and a little more depth to the character of Wolfgang, but sadly it ended up being a bit too lacking and I couldn't relate to and root for Wolfgang as I wanted to.
I gave this a 2.5*s in the end, so a 5/10 for SPFBO purposes.
This follows Wolfgang, a famous hunter of Vampires who has been killing them for years and who, in the beginning of this book, has just slain a very old Vampire Lord. We follow Wolfgang six years after this killing when he returns home to find that his family is gone and his village is burned and in disarray. He quickly sets out to hunt down his lost son, and that is where the story begins.
What I liked about this was the concept, it's a story about a man who tries to do good by ridding the land of an evil unparalleled. However, sadly I just wasn't a fan of the battle scenes in this, they all seemed very...'lucky'. Wolfgang would easily escape situations that seemed hopeless and I found that the book was mostly made up of pure battle and fight scenes between him and various monsters. This would have been okay if there was a little more depth to the world-building and a little more depth to the character of Wolfgang, but sadly it ended up being a bit too lacking and I couldn't relate to and root for Wolfgang as I wanted to.
I gave this a 2.5*s in the end, so a 5/10 for SPFBO purposes.
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