Reviews with content warning for Sexual assault - Empire of the Vampire

Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'

Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff

19 reviews

mmmicah's review against another edition

TL;DR: This book is really the embodiment of "A death by a thousand cuts". Individually the elements themselves weren't the WORST, but due to the DENSE over saturation of them, the reading experience felt more like being promised a glass of fine wine, but it's actually a glass of generic brand cough syrup in a flavor that the bottle probably would suggest it is SUPPOSED to taste like cherry.

I got suckered into reading this book because it was initially marketed as "The New GAY Vampire Fantasy- Like that Ann Rice book!" Ann Rice deserves an apology... She could actually write queer characters well. Jay Kristoff can only drool over Sapphic characters (which to be fair, he does it with all his female characters, which is the main reason I put it down) the queer characters are all side characters and purely exist to make the main character look good when he rises above everyone else and decides Homophobia Is Bad Actually!! What an Ally!! That shit might've flown in the 90s but in the year of our lord 2021 I expected the "GAYYY Vampire Fantasy" to have queer characters that actually mattered than just to exist to make the MC look cool.

I also HATED the MC with a burning passion.

If I wanted to listen to someone talk very pretentiously about the "eViLs Of ReLigEon" I would go read a book by someone who actually knows what the f#@k they are actually talking about. I don't think Jay Kristoff could've been even bothered to open a Wikipedia article about any religious institution, let alone catholicism. His research (as it seems like the rest of his works) seemed to consist of a single edgy pinterest board and a self congratulatory pat on the back for his newfound expertise in the topic.

I could continue on, but this book frankly doesn't deserve my time.

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pacifickat's review

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adventurous dark hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

"We'd fought side by side [...], and like I said, there's a bond between men who have placed their lives in a brother's hands and asked that brother to do the same. But there's fanaticism, too. There's faith unbridled and minds unquestioning, the soldier at the order of his commander, the faithful at the word of their priest. [...] My brother trusted me not so much as once he had."

Ok, so first off, my big beef with Kristoff as a writer:

He seems to have ripped off major elements of other writers and creators, such as

- The whole holy grail being a decendent of the Christ figure is directly from Dan Brown's DaVinci Code.

- There is a scene with a priest that directly copies Steven King's Salem's Lot, at times nearly verbatim.

- The D&D references, including meeting the party in a tavern and their stereotypical qualities by class made me chuckle and shake my head. It's just silliness.

- The back maybe quarter of this book is straight up The Last of Us, including the supposed safehaven the teenage girl is delivered to wanting to kill her to end the vampire scourge, and our MC busting in and killing everyone to save her.

-Ashdrinker reminds me a lot of Sanderson's crazy talking sword, Nightblood. Obviously talking named swords have been around in fantasy for a while, it's just that this particular sword who is a bit unhinged feels a bit too familiar at times.

-The whole aged and broken chosen one/king killer telling his story to a chronicler over 3 books is very simikar to the structure of Patrick Rothfuss' Kingkiller Chronicles.

Do readers who adore this book simply not recognize all the glaringly obvious borrowed plot elements, or do they enjoy the references and not mind that it makes the storyline easy to anticipate? I felt like this blunted what probably should have been the most surprising plot twists, and saw several big reveals coming a mile away, somewhat gobsmacked the author would so directly pull from other books and media. When I described some of these overlaps with other works to my husband, he asked if I thought the book was partially written by AI. (I don't believe it was, but that would exlpain the number of things pulled from existing sources.)

I also didn't really like how sanguimancy was never really explained other than it fixes a lot of problems in a pinch in the story. Feels very convenient, a very squishy element of the magic system.

Now, on to things I liked:

In the end, I still very much enjoyed the audiobook. The audio narrator did a brilliant job bringing the characters to life with various distinct accents and voice intonations. I honestly probably would have given up on the book otherwise due to all of the seeming copy/paste from works of other creators and the subsequent predictability of the storyline.

I know the author doesn't like the term, but the story is grimdark through and through, meaning no good and noble deed goes unpunished. I like what this kind of story says about those who do good in a bleak world in spite of great personal cost. Kindness and mercy are only extended at great risk. I think this is one of the most compelling things about EotV. Allowing oneself to love takes the greatest sort of courage.

I liked how Kristoff used this dark and bloody setting to explore ideas about faith, fate, fidelity, fanaticism, family, friendship, and the stubborn endurance of hope. (I know, that last one should have started with F as well.) There are elements of the One Faith, the book's thinly veiled version of Christianity, that are just as dark and frightening as the impending vampire invasion: a torturous inquisition, corporal punishments, acts of violence in the name of blind faith, fidelity to the cruel teachings and practices of church leaders, fanatical interpretations of scriptures and prophecies, and an underlying religious lore that makes sacrificing individuals for the sake of the whole an acceptable and honorable wager (in the pattern of the Christ figure they call the Redeemer). This is a world of characters caught between a rock and a hard place, each deciding what to do in the face of their humanity becoming a liability. What will they hope in? What hill will they die on? Who/what will they sacrifice for redemption? This is where the book is at its best.

The best action sequence imo was

when Gabriel falls through the ice. To me, it was much more tense and scary than any if the vampire fights, perhaps because it was the most realistic life-threatening event in the story. He can basically bounce back from anything else, but drowning in a fozen river is legitimately terrifying.

.

I wish that

Liathe had been an embodied form of Ashdrinker.

Yeah, I don't know exactly how that would have worked, but I think it would've been cool and I could see a few ways it could have been achieved.

Anyways, that's my meandering review on this 27+ hour listen. I will likely listen to book 2 next month.

Content Warnings

whackettreading's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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mauillustrations's review against another edition

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adventurous dark slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

Oh god… this book…

Alright, let me start this review by stating that, unlike many other readers who gave this book a low rating, I was able to somewhat enjoy the read. To a certain extent at least. Edgy, gothic, vampire stories are my guilty pleasure and I have a certain fondness for the cringy emo vibes the writing style gives. I’ve also read this book in a big vampire binge. I’m playing a Curse of Strahd game, which I am impossibly obsessed with, and I had just finished watching Castlevania (the animated tv show). So when I stumbled upon Empire of the Vampire, I was in the perfect mood for the kind of story I thought it would tell and I might’ve tunnel visioned my experience of it to satisfy my cravings.

I had fun with the general aesthetics and world building, and took interest in how the author explore the vampire mythos. I especially enjoy when vampire stories link the creature to nobility like EotV does. The different Vampire houses were an interest premise and I thought some of the quotes landed well when you don’t mind Kristoff’s emo writing style.

“There’s no misery so deep as one you face by yourself. No nights darker than the ones you spend alone. But you can learn to live with any weight. Your scars grow thick enough, they become armor.”

“But more, and truer still, there’s just no one with more to prove than the boy at the bottom of the pile. You feed a man your table scraps, he grows hungry long before he grows thin."

That being said, there’s still A LOT to criticize about this book…

SPOILER WARNING for both Empire of the Vampire and the Nevernight trilogy ahead.

First off, Empire of the Vampire isn’t very original. Now, that’s not always a bad thing, it doesn’t necessarily mean that reading it is boring or unpleasant, but it sure as hell feels like a lot of the overall plot was recycled from other works. The author himself said that it’s heavily inspired by Interview with a Vampire and The Name of the Wind, and it shows. There’s also a plot twist at the end that’s basically copy pasted from The Last of Us and when you think about it, the whole concept is also pretty similar to his Nevernight trilogy:

An edgy main character with unique abilities who’s of a rare species/kind with dark hair and pale skin and loves to smoke and swear goes into some kind of cult like organisation situated in a weird church to be trained as killers. The MC has a quirky companion who most people can’t hear and who often comments or advise the MC on their quest in a world where the day and night cycle is fucked up. There’s at some point in the book a sapphic relationship with somewhat explicit sexual content between teenage girls, one being a viking inspired character and the other being a very skinny, spiteful young woman. And finally, the storytelling is told as if from a book or memoir and there’s often comments from the narrator(s).

So yeah… that’s that for the originality…

Second, EotV is the book that was most clearly written by a middle aged man I have ever read. Without even addressing the blatant misogyny, the general way women characters are written is clearly to cater to the male gaze. All woman are hot, they're usually describe in way more details than man characters and this goes not only when they are introduced. When they speak, when they move, when they enter a scene, there’s almost always a comment on how they’re dressed, how their limbs move sensually, how their lips are blood red, their skin milk white, their figure curvy, etc… The violence - because this book is very violent and gory - feels likes it’s described differently when women are the victim. The narration focuses way more on the description of their wounds, their screams and/or their bodies than it does with men (though there is exceptions, just talking generally here). There’s one of the antagonists who’s whole gimmick is slaving young virgin girls, using them like animals and shields. There’s at least 4 named female characters who are raped (and many more general mentions of different degrees of sexual assault). Not to mention the fridging of the main character’s mother, sisters, wife and daughter, the overall misogynistic setting, and the countless “your mom” and prostitutes jokes.

Now, I’m not saying misogyny can’t or shouldn’t be portrayed in a story, a setting or a character. But EotV uses misogyny as an aesthetic. It’s there to make the world edgy, to portray the characters as assholes (sometimes in a quirky kind of way). It’s not necessarily portrayed as a good thing, there’s clearly an underlying implication that it’s a bad aspect of the culture and setting, but it’s never adressed more deeply than once or twice by a #girlboss character who throws a line like “girls aren’t just tits on legs”. Wow. Feminism at its finest…

There’s also a constant presence of oversexualization of any female character, especially, and uncomfortably so, underaged ones. I’ve already mentioned the focused descriptions and the sexual jokes, but it goes way further than this. There’s plenty of explicit sex scenes between minor characters, the book even starts with one. In the two timelines where the book takes place, first one following teenage main character and second one following the MC in his thirties, most of the explicit sex scenes take place in the underaged timeline.

There also random sexual descriptions or instances that happen in moments where I really feel is tonally inapropriate. For exemple, there’s a scene at one point where a vampire just starts to touch herself mid-combat, for no reason at all except that I guess there’s blood that has been shed? It didn’t bring the scene further, didn’t provide anything for the story or to the characterization of said vampire (who I believe we never see again).

“She ran her tongue along her teeth, bloody fingertips across the gaping wound at her throat, roaming down the hourglass of her body and pressing hard between her legs.”

To top it all, the main character is constantly struggling to keep it in his pants. Him being a pale blood supposedly makes him super horny and his inner dialogue is often reminiscing on how he’s hot and hard for whoever’s in front of him, on how his blood is boiling from the desire and so on - which becomes really weird when you remember he’s actually saying all of this out loud to some vampire who’s writing it all down on paper.

So yeah… as much as I felt enjoyment while reading it, the more I think about it, the more the experience sours. I read this book in 2021, before I started to put conscious efforts into analysing my reads and diversifying what I consume. 3 years later, I’ve very much developped (or so I hope) my critical thinking and I’ve now consumed more diverse stories. I know now that to enjoy a good story, I don’t have to turn a blind eye to what feels wrong. You want a good gothic vampire story? Read A Dowry of Blood by S.T. Gibson or Silver Under Nightfall|60321513|Silver Under Nightfall by Rin Chupeco or even Woman, Eating by Claire Kohda. These are stories who succeed in being gothic and macabre, epic and/or edgy, without forcing misogyny or bigotry on the reader. They might explore these themes, but they never use it as an aesthetic to make the setting dirtier.

Anyway! If you read until this point, props to you! That’s all I have for EotV. I’m still debating whether I’ll read the sequel or not. I’m still curious about the plot, but I dread having to go through another 700 or so pages of this r/menwritingwomen script…

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honeywaffles's review against another edition

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Too dark and gruesome

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n_j_k's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

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violet_gray's review

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adventurous medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

This review is specifically for the audio version with no pretty pictures to distract me from the hot mess which is the writing.
The “banter” is early 2000’s edgy stand up style humor.
The inconsistent mix of random French, faux old English and modern day English breaks all immersion.

I’m ok with mixing timelines but they don’t pay off. Also the contant moving of the goal post robs the story of anything remotely resembling a satisfying conclusion .

The world building is not there. There’s mushrooms, potatoes, water and vague other races. Where are they? How does that impact who they are and how the world treats them? 🤷🏼‍♀️

Now specifically for the audio version… oh dear. That was a hot mess of accents and styles.

Less objective thoughts.
This reads like fan fiction of many different properties , most blatantly The Vampire Chronicles (French Nobel woman in exile in the country side, married to drunk husband has a child that extra special and their name is Lion something) and The Last of Us (hear me out: grumpy dude who loses daughter must deliver children to authorities that will use her to save the world but then decides he’d rather burn the world than have her die. Also fungus monsters) but the author likes gritty comics and George Carlin humour and things they can do better and this was their attempt at that.

And as someone that likes all those things as well, I do wish this worked.
Hence the two starts instead of 1. But it doesn’t work cause the writing is bad. There is no real reason for this book to be this long unless you are aiming to appeal to Sanderson fans but can’t do all the world building he does.
If books were kids toys, Sarah j Maas would purple sparkly toy and this would the exact same crap plastic toy but in blue and black.

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lifeonasofa's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Empire of the Vampire 🧛🏼‍♂️ Review

“Finally, he retrieved a tarnished royale from his pocket. 'Here.'

'What is that for?' Jean-François demanded.

'I want you to take this coin to market, and buy me a fuck to give.” - Jay Kristoff 🪙

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 4.5 Stars

If you’re looking for an adult vampire world to live in for the foreseeable future…this is it. At over 700 pages, this is only part one and Jay Kristoff is taking his TIME telling Gabriel’s tale. But for an opening, this book was art 😘

It took me some time to get through this. It’s definitely not a relaxing read, it’s an experience. Having said that, when I did read it, the plot still moved pretty quickly. The book jumps everywhere along the timeline so it keeps it interesting 🤔

I LOVED Gabriel, his character was so fleshed out. He felt so real. The whole silversaint thing, so interesting. Surprisingly, the religion side of this was probably my favourite part. Particularly, the loss in belief and light - it really helped flesh out the history of the world👌🏻

Heads up, it’s a blood bath so if you’re put off by blood, death (some pretty sad) and foul language…I’d be wary 😂 it’s definitely not a kids book. I really loved how Kristoff combined such a classic story telling writing style with the relaxed banter dialogue, it somehow kept it light 👏🏻

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aseel_reads's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

While I liked the narrator style and the world we were in, it was super long for no reason? The amount of detail for someone recounting their life was absolutely ridiculous. I also can't believe there are going to be 5 books

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kaelielily's review against another edition

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dark sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Das Reich der Vampire ist ein sehr dickes Fantasy Buch mit einer komplexen Welt und Vorgeschichte, und ist mit seinen knapp 1000 Seiten gerade mal der 1. Teil einer mehrteiligen Reihe. Zudem ist das Buch deutlich düsterer als alles was ich sonst lese. Dementsprechend langsam war der Einstieg in das Buch. Es brauchte eine Weile, bis ich wirklich in dieses Buch abtauchen konnte, aber dann hat es mich absolut gefesselt.
Der Interview Stil in dem das Buch geschrieben ist, passte perfekt dazu und der Wechsel zwischen den verschiedenen Zeitlinien hat die Spannung aufrecht erhalten.
Ich war lange nicht mehr so emotional bei einem Buch. Glücklich, wütend, aber auch zu Tränen gerührt. Manche Verrate oder Handlungswendungen waren etwas vorhersehbar, wie zum Beispiel auch das Ende. Aber dennoch war es ein sehr gutes Buch, bei dem noch viele Fragen offen geblieben sind, und ich bin sehr gespannt auf die Antworten, die die folgenden Bücher bringen werden.
Ich hoffe immer noch auf ein Happy End, auch wenn Jay Kristoff von sich sagt, dass er daran nicht glaubt.

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