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awesomelybadbooks's review against another edition
3.0
Last year I read The Wyrm by Stephen Law and was very unimpressed. So unimpressed that I actually forgot I read anything by this author until I was scrolling through my past reads on GoodReads and recognized the name. I hadn't yet started Fear Me at that point and was given pause, wondering if I wanted to even give this author a second chance. Since I do believe in second chances, I decided to go ahead and start the book. I am happy to say that I liked it better than my previous experience, but not by that much. Fear Me is about a vampire that steps away from the mythos about vampires we have all come to know and love, combining it with the mythos of the incubus. Gideon, our vampire, doesn't sustain his immortal existence on blood, but with feeding on the women he hypnotizes into sleeping with him. Trigger warning, none of the women seem very keen on actually being with him so there are elements of assault in there without getting too graphic (i.e. no detailed sex scenes in here, just implied badness). That is all I will say in regard to that as I don't want to spoil what happens to them from there in case you want to read the book!
Here's the thing, I liked the concept. I think his ideas of vampirism are very creative and a nice step away from the usual. However, the main problem I had with this book is that it took on the points of view of way too many characters! Bernice, Jacqueline, Yvonne, Paul, Van Buren, Leonard, Shapiro, Gideon. Instead of picking 1-3 characters to stick with, Laws chose to go with multiple which, for me, made the story suffer. It was far too many characters to see the points of view from! So, while the story was there, the connection with the characters definitely was not. I had a hard time connecting with any of the characters and, perhaps, that could have been fixed by focusing it down more and trying to show the fear, the panic, the confusion, etc. Also, the antagonist, himself, is not that scary. He's a creep, for sure, but not scary in the least. I think what the character was written to do was more disgusting than scary, but that's just my opinion. He had no charisma to make him stand out. He was just a creep.
However, this was definitely better than my last Stephen Laws read! I'm not completely angry at it, just wish there had been more there for me to connect with, to feel something!
Here's the thing, I liked the concept. I think his ideas of vampirism are very creative and a nice step away from the usual. However, the main problem I had with this book is that it took on the points of view of way too many characters! Bernice, Jacqueline, Yvonne, Paul, Van Buren, Leonard, Shapiro, Gideon. Instead of picking 1-3 characters to stick with, Laws chose to go with multiple which, for me, made the story suffer. It was far too many characters to see the points of view from! So, while the story was there, the connection with the characters definitely was not. I had a hard time connecting with any of the characters and, perhaps, that could have been fixed by focusing it down more and trying to show the fear, the panic, the confusion, etc. Also, the antagonist, himself, is not that scary. He's a creep, for sure, but not scary in the least. I think what the character was written to do was more disgusting than scary, but that's just my opinion. He had no charisma to make him stand out. He was just a creep.
However, this was definitely better than my last Stephen Laws read! I'm not completely angry at it, just wish there had been more there for me to connect with, to feel something!
paperbackstash's review
3.0
Vampire stories are a dime a dozen, so it's a given that for them to be even mildly interesting, they can't be cursed with the same endless repetition. Laws injects nifty enough twists, first in how the vampire strangely feeds, and second in how he keeps himself alive. In feeding he collects a woman and keeps stealing her away when he wishes to sate his hunger, until eventually she is dead from this, err...erotic style of nourishment. No blood for this bad boy!
I had written how different it was in how he kept his internal, eternal clock ticking, but then thought better and used the delete button. Maybe this is something best discovered by the reader and not spoiled here. I will just say the pattern of "seven" and "rage" was a clever tactic and small sub-mystery.
The villain, Gideon, is a nasty vampire - you fans of fanged fiends who hate the Anne Rice trend have reason to applaud. The protagonist is a decent enough guy but not overly interesting. The three women range from weepy to superhero. No one is over-stereotypical and the Law's paper people come alive well enough to manage, but there's just too many of them. It hurts the pacing a bit; I hate too much head hopping. I also wished we could have seen inside the vampire's head some, for he likely would be the more interesting of the lot.
Pacing is nimbly satisfying, beginning with an adumbration of the protagonist and what's to come, yet leaving much more to be unearthed later. Atmosphere is delightfully horror-filled, particularly the apartment scene. (Sadly, the library massacre which follows a short while later was a smidge cheesy). Some deaths are literally depressing; thankfully Laws does not shy away from exploring violence or blood.
The author's writing style is morbidly apt with the subject, not bloated with being overly descriptive or annoying 'poetic-like musings'. He keeps the words suited with the story, trying to keep the pace steady. I will say this book dares to lose some interest in the middle, it just drags on a little much, and the overabundance of characters doesn't help. At the end the fight thankfully was not a cop-out, being lengthy and complicated, while keeping its depressing ring.
Fear Me is a typical dark horror novel that doesn't shy away from pain, death, or red stuff. Characters aren't too grating and I can understand their motivations, and the ending is anything but wimpy. Still, Fear Me lacks some luster by not standing out enough, using a quick enough pace to stay interesting but not riveting. The villain isn't explored too deeply and just comes across as cruel - which, for this type of book, is good - but I couldn't care less about his fate either. Mild cheesiness during moments brought it down more points. A book worth reading but not seeking out.
I had written how different it was in how he kept his internal, eternal clock ticking, but then thought better and used the delete button. Maybe this is something best discovered by the reader and not spoiled here. I will just say the pattern of "seven" and "rage" was a clever tactic and small sub-mystery.
The villain, Gideon, is a nasty vampire - you fans of fanged fiends who hate the Anne Rice trend have reason to applaud. The protagonist is a decent enough guy but not overly interesting. The three women range from weepy to superhero. No one is over-stereotypical and the Law's paper people come alive well enough to manage, but there's just too many of them. It hurts the pacing a bit; I hate too much head hopping. I also wished we could have seen inside the vampire's head some, for he likely would be the more interesting of the lot.
Pacing is nimbly satisfying, beginning with an adumbration of the protagonist and what's to come, yet leaving much more to be unearthed later. Atmosphere is delightfully horror-filled, particularly the apartment scene. (Sadly, the library massacre which follows a short while later was a smidge cheesy). Some deaths are literally depressing; thankfully Laws does not shy away from exploring violence or blood.
The author's writing style is morbidly apt with the subject, not bloated with being overly descriptive or annoying 'poetic-like musings'. He keeps the words suited with the story, trying to keep the pace steady. I will say this book dares to lose some interest in the middle, it just drags on a little much, and the overabundance of characters doesn't help. At the end the fight thankfully was not a cop-out, being lengthy and complicated, while keeping its depressing ring.
Fear Me is a typical dark horror novel that doesn't shy away from pain, death, or red stuff. Characters aren't too grating and I can understand their motivations, and the ending is anything but wimpy. Still, Fear Me lacks some luster by not standing out enough, using a quick enough pace to stay interesting but not riveting. The villain isn't explored too deeply and just comes across as cruel - which, for this type of book, is good - but I couldn't care less about his fate either. Mild cheesiness during moments brought it down more points. A book worth reading but not seeking out.
ladiicatherine's review
3.0
Last year I read The Wyrm by Stephen Law and was very unimpressed. So unimpressed that I actually forgot I read anything by this author until I was scrolling through my past reads on GoodReads and recognized the name. I hadn't yet started Fear Me at that point and was given pause, wondering if I wanted to even give this author a second chance. Since I do believe in second chances, I decided to go ahead and start the book. I am happy to say that I liked it better than my previous experience, but not by that much. Fear Me is about a vampire that steps away from the mythos about vampires we have all come to know and love, combining it with the mythos of the incubus. Gideon, our vampire, doesn't sustain his immortal existence on blood, but with feeding on the women he hypnotizes into sleeping with him. Trigger warning, none of the women seem very keen on actually being with him so there are elements of assault in there without getting too graphic (i.e. no detailed sex scenes in here, just implied badness). That is all I will say in regard to that as I don't want to spoil what happens to them from there in case you want to read the book!
Here's the thing, I liked the concept. I think his ideas of vampirism are very creative and a nice step away from the usual. However, the main problem I had with this book is that it took on the points of view of way too many characters! Bernice, Jacqueline, Yvonne, Paul, Van Buren, Leonard, Shapiro, Gideon. Instead of picking 1-3 characters to stick with, Laws chose to go with multiple which, for me, made the story suffer. It was far too many characters to see the points of view from! So, while the story was there, the connection with the characters definitely was not. I had a hard time connecting with any of the characters and, perhaps, that could have been fixed by focusing it down more and trying to show the fear, the panic, the confusion, etc. Also, the antagonist, himself, is not that scary. He's a creep, for sure, but not scary in the least. I think what the character was written to do was more disgusting than scary, but that's just my opinion. He had no charisma to make him stand out. He was just a creep.
However, this was definitely better than my last Stephen Laws read! I'm not completely angry at it, just wish there had been more there for me to connect with, to feel something!
Here's the thing, I liked the concept. I think his ideas of vampirism are very creative and a nice step away from the usual. However, the main problem I had with this book is that it took on the points of view of way too many characters! Bernice, Jacqueline, Yvonne, Paul, Van Buren, Leonard, Shapiro, Gideon. Instead of picking 1-3 characters to stick with, Laws chose to go with multiple which, for me, made the story suffer. It was far too many characters to see the points of view from! So, while the story was there, the connection with the characters definitely was not. I had a hard time connecting with any of the characters and, perhaps, that could have been fixed by focusing it down more and trying to show the fear, the panic, the confusion, etc. Also, the antagonist, himself, is not that scary. He's a creep, for sure, but not scary in the least. I think what the character was written to do was more disgusting than scary, but that's just my opinion. He had no charisma to make him stand out. He was just a creep.
However, this was definitely better than my last Stephen Laws read! I'm not completely angry at it, just wish there had been more there for me to connect with, to feel something!
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