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A review by rubeusbeaky
Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff
4.0
This book was painful, in good ways and bad.
The Good: The characters, their GRIEF, are visceral. I always say, the mark of a phenomenal book is in how much it makes you feel. I definitely spent this whole book feeling all the feelings. Jay Kristoff is a master storyteller, a master world and character-builder, and he puts you right in the filthy boots of all the complicated people populating this book.
And of course... the monsters... Not just the bloodthirsty creatures of the night. But the dregs of humanity, and what people are willing to do to each other...
It's a shame that the most interesting tale to tell seems promised for a future installment! There is so much introduced, but as yet unexplored: Sanguimancy, Esan/Esani, the mystery of what started/will end daysdeath, witches and faekin and all kinds of creatures filling the background and fringes... "Patience" is the word of the day, I guess XD.
The Bad: As I mentioned above, this first installment introduces A LOT, but unfortunately origin stories are hackneyed and cliche these days. Ooo, a grizzly hero, out for revenge, turns out to have a heart of gold and a saaad backstory about the loss of his family. A vampire-hunter who is half-vampire himself, and belongs to a holy order of hunters. A seeming nobody from nowheresville turns out to be destined for a heroic calling, trains with a mentor/in a secret school to hone his abilities, believes himself lacking anything special, and then turns out to have the most epic of superpowers and genealogies. A hero takes a vow of celibacy, but then tragically falls for a pair of boobies. A hero joins a holy guild of assassins, but becomes disillusioned with their faith and creed, is excommunicated by the - wait a minute, now J.K. is recycling himself! I see you there, cis male Mia! You can't fool me!
What starts as homage to all the vampire tale predecessors (Ha, Interview with a Vampire-Hunter, I see what you did there. Clever.) becomes a shuffled deck of vampire tropes and snippets of other franchises. Yes, I see you, Gabriel The Witcher, roiding out before every battle, and escorting your little white-haired apprentice across the dark fairytale woods. I see you too, Gabriel Solo, camping inside your mount's carcass. Gabriel Snow, Winter is Coming, watch out for that undead hoard in the mountains! If you edit out the creative cussing, and the "been there, done that" of this pretty generic masculine hero...you lose the first 500 pages of the book. It's only the back half, with Dior, Aaron, Baptise, Liathe, and Danton and his Ironhearts, that really shines. Yep, go ahead and make fun of this snowflake, but the best part of this series is not the heterosexual, white man with pride and anger issues; it's his gay friends. Look at all these secondary characters! A person of color, two strong female characters, multiple LGBTQA representatives - this is a beautiful cast of characters, and it was SIDE-LINED to watch a dude-bro drink too much. There is a BEAUTIFUL message, about faith in one's friends being as strong as any religious fervor, enough to hold back the tides of darkness... I just wish this message were delivered by a more unique hero. Sorry, bastard. His words.
My other gripe is possibly nitpicky, this won't bother casual readers as much as it did me. I am a connoisseur of Gothic fiction and vampire stories. The vampire MEANS something, in every story it's in. It's not just a creature of super speed, strength, seduction, etc. It stands in as a dark mirror for humanity. It's a symbol, representing suppressed urges, perverted faith, plague or the inevitability of death...SOMETHING. The vampire doesn't just show up to cause a fight scene. The vampire is supposed to make US compare ourselves to THEM, and ask big questions about what it means to be human, to be Good, to find value in our fleeting existence... This book ALMOST gets there. ALMOST. The questions arise: Can a sin lead to something good? If doctrine says an action is a sin, but the action is inspired by love/good intentions, how can the doctrine be right? But the dots are never quite connected: That if a human and a vampire commit the same sin, why is one redeemable and the other not? The seed was sewn, when the young bride and groom vampire attempted to defend/avenge each other. There is, potentially, an emotional complexity to these creatures that Gabriel was taught to ignore, a soldier trained to dehumanize The Other. We see too in his thoughts about Saoirse and the Pagans: Gabriel has a limited, condescending understanding of the greater world, blinders put in place by his faith. We don't know the origin of vampires in this world, and we don't know much about the other "dark" creatures that populate it. I am hoping the definition for a monster lies elsewhere, in Selfishness perhaps, or Excess. But I am hoping that this tale grows into a story of how we view The Other, and how we forge a Brotherhood when we open ourselves to another. The inverse and perversion of that Brotherhood of Others being the vampires who create like and beholden, their bloodline and their creed enslaving "allies" to their way.
But for NOW, those are hopes I've pinned on the sequels, and not so very present in THIS book. The tale so far is: A vampire shows up to a town, usually with a bunch of zombies in tow, and just because they hate humans and love drinking blood, they obliterate everything.
I want DEPTH to these vampires. I want symbolism. I want a comment on the human condition! I want literary vampires, not video game vampires.
I'll get off my soapbox now.
This was a difficult book to sink into. It's a long wait before it becomes its own. But it /does/, and it's worth the wait, and I have no doubt that the next installment will be twice as worth the wait. I love and trust this author, I'm in it for the long-haul. But fair warning, dear readers, buckle up for this book: It is a long, depressing, trope-packed read before it gets fun.
The Good: The characters, their GRIEF, are visceral. I always say, the mark of a phenomenal book is in how much it makes you feel. I definitely spent this whole book feeling all the feelings. Jay Kristoff is a master storyteller, a master world and character-builder, and he puts you right in the filthy boots of all the complicated people populating this book.
And of course... the monsters... Not just the bloodthirsty creatures of the night. But the dregs of humanity, and what people are willing to do to each other...
It's a shame that the most interesting tale to tell seems promised for a future installment! There is so much introduced, but as yet unexplored: Sanguimancy, Esan/Esani, the mystery of what started/will end daysdeath, witches and faekin and all kinds of creatures filling the background and fringes... "Patience" is the word of the day, I guess XD.
The Bad: As I mentioned above, this first installment introduces A LOT, but unfortunately origin stories are hackneyed and cliche these days. Ooo, a grizzly hero, out for revenge, turns out to have a heart of gold and a saaad backstory about the loss of his family. A vampire-hunter who is half-vampire himself, and belongs to a holy order of hunters. A seeming nobody from nowheresville turns out to be destined for a heroic calling, trains with a mentor/in a secret school to hone his abilities, believes himself lacking anything special, and then turns out to have the most epic of superpowers and genealogies. A hero takes a vow of celibacy, but then tragically falls for a pair of boobies. A hero joins a holy guild of assassins, but becomes disillusioned with their faith and creed, is excommunicated by the - wait a minute, now J.K. is recycling himself! I see you there, cis male Mia! You can't fool me!
What starts as homage to all the vampire tale predecessors (Ha, Interview with a Vampire-Hunter, I see what you did there. Clever.) becomes a shuffled deck of vampire tropes and snippets of other franchises. Yes, I see you, Gabriel The Witcher, roiding out before every battle, and escorting your little white-haired apprentice across the dark fairytale woods. I see you too, Gabriel Solo, camping inside your mount's carcass. Gabriel Snow, Winter is Coming, watch out for that undead hoard in the mountains! If you edit out the creative cussing, and the "been there, done that" of this pretty generic masculine hero...you lose the first 500 pages of the book. It's only the back half, with Dior, Aaron, Baptise, Liathe, and Danton and his Ironhearts, that really shines. Yep, go ahead and make fun of this snowflake, but the best part of this series is not the heterosexual, white man with pride and anger issues; it's his gay friends. Look at all these secondary characters! A person of color, two strong female characters, multiple LGBTQA representatives - this is a beautiful cast of characters, and it was SIDE-LINED to watch a dude-bro drink too much. There is a BEAUTIFUL message, about faith in one's friends being as strong as any religious fervor, enough to hold back the tides of darkness... I just wish this message were delivered by a more unique hero. Sorry, bastard. His words.
My other gripe is possibly nitpicky, this won't bother casual readers as much as it did me. I am a connoisseur of Gothic fiction and vampire stories. The vampire MEANS something, in every story it's in. It's not just a creature of super speed, strength, seduction, etc. It stands in as a dark mirror for humanity. It's a symbol, representing suppressed urges, perverted faith, plague or the inevitability of death...SOMETHING. The vampire doesn't just show up to cause a fight scene. The vampire is supposed to make US compare ourselves to THEM, and ask big questions about what it means to be human, to be Good, to find value in our fleeting existence... This book ALMOST gets there. ALMOST. The questions arise: Can a sin lead to something good? If doctrine says an action is a sin, but the action is inspired by love/good intentions, how can the doctrine be right? But the dots are never quite connected: That if a human and a vampire commit the same sin, why is one redeemable and the other not? The seed was sewn, when the young bride and groom vampire attempted to defend/avenge each other. There is, potentially, an emotional complexity to these creatures that Gabriel was taught to ignore, a soldier trained to dehumanize The Other. We see too in his thoughts about Saoirse and the Pagans: Gabriel has a limited, condescending understanding of the greater world, blinders put in place by his faith. We don't know the origin of vampires in this world, and we don't know much about the other "dark" creatures that populate it. I am hoping the definition for a monster lies elsewhere, in Selfishness perhaps, or Excess. But I am hoping that this tale grows into a story of how we view The Other, and how we forge a Brotherhood when we open ourselves to another. The inverse and perversion of that Brotherhood of Others being the vampires who create like and beholden, their bloodline and their creed enslaving "allies" to their way.
But for NOW, those are hopes I've pinned on the sequels, and not so very present in THIS book. The tale so far is: A vampire shows up to a town, usually with a bunch of zombies in tow, and just because they hate humans and love drinking blood, they obliterate everything.
I want DEPTH to these vampires. I want symbolism. I want a comment on the human condition! I want literary vampires, not video game vampires.
I'll get off my soapbox now.
This was a difficult book to sink into. It's a long wait before it becomes its own. But it /does/, and it's worth the wait, and I have no doubt that the next installment will be twice as worth the wait. I love and trust this author, I'm in it for the long-haul. But fair warning, dear readers, buckle up for this book: It is a long, depressing, trope-packed read before it gets fun.