Scan barcode
A review by dc7
An American Lamb in Europe by Rob Colton
3.0
I was finally in the mood for a vampire book. I'm a huge fan of Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles but surprisingly, had never read any other queer vampire story. So it was about time to change that.
AN AMERICAN LAMB IN EUROPE follows Jamie who travels to Czech Republic in search of his younger brother Rudy who has been supposedly found dead, but the police has “lost” the body and Jamie isn’t buying it. Jamie soon runs into the vampires that struggle for control over the region. Among them is Tomas, who turns out to be the protector Jamie needs while searching for his brother.
One of the first things I noticed was how negatively Czech Republic and Germany were portrayed. As someone who has lived in both countries, I found the portrayal of them at times bordering on the offensive. The word “Aryan” is used to describe a blond character, which I found particularly jarring, as this is Nazi lingo and should not be used. The story employs the worst European cliches since the infamous EUROTRIP movie. And it completely lacks self-awareness on top of that. (Though I do have to admit that I LOVE the idea of a Bavarian vampire nation).
Some of the characters in the book are German and have, of course, German names. But unfortunately, these are almost comically old-fashioned. Nobody under the age of 60 is called Hans, Otto or Horst these days. I get that vampires are immortal and have lived for a long time, but I cannot imagine that a youthful looking vampire wouldn’t at least adopt a nickname more in line with the times.
That aside, the setting is never really described. Prague makes the perfect setting for a vampire story. Unfortunately this novella doesn’t exploit the opportunity at all and ignores the great potential for world building the setting holds. The Prague setting was one of the main reasons this particular book interested me and after reading it I feel like the story could have been set almost anywhere in Europe.
There are also several logical errors throughout the book. Threads are opened but never picked up on again. On top of that, Jamie seems to be incapable of thinking logically and instead he jumps to conclusions - often things the reader would know, but Jamie couldn’t possibly. So it’s more an issue of bad writing than characterisation. The writing overall isn’t the strongest, though I have read much worse.
So why 3 stars after all these negative points? Well, I was still weirdly entertained by the book and overall had a good time reading it. I like the world building around the nature of the vampires - they always have different attributes depending on the author and I love exploring that.
AN AMERICAN LAMB IN EUROPE follows Jamie who travels to Czech Republic in search of his younger brother Rudy who has been supposedly found dead, but the police has “lost” the body and Jamie isn’t buying it. Jamie soon runs into the vampires that struggle for control over the region. Among them is Tomas, who turns out to be the protector Jamie needs while searching for his brother.
One of the first things I noticed was how negatively Czech Republic and Germany were portrayed. As someone who has lived in both countries, I found the portrayal of them at times bordering on the offensive. The word “Aryan” is used to describe a blond character, which I found particularly jarring, as this is Nazi lingo and should not be used. The story employs the worst European cliches since the infamous EUROTRIP movie. And it completely lacks self-awareness on top of that. (Though I do have to admit that I LOVE the idea of a Bavarian vampire nation).
Some of the characters in the book are German and have, of course, German names. But unfortunately, these are almost comically old-fashioned. Nobody under the age of 60 is called Hans, Otto or Horst these days. I get that vampires are immortal and have lived for a long time, but I cannot imagine that a youthful looking vampire wouldn’t at least adopt a nickname more in line with the times.
That aside, the setting is never really described. Prague makes the perfect setting for a vampire story. Unfortunately this novella doesn’t exploit the opportunity at all and ignores the great potential for world building the setting holds. The Prague setting was one of the main reasons this particular book interested me and after reading it I feel like the story could have been set almost anywhere in Europe.
There are also several logical errors throughout the book. Threads are opened but never picked up on again. On top of that, Jamie seems to be incapable of thinking logically and instead he jumps to conclusions - often things the reader would know, but Jamie couldn’t possibly. So it’s more an issue of bad writing than characterisation. The writing overall isn’t the strongest, though I have read much worse.
So why 3 stars after all these negative points? Well, I was still weirdly entertained by the book and overall had a good time reading it. I like the world building around the nature of the vampires - they always have different attributes depending on the author and I love exploring that.