E. Flanders

Well, the first thing that went through my head when I saw this book stacked on the shelves of the used bookstore was the words of Otto the bus driver (from The Simpsons), “Do you have anything from the vampire’s perspective?” When I read the back of the book confirming this aspect and saw that the publishing date was in the early 1990s, the era of non-sparkly edge-lord vampires, I picked it up.
When first reading this book, I was taken aback as, after reading two pornographic novels so far, the book reads like a porno. The writer sprinkled plenty of graphic sex scenes throughout this novel and these never quite reach the length and focus of porn scenes but are reminiscent of that genre in graphic depiction. When I picked it up, for about a buck plus tax, I assumed I’d get some sexy-goth-vampire cheesiness with lots of blood splattered all over the demi-romantic horror-genre goings on. Well, I did get that and then some, but none of it hangs together and feels like a rough draft that has yet to find its focus. There is graphic sex, some gore, plenty of broken arms, and chewed throats but it all falls flat against a meandering plot staked entirely on revenge (there is no real emphasis on this point either).
One of the most interesting elements of this story is the main vampire (as it should be), Val, and some of his history, especially that which deals with his one true love which of course in grand gothic tradition ends in tragedy. This is also where the transformation of human women into vampiresses is made explicit. Apparently, female vampires gain breast enlargement and hip widening in order to make them more attractive to human males. This on top of drinking blood and feeding makes vampires a bit randy (to put it mildly) thus female vampires, as stated in the book, feed mainly through performing fellatio on their victims. I’m sorry, I laughed out loud when I read the transformation of his one-true-love and when he chastises her for feeding the way vampiresses do during their first mutual murder.
“No!” Val screamed.
Julia peered up at him, her lips dripping with blood and semen and urine, and tilted her head quizzically like a dog that did not understand his master’s orders. [pg.237]
There are a couple more unintentionally funny moments of “horror” in here as well as plenty of misogyny.
However, Val the vampire, the central character of this novel, is not a very interesting character, in fact, the only things that characterize him are being a vampire, lamenting the loss of the drive-in early in the book, and his strange moral code which he violates routinely by killing innocents on a regular basis and enjoys casual rape when feeding. Unfortunately, all the characters suffer the same weakness of lacking any kind of solid individuality, there is no real hard definition of character just fuzzy general strokes. They barely function in terms of plot as well.
The other interesting element is a character named Duane Jones; his introduction caught my attention then a female vampire kills him as soon as he starts tracking down Val. She takes his voodoo charm that was helping track the vampire. Which she really did not seem to need in the first place as she’s the daughter of the detective character (his only defining feature is using the N-word as soon as you meet him) and Val is her ‘master’ though he refuses her at every turn. That little charm is also forgotten after his death so why even introduce it? The most interesting episode in the book is when the vampire shows up in an urban Black ‘ghetto’ which pulls Duane into the story. Why even introduce him if you’re going to kill him off immediately after?
I also did like that Val wanted to stay away from his own kind as he contemplates the telepathic message from the female vampire/detective’s daughter.
He decided to find out if she were telling the truth, for females often lied – if only to keep males from their feeding grounds. [pg.295]
I like that little device; it prevents vampires from forming their own society due to their cultivating personal hunting grounds. Vampire society is a concept that I frankly am just tired of at this point.
This book is also riddled with cliches. The Native American vampire-slayer which we get teased with throughout the book but just turns out is the knowledgeable partner of the detective also unfortunately fits the ‘magical minority’ trope. In addition, he’s under-used and becomes an ex-machina at the climax. Another huge weakness of this story is the pairing of the rich woman whose younger brother was a victim of Val’s at the start of the book and the lowlife detective, both Texans. That is about it for their characters. They spend a large portion of the book, it felt like at least a third of the book, in mundane conversation as they travel ‘hunting’ down the vampire while being trailed by a government agent using them to capture him. Yet, they still get no characterization, their voices are indistinguishable from each other. They account for most of the dead zones in the narrative. The real weakness of this book is that it tries to follow all the characters as it introduces them and loses focus quickly. A good example of lost focus is Chapter 19. This chapter is composed of several unconnected vignettes of murder and graphic sex scenes each climaxing with Val feeding save one.
No wonder the book is written under a pseudonym, Eric Flanders. The author’s real name, James Kisner (see Wikipedia), has some more novels under it but appear to be much the same type of 1980s paperback pulp horror except his first opus, Nero’s Vice (1981) seems more detective than horror and its premise from what I can surmise, is very interesting and tempting, but its reviews are bad as are the reviews for all his books. So, I’ll probably not seek out this guy’s work.
This novel seemed like the author was trying to write something else, something more interesting and more fun to read, but they wound up with this instead. I cannot recommend this book to anyone, its cliché, mildly racist through its tropes, borders on porn but doesn’t have the cajónes to push the line and usually just winds up in snicker-worthy territory, and all the characters are bland and defined by one or two very general strokes and the long bland non-plot serving conversations between the detective and rich woman make reading this a chore. Also, as Val and the other vampires go, the author seemed to draw from the behavior of serial killers which is that 1990’s edge-lording I was looking for, but it doesn’t work here. Note: If the bits I describe and quote interest you, know that this is pretty much all I got from it. In fact, in the climax, the ‘good guys’ leave thinking all the villains are dead. However, in the following chapter, the author pulls an ironic anticlimax out of his butt and the vampire daughter resurrects Val with her blood causing her to finally die (the stake didn’t do it apparently) and see “the face of god” to be redeemed. Val wanted to die and was right about to be redeemed for his crimes and move on but no. Then it ends. Even the equally villainous government agent rises again as a vampire. So, the heroes did not actually accomplish anything they set out to do!
My favorite quote:
…[H]e didn’t resist when she took the gun from him, hiked up her dress, and pushed the pistol up her vagina. It made a slurping sound as it was swallowed up. [pg.222]… (meer)