Review of Alice in Wonderland: The Vampire Slayer by J. J. Maddox and Lewis Carroll

As indicated by the title, Alice in Wonderland: The Vampire Slayer by J. J. Maddox and Lewis Carroll is a retelling of Alice in Wonderland set in a world in which vampires are real. Alice's profession is vampire slaying, and she ventures to Wonderland in order to destroy the Blood Queen hoping to put an end to the vampire war once and for all. This short story was an ok read, but I don't think I'd have any interest in reading it again, and I'm not entirely sure I'd recommend it. For those that are curious, it shouldn't take more than a couple of hours to read it though. For the most part, the story seemed to stick fairly close to events from the original tale with details changed here and there up until the end. When reading this story, I got the feeling like I was reading fanfiction, which I suppose it essentially is, but it also had more of an amateurish feel to it. There were also a few errors here and there in the text, which would be much easier to overlook if this was a free piece of fanfiction posted online rather than a published work. I really don't think that this short story is worth the price it is being sold for on Amazon.com, so if you really want to read it, I'd suggest waiting for when it goes on sale for free like I did. This short story is also labeled as being the first in the Vampire Wonderland series. I have no plans to read any additional stories in this series unless I can pick them up for free like I did with the first one.

Review of Prince Lestat by Anne Rice

Prince Lestat by Anne Rice is the newest book in Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles series. In this story there is a mysterious disembodied voice that plagues Lestat and numerous vampires around the world. At first the voice is just harmless and taunting, but soon it gains the ability to manipulate the more weak minded vampires into doing its bidding. The book recounts the stories of the different vampires that have been affected by this voice and how they must all come together to put a stop to it. I did enjoy this book for the most part even if some of the turns of events it was quite obvious what was going to happen beforehand. It was quite verbose and drawn out, but not nearly as tedious as some of Anne Rice's other books.

This book provided a nice recap of the events from many of the previous books from the series which was a good refresher for people already familiar with those books eliminating the need to read them again before reading this book. It's probably not strictly necessary to read the previous books before reading this book if you've never read them before, but you will get the most out of this book if you have read them. I would recommend reading the majority of the series before starting this book. The only books that can probably be skipped are Merrick, Blackwood Farm, and Blood Canticle because those are crossover books with the Mayfair Witches trilogy and there is no mention of the Mayfair Witches in this book. You also probably don't need to read Vittorio the Vampire either because that book was a completely standalone novel and the protagonist of that book does not make an appearance in this one. I'd definitely recommend this book to anyone who is a fan of the Vampire Chronicles.

Review of In the Days: A Tale of the Forgotten Continent by Andy Peloquin

In the Days: A Tale of the Forgotten Continent by Andy Peloquin is a story set in Atlantis not long before its destruction. The end of Atlantis is prophesied by a mysterious stranger during a religious ceremony who claims that Atlantis will be destroyed if the people do not mend their ways and turn back to their true god. Not long after this there are repeated attempts on the lives of the Empress and her Chancellor, and it should be noted that the majority of the story is centered around these attacks and trying to find out who is behind them. The impending doom of Atlantis is just something else that happens to be going on at the time.

I have mixed feelings about this book. It's certainly not what I was expecting as the end of Atlantis wasn't the main focus of the book, but it's a pretty good story just as a mystery novel. So I'm not sure I'd recommend it to anyone just based on the fact that they love stories about Atlantis, but if you think you would enjoy a mystery/thriller set in a city similar in many ways to ancient Rome then you might enjoy this story. In some ways it reminds me a bit of Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Fall of Atlantis because in that book the destruction of Atlantis wasn't the main focus(in fact it didn't even happen until a sequel was written much later), but it was more of a mystery/romance novel.

Although I did enjoy the story as a whole there were certain things that really rubbed me the wrong way. Just based on the story alone I might have rated this book four stars but it lost a star due to everything I will describe in the following paragraphs. The author made a really weird choice and did a flash forward scene in the prologue. There were also a few other flash forward scenes throughout the book. I'm really not a fan of flash forward scenes at all in TV and movies, but this was the first time I had encountered it in a novel so I tried to keep an open mind about it. By the end of the book I decided that while it was somewhat less confusing to me in a written piece than in a movie or a TV show, I still didn't like it very much and it made me feel like I was reading two different stories. Perhaps it would have been less confusing if the first flash forward scene was done later in the book instead of right at the beginning because there was just too much going on along with too many characters being introduced all at once. I think on the whole I would have preferred it if the author had just combined all the flash forward scenes into a chapter or two and inserted them in where they actually took place in the book.

Another thing I didn't like all that much is that the perspective changed many times in the book. Most of the book was done in first person from the point of view of the Chancellor, but the flash forward scenes were done in third person. It had to be done this way though because the Chancellor was not present in the flash forward scenes. So first person could not have been done unless it was switched to the point of view of another person and in my opinion switching first person between different people is worse than switching between first and third person. I would have preferred it though if the author had just done the entire book in third person. While I do respect the author's creative choice to switch perspectives(even though I don't like it), there are certain areas where it definitely could have been done better. The first chapter starts off with the first person perspective of a gladiator in the midst of a battle who then dies, at which point the perspective changes to that of the Chancellor. This is very confusing and unnecessary. It would have been better to just start off with the Chancellor's perspective and show his view of the fight. Then in the second chapter it switches back to third person for a flash back and it was a bit ambiguous when that flash back ended and it seemed to switch back to first person mid-paragraph.

This is a minor complaint, but something that still bugs me. At the end of the second chapter there is a brief mention of the Chancellor making love to a woman. It doesn't say who she was, but I would assume based on context that she was his wife or girlfriend. What I found very odd was that she was never mentioned again in the entire book even as the Chancellor was lusting after other women. I'm not really sure why that woman was put in the book at all and I sense it might have been something the author forgot to take out.

In general the book could have done with a lot more editing. The entire book is riddled with typos and awkward grammar and in some places there are even words missing. It's not enough to make the book unreadable, but it is annoying and can detract from the enjoyment of the book somewhat. As much as I did enjoy the story, I'm very glad I grabbed this book when it was on sale for free. I think I would have felt cheated considering all the typos and mistakes if I had actually paid for it. As much as I hate to say it, I would not recommend purchasing this book unless a large number of typos don't bother you, it goes on sale for free, or the author puts out a second revised edition. I think this book has a lot of potential and I really hope the author edits and republishes it.

Review of Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett

In Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett the Death of Discworld finds himself out of a job when the powers that be fire him for developing a personality. Death is now mortal and must live out the rest of his numbered days among humans until the new Death arrives to take him away. With the Disc temporarily without a Death things can't die properly and a huge amount of excess life force accumulates causing some very strange things to happen. This is a very hilarious book. I enjoyed it immensely and highly recommend it.

Review of Blood Canticle by Anne Rice

Blood Canticle by Anne Rice is the last book in her Vampire Chronicles series. It picks up right where Blackwood Farm left off but this book is narrated by Lestat rather than Quinn Blackwood. I thought the first chapter of the book was absolutely hilarious and it was worth reading just for that. There were some parts of the books that kind of dragged on a bit and I didn't feel like they added much to the story, but things definitely picked up again three quarters of the way through the book. This book also continues the story from the end of the Mayfair Witches trilogy so it was nice to find out what happened with the Taltos after that.

Review of Blackwood Farm by Anne Rice

Blackwood Farm by Anne Rice is the 9th book in her Vampire Chronicles series. This book has characters from the Mayfair Witches trilogy so it might be helpful to read those books first(plus Merrick), but it isn't strictly necessary. In the style of many of her books most of the story is the main character recounting their history and past events leading up to whatever is going on in the present. I found some of the history to be a bit tedious to get through, such as going over family genealogy, but the book got better once I got past this part. I enjoyed the book overall and gave it 4 stars.

Review of Blood and Gold by Anne Rice

Blood and Gold by Anne Rice is part of her Vampire Chronicles series. The majority of the book is just recounting the events of the life of the vampire Marius. I found a lot of the book to be repetitive. Many of the events described were things that were told of in previous books in the series, though I suppose it was somewhat different being told from a different viewpoint. Still I found it somewhat tedious to be rereading the same stories again. There were new stories in the book from Marius' life that did keep me interested, but I felt like way too much time was spent on stuff that had been gone over in previous books. While the new material was interesting/entertaining to read about, I'm not really sure it added much to the series and it felt a bit superfluous to me. I ended up rating the book with three stars, and I'd probably only recommend it to those who are big fans of Anne Rice's vampire books and really like the characters of Marius, Armand, and Pandora.

Review of Merrick by Anne Rice

I really enjoyed Merrick. It's part of the Vampire Chronicles series and it focuses on the history between David Talbot and a witch named Merrick. The history is all background story of course in the fashion that Anne Rice often does in her books, but the main plot of the story is that Louis wants to contact Claudia's ghost and David gets in touch with the witch Merrick to request that she use her magic to do this. Personally I found the background story more interesting than the actual main plot. This book does involve the Mayfair witches so if you have any interest in reading the trilogy about the Mayfair witches, you should probably read them before you read this book.

Review of Pandora by Anne Rice

I quite enjoyed reading this book. One thing I should note though is that this book really should be read before The Vampire Armand for reasons of continuity.