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A review by kandicez
Rovers by Richard Lange
3.0
There's a lot to like about this book. Despite being a vampire tale, it's told in a very literary voice. There are three narratives, one of which belongs to a human hunting the vamps, which is relayed in epistolary fashion, much like Stoker's. It's set in 1976. The vamps portrayed in Lang's version are human in every way except their inability to die by ordinary means, sunlight aversion and, oh yes, the need to feed on human blood. These vamps need feed only once a month, with the exception of infant blood, which will sustain them for a year. I have to admit, that's something I found silly.
These vamps also have no fangs, which adds a level of grittiness to their feeding. They must puncture, rip or tear using tools. Lang does everything to make these camps human and then pushes back some of our sympathy by adding this inconvenience. I've never been a fan of the vampire movie or book that shows us vamps ripping out throats and making a mess of their meal. I think anything as hard to secretly obtain as human blood would be very carefully harvested. The extreme mess of this kind of feeding makes their survivable seem unsustainable to me.
The characters are all very three dimensional, and with few exceptions, solicit pity from the reader. Funny enough, the one human point of view we get got the least sympathy from me, since he has spent his life (after the murder of his son) on the road searching for his killers. This guy abandons his grieving wife, has no money or prospects and no hope of anything other than the vilest of revenge. I can't get behind that.
The brothers depicted, lone vamps called Jesse and Edgar, were my favorites/ Edgar is mentally handicapped, never chose to be a vamp, and has a really hard time with the "nomad in the dark" lifestyle they live by necessity. When Jesse meets a woman he falls in...not love, but nostalgia with, my sympathy for him grew and grew. Life that feels unbearable can be lived because it won't always be this way. For vamps, it will. Always. For hundreds of years.
The final showdown takes place in Las Vegas, and setting it there in 1976, was a stroke of genius. In 1976 Sin City hadn't begun to cater to families yet. It was dark and seedy, Dirty and scary. Exactly the setting where a vampire showdown should take place! It was ironic that these vamps chose to travel throughout the parts of America with the longest days, harshest sunlight and grimiest underbelly.
Each piece, when examined on it's own, was good. It was the whole that failed to grab me. I found it almost a chore to pick up where I had left off, and I also found my mind wool gathering as I read and had to go back. This could have been me, but I still can't give this any more stars.
These vamps also have no fangs, which adds a level of grittiness to their feeding. They must puncture, rip or tear using tools. Lang does everything to make these camps human and then pushes back some of our sympathy by adding this inconvenience. I've never been a fan of the vampire movie or book that shows us vamps ripping out throats and making a mess of their meal. I think anything as hard to secretly obtain as human blood would be very carefully harvested. The extreme mess of this kind of feeding makes their survivable seem unsustainable to me.
The characters are all very three dimensional, and with few exceptions, solicit pity from the reader. Funny enough, the one human point of view we get got the least sympathy from me, since he has spent his life (after the murder of his son) on the road searching for his killers. This guy abandons his grieving wife, has no money or prospects and no hope of anything other than the vilest of revenge. I can't get behind that.
The brothers depicted, lone vamps called Jesse and Edgar, were my favorites/ Edgar is mentally handicapped, never chose to be a vamp, and has a really hard time with the "nomad in the dark" lifestyle they live by necessity. When Jesse meets a woman he falls in...not love, but nostalgia with, my sympathy for him grew and grew. Life that feels unbearable can be lived because it won't always be this way. For vamps, it will. Always. For hundreds of years.
The final showdown takes place in Las Vegas, and setting it there in 1976, was a stroke of genius. In 1976 Sin City hadn't begun to cater to families yet. It was dark and seedy, Dirty and scary. Exactly the setting where a vampire showdown should take place! It was ironic that these vamps chose to travel throughout the parts of America with the longest days, harshest sunlight and grimiest underbelly.
Each piece, when examined on it's own, was good. It was the whole that failed to grab me. I found it almost a chore to pick up where I had left off, and I also found my mind wool gathering as I read and had to go back. This could have been me, but I still can't give this any more stars.