A review by teamredmon
Butchers by Todd Sullivan
2.0
This is an extreme horror vampire novella. The book centers around vampire society in South Korea called Gwanylo. In this world, there are two opposing groups of vampires; those that want to rule and those that want to remain hidden. That aspect of this story reminded me of the Death Eaters from Harry Potter. These factions of the vampire world are constantly battling each other and the reader is dropped immediately into this battle right from the beginning of the book.
Sey-Mi is a character that gets kidnapped early in the book and turned into a vampire. The scenes of her kidnapping and torture are where the 'extreme horror' comes into play. The descriptive violence is bonkers in this and Sullivan definitely knows what buttons to push to make the reader uncomfortable.
The majority of the problems that I had with this book were due to my own personal tastes and preferences. I'm generally not a fan of quote-unquote extreme horror so Butchers had a hill to climb with me in that regard. I also struggled with connecting with the characters and part of that reason is that so many are introduced in a short period of time. I did enjoy the world that Sullivan created here and with the Neonpunk details of the setting along with the very well written action scenes. Yeah, I made up the word Neonpunk but that summarizes the feel of this world for me.
Overall, this book was not for me but if you enjoy extreme horror and are looking for an original take on vampires set in a richly imagined world, you should give this a try.
Sey-Mi is a character that gets kidnapped early in the book and turned into a vampire. The scenes of her kidnapping and torture are where the 'extreme horror' comes into play. The descriptive violence is bonkers in this and Sullivan definitely knows what buttons to push to make the reader uncomfortable.
The majority of the problems that I had with this book were due to my own personal tastes and preferences. I'm generally not a fan of quote-unquote extreme horror so Butchers had a hill to climb with me in that regard. I also struggled with connecting with the characters and part of that reason is that so many are introduced in a short period of time. I did enjoy the world that Sullivan created here and with the Neonpunk details of the setting along with the very well written action scenes. Yeah, I made up the word Neonpunk but that summarizes the feel of this world for me.
Overall, this book was not for me but if you enjoy extreme horror and are looking for an original take on vampires set in a richly imagined world, you should give this a try.