In Print: Empire Of Fear by Brian Stableford

A while back I bought 'Salem's Lot by Stephen King on eBay. EBay presented me with a couple other items that I might also be interested. One was I, Vampire which I read and reviewed already, and the other was Empire of Fear by Brian Stableford.

The book tells an alternate history of the world starting from the early 1600s. The known world is controlled by "vampires" who are cruel and vicious to the common masses. The vampires are stuck in their ancient ways and the world lagged in exploration and technology. The book follows the adventures of Noell Cordery and his quest to find out how vampires are created and how to destroy them.

From the very first chapter Noell's father floats the idea that vampires are created from semen. The following 200+ pages are about Noell mulling the notion over in his head until he finally says it out loud and, voila, anyone can become a vampire.

The next hundred pages are about how the newly created vampires went toe-to-toe with the vampires of the Empire and how Noell figured out how to unleash a plague on the vampires.

The book is a slow-moving snore-fest that takes a lot of commitment to read. There's just so much talk about penis and semen it gets seriously boring. These vampires don't even have teeth to draw blood with, despite the cover art my edition had! Most of the characters have no charisma at all and you really don't care what happens to them. I actually liked one of the villains, Vlad the Impaler, more than any of the good guys.

If you must read a vampire book, try Dracula by Bram Stoker, but save yourself and pass on Empire of Fear. It's just awful.