Staked by J F Lewis

Vampires and werewolves fighting. Vampires fighting among themselves. Humans fighting for vampires attention. Jealousy, rage, conniving and menace. Killing. Death and rebirth. Love.

1st book in the Void City series. Cliffhanger.
I wanted to start the second book as soon I finished this first book. ( )

Fast and Furious UF. Great world building and characters. I can't wait to read the next book. ( )

Eric isn’t the most competent vampire around. Because he was embalmed, he has issues with his memory and forgets little things – like when the sun is coming up. He also has his temper black-outs which has led to the odd unfortunate massacre that’s always awkward. He also has pretty bad impulse control issues

Hence him turning new girlfriend Tabitha into a vampire. Something he’s done before and it never ever ever works out.

And he’s annoyed the werewolves. He’s not even entirely sure why, but his constant attempts to mollify them keep going rather awry and escalating the problem and he can’t even be sure if someone is acting against him or if he’s just completing his streak of colossal screw ups

I really like the world setting here – it’s one of the best depictions of grittiness I’ve seen, because it doesn’t come with the over-the-top grimdark that is usually so common. It’s gritty, yet light hearted, there’s a strong sense of darkness but characters who are still just a bit silly.

I like the world building, l we’re taking some of the very common elements of Urban fantasy – werewolves and vampires but there’s such an original twist on these so very well established themes. The degrees of the vampire power, they way they run the city, the different routes to becoming a vampire and also the very biology of vampires. A lot of books talk about vampires being dead and even bloody tears, but this takes it to the obvious conclusion – and it’s really not all that sexy (unless you have a thing for cold bodies with blood for every bodily fluid). I have to say I love this true analysis. Even more we have some actual attention paid to age gaps, I loved Marilyn outright telling someone that they’re treating Eric like a lovesick teenager when he’s an 80-odd year old man.

But it’s not just the vampires – the whole holy werewolves is definitely an original twist which I didn’t expect. I’ve read a lot of this genre and seeing these old staples spun in entirely new ways is excellent to see.

Then plot was also nicely twisty – Eric finds himself in a war with the werewolves and we’re not entirely sure why. I mean, there’s a very good chance it could be from his own incompetence (Eric being Eric) but we find more and more levels beyond that, and lots of little hints that turn into more as the story develops. It had a few tangents, but in general the book kept me hooked throughout

In terms of plot and world building, this book is a winner. Almost. I still think the main antagonist hasn’t quite thought out his plot or how he’s going to get away with all this without consequences, but compared to everyone else in this book he’s a positive mastermind

I’m not as much of a fan of Eric, the main character, especially early in the book despite generally liking his tone (as a Vlad, an upper-echelon vampire, he’s pretty unkillable and can be pretty blasé as a result). In fact, I dislike him sufficiently to derail a lot of my enjoyment. Eric is a screw up, he knows this, he almost openly embraces it and he frequently castigates himself for screwing things up. And some of the screw ups I wouldn’t mind because they’re natural parts of his odd vampiric biology – he has constant memory lapses and rage-based black outs (which are very very bad because Eric is a very very powerful vampire indeed. It’s quite hard to be as mellow and generally inoffensive as Eric when you keep waking from black outs surrounded by torn up corpses). I could get by with a character with these traits as his frustration with them and attempts to work around them can be endearing elements. But that is compounded by some truly appalling decision making. He turns Tabitha into a vampire for the utterly worst of reasons and then makes no real effort to help her transition. She has sex with another character and it’s such an utterly bad idea that I was literally fighting not to yell at the book. He ignores his problems, he very much has to be forced to act and there are far too many times when he just seems to ignored the various things boiling around him.

I’m also not quite sure of the character. I would say he’s a special male kind of Gary Stu – he not only has the classic super-special-powers-of-specialness that any Mary Sue has, but he also has that classic bro-incompetence shit going on you see in a lot of buddy movies; yet despite his epic incompetence, he’s just has so much awesome woo-woo that he gets out of it. It's kind of like the inept stoner dude from every buddy-movie became superman.

What I will say is to hang in there because the book does manage to scrape up something. In the beginning of this book the flaws with Eric annoyed me a lot and were a real barrier to me actually enjoying this book. But as the book develops we see more of the meat and motivation behind his random and ill-advised acts and we get some justification to some of his more unpleasant, ridiculous and generally frustrating behaviour. It doesn't make it more readable but an attempt to explain the awful was made/ It also helps that Tabitha becomes a much more realised character with her own agency and power. Tabitha’s experiences and viewpoint also reveals some of the pressures a vampire has from their own instincts. Of course, it doesn't help that Tabitha is a pretty terrible character who is eclipsed only by Eric in his awfulness (really, Eric helps all of the characters in this book by being so objectionable that they see decent in comparison).

Read More ( )

The protagonist of STAKED, Eric, is kind of like the male equivalent of Mary Janice Davidson's Betsy Taylor - scatterbrained, unrepentant about his gendered vices (Eric likes hot stripper girlfriends where Betsy favors expensive shoes), but at some fundamental level, his heart is in the right place.

The guy's got serious flaws - early on in the novel, Eric decides he wants to drink from a body wearing nice perfume and so he heads on over to the rich side of town, plucks a celebrated news anchor out of her car, drains her dry and then tosses her decapitated body into a drain...and he doesn't feel guilty afterwards, either - but I have to say, I admired J.F. Lewis for committing to his subject. These vampires are more vampiric than most bloodsuckers stalking through paranormal fiction these days. They've got blood instead of saliva, they treat humans like pets or food, and they lose track of time because what's a day or two when you've got eternity? We are shown, not told, how irrelevant and petty human concerns seem to these vampires. And yet the book was fun and hilarious, and many of the characters likable.

The plot is convoluted. Eric finds himself in trouble with a pack of werewolves, and every time he sets out to calm things down he leaves behind a bigger pile of bodies. Meanwhile, in a moment of weakness he decides to give in to his girlfriend Tabitha's demands and turn her into a vampire. Despite being one, Eric doesn't like vampires very much so he figures they'll break up after the change, while Tabitha is convinced she's opened the road to an eternal happily ever after. To make things even more complicated, Tabitha's little sister Rachel comes back from the dead to seduce Eric - and, since Rachel died and was not turned into a vampire, her presence means more bad news.

Definitely enjoyed this title, definitely going to follow through and read the sequel. ( )

Ok. I give this book a 3 because i liked the story line overall. I just thought Eric turns out to be more whiny then brooding. I think Tabitha should have been with Talbot from the minute shes turned BECAUSE of who she turns out to be and who he is hinted to be. you can clearly see and feel the tension and need that radiates off of them. I felt if Marilyn cared enough to spend her whole life wasting away because of Eric she should have just been turned and been with him so we wouldn't have had to suffer through the constant whiny regret. The one surprising funny man ( unintentional i'm sure ) was Philip. he is just the right amount of creepy for this book! I love how the graciously runs a hand over Percy in the glass case like its what he did every time he passed! Ha! that was pretty funny! i thought it was pretty cliche Eric gets with tabbys sister Rachel. uhhhh come on. I know shes a witch but thats no excuse for predictability. And i have to say i liked the ending except for the fact that Rodger turned out more whiny then Eric. Like I said the storyline was great . But the characters had a whole lot of room for improvement. I never cast a series out because of the first one so i will read the next one. My fingers are crossed for more stroies of the grown up characters like Talbot and tabby and not so much booohoohoo. ( )