Saturday, January 8, 2011

Review : The Greyfriar

This is my first book completed for Steampunk Challenge 2011! Hosted over at BA Reading Challenges.

Review:
The Greyfriar (Vampire Empire, Book 1) 
Vampire Empire Book One: The Greyfriar by Clay Griffith & Susan Griffith

Goodreads Blurb:
Vampire predators run wild in this exciting steampunk adventure, the first in an alternate history trilogy that is already attracting attention. In 1870, monsters rise up and conquer the northern lands. As great cities are swallowed up by carnage and disease, landowners and other elite flee south to escape their blood-thirsty wrath. One hundred fifty years later, the great divide still exists; fangs on one side of the border, worried defenders on the other. This fragile equilibrium is threatened, and then crumbles after a single young princess becomes almost hopelessly lost in the hostile territory. At first, she has only one defender: a mysterious Greyfriar who roams freely in dangerous vampire regions.

I have to truthfully say I was pleasantly surprised by this book. I knew nothing about the authors or what to expect from it. The beginning few chapters of the book were a bit sluggish to me at first. It just didn’t grab me that quickly. But, damn when it did I couldn’t put it down. That was around Chapter 8 or so. The Greyfriar took off like a rocket after that. 

The Greyfriar and Adele are just intriguing characters. You witness her growing in knowledge throughout the book and you worry about her future to come as those who are plotting start to be revealed around her. He will bring a few tears to your eyes toward the end as well.  The downside to becoming so attached is this is a trilogy and now we must wait for the next book. That is heartbreaking all by itself.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone that loves steampunk and/or vampires. The idea of an organized vampire empire at odds with their human counterparts is quite riveting. The empire dynamics themselves and living conditions are quite fascinating as well. I would love to learn more about this world and how it is arranged.

On a side note: it turns out I did know the authors through another of their works. Mr Griffith did a few of adventures of The Tick!
  • The Tick: Six Action-Packed Adventures, by Clay Griffith, 1994, published by Skylark Books.
  • The Tick: Seven More Exciting Adventures!, by Clay Griffith, 1995, published by Skylark Books.
So I must say... "Spoooon!" just because I can.

1 comment:

  1. Nice review JL, good to hear you've enjoyed it and it's great when a book turns out to be such a pleasant surprise isn't it?

    It sounds like a pretty interesting book, I might just have to add it to my list too!

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