Midnight: Century of the Vampires (Midnight, 1)

by Ami Blackwelder

[layawaydragon]

FYI: I received a copy through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program in order to give an honest review. I haven’t read any of the author’s other work.

Hit or Miss? Midnight didn't even get up to the plate.

Recommend: Not in its current state. (Dec. 20th, 2012) Maybe with severe revisions.

Basically:
This really felt like an incomplete, rushed rough draft and no, not because it was short novella either. There were lots of typos in my copy for some reason. Mostly words with double l's missing an l. Of course, while typos are distracting they are minor and easily correctable. This novella as more critical issues with believability and logical follow through. There's potential but if this is going to be the story's final form, then I can't in good conscious recommend it. I honestly didn't enjoy it, though I might have if things were fixed/changed. I was thinking of not rating this as it really does feel incomplete but I’m suppose to review the copy I have. For now, it is what it is.

Specifically:

I had a hard time buying that these vamps took over the world. The author tried to explain it but two people in the book alone took out plenty of vamps in this novella not only with bombs but in hand to hand combat. Really, humans must have sucked fighting back, which doesn't match up with how humans are now. With all the wars and conflicts going on now for pointless reasons yet humans don't blow up half the planet trying to kill these vamps? Pffffffffffftttt. These vampires came off as extremely weak.

Now vampires are a staple monster yet are so varied from tale to tale. There were a few things explained in the story and even more in the appendix. However, there were some things I felt were missing. I had the standard vamp image in my mind, which made certain word choices garring. Word choices for phrases like "Two vampires dove like vultures over the tree as they landed on Mark and Aura.", and "as he threw his fangs towards her neck". If these vamps actually have wings or flying ability or if their fangs are longer than usual or if their jaws unhinge like a pythons then that needs to be spelled out clearly. Those are the only ways I can think to make the use of dove and threw in this context work. Yet nothing was mentioned and in the pictures I couldn't see any of these adaptations, just the standard looking vamp.

If these vamps had wings and fang changes, I would think that's pretty cool. Definitely not something that's out there currently. One thing I always figured was that vampires would have adaptations to make using their fangs more viable. If those are your weapons and how you feed, wouldn't you need to make it so you can use your fangs better? A jaw that unhinges like a python or a viper would be so helpful. Sure, super strength and seductive powers are cool, but I'd like to some common sense advantages too. Sadly, either the word connotations just aren't working for my mental picture or it was communicated poorly.

I get what the author was doing and why in regards to having Mark ask questions about the past to clarify it for readers. This is common in writing but in this story it was obvious and clumsy. I mean Mark has been around two years. At this point, he's just plain stupid and dense for not asking firmer questions, demanding answers, putting the pieces together and figuring it out. Hell, * I * got it so what's his problem?

I feel the time passing was used to make it so the romance is settled and it's not like they are just having sex; they are in love, these banded together last heroes of the human race. Otherwise, them being together so long just doesn't seem to work. If Mark in generally being in the dark about things and asking questions is going to work, then they'd have to have just meet within the last couple of months OR they need to have the past filled in another way with Mark knowing something so the long time frame works.

Seriously, though Mark comes off like Homer Simpson at times, which really annoyed me. He literally asks "Why'd we do that?" after they jump in the river, yet mere sentences before that he asks if they are going to the river and smiles after he asks because he knew the answer was yes. Clearly, he already knew so then making him ask to point out the "lose their scent in the river" trick to the reader just comes off so, so badly. Besides, going through a river to make a pursuer lose their scent isn't some really obscure knowledge. Hunters and trackers and hell, anyone who's read or watched certain entertainment would know this tactic. Even if they didn't know it would work on vamps, I bet some people would at least try it out. Not a very good example of Aura's secret vampire knowledge.

Since this is a novella, that’s basically it and unfortunately there’s nothing good I can say about it right now.