| Already Dead | Contributor: Amfo | Posted: 16/02/07 | 11:21 |
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page 1 of 3  Already Dead
Author: Charlie Huston Publisher: Orbit Out: April 2007 Pages: 288 ISBN-13: 978 1 84149 526 2 Class: Horror Niche: Vampire Seriously, the expression "done to death" hardly seems adequate to describe this hateful genre. A thousand limp-wristed lace-wearing fops, moping their way down the ages, lackadaisically lapping blood from the pale throats of earnest virgins. Anne Rice has a lot to answer for. Bram Stoker even more so, if we're determined to find the source of the rot. Already Dead's blurb doesn't do the novel any favours. It refers to Vampyres, yes with a "y". It mentions Clans. It talks about Joe Pitt, the only Vampyre with enough Vampyric chutzpah to go his own way and resist the power of the clans. Visions of Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise in heavy makeup should be dancing in your mind right about now. Yet if you can bring yourself to actually buy this book, take it up to the counter and tacitly admit you're still into vampires when everyone else vowed never to have anything more to do with them after Blade III and Underworld Evolution and since Goth became mainstream, you'll be in for a surprise - because this is one of the most original vampire novels ever. While Already Dead is not afraid of melodrama, it's different from Anne Rice's interminable parade of consumptive wretches, because the novel uses the kind of melodrama you usually associate with the likes of Boges and his Maltese Falcon. This is a noir novel, a detective story, one of the good ones where the hapless hack's role is to get kicked around town by every major faction, understood by none, appreciated only by the most dangerous and unstable, and loved by a single woman. The novel is a big collection of tropes, all lovingly stitched into a threadbare plot surrounding a missing socialite daughter. But it's the way the internal world of the novel works that makes it so interesting. |
