Transient: 1 (Immortal Wake) Paperback – Import, 1 November 2016

Vampires aren't bad they're the next stage in human evolution and Jonas is part of the human "organisation" seeking their downfall but he is having his doubts. Does he follow Hector's teachings and the religious path that leads to genocide or does he become eternal and follow his heart with Anna. A different take on a well used theme where vampires are not the blood sucking killers of legend but a race who have learned to live in more harmony with the planet but the human psyche cannot accept their difference so history is doomed to repeat itself.

I really enjoyed this, seemed really clever and somewhat thought provoking, whilst still highly entertaining. I’ll definitely fork out for the next one.

Good

Ok, so here’s the inherent problem with vampires and also why they are the weakest/least scary of all genre monsters…what’s to fear? How terrifying if the offer of eternal life, superior healing, advance strength? They are usually not even that scary to look at…for the most part, in most interpretations, they are relatively tame, easy to deal or reason with individuals with dietary restrictions and occasional penchant for goth gear. The scariest thing they can do is to offer negligible senescence. Seriously? Cause that actually sounds kind of awesome. Zombies, for instance, can turn you into a drooling, mindless, aesthetically unappealing, brain eating machine with an expiration date (sincerest apologies to all the sentient zombies out there, was going with the traditional/prevalent scenario). That’s scary. Comparing to that vampirism is essentially just a small to medium change in lifestyle, like going off the grid or (shudder to think) gluten free. And so traditionally I stay away from vampire stories, but this one sounded promising, not in the least due to a proper movie deal in place. That actually is perfectly reasonable, because this book reads just like a movie. It’s cinematically vivid, you almost want to cast it as you go. This is all probably a good thing, because as a book it has challenges, specifically the writing, more specifically weird things like character descriptions (most notably her green eyes convulsed atop of her willowy frame….what? ), some pretty terrible use of adjectives in general, some dialogue straight out of the CW tv show, that sort of thing. Weirdly enough, juxtaposed with first class world building. Seriously, if this was a collaboration effort and another author wrote characters leaving Wheeler to just deal with the plot outlines and such, this would have been terrific. Actually I can’t think of the last time I’ve encountered such clunky writing in such an otherwise decent book. World building, yes...this is certainly one of the superior entries into the vampire oeuvre. It’s ambitious, clever, exceptionally well planned out and presented, it’s logical, fascinating…it’s freaking technicolor. Wheeler’s vampires go by Eternals (arrogantly enough) and live in the Eternal Age, EA from about 2136 our time, ever since they took over the world. And not just took over, enhanced it dramatically in every possible way, they literally made the world great again, put that on a tshirt and wear it. The world is now reasonably populated, completely sustainable, faultlessly operated by an international conglomerate, its citizens want for nothing, are taken care of and protected on the level presently barely seen outside of maybe Scandinavia, there are no wars, no poverty, no privation. Life is actually easy and enjoyable. For majority of the population, at least. There are still some remaining populations of stubborn mortals, who have turned to fundamentalism and fanaticism, living out their lives outside of the habitable zones, training and sending spies into the world at large, planning to destroy it. These spies are transients, like our protagonist, only this one due to either Stockholm Syndrome or actual seeing of the light as it were, is no longer sure of his mission 5 years into it. So it’s a great plot driver…the will he or won’t he, the choice between desire and duty, nature and nurture, all those great dramatic ploys. And he is a genuinely compelling character, despite his young years, all of the characters here are actually genuinely compelling (despite occasionally odd description and bland lines), between that and the Eternalverse it’s what makes for such an engaging read. Just about enough to overlook the inexplicable use of another language interspersed into casual speech and only a word or two at a time, from a very limited vocabulary and spelled out if horrid phonetics. Why, one might ask? Well, the logical explanation seems to be that since the world is now managed by a multinational company, some of the linguistics are starting to get mixed in…but no, it’s only one (and by far not the easiest) of languages. Why not Spanish? Not a word of freaking Spanish? Anyway, small potatoes. Large potatoes are where it’s at, world of the future, vampires, the next phase of evolution. Join or destroy? That seems to always be the question, isn’t it? Mankind is narrow minded like that. But will our intrepid leading man be? Frankly, I’m not sure about the ending, seems like there was some sort of logic reversal, possibly just a moral that didn’t work for me. Some sort of misplaced idealism that really only works for the young and naïve. So it was pretty unexpected and actually worked as a twist, didn’t love it, but it’s always nice to be surprised by a book. Plus it worked really well cinematically. Now someone go make a movie of it already.

A nice read, took a bit of time to hit it’s straps but settled into the storyline well. Any follow up to this story should be intriguing