“I purchased this book before the title started its habit of changing, when it was still called "Astrid the Viking Vampire," and the title character's name was "Astrid."
The title has changed several times - I may have missed a few, but at one point it was "Vampire Warriors (paranormal romance)" and now it's "Viking Vampires: Victory or Death."
It was ... bad. I mean really bad. The characters were flat, the story was confusing, and it went nowhere.
Amazon recommended this book to me, as I've been reading a lot of fantasy lately - especially contemporary urban fantasy. Jim Butcher. Tom Sniegoski. Seanan McGuire. Authors I recommend reading. The only thing this book has in common with them is that they're theoretically in English.
It was that bad.
The opening sentence was, "I was born and raised an 18-year-old Viking Vampire." If you can't see the error in there, please let me know so I can call an editor for you. The book also included such wonderfuly-crafted sentences as, "He looked like him." There were several points in the reading of this book when my brain tried to escape.
Amazon keeps recommending similar books to me, as I was foolish enough to waste $3 on this one. I may never be able to trust Amazon's recommendations again!
Of course, it had some charm despite (or perhaps because of) its sheer lack of concern for coherence, character development, and depth. And by "charm," I mean, "things I could laugh at and share with friends to laugh at."
This book has been through a couple of edits since I originally read it - from what I can tell in the latest sample, much of the charm is gone. Even the hilariously bad first sentence is gone. Which is a shame - it was bad, but it was bad in that MST3K sort of way. Now it's more like the Daredevil movie. There is no humor to be derived from it. It's a tragic loss, as it means that now the single most redeeming quality of this book is that it is short.
Shortly after posting this review on Amazon's site, the book itself was removed from Amazon's site. Its last recorded title was Viking Vampire: Victory or Death!
I cannot recommend this book for anyone with two or more functioning brain cells.”
Gamethyme wrote this review Thursday, November 3, 2011.
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Astrid the Viking Vampire
