V Wars: A Chronicle of the Vampire Wars

The concept for this is pretty cool, and that's what got me to check it out. Basically, this is a set of short stories / novellas, that are loosely connected in that they involve a Patient Zero that sets off a virus turning people into vampires. Typically I prefer the Dracula type gothic horror vampire, but this seemed to me for some reason to be more along the lines of 30 Days of Night modern version. That was my perception going in. Either way, they don't sparkle, so I figured it could be fun. Also assumed that as an anthology of sorts, some stories would be better than others. Such is the case here.

There is some excellent character development throughout, and some of it is actually worth it. As to the so-called V-Wars... it's mostly build-up and not enough carnage. To be fair, it reads almost realistically in places, like this could happen this way, and there are plenty of social ramifications explored. Other parts, some characters are way too accepting of the changes rather than panicking, and plenty of explanations are left simply to "we don't know why it happens this way, it just does." At a couple of points, I was left wondering if this was still a story about vampire wars. The whole book isn't disappointing, just large chunks of it. But there was enough to feed my imagination in places that I felt it was generally worth it overall, in small doses. Had this been a single-story novel, I probably would declare it a failed attempt, but anthologies tend to be a little more forgiving since each author has their own take on what they want to explore. I just wish they'd focused more on the overall war. In this case, the microcosm of character study didn't reflect the larger picture as a whole. It's there, just not as in-depth as I would have liked.

I was hesitant to buy this book based on the tepid reviews I'd read. When I finally did listen to it, I wondered what took me so long. I really enjoyed this book, and the varying takes on modern vampires.

This book is skillfully rendered, and despite the many voices and authors, manages to remain thematically consistent throughout. V Wars avoids the typical "good-guy/bad-guy" dynamic, and raises a number of thought-provoking issues.

What I liked about this book was what I found lacking in books like World War Z--character. This book is first and foremost about people surviving in a difficult time, not about monsters. One of the best genre books I've read in some time. Give it a try.

the voice acting can take awhile to get used to and it's not very good but the story elevates the book to a good rating