DWD's Reviews

  Published in 2005 by RazorBill (Penguin Group) In the novel Peeps , author Scott Westerfeld has written a very original take on one of the oldest monster stories of all times - the vampire story. Cal Thompson knows something that almost nobody knows - he knows that vampires are real because he is one. Sort of. Cal Thompson also knows how vampirism is spread. The bite on the neck made famous in the movies is really just one way to spread. It is commonly spread sexually, much like HIV. The virus compels its host to engage in sexual contact, ensuring the spread of the virus - much like rabies encourages animals to attack and bite other animals in order to spread rabies. Infected people are called "parasite positive" or "peeps". Cal Thompson was infected as the result of a one night stand sexual encounter on his first day in New York City. However, he is one of the rare carriers of the disease. He has some of the characteristics of a vampire such as being able to see ...

Published by Eugene Penny in May of 2016. Duration: 5 hours, 58 minutes. Unabridged. Read by Rebecca Roberts. This audiobook features FBI Special Agent Christie Lovelace, a plucky, sarcastic, foul-mouthed who investigates offbeat cases. Think X-Files, but with a much more gross, much more weird take. Lovelace has been sent to Danbury, Texas to investigate a charge of corruption. It seems that the whole town is being controlled by one man and a person may have died. But, once Lovelace arrives, after a frustrating series of humorous personal disasters, she discovers that the body has disappeared from the morgue. When she goes to the jail to follow a lead the stench of feces is overpowering... Plus, people keep hinting about the dead coming back to life. It's going to be a strange Monday. My thoughts: For me, this book was a little too gross and a little too interested in being weird for the sake of weirdness for my taste. Too many oddball characters in one place. I like ...

The twisted tale of a paramedic, an albino with a vampire fetish and a blood researcher... Published in 2012 by MCM Publishing Code Blood is the story of three people whose lives are tied together in this thriller but barely interact throughout the book. Photo by Werner Vermaak Colt Lewis is a brand new paramedic in the Los Angeles area who is struggling with the emotional toll this sort of job can cause. He is an open young man who became a paramedic because he truly cares about people and wants to help them. But, he is struggling with the reality that some of the victims he helps just cannot be saved. He keeps on going back to his first run and the beautiful young woman who was found on the side of the road after having been hit by a hit and run driver. She died while Colt was reassuring her because her foot had been amputated in the accident. Strangely, the foot was never found and Colt starts to obsess about this woman, the tragic loss of such a young life and the total cr...

Published December 2011 by GraphicAudio Multicast Performance Length: 52 minutes. Unabridged. This short audiobook was originally a short story in a larger collection but author Joseph Nassise has expanded on this story with several other books. GraphicAudio has adapted it to a radio drama format with multiple cast members and plenty of special effects. The Templar Chronicles: This Cleansing Fire features Captain Cade Williams, a member of the hidden Catholic order the Knights Templar. They are charged with fighting supernatural forces. One would think they might be a bunch of priests, but they are an elite commando unit carrying modern combat weapons and special swords. In this story, the team is sent out to find and destroy a group of Asian vampires. They are not Asians, per se, but this type of vampire originated in Asia. Another team was already sent in but they are not reporting back and Captain Williams and his team fear the worst. GraphicAudio's high production qu...

Lord Byron as a vampire Performed by Richard E. Grant Duration: 3 hours Lord Byron (1788-1824) I picked up this audiobook version of Lord of the Dead: The Secret History of Byron because I very much enjoyed Holland's non-fiction book about the end of the Roman Republic, Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic . I am not particularly a fan of vampire books nor of Lord Byron (who I can believe was a vampire considering the level of his debauchery and self-absorption) but I decided to give Tom Holland another try and trust that he would make it interesting. The abridgment of the book contributed to my enjoyment, I am sure. There were many long stretches that were so bloated by flowery speeches, especially in the first hour or so of the audiobook, that I probably would have bailed on an unabridged version of the book. However, the last two hours were so interesting and so well-performed by Richard E. Grant that I had to bump the score up to 4 stars. The r...