FAT VAMPIRE (audiobook) (Fat Vampire #1) by Johnny B. Truant

Published in 2024 by Nyifie Brothers Publishing.
Read by Joe Hempel.
Duration: 3 hours, 58 minutes.
Unabridged.

Synopsis

Fat Vampire is a unique entry into the long and storied history of vampire tales. Our protagonist is Reginald Baskin, a very overweight accountant who works for a company that sells fitness equipment. 

The rest of the office are bullies straight out an eighties frat house movie. Reginald tries to work late afternoon into the evening as much as possible and that is where he encounters the office IT guy, Maurice. 

Maurice only works the night shift. He wears dark robes and carries an umbrella as he walks home in the early morning twilight because he is a vampire - one of the oldest vampires in the world.

Another group of vampires try to harvest Reginald for his food and Maurice intervenes and converts him to a vampire instead to save his life. The problem is (as is often the case in vampire stories) Reginald is stuck with the overweight and way out of shape body he had the moment he became a vampire. That is a problem because the vampire community doesn't tolerate vampires that can't pull their own weight (pun intended.)

My Review

This is a unique story, but it is still a pretty average story. There is nothing wrong with it, but it's not very memorable, either. Case in point, I listened to this audiobook months ago and literally immediately forgot all about it as soon as I was done with it until I accidentally clicked on the "Finished" tab on my audiobook player this evening.

However, if you are a fan of vampire stories, you should give it a go.

Note: there are 10 books in this series at this time.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: FAT VAMPIRE by Johnny B Truant.

PEEPS: A NOVEL (Book #1 of Peeps) by Scott Westerfeld

 

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 in the dark and increased strength, but he is not a full-blown vampire. He has been trained and recruited to join an ancient secret organization that captures vampires to limit the spread and maybe offer some therapy to help with this infection.

Cal is new to the job and he knows that the vampires in this story are not like movie vampires - capes, weird accents and sleeping in coffins, etc. But, he is finding things that he had never heard during his training and no one back at the home office is taking his concerns seriously...

I loved the twist on the vampire story that this book presented. Just as interesting were the even-numbered chapters presented information about behavior-changing viruses and microscopic parasites (like rabies that I mentioned above) presented in a conversational way that reinforced the underlying premise behind vampirism in this book.

The only reason that this book is not receiving a 5 star rating is the ending. I thought it could have gone a lot of ways, but the way it went was underwhelming. 

Still, this was a good read and fans of vampires would really enjoy it's take.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on PEEPS: A NOVEL (Book #1 of Peeps) by Scott Westerfeld.

SPECIAL AGENT CHRISTIE LOVELACE: VILLAGE of IDIOTS by Gene Penny

Published by Eugene Penny in May of 2016.
Duration: 5 hours, 58 minutes.
Unabridged.
Read by Rebecca Roberts.

FBI Special Agent Christie Lovelace is a plucky, sarcastic, foul-mouthed agent 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 Christie Lovelace and I liked the general concept. But, I felt like the story just got lost in its own shenanigans. 

The story was read by Rebecca Roberts. She did a good job with a wide variety of voices. She made a lot of very different characterizations and showed a lot of range.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: Special Agent Christie Lovelace: Village of Idiots.

Note: I received a free copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

CODE BLOOD by Kurt Kamm

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 creepiness of the kind of person that would steal someone's foot.

Markus is that creep. He is an albino who lives a goth vampire lifestyle in which he not only dresses like a vampire, he also drinks blood and has developed a sexual fetish about blood. He is also in serious need of cash and he is running out of options. That is, until he meets a Chinese blood researcher named A Li. A Li has a rare blood type that Markus craves. He also knows that he can sell it for a lot of money to his vampire friends.

A Li is struggling in America. She is a minority in China (from near Tibet) and political repression has forced her to give up everything and dedicate herself to science so that her family can prosper back home.

One thing I enjoy about reading is that, if you are lucky, a book will take you someplace you have never been and teach you something new. These three characters are all part of a larger story that delves into all kinds of interesting new places. I learned about paramedic training and how many cars actually fall off of those twisting mountain roads around Los Angeles. I also learned about rare blood types, the city morgue, the underground market for body parts, real-life vampires and more. 

The story gets off to a pretty slow start but once it gets going and all of the pieces are in place it is quite good. Plus, it did not have the ending that I figured it would so it's always good to be surprised!

This book was sent to me at no charge in exchange for an honest review.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Code Blood by Kurt Kamm.

Reviewed on October 23, 2014.

The Templar Chronicles: This Cleansing Fire (audiobook) by Joseph Nassise

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 qualities make short stories like this one a lot of fun. Lots of slam bam action is supported by high quality special effects and actors that make the action pop.

This audiobook is available on Amazon.com here: The Templar Chronicles: This Cleansing Fire by Joseph Nassise.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5.

Reviewed on November 24, 2012.

Lord of the Dead: The Secret History of Byron (abridged audiobook) by Tom Holland

Lord Byron as a vampire

Originally published in 1996 by Simon and Schuster.
Performed by Richard E. Grant
Duration: 3 hours, 3 minutes.

Abridged.

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.

Lord Byron (1788-1824)

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 running time of the abridged audiobook is about 3 hours and it can be found on Amazon.com here: Lord of the Dead: The Secret History of Byron.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5.

Reviewed on May 9, 2008.