NOPE NOPE NOPE. ( )

TW: Rape, Incest, Graphic Violence

Stuck in a waiting room for 3 hours, read this in a single sitting. I'm fine with dirty books and erotica. Hell, in the age where romances between women and fish win Oscars and BDSM movies are annual events, vampire erotica is practically blase nowadays. My point is, my issue with the book isn't the premise. Its how poorly its done.

There is no plot to this. There is no characterization. There's hardly any description of events that take place. "Well, this is erotica," you say, "Porn ain't known for its plot." I don't think "but its erotica!" is enough to hand-wave all basic fundamentals but whatever, fine. Then let's judge it on its erotic merit.

There's none. What sex there is has nothing erotic or titillating or sexy to it - its usually a case of telling over showing. "He fucked her." That is the entire scene. Most of the scenes are just that short and simple, maybe throwing in a single sentence of groping a boob, biting a neck, or an oddly-clinical mention of fingering. For something that was supposed to be about the vampire metaphor for sex, there's precious little sex, and the sex is largely vanilla with set dressing. They are fucking....but like, there's blood! They are fucking, but like, the sex swing is made from a pelvic bone.

There's a few parts that are graphically violent. The opening chapter features a murder-orgy that involves vampires fucking open wounds, Human Centipede 3-style. Later on someone is forced to have sex with a decapitated head and torso. Its trying so hard to be edgy that it falls on its face because its just edgy to be edgy - there's no purpose to the violence in the narrative, there's no real purpose to the violence in the meta-narrative or symbolically, there's no depth. Its just "vampires are crazy blood drinking sadists" which isn't exactly ground-breaking.

There's a lot of rape. Nearly all the sex is rape. I know I was irritated with the rape in a recent book I read but this book is written so clumsily, so poorly I can't even be mad. There's a scene where a couple go to a park and gang members leap from the bushes to just start raping everybody. To the point where they are exclaiming, "Hey, I'm raping you." mid-act, as if the characters or the readers weren't sure. Thanks for clearing that up, gang dude. There's similar dialogue later - multiple characters let you know that "That's my dick" or "My dick is real."

The main villain of the book is a Tzimisce named Vykos. Tzimisce have a power called vicissitude - the power to shape flesh and bone to their will, nearly limitlessly. Vykos is presented as a spiky dude with a Prince Albert. Come the fuck on! You have a character that can essentially shape themselves into anything! Honestly the biggest issue I have with the book is the author had 0 imagination, hence the awkward violence and terrible dialogue. Vykos could do all sorts of weird shit only a vampire could - change genders during sex. Grow three dicks, each with 4 heads like an echidna. Have a vagina mouth. I don't know. Something. Anything! Would it be sexy? Scary? I have no clue! At least it'd be different. Similarly, there's Toreador vampires in the novel, whose primary powers involve art and seduction, and whom can fall under the spell of beauty. Why include these if you can't actually think of novel, beautiful things they could do with their preternatural speed, strength, and grace?

There's a million things this book could have been. It could have hit the plot and drama harder - VtM as a rpg system hinges on interpersonal relationships, manipulation, and drama more than any other system alive, and seeing layers of seduction and manipulation to that end would have been cool. It could have explored vampire powers more to display how freaky shit would be when you have hundreds of years to get bored with vanilla sex and can shape flesh to your will. The author could even have found out how humans had sex (or even just how humans interact) first, before trying to write an erotic novel. Ah, well. ( )

Of all White Wolf's World of Darkness novels and short stories, this one is by far the most "adult". It is more along the lines of erotica than WoD game but it is very effective. In many ways this is one of the darkest stories in the line, especially since there really is no happily ever after. ( )