As mentioned back in mid-winter, I was given an advance copy of Kevin Glennon's first book, VIKINGS, VAMPIRES AND MAILMEN. I read the book over the course of several off-watch periods at sea, and, after I recovered from the accumulated sleep debt, I was very happy to be asked to write a review. If you like a good read in the adventure/fantasy genre, I heartily recommend this book- You can follow the US Vampire Service link on my right-side menu bar here, or check out the book's website here. If you want to just take my word for it, you can order the book through the usual online sources, or directly from right here.
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VIKINGS, VAMPIRES AND MAILMEN is the freshman novel of Kevin
Glennon, and a return to sanity for those who want their vampire-hunting books
to not be sold in the Romance section of your local bookstore. There is no
foofoo clothing, teen angst or sparkling in these vampires. The creatures in
question are near mindless ‘bugs;’ walking hungry murder machines who seem
oddly drawn to the woods of Wolf Bay, AL, the latest town to suffer an
infestation.
Enter
the United States Vampire Service (USVS), postal contractors who are paid to
deal with tamping down the odd vampire outbreak. First among equals is the
narrator, Othniel O’Connor, hereditary chief; admittedly not the best, but the
best available administrator and a perfectly serviceable bug killer. VAMPIRES
follows one particularly inexplicable outbreak where the concentration and
variety of vampires shows signs of a troubling outside influence on their
behavior. Headaches with the local populace, Washington, and the heavy-handed
influence of the USVS’s European counterparts complicate an already-difficult
job.
In
VAMPIRES, Glennon must reinvent the wheel to introduce readers to the language,
tech, and tactics characters rely on, and he does so with detail and style.
Explaining how the CEO of Mack trucks becomes a fan after the necessity of
cluing him into why they need multiple custom armored assault vehicles is done
nonchalantly and sarcastically, with plenty of dark humor. Humor is a
double-edged sword in this book. Sarcasm often masks serious issues, and the
reality of men dealing with troubling and disturbing news with black humor and
plenty of dick and fart jokes makes this book read believably. For pure
escapist fantasy, this is a fast, fun read.
The story
evolves. Characters find flaws in longstanding beliefs, myths are dispelled
rather quickly, assumptions are questioned, and sacred tactics are found to be
less than sacrosanct. The book evolves, too. VAMPIRES feels like two books on
the same subject- a primer to the trade, and the story of the Alabama outbreak.
Both story arcs interplay, but in the thick of the Alabama outbreak, Glennon’s
writing truly breaks out- characters and events take on their true depth, and
the reader (or this reader, anyhow) realizes that there is no place for Happily
Ever After for people exposed to daily trauma in the workplace. The reader sees
Glennon’s chops as a writer evolve, too, and, going into this book with the
foreknowledge that this is his first published novel, it’s revealing and
rewarding to see how a book starts to take on a life of its’ own. This is a
story meant to be continued.