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Title: Vampire of the Mists
Series: Ravenloft #1
Author: Christie Golden
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 320
Format: Digital Edition
| Synopsis: |
Jander Sunstar was a gold elf that was turned into a vampire 500 years ago. He’s been at the city of Waterdeep living off the insane asylums to slake his blood thirst. He meets a woman named Ana there and tries to make her life better. Something is off though as she doesn’t age in 100 years. Somehow she dies and Jander goes nuts and kills everyone in the asylum. He wanders away moaning and bitching like only a vampire elf could and goes through a mysterious fog bank and ends up in the land of Barovia.
Barovia is a land enshrouded by deadly mist that kills humans who try to wander through it. It is ruled by a Baron Strahd who is also a vampire. Jander has dreams of Ana urging him on to revenge her death and begins his search for her with the Baron’s help. Time passes, Jander gets nowhere and the Baron learns lots and lots from Jander.
Eventually a human gets sick of the vampires running around and with the help of Jander tries to destroy them all, including the Baron. Jander ends up dying, the human fails and Strahd continues his reign in the strangely removed Land of Barovia where the normal rules don’t seem to apply. Strahd is seriously hurt though and is out of commission for years, if not hundreds of years.
| My Thoughts: |
Even though I stopped reading the Forgotten Realms book last year, I had a relapse and figured I’d try this Ravenloft sub-series. It’s all gothic’y horroresque at the level of FR and not Lovecraft or Stoker. A decent time filler that I could poke a boat through the holes in it if I felt like. But I’m feeling rather magnanimous at the moment so I gave it a whole 3 stars. Now no one can ever say Bookstooge wasn’t generous, benevolent and merciful.
I believe that Strahd is a recurring character throughout this series and I thought he was going to be the main character. He is a main character but more of a villain than anything. He is a relatively young vampire and as such doesn’t have the wisdom to make the most of the situation he’s in. Nor does he seem overly concerned about Barovia ever returning to whereever it came from.
Jander Sunstar is also a vampire, but an elven vampire. I was expecting him to either be totally corrupted by his 500 years of being a vampire or to just get more and more bad ass and kick Strahd’s butt. I mean come on, a Vampire Elf? That just sounds cool. Sadly, Jander is a whiner and really isn’t much of a man. He just bends before Strahd like a reed in the wind until he learns that his Ana was a woman Strahd had sought in Barovia and destroyed. Then he gets all angry and whatnot but it doesn’t ring true. And Jander fails. I have a feeling most of these books are going to be adventures about various people/groups who go up against Strahd, and fail. Guess I need to psyche myself up for that.
This was Christie’s first book. However, from what I’ve read of her other stuff, in Star Wars, she hasn’t significantly changer her style or anything, from this one. A solid B-list author who writes well enough for Franchise books.
★★★☆☆
Vampire elves do sound cool. Too bad the execution wasn’t all that great.
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I think I was expecting too much from a Forgotten Realms spinoff. I’ll be adjusting my thought process when I get around to reading the next one 🙂
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I’ve always wondered what it was like to write for franchises. Seems weird. I don’t really know why, but it does.
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I’ve read enough in the Star Wars franchise so the idea is pretty ingrained to me. That being said, I’ve almost universally found “franchise” books to be just like “franchise” foods
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Haha, nice comparison. I think I’ll avoid both. 😉
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good plan! 😀
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An elven vampire? How unique! That cover is awesome too. Sorry you didn’t love it, but great review.
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It could have been awesome. Can you imagine a darkside elf with the powers of a vampire? Kickass!
Instead he’s a bit more of a teen girl in the grip of angst 😦
Boo hoo, boo hoo, poor me…
😀
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I was looking for a copy of this the other day at my used bookstore! I read it back in HS and want it for October. I still have a copy of another book she wrote in the series Dance of the Dead. The other one I read years ago was about a character from the Dragonlance world about Lord Soth. From what little I remember I agree on the quality for these.
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FR as a franchise is decent reading for a teenager. But not for adults…
Sometimes getting older sucks…
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ps,
If you can’t find a paper copy, you’re more than welcome to borrow the scanned ebook copy I used.
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When I read Waterdeep i was already asking in my head if this was Forgotten Realms, then your next paragraph confirmed it. I have four books set in Waterdeep that I should really read and review for my blog. They are the only books in the setting I ever read and own…
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Pace yourself. I just saw you got even more books from Netgalley, so don’t over-commit 🙂
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Yeah if my luck runs as well as it is at the moment, soon I will not need to be buying any books lol.
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From the synopsis I would never have thought this book would merit 3 stars, so I guess you’re in a truly generous mood today! 😀
My suspension of disbelief crumbled to pieces at “elven vampire”….
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See, I think ‘elven vampire” is cool. Or, it “could” be cool. This wasn’t, sadly 😦
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‘He wanders away moaning and bitching like only a vampire elf could’ –> made me laugh, thank you 😀
Vampire elf actually sounds awful to me! But that’s just because I can’t stand elves for some reason and vampires were ruined for me after Twilight became popular.
Those are not MY vampires. They used to be cool!! And badass!
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Yeah, Twilight destroyed vampires as a whole. It had been coming, what with things like Buffy and Angel but once Twilight hit the book and movie route, the pre-teen girls moved in and squealed all over everything
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I love that old traditional vampire cover!
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Yeah, it is pretty cool isn’t it?
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There is a series of short story D&D anthologies I’ve read ages ago, and re-read recently… most of the stories were much worse than my memories, but I quite liked one about Jander. Enough to read an entire novel? Perhaps one day 🙂
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Crap, Jander Sunstar got a short story in an anthology? That means he’ll probably be a recurring character here. Suddenly, I’m not so sure about this already shaky series 😦
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Well, the story was decent, I think I used it once as a basis of a Warhammer RG session scenario 🙂
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I can Jander working out in a short story. I just don’t like the implications for what I’m reading, that is all.
Jander as Venom would be cool but what I got was Peter Parker in Spiderman 3 😦
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haha oh most beneficent bookstooge!! 😉 Good that it was a good time filler, even if it had so many plot holes and Jander was such a whiner. Great review! Also I do think that cover is fun 🙂
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I WAS feeling beneficent. Of course, now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, I’ll be extra mean to the rest of the series…
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😂😂😂
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Sounds like a nice quick read that doesn’t demand much. An author who writes for a franchise must just like to further expand that universe and feel like they belong in it, leaving behind things on which other writers can develop. 😮
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I think a lot of franchise writers are in it just to increase their cash flow and name recognition. I know that is why I’d do it 😉
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