I picked up Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
, by the guy who wrote Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
, because my friend, Andrew, said it was good. I figured Iwould read it and then mock him appropriately.
Except it was good.
The premise is that when Abe Lincoln's mother died - he was eight or nine - it was a vampire that killed her. So he grows up to be a Vampire Hunter. Lincoln was first exposed to the horrors of slavery as a teenager working a flat boat gig to New Orleans. The novel dials up the drama by showing Abe a slave auction in which less able-bodied slaves (those older or injured or ill) are sold for "bargain prices" for the purpose of feeding vampires. Sick, right? More sick is the conspiracy that unfolds in the many, many slaveholders that are complicit.
Abe makes a vampire friend along the way, and Henry will sometimes drop him a note about where he might find an especially Sick vampire to destroy.
In this Vampire World, the Civil War was puppet mastered by two sets of vampires: Southerners that like their easy access to the kill and the "Union" that thinks said vampires are Sick Bastards. With some help and guidance from the "Union", Lincoln is elected President.
I have read enough history to be able to call BS on this book if it were warranted. But the history and the vampire fantasy are pretty seamless, so Dude clearly did his homework. It did feel heavy-handed sometimes, with everything being related to the vampires. SPOILER WARNING Seriously, did even Booth have to be a vampire? Was there not enough drama?
The doctored/interpreted pictures were a nice touch. I am going right now to my Civil War books to see if there really is an ax in the famous Lincoln/McClellan pic.
1 comment:
That book really was much better than expected. It wasn't nearly as two dimensional as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.If you're looking for another book in the same genre, you might enjoy "World War Z." It's an entertaining book with, what I appreciated, a studioed review of the many socio-economic factors that may play out in a zombie pandemic. It's silly at some points, horrific at others with an occasional touch of being able to relate to the characters. As an added bonus, it's written by Max Brooks, son of Mel Brooks.
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