Graham Downs reviewed Delicate Dependency by Michael Talbot
I'm a vampire prude, and *I* liked it!
4 stars
As a self-confessed vampire prude (I developed most of my beliefs about vampires from the old Ravenloft sourcebooks), I'm always nervous to read a different take on the creatures of the night. I'm afraid that if something is too different to the canon I have in my head, I'll get upset. And to be honest, that's happened in the past.
But this... this book was GOOD! It's familiar enough that it doesn't feel like a betrayal of everything I hold dear about vampires, but at the same time it's a different take. Some things are different to what you may have grown up believing, but that doesn't offend you because it's all internally consistent, and it makes perfect sense why they're are different.
It's a good story too, set in late 1800s England, Italy, and France (although it was published in 1982).
I don't know if I'd call this the …
As a self-confessed vampire prude (I developed most of my beliefs about vampires from the old Ravenloft sourcebooks), I'm always nervous to read a different take on the creatures of the night. I'm afraid that if something is too different to the canon I have in my head, I'll get upset. And to be honest, that's happened in the past.
But this... this book was GOOD! It's familiar enough that it doesn't feel like a betrayal of everything I hold dear about vampires, but at the same time it's a different take. Some things are different to what you may have grown up believing, but that doesn't offend you because it's all internally consistent, and it makes perfect sense why they're are different.
It's a good story too, set in late 1800s England, Italy, and France (although it was published in 1982).
I don't know if I'd call this the BEST vampire story I've ever read, but it's up there. If you're a fan of the genre, I highly recommend it.