Review: I hate gay vampire stories--but this is a really good one
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 06 20, 2012
I have no idea why I would read a book like this.I'd recommend it fairly highly to anybody who's into this stuff.I HATE teen vampire stuff.  I have a fairly natural aversion to reading a lot of scenes of gay, gothic sex.  Even when it involves tearing people apart and tossing their guts around and sucking their blood during terminal wild gang sex.That said, if you think you might like a gay vampire rock music novel, this one isn't bad at all.  Which is probably why I finished reading such a messed-up book.It's got a lot going for it as a book.  A good plot with several individual's thread brought together.  It's got a killer situation:  a bunch of vampires who play in clubs to pay their rent and provide them with a steady diet of groupies to violate and gobble up in even more disgusting fashion than human rock bands.  Live Dead play various little clubs just under the radar of publicity so people won't notice that as they re-invent their pose and music to move through punk, grunge, glam-rock, industrial and so forth--thus not being noticed as they molt through decades without aging.The band is kind of a force, like the gang in "Lost Boys", not really characters so much as an object and subject.  And they all have Slash, Sting kind of names that sound forced and stupid to me, but might appeal to fans.  These guys would tear Ozzie Osborn's  head off and violate his windpipe, violate Alice Cooper and Kiss to death bareback. Their leader ("Razor") is the only real personality in the band.  And what I like about him is something I think says something about this book; he isn't glamorous or sparkly or sophisticated, he just wishes he could die for good.  His life is an echoing abyss of dank, meaningless anomie and he kills, seduces, feeds, and torments without passion or affect.Toss in their human driver/manager/roadie/procurer Mason--an arrested arsonist, pedophile, necrophile, and just general failure to project solid JayCee values.  He's got a lot of sexual, romantic, and psychopersonal dyamic in the character blend and plot.The main character  (called Nothing, with his friend Shadow--see what I mean?)  is picked up by the band and not killed, leading to a typical modern vampire trope where he's got special blood and can walk in the sunlight and all that typical stuff.  But we first met him as an androgynous, effeminate, bullied teenage hustler.  That changes.Another ingredient is a human whose pregnant girlfriend disappeared at a concert by a previous incarnation of the band is starts to tumble to the fact that Live Dead are not your average Grand Guignol death metal band and appear to be up to no good.All told,  you've got a story that will keep you interested: even if you're like me and bet creeped out by a lot of the main trappings of the novelAnd there's also this:  Steve Warren is a pretty good writer.  Not noticeably, if you catch my drift.  He doesn't show off and try to wow you, though he turns a nice phrase from time to time.  Mostly he tells the story without getting overwrought or getting in the way.  It's solid, workmanlike prose that does the job when any amount of posturing would collapse a work like this into parody.He somehow manages to paint all his characters a legitimate, not contrived noir--bleak, empty lives in every single case--without being depressing and without losing your ability to care about them and follow along to see what happens. There are no good guys in this, no women, no happy endings.  It's kind of the "gay anti-Twilight".  But it's a satisfying read even for a non-fan like myself.For those who DO like vampires, it offers a lot of different elements.  Rock and roll on stage, graphic and often bloody sex that somehow escapes being disgusting, and some new vampire tropes like the sucker being able to see the entire future life he's stealing from the suckee.  There's a reason these guys have bleak and empty outlooks.The story itself stands up very well.  It's not your standard vamp fare and manages to keep taking twists you'd never have expected, right down to a offbeat ending.So if you're a reader who likes young vampires in a good plot with interesting action and underpinnings, and if you are gay or tolerant of gay sex and love, this is a real winner.  And Steve Warren is worth following.  "Live Undead" leaves an opening for a sequel or series and it would be a promising follow up to this nice, horrible story.