Review: Finally - an entertaining vampire read of another kind
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 02 9, 2014
Part thriller, part horror, part humor, Jon McDonald's 'Bloodlines - The Quest' is a new take on your typical vampire-slaying storyline.In the opening few chapters, we see four teens gruesomely drained of their blood by a vampire who prefers "joggers and athletes - high red blood cell count - very tasty."  We learn that "the girls were sweet with a light lilac flavor, and the boys were a little salty with just a touch of chamomile."  Descriptive? Indeed.The interest starts to build when we learn that in Brampton, Ohio, there is a hidden vampire colony better known as 'night sleepers' or 'mutants'.  But they are not the threat.  The threat comes in the form of another breed, a 'day sleeper' simply known as the Vampire 'Voltaire' - 'The Renegade'.  He's arrived in Brampton to uncover and destroy the mutants; to have them run out of town or lynched by the local authorities.So he sets about on a killing spree, drawing attention to the mutants who, until now, have managed to live a peaceful existence within the community on a diet of animal blood.  Bring on the war of the vampires!An interesting battle ensues, where ordinary members of the community (read: non-vampires) must join forces with the mutants or night-sleepers to eradicate the day sleeper from their midst.  But eliminating a vampire is not a simple task.  Only complete tissue destruction can destroy a day sleeper, and even a small portion of cellular tissue that remains after a slaying can mean instant replication.To make matters worse, there's only a short period of time where the two breeds can meet - as daylight is a poison to one, and darkness death to the other.The two have been mortal enemies for many years.  Who will win the war?More short story, McDonald's offering is definitely easily read and definitely entertaining.  There are some pretty gruesome scenes, including one at a theme park, where Voltaire makes light work of the House of Horrors in a feeding frenzy not easily forgotten.  However, these scenes are interspersed with much lighter fare, meaning the story is not too heavy on the palate.Overall, I enjoyed the story.  However, there were a couple of parts I found slightly unbelievable.  It seemed unusual how quickly the mutants seem to be accepted by the rest of the community, supposedly because they fed only off animals.  The regular humans even, without hesitation, set up a blood donation service so that the mutants had blood of their own available for transfusions (being that theirs was a different type to the typical human's).  It was also odd that, before the final showdown, Voltaire telepathically 'heard' his hunters' invitation to come meet them but, at the same time, could not also hear their plans to bring him down.Nonetheless, they call it fiction for a reason, and these issues did not really detract from the story.  Worth a read.  Especially liked the epilogue which sets McDonald up for another fang-bearing novel with a last-minute vampire replication...just when you thought the story was over!