Review: Realistic Vampires
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 08 28, 2013
This is the second book in the Lawson series and the story picks up just a few months after the close of the previous novel. The initial world building of Merz's vampire culture was done in the first book of the series, The Fixer. This world is that of a race that evolved parallel to the human race and walks beside the humans in sunlight. But they are not known to the humans as such and the keeping of that Balance is Lawson's occupation. He's a Fixer, an assassin officially sanctioned by the vampire race's Council.This is a series best read in order. Many of the important events of the first book are oft mentioned in this second novel, but are not explained. Also, further world building continues and different classes within the race are introduced.Merz has created, in his vampire race and in Lawson, a situation in which the device called "suspension of disbelief" does not have to be used by the reader. Lawson does not have super strength or super speed nor does he use mind-control on humans.The author presents Lawson, as well as his race, as simply a creature that requires blood for strength and is very hard to kill. Thus, the author has created a protagonist who has to do his job and survive based on WHO he is, not on WHAT he is.But it is the first person POV that truly makes the story.  This allows for the reader to hear Lawson's internal monologues and they are a thrill to read. First, Lawson is the master of sarcasm. It is not vicious sarcasm; it is truth-off-the-tip-of-the-tongue sarcasm and it is often hilarious in its honesty. And secondly, the reader gets a look into his mental state, one that is greatly enhanced and balanced by his firm belief and adherence to the principles involved with older branches of Japanese martial arts.The author's writing style, while detailed and brutally descriptive at times, is also to the point, not just a device for creating a large word count. The dialogue rings true to the way "normal" people talk. And he often uses only one or two words on a printed line, not sentence fragments but an artistic device that continues the sentence and that somehow actually illustrates the feelings behind the sentence.My only complaint is with the editing.  There are missing and misspelled words as well as a few missing capitalizations and end-of-sentence punctuation.  But the problems are usually with minor connectives of only two or three characters and do not detract from the meaning of the sentence involved. Since this book has a copyright date of 2002 and was purchased in 2011, I believe these editing errors are due to the conversion software used for creating the e-book.