Vesper Glen – review

Author: Coryn Noble

First Published: 2025

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: Charlie Pike, a detective with the Boston Police Department, gets a call from his hometown in Vermont, asking if he wants to be their new police chief. It’s an appealing offer, but it would mean telling his wife Abbie, and eventually their kids Natalie and Marcus, about the “V’s” – the hundred or so residents of Vesper Glen with symbionts that make them live for centuries, heal rapidly from wounds, avoid sunlight and garlic, and regularly need to consume blood.

Even after Abbie overcomes her initial skepticism, and Charlie takes the job, she’s still apprehensive about her new neighbors, including leading citizen John Saxon, town doctor Meara Desmond, and night-shift Sergeant Ray Dante. Still, the family settles into small town life, sharing the ancestral Pike house with Charlie’s elderly dad.

Then a run-in with a biker gang gets the attention of an FBI agent, a hostile Army officer, a marauding band of V’s whose leader holds a grudge against John, and a secret society of fanatical vampire hunters. All of this will test the ingenuity and determination of the entire community…

The review: I think the first thing to note about Vesper Glen is the source of the vampirism. As the blurb mentions, the vampires are in a symbiotic relationship with a lifeform that has taken residence within their veins, living off the iron in blood and forcing the need to drink blood to feed the symbiote. In return it heals them and slows aging. A subterranean lifeform, it is highly sensitive to UV light. As such, these are living vampires and, as the novel progresses, they are split into factions – those in Vesper Glen believe in living side by side with humans, the most extreme believe that humans are foodstuff only and they are superior.

The book sees cop Charlie Pike take on role of police chief, already knowing about the Vs as he grew up in Vesper Glen (and kids are told the truth of some of the townsfolk at 15). Charlie’s wife and kids, however, are in the dark and he has to convince Abbie that living next door to vampires is not a dangerous thing. The reader soon discovers it is dangerous, however, not due to their vampires but down to general bad guys (in the form of a biker gang), a band of vampires from the extreme faction and the Hawthorn Cross – a shadowy secret vampire killing society.

The writing in this was crisp and perhaps veered over towards the utilitarian in places, but as this is told from Charlie’s point of view that felt right, given his cop pedigree. The book lies more towards police procedural than urban fantasy – though that element still sits there. We do get to hear quite a lot about the vampires’ society, including their own language, but there is much more than could and should be explored in future volumes. A neat little read, with some interesting takes on the genre. 7 out of 10.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK

Shifter – review

Director: Jason Xavier

Release date: 2011

Contains spoilers

You’d be forgiven for wondering if this was a werewolf film (with vampires). It is not – the shifters referred to in the title are vampires who can shift from one body to another (so we are in the realm of vampiric possession), not only that but also alien vampires – which I’ll get to.

Unfortunately, it isn’t a great film, by any stretch. Performances ranging from histrionic to so laid back the actor might be horizontal (and was, often). As such it isn’t actually a shock that I stumbled over this posted to watch for free on YouTube.

out of the grave

It starts with two guys, Ramos (Damon Calderwood) and Kronin (Shawn Stewart, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency), the latter chasing the former. They get to a cemetery and Ramos is less running and more limp running. Kronin gets to him, beats him silly and rips out his heart (though it looks more like some random offal than a heart). He tosses it to the side and buggers off. Ramos’ body vanishes and a hand bursts out of a grave, a man (Ryan (Pale Christian Thomas)) pulling himself from the earth.

the gang picking Carry up

That last scene seemed poorly photographed but it noticeably improves as we see Bailey (Nathan Dashwood, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency & Stan Helsing), Michelle (Nicole Watson) and Robyn (Lia Como) pick up Carry (Janessa O'Hearn). They are going to a cabin owned by Carry’s parents but she is not happy as last time there her brother collapsed and went into a coma… for three years. He died 7 months ago when her father turned off life support.

Bailey and Terry

Be that as it may, they are going to meet Robyn’s cousin James (Drew Taylor) and his girlfriend Clea (Tamara Prescott) and also friends Terry (Brett Wise), Nigel (Wade Gibb) and a couple who I could guess at the names of (we do hear, I didn’t make a note) but as they’ll be dead in a couple of scenes who cares. And here we have a major problem with the film – it sets up a cabin in the woods scenario but has a large cast who are just too numerous to do anything meaningful with and whose characters (the guys at least) are mostly interchangeable. Nigel is a jock, but still an affable pot head and Terry and Bailey are two comedy character pot heads when one would do. They are also a major part of dragging the viewer out of the film.

effect of hot water

So horny couple go for a walk and are killed by an unseen assailant who is Kronin. The others end up playing strip poker until Robyn ends the game (just before Carry strips naked) because she is worried and sends the three stoned friends out to find the couple. They return instead with an unconscious man they found and Carry faints – it’s her brother Ryan, who we saw rise from the grave. He has, it turns out, amnesia and a line of sharp nails appearing when he washes his hands in hot water (heat produces vampiric effects). So what has happened?

Shawn Stewart as Kronin

Ramos and Kronin have been opponents for years. Each knows some vampire tricks, but not all of them or the same ones (Ramos can create other vampires, Kronin cannot), because the one who made them, Master Ling (Kenneth Chan), restricted their teachings individually – Kronin later killed Ling. When Ramos died he shifted his life force into a suitable vessel – Ryan’s corpse (it was remarkably not decayed given 7 months in the ground). Ryan/Ramos eventually gets both the vampire’s memories back and Ryan’s, good news for Michelle who used to date him. However, Kronin is still about and wants to finish him off for good.

the alien

We discover that Master Ling was a Chinese farmer who witnessed an alien crash. The creature merged into him and they became one – so the vampires can possess bodies (and enter a symbiosis, I guess) but need to drink blood to replenish the host body. If the vampire essence leaves the body the vacated host crumbles to dust. How they can then create other vampires is glossed over but generously we can suggest a bit of vampire essence will develop into a separate entity. Ryan turns three of the friends (on request) to help him fight.

laid back vampire

So, the acting is pretty darn bad. The interchangeable stoners are pure comedy and it is too much (and not funny). The dialogue is awful – faced with vampires they continue to get on with asking for strip poker and getting stoned, their unnatural reaction destroying any suspension of disbelief. Carry flies into histrionics every so often but has no underlying simmer to make it seem reasonable. As for Ryan, he is the most laid-back vampire (and narcoleptic – replenishing energy by just switching off). The laid-back attitude infuses the whole performance and seems unreasonable (and very different to the flashback Ramos). It’s bad all the way round.

newly turned 

The story is simply cabin in the woods with a touch of ten little Indians. Honestly, I didn’t care one way or another (for the humans or either vampire). The background of alien vampirism and possession lifts this up slightly. But only slightly. A search should find it on YouTube if you wish to give it a go or it is on amazon (US only as I write). 2 out of 10. The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

Empire V – the Prince of Hamlet – review

Author: Victor Pelevin

Translator: Anthony Phillips

 First Published: 2006 (untranslated)

Contains spoilers

The blurb: When he started following mysterious signs on the street, Roman thought he’d found the perfect opportunity to rebel against a controlling society. When the signs lead him to a doorway in an alley, and he’s knocked out, he realises he might have been wrong.

He awakens strapped to a set of parallel bars in a richly appointed sitting room, and begins a conversation with a masked man which will change his life. His world has been a façade – one which the mysterious man, known as Brahma, is about to tear away.

A stunning novel about the real world, and about the hidden channels of power behind the scenes, Empire V is a post-modern satirical novel exploring the cults and corruption of politics, banking and power. And not only are these cults difficult to join – it turns out they may be impossible to leave…

The review:I have previously examined Pelevin’s novel the Sacred Book of the Werewolf as a ‘Vamp or Not?’ and went not – though I am now second guessing that decision. That, however, is a different matter – for the purposes of this review the previous book is important because blog reader Sepulture mentioned this novel in a comment but at that time it was not translated into English. It is also important as some of the themes explored are very similar. I’ll come to that, of course, but since that post I have occasionally had a search for the novel to see if an English translation had been released and, finally, it is available.

The book follows Roman, whose name is changed (once he is turned) to Rama as all the vampires are given the names of Gods (I use the same concept in Concilium Sanguinarius), and his induction into the world of the vampires. I’m going to concentrate on Pelevin’s lore as it is rather interesting and pretty darn unique. The vampire is turned when an entity known as the tongue grafts itself to them. The tongue sits at the soft palate of the mouth and is a symbiotic creature. Turning occurs by choice off the tongue – for reasons explained in the narrative, Brahma’s tongue wants a change of host.

The tongues were creatures that looked like giant bats during the time of the dinosaurs and so have been apex predators for a long time. After the asteroid cataclysm, which wiped out the dinosaurs, the vampires managed to extract from themselves their own essence, in the form of the tongues, and lodged within large predators. They were responsible for adapting and breeding homo sapiens and now lodge within us, though that was not our primary function.

The vampires have long since stopped relying on blood (or the red liquid, as it is called, blood being a taboo word) and actually only take in blood (and a few drops of that) in order that they might read the personality and memories of the individual to whom the blood belongs. Rather the tongue feeds on bablos – an energy form derived from humans and generated by the pursuit of money. This, of course, leads us to the satire.

This is a satirical look at capitalism and we can look back as far as Voltaire and Marx for the connection of vampires with bankers and capital itself. Being a Russian novel it is clearly a satire of the post-Perestroika society. The novel is clearly Russian, the tone of the prose captures a timbre unique to that country. Again there is a Nabakov aspect – but this time spoken of within the prose. There is also a flirtation with the Nietzschean Übermensch. Further lore includes Death Candy – a distillation that allows vampires to become temporarily fierce warriors – and the transformation into a bat form, though the book does not reveal how this is physically attained.

I was transported into the prose and thoroughly enjoyed the journey. Well worth the wait for the translation it is a wonderful and unique take on vampire lore (and I haven't touched on the lore around Ishtar, the living vampire deity, as it is too spoiler heavy), even if it’s concept treads ground already covered by films such as Hanno Cambiato Faccia. The ending was an exercise in sucker punching the reader with the unexpected, which was ironically clear to see in the preceding prose, and was, thus, incredibly satisfying. 8 out of 10.