Rating: 
Summary: a return to vampire classics?
Review: When I first read about Midnight Mass, i was instantly interested. I had loved most of The Keep(the first 3/4) and was interested to see what F. Paul Wilson could do with a real vampire story. I bought the book and began to engross myself in the story. For the first 2 hours i was in love. The world Wilson had created was wonderful. I reminded me so much of Dawn of the Dead or 28 Days Later. The vampire masters who planned for everything and their cowboys who protected them and did their dirty work. It was all beautiful. I love the amount of detail put into the book where the story is concerned with how the vampires managed to take the Vatican and how they control the "cattle". Then comes part 2...the book slowly falls away from the roots of a horror book and into the realm of good vs. evil. I dont want to spoil the twist involving Joe but after that the book plummits and never recovers. As much as i loved the first part of the book, when the second part was over i was relieved. At that point i didnt care what happened to our heroes or our villians. Is this a return to the classics of vampirism? No but it creates a beautiful apocalyptic world that feels almost real, and then crushes the hopes i had for a great ending in this world.
Rating:
Summary: Not his best by any stretch......
Review: Wilson tries to bring us a vampire book in the style of such classics as "I am Legend" and "Salems Lot". If you have never read these books try them instead. Also, try the very underrated "They Thirst" (one of my childhood favorites that is very similar to this book w/o all the flaws).
Don't misunderstand, Wilson can be a fantastic writer at times. The book starts off with a great deal of potential (I love the universe he created, its what he did with that universe I have problems with) but simply fails to reach it. The character development is very weak and by the end of the novel I couldn't care less if any of the main characters lived or died. I was actually starting to root for "Franco" towards the end.
My biggest complaint of the book is typical of many sci fi "they conquer the planet" type books. Most of these books have the would be conquerers fall becuase of some type of glass jaw where the invasion just crumbles if you hit them right (no matter how strong they are, like kill the queen and all the aliens die type of thing). While vampires have all the typical weaknesses, Wilson tosses in an extra one that gives humanity the edge. I don't want to spoil it but I am sure you will fiqure it out about halfway through like I did.
Basically this novel could have been great if: 1)it was about 200 pages longer (to flesh out all the characters, including a back story on the rise of the vampires) 2) removed the one weakness that allows humanity to pull back from the abyss of defeat so easily 3) then set up for future books in this universe (as it is I doubt I would spend money on a sequel). This book is best borrowed or checked out from a library.
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