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Summary: What a Great Story!
Review: I have never reviewed anything before but I am inspired to do so with this. I cannot think how long its been since a book kept me up because it was truly impossible to put down. My wife, who is a Strieber fan, gave me this for my birthday, and it was just a real treat. Miriam Blaylock, I love ya! Great story, great characters, REALLY great locations. Ever been to the Paris Catacombs? Turns out they really exist, I looked them up. The Last Vampire is total, exciting fun.
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Summary: Not the worst I've read, but...
Review: I haven't read the first book, and from the other reviews I guess that was a benefit. This book has some very interesting and new ideas as has been written in other reviews, and it started out very strong. I agree with the review I read that said it seemed the author was rushed at the end of the book and sort of threw things together to bring closure. There are contradictions that make the reader sit back and say, "But I thought you said THIS earlier???" but overall, I did enjoy the book and would recommend it to someone that would like a bit of easy reading.
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Summary: Truly satisfying, except the ending
Review: I just loved this cover, reminiscint(sp) of the newer 'Salems Lot cover, and I love vampire novels. This one also gives new meaning to the vampire lore with the Keepers, an ancient race who have manipulated humans into the ideal food. As the CIA starts to train its own covert vampire hunters, we find out more about the Keepers and Miriam, the main vamp in this novel. The ending is a bit contrived, but the rest of the novel is absolutely wonderful. I now need to go back and pick up the Hunger.Thanks for reading! **Pandora
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Summary: A little bit o' vampire mixed with history tidbits
Review: I recently began reading vampire novels and picked this one up at the used bookstore. I didn't read "The Hunger", though I do remember walking out of the movie (can't remember what grossed me out). Maybe over the years, my gross out factor has lowered. Anyway, this was an okay novel. I like the fact that the Keepers were a higher level of vampires. Even that species has class warfare. Why didn't they get zapped while in the sunlight? If Miriam was so smart, why didn't she recognize Paul's true identity? The descriptions of scenes and objects interspersed with the historical events were a nice touch.
I agree with previous reviews that the ending was somewhat rushed and the door was wide open for the sequel. I kinda felt like the author looked at the clock and realized he had a deadline.
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Summary: Great start, disappointing ending.
Review: I was disappointed. The book starts well, has a facinating sense of Vampire as truely alien, truely predator. It comes apart about halfway through. The human characters just become completely implausible. I was sorry I spent my time finishing it.
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Summary: A Waste Of My Time
Review: I'm sorry to say that I was totally disappointed with this book. I am a fan of the vampire genre and it takes an awful lot for me not to like a book, but I didn't enjoy this one. From the synopsis, it seemed as though it was going to be really interesting, and I liked the fact that the main protagonist was a female rather than the usual male vampire. However, the thought that remained uppermost in my mind as I read this book was that it was written with the dollar signs of a future film rights sale uppermost in the author's mind. From the character descriptions, to the locales, to the sexual relationships, it was clear that the most important thing was how this all would look on the screen, rather than how it flowed as a novel. The intial premise of the Keepers and their relation to the humans was interesting, but it was never really depicted well. The reader is just lectured about it. The behavior of the characters Miriam and Paul was just strange and rather disjointed. Not strange in "oh, how unusual" way, but more of the head-scratching kind of strange. I felt no empathy to any of the characters, and without that the book was dull. Also, the ending was a very obvious set-up for the next book in this series. If you really want to read this book, I'd say take it out of the library rather than wasting your money on it.
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Summary: A Vast Disappointment
Review: It's a given that The Last Vampire is a sequel to The Hunger, and therefore there is some expectation that it comes with a built in audience of those who enjoyed the first book. That said, it is a complete mystery to me how an author could set out to capitalize on the fame of a previous book by completely ignoring the lyrical tone of the first, utterly disregarding the original character development, and apparently not bothered to reread original for continuity between the first and second books. Miriam Blaylock in The Hunger is a creature of utter self possession and control. She is methodical, calmly ruthless, and performs her kills with dispatch and a certain degree of detachment. We're given that her kills occur on an unvarying schedule, and aside from this periodic need, she can move seamlessly in human society, unaffected by her "hunger." Even in a life threatening situation, she remains coolly calculating, and this is a part of her appeal and power. In contrast, the Miriam of The Last Vampire responds to changing situations with panic, carelessness, and relies more on her physiology to extricate herself from situations rather than the force of her intelligence and personality. She is a considerably weaker character in the sequel than in the original. Moreover, she seems continually overwhelmed by the appetizing odor of humans, and seems to find it difficult to resist consuming them at inappropriate times - a condition we previously saw only in the collapsing condition of John Blaylock, the human made vampire at the end of his life cycle in The Hunger. The continuity between the two books is odd, to say the least. I have no problem with the introduction of the concept of humans as a crop cultivated for the consumption of the Keepers, as vampires are referred to in this volume. This idea was never touched upon in the original, but it's introduction does not clash in any way with the previous book. Where things go astray is in the rich background detail that gave so much character and nuance to The Hunger. In The Hunger, we're given that Miriam's mother died in the "dangerous" act of childbirth, in a tent just outside pre-dynastic Egypt (approximately 6000 years ago). In the Last Vampire, Miriam's mother dies burned at the stake outside Dresden in 1761, and childbirth, far from being a life threatening prospect, is something Miriam is eagerly courting. Likewise, rather than perishing in the Mediterranean while saving Miriam from drowning in ancient times, her father dies saving humans from the Hindenburg in 1937. In The Hunger, we're told that Eumenes is Miriam's first human lover made into a vampire, salvaged from the crucified army of Spartacus after several days on the cross, chosen for his obvious will to survive. In The Last Vampire, Eumenes is Miriam's husband, born a vampire, who loses the will to live when their child is stillborn, and starves himself. Over and over, these character points seem oddly inverted from their original source. Had the sequel been written by someone other than Strieber, the author would have been excoriated for failing to familiarize himself with the source material before attempting a sequel. What can be said of an author who cares so little for his own work that he doesn't bother to refamiliarize himself with an earlier piece in order to avoid errors in continuity and characterization in a sequel? Even some of the smaller details are jarring - for instance, when Miriam, who in this book cannot seem to keep up with the times and speaks archaic French, refers to her mother as "mom," an entirely modernistic expression. As for the larger plot points...well, the plot is rather thin, and not deeply engaging. Overall, what is lacking in The Last Vampire is a quality that made The Hunger memorable - an aura of hypnotic seduction, drawing both the victim and the reader in. Here, the overall sense is hurried, shallow, and none of the characters evokes even the smallest sense of empathy in the reader. A vast disappointment. Strieber is capable of better than this.
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Summary: "I am part of the justice of the earth..." --Miriam
Review: Miriam Bayblock is one of the last, great Keepers in the world. Keepers are extraordinarily beautiful, inhumanly powerful, eternally youthful...and crave human blood.
The book opens in Asia, as Miriam goes to a Keeper Conclave, held once every couple hundred of years or so. Although she is a rebel, she needs a male Keeper to fertilize her and give her a baby. There, she finds that the Keepers have been exterminated, and their Book of Names stolen. With the Book of Names, a human can track down all the Keepers in the world and destroy them. Miriam must escape the hunters and warn her fellow Keepers of this great danger.
So begins a chase across three continents.
Paul Ward is a brilliant CIA agent who vows to destroy all the filthy, bloodsucking creatures. The leader of this vampire-hunting expedition, nothing--not even the losses of his team-mates, nor becoming a rogue--will stop him. Paul follows Miriam's trail, all the way to New York City, to the world's most exclusive club (owned by Miriam), the Veils.
There, with the help of her 'blooded' human servants, Sarah and Leo, Miriam seduces Paul and becomes impregnated with his child. Will Paul fall into Miriam's trap? Will Miriam get a change of heart? Read this exciting, intriguing book and find out.
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Summary: A Really Fine Book
Review: Miriam Blaylock is one of the legendary vampire creations of our time, and Whitley Strieber more than does her justice in this book. It's more than a simple vampire novel; it's a rich, complex literary journey with all kinds of different levels. As we move through Miriam's exotic world, we also experience a retelling of the whole history of the human race. Strieber is one of our country's most underrated writers, but he really delivers here. This is fun, but it's also as fine a work of literature as you are going to read. He makes a powerful feminist statement with his female vampire, . . . . And the story is really cool.
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Summary: Trilogy Please!
Review: Miriam is an enduring character. I was delighted to read this sequel to "The Hunger." Apart from the fact that the film version of "The Hunger" did not at all do the book justice, the performances of Catherine Deneuve (Miriam), Susan Sarandon (Sarah), and David Bowie (John) made the film, and even after all of these years, the book, a tremendous cult success. I'm reading "The Last Vampire," and loving every page. Strieber's creative ideas of human herds and his own spin on vampire history and behavior are compelling and throught provoking. I can't help but notice that the character Miriam in "The Last Vampire" appears to be precisely and deliciously written for Deneuve. I'm chalking this up to character visualization, since so many people liken Miriam to Deneuve. This gets me to thinking that there might be a film in the works, or at least the beginnings thereof. A little net searching turns up the fact that the movie rights have been sold. But, and here's the kicker, Deneuve and Sarandon, who made "The Hunger" movie adaptation a MAJOR success, aren't being considered for the movie adaptation of "The Last Vampire"? Miriam Blaylock is over 3000 years old, but Catherine Deneuve, born in 1943, is too old to play her? Miriam's youth is supposed to be timeless. In case Hollywood hasn't noticed, Deneuve is timeless. What is the problem with Hollywood and older actresses? I can't imagine why the film industry would fail to consider the cult fan base for this project.
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