I, Vampire

Rating:
Summary: A Breed Apart
Review: I, Vampire is quite different from author Shuster's other published tales in that it is not lighthearted by any means. It took me a while to find something to properly compare it to, and if you've read Chet Raymo's Dork Of Cork, then you'll understand the very sort of gritty realism, no holds barred, that Shuster infuses this story with. Set in modern days, it tells the time-spanning yet all too brief story of Jacob, born into the clan of wampyre, who lost his first and only true love, then really found little reason to go on after that. There are similarities to other vampire stories you've read, but there is also considerable imaginative license with the basic legend, too. There are no truly seductive scenes, no vampires acting as vigilantes or heroes of any kind...it's mainly just as close to true-to-life as an author could probably take the idea, treating the creatures as little more than an offshoot of the human norm like another race or group aside from what we consider standard because of their differences. Not a feel-good novel, but more like a study of a dying, once-proud breed. I, Vampire stands on the outskirts of all current vampire fiction, not quite like any other genre piece you may have read before.