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Midnight Mass

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Midnight Mass

By: F. Paul Wilson
Narrated by: Jamie Renell
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About this listen

Vampires have always lived in Eastern Europe. But with the fall of the Soviet Union, they began to spread across the continent, then the world, turning whole populations into vampires - or human cattle. Having overrun India, the far East, and the great cities of North and South America, the forces of Night are now spreading into the countryside to consolidate their conquest.

In a town on the New Jersey shore, the vampires have just arrived, along with their human henchmen, the cowboys, who round up human cattle for the overlords in return for the promise of eternal life - later. For the vampires wish only a few of their own kind to rule, and feed. The rest of humanity are to be helpless herds, the source of the blood of life.

Falsely accused of abuse, Father Joe is drunk in a basement waiting for the end. His superior has betrayed the local Catholic congregation and become a vampire. Sister Carolyn has become a formidable killer of cowboys and vampires. Joe's niece, escaped from the conquest of New York, has made her way south to find him. Brought together by Rabbi Zev Wolpin, who is shaken by the vampires’ fear of the cross and holy water, they plan their resistance. Against all odds, they discover that there just might be a way for humanity to really fight back. But first they will have to kill the vampire king of New York.

©2004 F. Paul Wilson (P)2020 Blackstone Publishing
Fantasy Horror Supernatural Thriller & Suspense Scary Paranormal Fiction Exciting Suspense Supernatural Thriller
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As it says in the publisher's blurb, this is a good, solidly old-school vampire story in the tradition of classics like "Salem's Lot" "The Strain" and Robert McKimmon's "They Thirst", and is every bit as action packed, enjoyable and un-put-down-able.

Back to basics ...

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Nothing to fault with the performance from the narrator, but the story itself wrapped up far too quickly for me, and felt rushed. The balance between moving the plot forward and developing the characters was skewed a bit too much towards the former and not the latter, meaning that the story moved along at a fast pace with a cast of characters that didn’t feel fleshed out enough for the listener to care about one way or the other.

Wrapped up too quickly

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I love vampire stories and this was pretty good. A little corny in places but the characters were likeable and Lacey is kick ass! A good just let it wash over you book. Enjoyed it - especially as it was free!

A little corny, but enjoyable

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Just to clear things up. If you're thinking this might have been the source material for the Netflix series, then it isn't - that was brilliant by the way, watch it!

I'm not sure whether the vampire genre has just been through enough already or whether there are too many tropes and clichés forever attached to the subject matter but I just get a feeling of de ja vu with the theme. So maybe it's my problem and I should give up on them... for a while at least. So take this review with a pinch of cynicism.

The audio performance was fine, it did the job. My only issue with the/any audio performance is that sometimes they can dictate how you perceive a characters 'voice' and personality. The intonation in a voice can greatly change the sentence or character by how it's delivered. That might be different to how you'd imagine a character to sound which might affect how you feel about some of them. I'm not sure that's what happened here but I didn't find any of the main characters likeable/enjoyable and often just found them whiny and obnoxious, again, just me maybe?

On to the book:

There were some fairly interesting ideas and subplots here, although it's a fairly standard vampire novel with a few generic writing tropes of: a character questioning a particular vampire trait and a reply of "well, I could tell you, but I won't"... which I find annoying, if you haven't thought of a clever way to explain it then don't mention it. *Every main female character making Rambo look like a boy scout, characters getting pangs of conscience (after they've already had mass killing sprees) at the most inopportune times and villains dropping truckloads of exposition onto the lead protagonist...

*there's nothing wrong with strong female characters but every author seems to think this can only be achieved by the character in question being a 'tough talking, take no sh*t lesbian, exiled by her family, objectified/knocked about by men, hand-to-hand combatant, weapons expert etc etc'... it's trope heavy, dated and worn out!.... there's also *spoilers* a nun character who is like the entire A-Team and MacGuyver rolled into one.

There were standard plot holes, as to be expected in a vampire novel in fairness but, pretty much, always staying on course as far as pace, plot and development went although the ending felt a bit rushed.

There were some nice ideas in here, definitely, for example *spoilers* the idea of the world devolving over time as the vampires have no use for money, technology or power (as they see in the dark and don't feel the cold etc), nature reclaiming the land without human interference etc.

If you are really into vampire literature then it's fine. If you are after something a little more thought provoking and fresh then it's probably not.

Standard Vampire Story

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This just keeps getting more interesting as it goes. Honestly, my only critique would be that I'm going to need a sequel.

Really enjoyed it

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