‘Vampire Apocalypse, A World Torn Asunder’ – Derek Gunn (Black Death Books)

I thought I’d pretty much seen it all as far as vampires are concerned. In a nutshell there’s Dracula, ‘Laurell K. Hamilton style vampires (more interested in sex than drinking blood) and the ‘Buffy’/’Blade’ clones that all look just a little too good to be true. Let me know if I’ve missed anything out…
I was quite pleased then to receive Derek Gunn’s book along with a press release saying not only is the book being developed into a film (have a look at imdb.com) but that it also “takes the sexy posturing out of vampires and turns them back to what they are: bloodsucking animals that feed on humans...” That sounds like just what I’m after, I thought to myself but having finished the book I’m not so sure…
‘Vampire Apocalypse’ is a tale of the aftermath of the vampire conquest of Earth, a planet so drained of natural resources that humanity had nothing to fight back with (there’s a lesson for you all to learn!) The vampires keep humankind drugged and obedient but some people have escaped this and are looking to take back what was originally theirs. The fight is on…
‘Vampire Apocalypse’ is actually ‘Vampire Apocalypse, A World Torn Asunder’ and I have to say this was bugging me before I’d even opened the book. For me what was quite a snappy two-word title got stretched into something that ended up repeating itself and losing its impact. The story itself was a lot easier on the eye but strangely one-dimensional. No shades of grey here, everything is either pure good or disgustingly evil. In this respect I could see the story working well as a film but in book form I was looking for a little bit more depth in the characters. To be fair though, there is other stuff going on to make up for it, if you pick this book up then you can expect loads of action, cunning traps and cliffhangers! ‘Vampire Apocalypse’ is certainly entertaining in that respect.
I think the main problem that ‘Vampire Apocalypse’ has is that it’s a very short book, weighing in at a mere two hundred and fifteen pages. This is all well and good if you’re just looking for a quick read but, for me, it seemed that there wasn’t enough room to go into greater detail and sometimes it felt like this was needed. For example, the reason for one character’s defection is glossed over, in a small paragraph, and I think that such a pivotal moment perhaps needed more explanation. Also, what appears (at first glance) to be ingenious ‘vampire fighting tricks’ come across as contrived because they’re not explained properly. Without giving the game away, the method of avoiding serum dosage works but how did the humans manage to pull it off in a world where all available resources were in the control of the enemy?
I think that ‘Vampire Apocalypse’ would work really well as a film/TV show where the emphasis is on spectacle rather than story, in book form however it didn’t quite work for me…

Five out of Ten