Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter - Review

Title: Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter
Author: Seth Graham-Smith

First Published: 2010

Genre: Historical Fiction, Horror

Where to buy: Waterstones, Amazon, Book Depository

It shames me to say that the only reason I picked up this book was because of the title. I mean, just the words "Abraham-Lincoln-Vampire-Hunter". The image alone of Abraham Lincoln running around slashing vampires was too cool not buy.

But sadly the rest of the book does not live up to it's incredibly awesome title.

First of all, the most annoying thing about this book is the constant switching between first and third person. The first being Abe's journal and the third being Grahame-Smith's Narration. It is so annoying and almost completely unnecessary. If he had just stuck to one or the other he could of made a much better book.

Also, I have some issues with taste. I mean, did he really need to take one of the most admired figures in history and dumb his down simply as a "vampire hunter". I mean what next? "Mahatma Gandhi: Zombie Slayer", or how about "Martin Luther King: Alien Killer". It just doesn't seem particularly respectful to me.

My other big taste issue is the idea that vampires were responsible for the slave trade. Lines like "slaves began revolting against their vampire captors in the wake of the Emancipation Proclamation" make me feel a little uneasy. And I know it's just a work of fiction but to me it just feels like passing the blame. Like people who believe in God or fate or destiny or conspiracy theories. People placing the fault of something on someone/thing else to comfort their world view. It was our fault, and it should always be portrayed as our fault and shown as the disgusting, horrific act of human evil that it was.

But despite it's faults, it is readable. It's has decent plot development that goes along at a steady pace and I found myself rarely bored by what I was reading. The other good thing was the historical bits detailing his life. Having known nothing of Abe Lincoln other then he was the leader of the north in the American Civil war and wore a top hat it was genuinely interesting reading about his life. However having seen at the back that the author used Wikipedia as one of his sources I wonder how efficient and reliable his accounts were.

On the whole, I wouldn't bother reading it. Out of the many,many wonderful books to read out there in the world I wouldn't recommend this as one. Even if it does have a kick-ass title.

2001: A Space Odyssey - Review

Title: 2001: A Space Odyssey
Author: Arthur C. Clarke
First Published: New American Library (1 April 1968)
Genre: Science Fiction
Where to buy: Amazon, Waterstones, Book Depository

 Having seen the film of 2001 a decided to read the book to see what is essentially the same story although portrayed in a different way.

So naturally the whole book is rather overshadowed by the question "what's it like compared to the film?" Well the trouble with that question is that film and literature are tow very different mediums. Film is the visual art and books are the written art. So I would probably question "Is it better than the film?" And I would have to say...no, it is not.

Alot of people find the film incredibly confusing and annoying (I personally think it's fascinating and very interesting) and therefore they assume the book will explain things more clearly. And it would be unfair to say it doesn't go into more detail than the film, although in my opinion it goes into too much detail.

Arthur C.Clarke was a big science geek and as such tends to explain every single piece of equipment on the ship. I'm all for background detail but there's a limit to how much excitement I can have reading how the spin of the carousel of the Discovery spaceship could be stopped when necessary and that when this happened it's angular movement had to be stored in a fly-wheel and switched back again when the rotation was re-started. After pages and pages of that kind of stuff it goes get a little tedious.

But there is plot interspersed among the technobabble and there it really does hit it's stride. The scenes later in the book with HAL are wonderfully atmospheric and give you a genuine feeling of Dave Bowman's feelings and emotions when he's in a very chilling and disturbing situation.

But then that get's halted constantly for another bit of science-talk. He builds and builds and build the tension and then cuts it of to talk about how scientists have thought that the rings of Saturn are estimated to be 3 million years old. This stopping and starting jolts you and makes you feel like you are starting to get somewhere and then smacked in the face with a physics lesson.

Also, the ending didn't make much more sense in the book. Not because I didn't understand the processes going on but the way it was written was hard to follow. Was he in space? Or on a planet? Or zooming through a tunnel? And then heading to a sun but then seeing things in the sun and then buzzing over again or...something?

So in conclusion. Like Great Gatsby it's not a truly awful book but I felt long sections were very long, boring and tedious and the good bits were too far and few in-between the long essays about astro-physics.