read by Jim Meskimen, Christine Lakin, Robert Petkoff, full
cast
I wanted a trashy vampire novel, and that’s exactly what I
got: plenty of yummy World-War-Z-style bang for my buck. It takes place in the
very near future—In fact it begins right now, in 2018, and goes on for a few
years—with a scientist from the CDC being asked to investigate a mysterious
corpse which mysteriously vanishes before she can lay eyes on it.
Fortunately, the mortal remains of another person exhibiting
the same symptoms, posthumously of course, is available for her examination.
And then—whee!—that one disappears too, and the fun begins.
The comparisons I’ve seen elsewhere to World War Z are apt,
but an even more apt comparison would be Stand on Zanzibar. The POV shifts
among characters, but news and pop culture are also part of the narrative, and
that news and pop culture sound an awful lot like today’s. This isn’t just a
joy ride, though it is that; it’s also a straight-up satire about social
stratification and political correctness (sorry, fellow liberals, we’re the
pearl-clutching dodos here who are too PC to call a gloaming a gloaming, even
for our own very obvious good) and racism/ableism/otherism.
The book does get just a little muddled in the last third or
so. The number of characters and subplots is definitely on the high side, right
from the start, and at a certain point my brain got a little tired of trying to
keep them all straight. I started to regret not having taken notes from the
beginning! Nevertheless, I was entertained enough not to mind too much, and I
just let myself be confused by the confusing bits and kept going. Also, this
problem will be solved in the (hopefully) inevitable movie version, when you
can *see* all the characters.
It was a fun ride. Four out of five stars.
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