Book Review: Blooded: A novel with teeth, by Chuck Dixon
Not your usual vampire novel
About three years and a cross-country move ago, Chuck Dixon sent us a box of his novels. We’ve already reviewed the fun Bad Times series.
And now that I’ve unearthed more of the cache, time to get back to work, with Chuck Dixon’s take on the vampire genre.
The Story
He was 32 on the day he died. He had been a real estate agent going for a one night stand. He woke up in a cheap Los Angeles motel as a vampire. The attractive brunette he went home with was a French vampire, and aren’t they all. Now our protagonist has to learn with life as a bloodsucker, sans law degree. He has a fickle progenitor who’s easily bored, a new life in a vague, shadowy world with rules that no one explains to him.
What’s the worst that can happen?
Chuck Dixon did a great job with this one. There’s a nice use of detail that reminds me of Mike Baron’s work. And there’s a solid ramping up of the tension as our hero slowly learns exactly what happened to him over the course of the first few chapters.
Blooded is fun. It’s detailed oriented. And there’s a lot of emphasis on just how things work. After all, once you’re a newly minted walking corpse, how do you do anything in the modern day? Castles are nice if you were a European count in the 1400s, but it’s hard filling out a rental agreement without six forms of identification saying you are who you say you are, and that you’re still alive. Also, how much can you realistically steal from a blood before someone notices? And how many bodies can you leave lying around before you need to leave town?
It’s the little details that make Blooded work as well as it does. It’s almost a slice of life novel (maybe a slice of undeath novel) with a lot of additional problems thrown in—from vampires who want to dispose of him for various reasons, to running into the wrong criminals as a midnight snack, to just the day-to-day issues of being a fugitive just by existing.
And then there’s the ending. It’s a fun final touch that makes me want a sequel… and why does this book only have 46 reviews on Amazon? And fewer in the two-pack?
The Characters
Our narrator doesn’t give a name, since he’s dead, why does he need one? But he’s smart and observant enough to figure things out and plan through plans of attack on his own. Once he gets over the trauma of being dumped face first into the blood soaked world of vampires, he adapts in creative ways. He’s trying not to be a monster, mostly by targeting people who have it coming.
Roxanne is the vampire who turned him. She’s very jaded. Very fickle. And very French. Maybe that was all very redundant.
Lissa is an interesting character in that she’s a centuries old vampire in the body of a ten year old.
And again, there are all these nice little touches that tells you more than you want to know about characters from a hint or two of detail along the way.
The World
Blooded is unique in that the world of vampires is highly desexualized. There is no lust, there is only blood. It’s presented almost more like an addiction than a hunger.
There’s also very little of the supernatural here. There are no crosses. Stakes and silver don’t seem to be a thing. The only real vulnerabilities of traditional vampires are blood loss, the sun, and not being able to enter a home without invitation. It’s not as stripped of the supernatural as the Blade films, but close.
It’s also a self-regulating world. We don’t get too much detail on the inner world of vampires, since our narrator is on the outside looking in. But there’s more than enough detail to keep the story moving.
The vampires do not sparkle. They’re also not demons walking around in human suits. Nor are they zombies with fangs and a personality. And there is so little sex it is explicitly spelled out that it’s not that kind of vampire book. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that was a deliberate slap at the oversexed vampire novels that have flooded the market.
Politics
Not applicable.
Content Warning
Aside from all the blood in this book, there’s also a bit of nudity.
Who is it for?
Think of it as a John Ringo novel tackling vampires, with fewer lectures on “how things work” and more of a plot.
Why buy it?
Blooded is a quick, entertaining read that’s more than substantial enough to hold your attention, and the finale is enough of a surprise to make you want more.