I'm a history nut. All of it. But more specifically, I'm an American history nut. Furthermore specifically, I'm a Civil War history nut. I have no idea why, but the whole thing is just endlessly fascinating to me. I couldn't wait to visit Ford Theater in Washington, D.C. and see where Lincoln was shot. Turns out there's more to that story than I ever knew: Lincoln hunted vampires! Whoa shit, right?!
Okay, in all fairness, the concept seems campy at best. Cheesy and ridiculous, one might even say. With that said, I picked up this book (okay, I picked up my Kindle) expecting something on par with a Jeff Foxworthy offering.
Boy, was I surprised. This book is good. Not just good, but REALLY good. Way better than it has any right to be, given the concept behind it. Accurate, also. I found myself repeatedly checking Wikipedia, wondering if Lincoln's mother really did die when he was young (she did, although Wikipedia conveniently left out the part about a vampire killing her. Pro-vampire liberal bias, I'm assuming.) Written as a biography, the novel ties the true story of Abraham Lincoln's entire life, from childhood to death, to his quest to hunt and kill vampires and how doing so led him from a small cabin to the White House. His desire to end slavery and the resulting Civil War are all tied together neatly with the vampire uprising of the mid-1800s.
Finally, the ending of this book, from Lincoln's assassination by John Wilkes Booth, to Booth's death, and even the final epilogue of the novel that slaps a neat bow onto the anti-slavery subplot, are perfectly done. The closest thing I can compare the book to is Max Brooks' World War Z. It's just THAT good, and for it to be such a great book when I was expecting so little was an even better surprise. Highly, highly recommended.
1 comments:
Okay I have been waiting for you to review this. I know you said it was surprisingly good when you first started reading it but to compare it to World War Z is high praise. I am going to need to read this one.
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