Graphic Content: Killadelphia Deluxe Edition Book 2 by Rodney Barnes and Jason Shawn Alexander

There are some that say horror shouldn’t deal with anything political. My initial response to such a statement is to ask the person making said statement how much actual horror they’ve seen in the last 50 or so years. Horror, indeed a great deal of speculative fiction, hits not only the universal truths of human existence but provides a mirror, no matter how cracked, into our currently broken times. Some may pejoratively call such horror “woke,” but such stories also bring a bright light to some very dark and harmful social issues. Rodney Barnes’s book Killadelphia is an excellent example of this, using the idea of vampires as the Founding Fathers as an example of our current broken system. I had already reviewed the first deluxe edition of this series, but Killadelphia Deluxe Edition Book 2, like any good sequel, raises the stakes for all the characters involved. 

The book opens with Philadephia as a fallen city. Abigail Adams, wife of former president John Adams, and her vampires are not roaming the streets at night to slaughter any innocent humans in their way while humans fighting for survival are turning on each other in the bright light of day. Undead detective James Sangster, Sr., along with his son, find help in the form of the enigmatic vampire Seesaw, a pack of werewolves who know a thing or two about war, and a trickster god, but the vampire army have boosted their numbers with the addition of founding fathers Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. 

With the stellar depictions of vampiric carnage rendered by artist Jason Shawn Alexander, the meat of the story is filled in by writer Barnes. Barnes does quite a bit of narrative lifting in this volume, having to handle so many new characters, from werewolves to new vampires. In the hands of an inexperienced writer, all the new characters could have flitted past the readers without leaving any impression, but Barnes balances them all, letting them all develop organically and contribute to the overall story in their own ways. Along with character development, Barnes uses the vampire metaphor to shine a light on the dark underbelly of America and the promises it has left unfulfilled with monologues by a man who helped build it. 

Graphic Content: Killadelphia written by Rodney Barnes and illustrated by Jason Shawn Alexander

 

Vampires are monsters. This is a fact, but what makes a monster? Is it simply the teeth and claws? Most animals have those, and even if they use them on other beasts, we don’t necessarily think they are monsters. Maybe it is intent, the willingness to do evil. That could make something a monster, but what if that intent to do evil is born in what some might call noble intentions. This quandary is explored in rather bloody ways in the vampire graphic novel Killadelphia, Deluxe Edition, Book One, written by Rodney Barnes and illustrated by Jason Shawn Alexander.

Philadelphia is a town rich in history, but that history is a bloody one that decides to rise again. Vampires walk the streets in the city of brotherly love. James Sanger, Jr., along with his recently resurrected father, must stop the machinations of President John Adams and his crew who want to start a very bloody revolution.

Barnes’s story has a surprising number of layers. Besides the main conflict of living vs. dead, there’s the frayed relationship between father and son detectives James Sanger, Jr. and Sr. The father is a legendary homicide cop and Junior feels he could never hope to fill those shoes. Senior also does little to boost his son’s confidence, spending most of the book putting down his son and his abilities to the point that readers can see it's not just the bloodlust talking. That rather toxic dynamic is actually detrimental to the horrors they are facing, namely the Adams and their army of vampires, all pulled from lower socioeconomic classes and all looking to rise up for something other than blood.

However, this book has plenty of blood, thanks to Alexander’s artwork. I would say it’s spilled but there are plenty of vampires in these pages ready to lap it up, and the action can get frenetic enough to lose track of what’s going on. Alexander doesn’t lose track of the fact these vampires are truly monstrous to behold, sprouting serpentine fangs and grasping talons that help the reader perceive them as not quite human, not while in the throes of bloodlust. Yet there’s also more subdued moments that Alexander shows his talents at rendering people not sprouting fangs, creating realistic faces that emote when necessary.

The real strength of this book, and of the included werewolf story Elysium Gardens, is Barnes’s characters. The cast of characters permeating Killadephia don’t feel like filler or like stereotypes; they all have distinct motivations, both monsters and humans alike. These characters, at multiple points in the unspoken social hierarchy, all speak to its many levels and just how precarious that structure is.

Screen to Scream: Boys from County Hell and With Teeth

 

Vampires! What associations does that one word conjure in the minds of horror fans? Well-dressed pale beings sipping blood from crystal goblets? Creatures with chalk white skin, sharp teeth and mouths smeared with blood? What springs forth in the readers’ imagination depends, of course, on what vampire media they have consumed. And there is a lot of vampire media to consume. Some simply glut the zeitgeist with mediocre monsters, but a few creators of vampire fiction can sculpt their bloodsucking fiends to fit any kind of story they want to tell. Two examples of this are the movie Boys from County Hell and Brian Keene’s latest novella
With Teeth.

Boys from County Hell follows Eugene Moffat (Jack Rowan) who lives in Six Mile Hill, an Irish town where there’s nothing for he and his buddies to do except drink and spook tourists with tales of Abhartach, the vampiric creature that supposedly inspired Bram Stoker to write his classic novel. He and his father Francie (Nigel O’Neill) are responsible for putting in a new bypass, one that will destroy an old friend’s farm while also releasing Abhartach from his prison under the earth. Now Euguene, his father, and a group of locals must bandtogether to defeat Abhartach and save the town, or at least survive the night. Mixing comedy and horror, Boys from County Hell milks its laughs from the colorful characters, who end up being very unlikely saviors. Its horror comes from those that are killed by Abhartach, who come back as bloodthirsty monsters unable to recognize their friends. It’s a delicate balance that this film, for the most part, achieves.

People who watched this movie and pick up With Teeth will not be getting as many laughs but will be getting some fearsome vampires and some down-on-their-luck main characters, even though Keene’s novella takes place in rural West Virginia. To earn more money, Frank and his buddies decide to start cooking meth. All they need is a secluded spot away from the prying eyes of law enforcement, which leads the men to a holler with very little sunlight and a few vampires that are excited at the prospect of human blood. The humor present in With Teeth, such as it is,  is very dark. Keene begins the novel by narrator Frank explaining that “Vampires don’t sparkle” as well as busting up any romanticized myths about vampires. These vampires are not charming or cultured; they are hissing, snarling monsters that don’t spout catchphrases and murder with grisly, gory glee. The book can be interpreted as a decline of fortunes in Appalachia and how easy it is for men looking for a big score can quickly get in over their heads, but the book never becomes didactic, the “vampires don’t sparkle” speech notwithstanding, thanks to Keene’s character development, particularly with Frank. Some of the men in this tale might be readily dismissed as fodder for the undead onslaught, but their early banter establishes that they mean more to Frank, and to the reader, than running, screaming bags of blood.

Have You Read This? The Southern Book Club Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

 

The vampire has been used so many times in fiction that it probably deserves its own section in Barnes and Noble (at the very least, it deserves a few displays). What began with Varney and Dracula has now expanded to the vampire infecting different genres from action to westerns to romance. Heck, there's probably an Amish vampire novel out there somewhere. So to take the vampire as your story's main villain and make that story stand out is an accomplishment, one that Grady Hendrix has done in his latest The Southern Book Club Guide to Slaying Vampires. 

Patricia Campbell is a housewife who has devoted herself to her family and her household, but she had found fulfillment in those to be lacking. With her ungrateful kids and distant husband, the only comfort in Patricia's life is a bookclub focusing on true crime. So when a stranger enters their neighborhood, and strange things start happening in her neighborhood, Patricia begins to suspect this stranger, charismatic James Harris, is cut from the same cloth as Bundy or Dahmer, but the truth is much more sinister and his grip on the community is much more difficult to pry loose. 

I can imagine the elevator pitch for this book being, "Okay, it's Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but replace the Scooby Gang with the cast from Steel Magnolias." However, Grady Hendrix has shown time and again that he can create a truly resonant story out of a pretty wacky premise. Yes, this book has some gory moments, some funny moments, and even some comedic gory moments, but Hendrix never forgets the emotional core of this story, the friendship that unites these women. And James Harris is more than just the slavering monster; Hendrix makes him not only evil but also magnetic. It doesn't take him long to burrow into the community and make himself at home, even as the deaths pile up in a low-income area that borders the book club's. The book manages to discuss disparity between classes, suburban banality, and dreams deferred thanks to adult obligations, all in a story about Dracula invading a Southern suburb. 

Screen to Scream: Near Dark and In the Valley of the Sun

Bill Paxton's Severen looks like me 
eating hot wings.

Vampires have often been portrayed in movies and books as sensitive, brooding, and sexy monsters. There are some media, however, that show them to be just monsters, monsters that happen to feed on blood and violence. They may make these vampires compelling, but they never let the reader/viewer forget what they are. Two such examples of this are examples of a mashup genre people might call Vampire Westerns: the gritty 80’s movie Near Dark and Andy Davidson’s debut novel In the Valley of the Sun.

Near Dark, acclaimed director Kathryn Bigelow's best kept secret of a vampire movie, stars Adrian Pasdar as Caleb Colton, a nice guy cowboy who falls for drifter Mae. Mae (Jenny Wright) has a secret, however, and all it takes is one bite before Caleb is indoctrinated into her vampire family, including patriarch Jesse Hooker (Lance Henriksen) and scene-chewer Severen (Bill "Game Over, Man" Paxton). The family takes Caleb in, even taking him out to dinner. Of course, dinner involves starting and subsequently consuming bloodbath at a local bar. Not partaking, Caleb still holds onto his humanity, even as he tries to both save his younger sister and help his new girlfriend as the family comes looking for them. Long before Twilight, Caleb and Mae exemplified a vampire romance and all the internal conflict and bodily bloodshed it entails, especially as both young lovers try to quell their murderous urges. 

Travis Stillwell, the protagonist of Davidson’s novel, knows something about fighting these urges, but he is also no stranger to killing. Not only is he a Vietnam veteran whose seen his fair share of death, he’s brought it to many young girls throughout Texas. He is given eternal life by Rue, a vampire who shares her blood with him and insinuates herself into his existence. Rather than use his vampiric abilities to sate his hunger with the blood of young women, he focuses on one family, a single mother and her son. Near Dark is horror, but it also has a few action movie moments, like a Terminator moment involving a semi-truck. It moves quickly from one scene to the next while In the Valley of the Sun focuses on Travis, the mother, and the Texas Ranger trying to stop him, fleshing out these characters while drawing them closer until the understated Western-like showdown that serves as the novel's climax. Near Dark features flaming vampires in the sun while In the Valley of the Sun features people and vampires exploding with unrequited passions. 

Twisted Minds: Christopher Buehlman

With my column Twisted Minds, I like to showcase artists/writers who I feel haven't been given the attention they deserve, creators that have fallen under the radar for whatever reason but are still producing quality, entertaining work. I don't measure the reviews they've gotten on Amazon or Goodreads, however. These are really authors that have slipped under my own personal radar and I am joyfully discovering their body of work. Christopher Buehlman has been publishing novels since 2011 but I have just now discovered him. I feel that readers looking for fresh and fun reinventions of classic horror tropes should discover him as well.

Christopher Buehlman

I first discovered his book The Lesser Dead and immediately fell in love with vampire vagabond Joey Peacock, a perpetually young lover of the nightlife who guides readers through late '70s New York and its nocturnal hunters of blood and good times. The book begins with a tone reminiscent of the autobiographies of bon vivants just now recovering from the hangover while knowing they had so much fun. Then the book becomes straight horror as some new, more frightening predators move in. You won't believe a phrase like "Let's make a rabbit of him" can be bone-chilling until you read this book.
I next checked out the novel's sort-of sequel The Suicide Motor Club. I say sort-of sequel because it still features vampires but many of these vampires do not invoke any sympathy, especially the leader of the eponymous club Luther Nixon. Luther is a former ridgerunner/race car driver who, along with his crew, run drivers off the road only to feast on the remains. He is crass, loud, and swimming in confidence thanks to his vampiric "charm," which mentally subjugates his victims when he needs them to forget his crew's presence or to simply humiliate and debase them before feeding. The Club soon run across mother Judith and her family, destroying her life and stealing her child. When life as a nun doesn't give Judith the peace she craves, she is recruited as a weapon by a group of vampire hunters. Think about what would happen if the paper scripts for Kill Bill and From Dusk Till Dawn fell down some stairs, were scattered, and then scooped back together into one larger movie.
I recently finished Those Across the River, Buehlman's first novel. It features Frank Nichols and his wife Eudora, a couple from Chicago who have moved down to Georgia to start a new life in a house he inherited. It sounds like the set-up to a conventional ghost story, but this is not a ghost story. It has elements of Southern Gothic, some folk horror, and a heavy dash of monster mayhem. To tell any more about the plot would reveal the twist in the book, but it does give a tragic update to a classic monster, one that's quite different from the power fantasies many paranormal romances, for example, indulge in.
These three books showcase Buehlman's talents for weaving seemingly unconnected plot threads into a rich tapestry that readers can appreciate once they reach the final page. For writers that love a good plot, these books offer an example of how to create one with multiple plot points. For writers (and readers) who love character development, these books also create three-dimensional characters that you fall in love with only to have their tragic circumstances, which are laid like landmines within the plot, break your heart. Like riding a roller coaster, you may feel a little queasy after reading them (particularly if you're squeamish, for Buehlman doesn't shy away from the violence), but the thrills will keep you coming back for more.

Have You Read This? The Lesser Dead by Christopher Buehlman

Vampires have become such a trope in horror, they no longer belong simply to horror. Whether paranormal romance or in much-less-serious fiction like Christopher Moore’s Bloodsucking Fiends, vampires as a fictional monster have entered a unique place in our mythology. These days, many are seen as either dark, romantic figures or as parodies. Luckily, books like Dracul and Certain Dark Things show that vampires can be mysterious but also terrifying. Add to that list of horrifying vampire depictions Christopher Buehlman’s The Lesser Dead.

The Lesser Dead is written more like a very poignant memoir. Joey Peacock got his “clock stopped” at around age 14. Perpetually young, he also has quite the skill with Charming, or a vampire’s hypnotic powers, to make himself look old enough to enter nightclubs and to get fed without a lot of hassle. He’s lived for many decades, but he’s particularly enjoying the book’s setting of 1978 New York, where he’s discovered disco clubs and prime-time television. However, his freewheeling lifestyle is threatened when a new group of predators move in to claim New York as their own, and he and their little community must defend themselves against a threat for which their many years of unlife had left them ill-prepared.

Buehlman’s depiction of Joey Peacock could simply be a pseudo-memoir since he imbues Joey with such personality and charm (NOT the vampire’s hypnotic powers) that readers will want to read about his adventures without the major plot point of darker forces moving into his city. However, this book gets violent and gets horrifying very quickly, taking very sudden turns into some very dark places. Like many depictions of vampires, Joey’s life is a very romanticized version of vampiric existence (sleep all day, party all night, etc.) but his life is also ultimately a violent and bloody one, particularly when he and the rest of his brood that live under the city must defend their turf. It does not go well. There is blood, but there is also death. FINAL death. BRUTAL death. Buelhman ultimately crafted a book that is designed to not only make a reader uncomfortable, but also to break the reader’s heart. If you’re up for the emotional journey (perhaps freefall might be a better word), you should explore the dark places revealed in The Lesser Dead.