A review on angel-based novels.

It was incredibly hard to come up with a pithy title for this blog post. I think most people will agree that I have not succeeded :( In general, most angel books seemed to have become completely disassociated from Christianity or any religion at all, which while not necessarily bad does result in a lot of the books feeling like they're missing something. The advantage of writing about angels is that there's a lot people know about them already. An author can use their exisiting knowledge to construct an angel-filled world which is both relateable and different. Sadly a lot of authors have instead used their creative power to create an entity known as the kinky angel, which makes about as much sense as a vegetarian vampire. Anyway...

Angel-based novels: The greats and the atrocious

Awesome!

Sharon Shinn: Archangel series: I cannot stress enough how great this series is. It starts in a world which is colonised by people escaping the destruction of earth, and on the way genetically modify angels to watch over everyone and to keep the peace. As a means of doing this, one angel is appointed as Archangel for 20 years; furthermore, in order to prevent any possible apartheid between angels and humans, all angels must marry humans-any union between two angels would result in monster children. The world is divided into 3 angelic holds and the ethnic groups are the Edori, the Jansai, the Mandivvi, Luxor, and angels. Their God, known as Jehovah, watches over all of them, and makes sure humans have desirable mates through “the kiss”, which lights up when people meet their soul mate-or perfect genetic mate. However, fast forward 200 years, and the latest archangel is corrupt, and has permitted the mass enslaving of the Edori by the Jansai and the merchant classes, and the next candidate to become Archangel manages to be both anti-social while being socially conscious. His tenure will begin in 6 months time when he’ll lead the Gloria (a ceremony to let Jehovah know that their world is at peace in order to prevent him taking action against them)-and he’s yet to discover who his wife will be. The world Sharon Shinn has built is believable, the plotline is consistent, and the character’s are vividly drawn and appealing to read about. I would recommend this book to anyone. However, I have not enjoyed the four books which have followed. They’re better than average, but think this book was fine on its own.

Angels Unlimited: I’m aware that these books are sort of aimed at an age group where 13 is thought to be ancient…I may have been given the recommendation to read this book by a 7 year old who told me that the coolest girl in the class was reading them. And I may have been 15 at the time, overhearing this conversation between the 7 year old and her mother… Anyway, moving rapidly on. This series starts when Melanie gets run down by a joy rider on her 13^th birthday. She then rapidly ascends to Heaven to discover that Heaven is an awesome city by the sea where everyone comes from different time zones and can all effortlessly speak all languages. Sounds awesome J But she also finds out that angels are locked in an eternal battle against the powers of darkness (also known as PODs). Each book is about her being on a mission to save the world, one individual at a time. The books send her all through time, from 1920s America, Ancient Egypt and Ancient Rome, Feudal Japan, Victorian England, colonial West Indies, as well as the 22^nd century and her own time, where she gets to see the impact of her death on her friends…This series is very enjoyable, her best friends Lola and Reuben are great and keep her out of trouble, and her arch-nemesis who sort of becomes her friend, Brice, is very funny, with a great back story.

Not so great:

Eternal-Cynthia Leigh Smith: A book about a guardian angel who’s also in love with his ward. As such, when it’s time for her life to end, he intervenes. With the result that her destiny changes and she winds up being a vampire. Not the best night out. As punishment, he gets stripped of his post, and she gets whisked away to learn how the ways of being a vampire. Miranda, his ward is a pretty shallow vampire, and there aren’t any memorable characters from this book; so really, the less said the better.

Blue Blood Series-Melissa De La Cruz: These are hard to categorise because on the one hand they’re vampire novels, but on the other hand her premise is that vampires are actually fallen angels and as such are gorgeous and twisted (I blame Twilight for this…lame). The series is centred around a girl called Schuyler Van Alen and her school which is essentially a school for vampires and rich normals. The clichés pile up when you realise that the lives of these supposedly eternal beings revolve around designer clothes and holidays. Drinking blood and the many murders that happen in this series are overshadowed, by descriptions of clothes and parties, since those things are a bit of a downer to a socialite. Blue Blood was a promising start to the series, but it went rapidly down hill, in Masquerade, Revelations, and the Van Alen Legacy. I get the feeling that the author was commissioned to write more books for the series, and used spread the existing plot line more thinly against more books. A severe criticism would be the ridiculous cliff hanger between Masquerade and Revelations which was one of the most annoying ever. Although if that doesn’t put you off the constant incest might.  

Atrocious category:

Angel’s Guild-Nalini Singh: her main fault is that she got the balance wrong. In an ideal paranormal novel, I feel a balance of 80% plot and 20% sexual promise or actual sex scenes is good. However, this series clearly decided to go another way. In a world where angels rule and vampires exist to serve them the main character, Elena has had a traumatic childhood and has now become a guild hunter. I describe in this way because both these facts are mention every 10 seconds or so. Not much happens in this book except for Elena meeting the archangel of New York, Raphael who decides he wants her immediately. He then goes temporarily crazy, so she has to shoot him. Thankfully, this does not discourage them from hooking up and doing the “classic thing” of letting sex do their talking for them. As an afterthought there is a plotline about the doings of other archangels and one of them wants to raise the dead… but this surprisingly only features in the last 30 pages of the book. There are some interesting things about this book, but it felt disappointing to have the heroine vacillate between fear and lust, with no emotional payoff or plot development.

A dating advert which effectively summarises all vampire novels.

A dating advert which effectively summarises all vampire novels.

Single girl looking for hot, controlling vampire/socially awkward mage/maverick demon hunter/unapproachable shape shifter. Normals need not apply.

Activities include uncovering ancient conspiracies, discovering old spell books, and saving the world from destruction.

Must haves include a talking cat, psychotic family members and a memorable catch phrase.

Despite the break-out success of twilight, vampire inspired novels and tv shows have been with us always and will probably continue to remain in vogue even after the twilight movies are thankfully over and done with.

This is a list of 10 vampire themed books, ranging from the good, to the terrible.

Anne Rice-The Vampire Chronicles:

Why they were great: Written in the 1980s, Anne Rice explores the vampiric nature at its bleakest. Unlike subsequent authors, where there’s effectively no downside in being immortal, Anne Rice’s characters demonstrate how depressing and lonely it can be to live forever. My favourite character in the series was probably Lestat followed by Marius. The fact that vampires only gained gifts over time rather than developed them immediately was also good. Plot line wise each book could probably be read as a stand alone novel. Anne Rice has a seductive style which draws the reader in, and the fact that each of the books are effectively autobiographies of the vampire in question is a nice touch.

Claudia Gray-Evernight series-

Why they were great: This series departs from the usual vampire formula in ways that I won’t go into because they’re a huge part of the story. It’s a refreshing take to the genre. Unlike other vampire related novels, this actually had a well rounded cast of characters, and more than one storyline going on. It starts out seeming like it’s going to conform to vampire stereotype of a boarding school filled with hot but pale people and a guy who seems hostile and unapproachable….but it develops in a completely different direction and for that, well done :) 

Karen Chance-Cassie Palmer series-

Why they were great: Well rounded characters, a world that’s been thought through, great dialogue, awesome action scenes and a heroine that you would like if you met her in real life. The series in a way starts in the middle of events, since so much has happened beforehand; despite this, the flashbacks you get during the series are fun, and you never feel short-changed, plot-wise. However, to get into this series you have to know going in that there will be a lot of fight scenes and a lot of technical information in the first book. I enjoyed both these aspects but my sister did not. You get the feeling that the author planned this series really well, which is always a plus. I also enjoyed the concept of vampire rankings, with level 1 being the strongest and level 7 the weakest Master level, but the level you need to achieve before making other vampires. In addition, the different roles that the vampires play, the war mages play and the demonic realms, faerie realms, and the Olympic realms makes the universe big with the potential to grow even more. Also there are going to be 9 Cassie Palmer books, and after 4 they’re still going strong!

Karen Chance-Dorina Basarab series:

I prefer the Cassie Palmer series to the Dorina Basarab series partly because I don’t like Dorina’s room mate, and also I prefer the books being set in Las Vegas compared to New York. Dorina Basarab is a dhampir, which is someone who’s half vampire, half human. In this world, most dhampirs are prone to bouts of insanity and are usually killed early on. However, Dorina Basarab has managed to reach 500 without being killed. In a way this is a minus point, since she’s reach 500 and yet still seems to be of equal maturity to Cassie who is 24 in human years. To me this is quite irritating. However, this series is fun because you’re able to see the Cassie Palmer universe from a different angle.

Rachel Caine-Morganville Vampire series-

I like this series. The central character Claire is likeable even though essentially every other page describes her as smart or mentions her love of classroom text books. Her flat mates are cool, and all have different hang-ups or problems which actually play a role in the subsequent storylines. The town is completely run by vampires, which makes you wonder why they bother advertising for students for their university from the outside given that they don’t seem to need the money and aren’t allowed to attack them... But, I would definitely recommend this series. 
Not great but good:
L.J. Smith-the Nightworld.
These books are good. The reason why they're not great is because they don't have much to do with vampires, and all essentially have the same plot line, however, after book 6 (there are 9 out so far, with a 10th one coming, except it's been on hold for about 10 years...) they start to go in a new direction, towards an ancient prophecy which will result in the end of the world, unless 4 key people are found to stop it. I really enjoyed these books, they're fairly short with sweet and simple storylines. Essentially the perfect series to read for escapism.
Not great, but not offensively bad:

Charlaine Harris-True Blood.

I enjoy this series. The characters are again well rounded, and the fact that they’re essentially murder mysteries with a few supernatural elements thrown in is refreshing. However, I do prefer the TV series to the books and have been finding Sookie increasingly difficult to relate to as time goes on. I like that it’s set in the Southern States as well as the premise that this is what the world would be like if vampires had ‘come out of the coffin’. However, to an extent they should remain in the fantasy realm as I wasn’t that crazy about Hurricane Katrina making an appearance. Then again, it was interesting. Definitely love Eric, not so into either Bill, Sam or Quinn.

House of Night-

Started out great. The first two books were awesome even if she did come into her powers a bit too easily-they were just handed to her, which blocked of an avenue for character development.  She becomes less likeable as time goes on, partly because she acquires another boyfriend with every book, without getting rid of the previous boyfriend. It gets to book 3 and she has 3 guys she could effectively call her boyfriend. Her cast of friends, who are the most two-dimensional characters, seem both annoying and not people anyone would be friends with. It feels like their entire existent is to fill an imaginary quota. The creation of arch-enemy, turned accomplice, turned friend, Aphrodite helps the other books, but she is only one person and not even she can prevent the decline of this series. 
Red-headed stepchild, Sabrina Kane series-Jaye Wells:
An interesting twist on the vampire genre-vampires are the product of a union between Adam and Lilith, his wife before Eve. Hence, vampires can only be destroyed by apple wood, or juice… Anyway, it has some really fun characters, such as the side-kick which looks like a furless cat. However, the series didn’t really work for me. Have read two out of three of them, and still considering whether I should read the third.  
Terrible:

Twilight-1-3 would probably be in the top 10, but Breaking Dawn pushes the entire series down:

Twilight-1 to 3 of the twilight books were excellent in the sense that they were very readable and you found yourself really rooting for the characters. To me the books started becoming bad with the evolution of Jacob-referred to by reviewers from Amazon who gave the book eclipse a one star rating as a rapist in training-from boy next door to viable competition for the heart of Bella. Breaking Dawn itself is probably one of the worst books I’ve read in my life. 754 pages where it just gets worst, with all conflict or potential conflict eliminated to give one of the most sham happy endings ever. This ranges from Bella’s mother being completely cool with her marrying Edward out of high school for absolutely no reason, to the birth of Renesme, which apart from anything else would have made the book bad. However, this is not forgetting the completely unnecessary book in between from Jacobs perspective; the amount of crummy blonde jokes and the creepy creepy relationship between him and Bella’s daughter for absolutely no reason except to make sure that absolutely everyone had a happy ending. If the series had ended at eclipse, the ending would have been mature with the message that not everyone could be happy all the time, and that a love triangle always results in sadness for at least one of the participants. But instead of allowing her characters to grow, Stephenie Meyer just created an additional character to fill in the blanks of her storyline. Then there’s the fact that being a vampire has no downside, as long as you’re male essentially. Male vampires can have kids because even though their saliva is venomous, as are their tears, their sperm is fine? Why? It made no sense… But I guess it made about as much sense as male shape shifters just adding on a ton of muscle and ageing to be 27 whereas the one female shape shifter becomes menopausal… driving home the message that the best time to have children is at the age of 18. The needless additional characters who turn up at the end in order to prepare for the absent battle, the idea Stephenie Meyer had that it should be a battle of words rather than blows, which still conveniently kills off the one vampire who she had no feelings for whatsoever. If you compare this to J.K.Rowling who killed off key characters when it was consistent with the storyline, I know which writing style is the one with literary integrity and the one you should aim to cultivate. Breaking Dawn ended the series in a way which made you feel that starting the series was a complete waste of time and energy, which is really the worst insult you can level at an authors work. 

Alyson Noel-Ever More, also to be known as the ugly sister of twilight. 

This book sucked, and made you wonder why no author has tried suing her for plagiarism. The bare bones of the novel is twilight but in reverse-Wow! The plot line is a re-hash of L.J.Smith’s Soul Mate, the goth best friend could be a take of Eve from the Morganville Vampire series, but that could be pushing it. The lame central characters, and the unbelievable dialogue……that’s all Alyson Noel. 

Lynsay Sands-Argeneau Series.

Actually the worst vampire series I’ve ever encountered. In this series becoming a vampire doesn’t just preserve your age, it makes you younger? Why?! That’s just stupid. An entire family of vampires looking for love and you get to follow them doing this. In fairness, I’ve only read one of the books in this series and I may have read a particularly bad one; the Accidental Vampire. However, just from that one book you can criticise the dynamics of this particular universe. Firstly, the idea that vampire blood is like a youth potion, which is never explained. Secondly, the idea that there is no down side to being a vampire-you can eat normal food, you don’t sleep in a coffin, you can have kids etc. Thirdly, even in terms of a romance novel it fails epically. The idea is that your soul mate is someone you can’t read the thoughts of. Given that all these vampires are doing is looking for an absent quality, it would seem that it would be incredibly easy to find a soul mate. Instead these vampires are all single and looking for no reason whatsoever.
Chloe Neills-Chicago Land Vampires:
After three books there is no evidence of any semblance of a plot line. However, not nearly as bad as Lynsay Sands because at least this series doesn’t make you angry. The story centres around a 28 year old who gets made into a vampire after an attack. However, beyond her being a vampire with strangely advanced powers, with a best friend who finds out that she’s a witch in chapter 2, literally nothing else happens.

Hey

Hey! I've decided to start a blog! This blog is set up to a) Review Books, Tv, Music, Food, Recipes, Oddities etc b) Engage in active promotion of time travel in order to bring back the 90s. c) Have not yet decided....Anyway hope this blog helps some and amuses others.........:)