There came a turn in the vampire oeuvre -- and that turn had much to do with the Anne Rice's vampire novels -- when the inherent eroticism of vampirism, which was one of many vampiric themes, shifted into a full scale fetishization of vampire sexuality.I don't say this to criticize totally what vampire tales have become. I remain a fan of Lestat, Louis and Armand, and I certainly dig Sookie's Bill and Eric (the less said about Bella's Edward the better), but the fetishization of vampire sexualit...

Barbara Hambly studied as a historian, and has a real flair for weaving her research subtly and thoroughly into her novels, as opposed to some other authors who also enjoy research (*coughcough*NealStephenson*cough*). This is one of the books that I look to for some solid characterization of 'realistic' vampires, as well as an enjoyable piece of fiction set in Victorian England, which is as close as we ever get to Steampunk these days. (sigh)Anyway, the book draws a marvelous parallel between th...

The premise of this book was fantastic---vampires are being killed, and so they hire a human detective to try and solve the murders....To me, the style went a little back and forth. Sometimes we went along for the ride with the Detective figure, other times it was just exposition. Also, there was a formalness to the writing that kept me at a bit of distance.All in all, a fairly quick and fun read!

This was the Fantasy selection for the Goodreads SciFi and Fantasy Book Club for the month of October 2009. Visit this link to see all of the discussions, group member reviews, etc.A fun read. Starts off too purple:...And she'd laughed, the sound bright with delight as the April sunlight. He'd kept that laugh—as he'd kept the damp lift of morning fog from the Cherwell meadows or the other-world sweetness of May morning voices drifting down from Magdalen Tower like the far-off singing of angels—i...

3,5When Simon Ysidro meets pretty girl he sees her as his potential dinner and not as his one true love, for that alone this book is worth reading. MAKE VAMPIRES SCARY AGAIN

There seems to be a trend in current dark fantasy novels, and that is of the misunderstand vampire lover. Most vampires in popular fiction today tend to be romantic leads. There is Twilight, Anita Blake, The Hollows among many. There is nothing wrong with this, though it does raises a host of questions, among them as Ceridwen aptly pointed out in her review of Kitty and the Midnight Hour, what is so attractive about making love too a walking corpse? Wouldn't it be cold? Additionally, the vampire...

Halloween Bingo 2021 I'm not a true horror fan, but I read a lot of vampire books. Many times, I feel they aren't really too horrible. Barbara Hambly managed to make me quite uncomfortable with her version of the bloodsucker. They may still look more or less like people, but they don't really act like them anymore, unlike so many fictional vampires that are basically just long-lived humans with strange nourishment requirements. I also liked her premise, that someone is killing the vampires o

Quite possibly the most boring novel about vampires ever written. I was totally drawn in by the good reviews this book got. Did I miss something? The plot is fairly straightforward. Someone is killing the vampires of London. One of these vampires, a 16th century Spanish don, forces an Oxford don (get it?) to help find the killer by threatening his life and that of his wife. The Oxford don is James Asher, a sort of Edwardian James Bond who's been around the world spying for the British - with a l...

A novel featuring wicked, murderous vampires, which will be refreshing to those who are disgusted by the modern trend of depicting them as romantic heroes. I personally prefer my vampires slightly less evil than this, but I really enjoyed the book.This is more of a murder mystery than a horror novel. Someone is killing vampires in London, in 1907, and an Oxford don (who's a former spy for the British government) is forced into a search for the perpetrator. I liked the interaction between the don...

Look, I love me a slow burn (there’s a peeing joke in there, but I’m not going to make it). This is the sloooowweeessstttt of burns. Maybe even a TINY bit too slow for me. But, I still enjoyed it immensely, and the languorous pacing is offset by the tremendous period detail and worldbuilding. We'll call it 3.5 stars and round up, because I'm that kind of fellow.

I like Hambly stuff. Period without being pedantic, romance without being sexually explicit, adventure without excess baggage (like testosterone).James Asher, aging and retiring ex-spy, in the lull before the Great War, is forced into the service of the hidden vampire world to find an elusive killer.

from https://clsiewert.wordpress.com/2014/...There’s nothing like a soupcon of horror to keep you awake during a long, slow night, and Those Who Hunt the Night did the trick. It’s been a long time since I was fascinated by vampires, but Hambly goes old-school with this one (or perhaps it was ‘current-school,’ considering it won a Locus Award for horror in 1989) and imbues her Victorian tale with classic gothic horror themes.Archer is an Oxford don who has done a little extra-curricular work for

This was another one of my series-sampling audio listens, to see if I might want to pursue it in print someday.Audio NarrationThe narrator is Gildart Jackson. His narration worked well for me. The story is set in England and the narrator has an appropriately English accent. I suspect I tend to be less picky when narrators have accents because I enjoy hearing them, but I thought he did well with the main characters and the general narration, and he didn’t do any overly dramatic or strange voices....

Really a 3.5 star book. The writing was good, the story was good. Everything tangible in the book seemed only lightly touched on. I would have loved to get a bit more about the Paris vampires. Don Ysidro was developed well but always came across a bit waxy (vampire pun intended). Asher was given the most pages in development but outside of knowing he did a bunch of "bad" deeds, I never got the full impact on his psyche. Lydia and the brother vampire felt the most 3d and they were somewhat non-ma...

Read this a little while ago and forgot to give it a rating. Good book, worth reading but nothing outstanding.

Being a vampire is hard! Hambly has created some of the most interesting vampire mythology and characterization I've ever experienced. It was worth reading (only just) for a complex take on the hard realities facing vampires, without a silly romance angle. There's also a neat backstory on how a vampire physically changes through the centuries. However, the language and construction were killing me throughout the book, particularly in the first 2/3 before the action took over. The story gets drug...

I originally read this book over twenty years ago and longed to read more of James Asher and his wife Lydia. As the years passed, I forgot about them and was delighted to find that Barbara Hambly has since written more of their adventures and there are now six books in the series! I loved the first one then and I still love it.Asher is a former spy turned professor and Lydia is a doctor specializing in research. The Ashers are based near London in the early 1900s. As to the vampires, it is wonde...

How exciting to find a new favorite vampire novel among books I already own. I basically had no expectations going in as I didn't remember purchasing this. I was looking for an "Octoberish" read while doing some housekeeping of my kindle content. I didn't know anything about this author or the fact that this was in a series.I loved the Victorian setting and the gothic feel but in a very readable story. In contrast to the likes of Dracula. I liked Dracula ok, but didn't find it as pleasant to rea...

2 1/2This book was one of those books where I kept checking how much I had left to read, and kept motivating myself with "just 150 more pages" "just 75 more... " so on and so forth. In other words, not exactly a compelling read.I sort of liked it at first - I liked the writing, and even some of the purpley descriptions. But then they kept going. There were some, though I don't remember specifics and am less than inclined to go through the damn thing to find them, but, anyway, some which were so

Third time reading this book and I still love it. It did seem to take forever for me to read this, but as I have stated elsewhere, I'm on a new medication that makes it difficult to read and keep my eyes open. I'm slowly getting used to it, however, so it shouldn't be a persistent problem. I also started to play a "new" video game that has taken up a lot of my free time. But enough of my excuses for dawdling on this book. On the third read I found that I am much more familiarized with London tha...