Vamp Reviews: Blood Price

These days, you can’t seem to throw a stone without hitting a brooding vampire… or at least a brooding vampire SERIES. Anne Rice, the Sookie Stackhouse novels, Twilight, and the Vampire Diaries… everyone had a deep Teutonic brow and even deeper angst.

But this isn’t the only feature to vampire fiction. Bram Stoker isn’t even the originator of the genre, if we’re being really honest. Now that I’ve been rereading some of my favorite (as well as less than favorite classics) of the vampire genre, I thought perhaps it would do me good to put the word out about the world of vampires outside of your run of the mill brooding beau.

Mostly, I started this because I decided to reread the Vicki Nelson series by Tanya Huff. Huff is an amazing author regardless of the genre, but most of what I associate with her has its place in high fantasy. However, Huff contributed substantially to the urban fantasy build during the 90s, before Sookie and Dresden, before Buffy and Angel. People wanting to look into the urban fantasy genre could do worse than 

The Vicki Nelson series is set, for the most part, in Ontario. Our heroes? The half-blind ex-cop Vicky Nelson, and the bastard (vampire) son of Henry VIII, versus an entitled computer geek and a Demon Lord.

Why not.

Blood Price

I remember loving this series, but when I put Blood Price down in the wee hours of the morning, I said aloud, “Damn this book is good!” This series has stayed on my shelf through various moves and book cullings.

It’s not just the balancing of the characters, the weaving of the plot, the snappy dialogue, the continued tension throughout, and Vicki’s amazing likability for such a hard-headed protagonist. The novel is both serious and has a deep affection for its material.  And I’m enjoying every minute of my reread.

Character:

Vicki Nelson is a stubborn, arrogant, know-it-all, and I fucking love her. She’s a perfect character in a lot of ways, and the fact that she knows how good a detective she was, and she refuses to let her disability stop her (even to her detriment), makes her incredibly real. She and her former partner (and boyfriend) fight constantly. Because he’s right that she’s putting herself in danger. But she’s right that SHE’S RIGHT about the case. She knows her business, and she won’t be cowed by danger, even the supernatural.

She’s also incredibly kind, and brave, and good hearted. You want her to be able to move on from the police force and remake her life.

Henry Fitzroy, our resident vampire, is also hilarious in his way. From his annoyance at how tall people have gotten in the last 400 years to the fact the dude is a writer of bodice rippers for a living… It’s hard not to love Henry, even when he gets snobby or too serious.

There are other characters—Celucci, Tony, Coreen—all real and interesting and important. Wait until you get to the later characters.

I'll spare a moment to address Norman Birdwell, since people have complained that he's a cliche... I mean he is. He's your stereotypical geek. He's walking male entitlement. He's pretty vile by the end. But Henry explains pretty clearly that the more Norman interacts with the demon, the more twisted he's going to become. At first, he was upset to learn that people had died for the requests he'd made... By the end, he's choosing victims and making a list of those who are to die. If it weren't for his moral deterioration, you might sympathize with him in part due to his misguided attempts to get people to like him and his hatred of being laughed at. That evaporates when you realize he isn't a good-natured geek and whines that one of the girls brought to the bar is FOR HIM.

It's not JUST the geek thing. It's the feeling that he's owed something by the world, and while that feeling grows and mutates over the course of the story, it was there to begin with.

Lore/Worldbuilding:

I get the feeling that many mainstream vamp novels are punking out on the worldbuilding these days, but as far as the early 90s, Huff was not opposed to setting her own vampire rules, let alone the rules for the other monsters she’s bringing in. I’ll address the others when I get to reviewing them, but let’s just say, the level of detail and how she’s thought out how vampires “work” compared to the common mythology is just damn interesting.

Vampires in her world are not dead, or undead. They have a pulse, slowed. They don’t fail to age, but rather are so long-lived that it appears to mortals that they don’t age at all. Their transformation occurs over time, and it has consequences for their relationships.

The demons that come into this novel, also, are well thought out, as far as demons go. The Lesser Demon/Demon Lord/faction infighting makes a lot of sense in context. Gotta love those demon politics. At least they don't use rhyming formalities when they talk.

Sexuality:

Henry Fitzroy is full flag-waving bisexual. It isn’t even subtle, but at the same time, the fact just IS. Henry gets cruised in a graveyard by a man in his fifties and thinks, “I love this century.” And then I'm pretty sure he blows the guy. His memories have him boinking men in a mystic coven. But he’s also clearly very into his sire, and the girls he dates, and Vicki. He’s unapologetic. Just annoyed at being short.

Likewise, Vicki is pretty unapologetic about still sleeping with Celucci, even now that they’ve broken up. She can consider sex with one man or the other, and it isn’t a huge over-hyped deal.

Plot:

Make no mistake. This is a suspense novel that’s not really a mystery. Really, the mystery is how they’ll ever survive it all. I’ve seen complaints that the book moves too slowly… but it’s only around 270 of a paperback. Part of this resistance has to do with the fact that Vicki and Henry don’t meet until about halfway into the book.

This is the tension of the book, though. What will it be like when they meet? How will these characters interact? And from the beginning, we are following Vicki’s investigation, Henry’s investigation, and our villain, Norman Birdwell, as he warps further and further toward the darkness of the demons he’s summoning.

Huff carefully lays out the pieces of the plot, following each character as they move into place, to the inevitable end.

Final thoughts:

For a book written over fifteen years ago, Blood Price holds up remarkably well. The only parts that stick out are really the lack of cell phones (which obviously contributes to miscommunication and missed messages) and the repetition of the phrase “Don’t teach your grandmother to suck eggs.” (Which I honestly had to look up, despite having heard it before in Tolkein. FYI, it means, don’t lecture someone about something they have more experience in. AKA, STFU, I know my business.)

My deep love for Vicki and Henry (and Tony!) holds. I plan to keep rereading the series and pick up the next part in the saga that follows another character.