More Than Mortal

From Barnes & Noble

Three years ago, musician and author Mick Farren delighted horror fans with a hip vampire tale,The Time of Feasting, which introduced a new breed of vampires who were an alien-human hybrid. Now the much awaited sequel is here; Victor Renquist, the centuries-old master of a small clan of vampires, is trying to settle the group in Los Angeles after they were chased out of New York with tragic results. Darklost brings back all the characters from Farren's first book and adds an intriguing bunch of new ones to the mix.

From the time of his arrival in Los Angeles, Renquist has felt uneasy. The instincts he has honed over centuries tell him that something is terribly wrong. When he stumbles across Apogee, a cult trying to raise Cthulhu, a dark lord of the underworld, Renquist knows they must be stopped. For the power-hungry upper echelon of this group knows just enough to succeed in their efforts, but not nearly enough about how to control it once they do.

Along with his concerns over the Apogee, Renquist must decide how to deal with a Darklost, a human woman who was partially converted but then left to linger in an in-between state when the vampire who took charge of her was killed. Plus, Julia, the most powerful and cunning female in the vampire clan since the tragic death of Renquist's partner, Cynara, is trying to change the mix of the group. She wants to recruit some new men and has her eye set on a particular aged movie star who, during his glory days, had a mesmerizing look and charm.

As Renquist struggles to keep his clan together, the leaders at Apogee splinter over their future goals. One, who begins to doubt the wisdom of what they are trying to do, hooks up with Renquist and offers to help him in stopping the cult. But their efforts prove to be too little too late, forcing Renquist and the other vampires to take some desperate measures.

Farren instills a level of nobility and humanity in his vampires that is as unique as it is intriguing. Watching their leader as he struggles to maintain order among his small but eclectic group -- all of whom love to experiment with their wilder sides -- is like watching a doting father worrying about his overly rambunctious brood. The juxtaposition of the vampires' blood-thirst with their role as saviors of the very creatures they feed upon creates a delightful ambivalence, one that is tempered by the hideous machinations of some of the humans. Here's hoping these bloodsuckers come back for another encore performance.

—Beth Amos

Library Journal

Summoned to England by a trio of female Nosferatu, vampire lord Renquist investigates a mysterious presence within an ancient burial mound. His research leads him to the discovery that none other than Merlin sleeps beneath the ground, ready to awaken. When a group of Scottish vampires enters the picture and Merlin demonstrates his own ruthless agenda, Renquist finds himself questioning everything he once believed. Continuing his series featuring a cultured and humane vampire protagonist, the author of The Time of Feasting and Darklost has produced another vivid tale that should appeal to the genre's many fans. Suitable for most libraries. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

For the sake of argument, we can assume that rocker novelist Farren (Darklost, 2000, etc.) has pieced together his eerie saga of super-hip vampire Victor Renquist out of his fertile imagination and a passing acquaintance with the literature of the undead. But that doesn't explain why he seems so to enjoy writing about the 1,000-year-old hemomaniac. In this installment, Victor has had to leave Manhattan rather suddenly, due to the political fallout (i.e., wooden stakes) that his binge drinking has aroused in the populace of that bloody isle. Back in Merry Old England, he learns that a prehistoric burial mound has been unearthed somewhere in or about the Home Counties that may be the final resting place of Merlin, the crafty old wizard of Arthurian legend. In fact, it is-but Merlin seems not to be any deader than Victor himself, and royally pissed off at having been woken after all these years. We get the usual Three Stooges mixture of sadistic idiocy that has become Farren's hallmark (this time involving some Scots vampires who might have stepped out of a Monty Python episode that was deemed too subversive to be aired) but the best part comes with the ending, which leaves Victor undead-and ready for another sequel. Sick minds of the world, rejoice: the story continues!