THE BOOK OF THE DARK is the first truly vampire horror book I've had the opportunity to review for Vampire eBook Authors. It certainly is a departure from vampire as good guy or even vampire as pseudo-human. There is nothing human about this monster.
Unfortunately, Meikle chose my least favorite form of story telling, multiple view points and multiple story lines which leave the reader wondering what is happening until all the storylines finally converge at the end, weaving a whole tapestry. Usually in such stories, there is one character's story I like above the others, that I get caught up in, and when I am left hanging with a good cliff hanger, I tend to skip ahead to read more of that story and ignore the rest. Not this time. I must be honest, I picked up the book three or four times, would read some, put it down, and then by the time I got back to it, I would have to re-read to remind myself of what happened. I might have abandoned it, except that I had promised Willie I would read and review it, and I'm glad I persevered. Instead of waiting for the end of the story for all those multiple and confusing storylines to converge, it happened in the middle of the story, in one night of horror when most of the characters either die or are turned into vampires, leaving only a few to face the monster Shoa. From there on until the dramatic ending, the story was riveting.
One of the things that absolutely fascinates me about vampire stories is how many different facets there are to the vampire legend, how no two vampire authors seem to write about the same creatures. William Meikle has certainly added a different twist to the classical horror of the evil monster stalking the town, and it is religion. The Book of the Dark is the vampire version of the Bible, mirroring our own Bible, but the vampires were God's chosen before he created Adam and Eve. Like Adam and Eve, they fell from grace and struggle to be redeemed. They too built a temple and it was cast down. They too have a redeemer. Shoa is one of the unforgiven, but in the story there is also a good Vampire who must help destroy the evil.
