At the end of the Vampire
Rites Trilogy, I was excited. There were so many ways in which things could
turn out over the next few books and knowing Shan’s way of storytelling I knew the
last six books wouldn’t be dull. I was totally right, the Vampire War Trilogy is one of the most exciting books I’ve read in
a long time so much so I stayed up all night and read the entire thing in one
sitting!
The Vampire Rites
Trilogy revealed to us that a prophecy had been made many many hundreds of
years ago. The prophecy states that one day a war would break out amongst the
vampires and vampaneze which would destroy the vampire race. It says that this
war will commence when the Lord of the Vampaneze reveals himself. During the
events of Vampire Rites it is
revealed that “the night of the Vampaneze Lord is at hand”. A war is about to begin...
The Vampire War Trilogy
consists of Hunters of the Dusk, Allies
of the Night and Killers of the Dawn.
In Hunters of the Dusk
it is revealed that only three vampires can kill the Vampaneze Lord. The first
two, predictably are Darren and his mentor Mr Crepsley. They are joined by the
Little Person, Harkat. The three of them meet the third hunter on their
journey. This hunter is Vancha March who is one of the Vampire Princes. The
hunters (and Harkat) make their way to see Lady Evanna (some sort of witch) for
more information on the prophecy and their task. After meeting with Evanna they
set out in search for the Vampaneze Lord.
In Allies of the
Night, Mr Crepsley, Darren and Harkat return to Mr Crepsley’s hometown (the
town where the majority of Tunnels of
Blood took place). Here Darren comes across old friends which have appeared
in the other books, such as his childhood girlfriend, Debbie (Tunnels of Blood). Debbie is now much
older and has grown into a woman, however Darren’s old feelings still remain
but as he is a half vampire he ages at the fifth of the rate that ordinary
humans do, meaning that he only looks a couple of years older from when he last
saw Debbie.
A lot of things happen in Killers of the Dawn and I don’t wish to spoil them at all so I’m
going to say as little as possible. There is a big exciting battle where lots
of stuff happens. That’s pretty much all I can say without spoiling anything.
The Vampire War
Trilogy is by far the most exciting one of the trilogies so far, there is
action around every corner and there are some very surprising plot twists and
turns which kept me up until around 7am in the morning reading them.
I got so deeply immersed in this trilogy that I felt
emotionally involved with the characters and what they were going through. Again,
it is hard not to spoil things but there is one part near the end of the
trilogy which absolutely devastated me into a state of near shock!
The ending battle (and the entire trilogy) is written
brilliantly and with the massive revelation at the end to I had to restrain myself
from reading the next trilogy as it was nearly midmorning and I hadn’t slept.
One thing, about all of the books, is that there is a small prologue
at the beginning which serves as a quick recap of the events of the previous
book. I can imagine this is highly useful if you haven’t read any of the
previous books, have only read some of them or haven’t read them in a while.
This is a great way to invite new readers to the books, so it isn’t absolutely
necessary for you to have read all of the books, which is what I think puts off
a lot of people starting an existing series as they feel they have to read all
of the previous books to understand what’s going on. It is highly useful to do
this with The Saga of Darren Shan but
not completely necessary.
I feel that this trilogy and the next trilogy are a lot of
people’s favourites as there is a lot of action and so much happens in the
space of three fairly short books. This trilogy sets up the next fantastically
and doesn’t feel like three separate books at all. As with the others they are
easy and quick to read as well as extraordinarily engaging. Yet again the
ending of this trilogy makes you eager to read the next!
 |
| Next: The epic finale - Vampire Destiny |
No comments:
Post a Comment