Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story

For those reading this review who haven't had the opportunity to come across Christopher Moore in his other outings a little background may be useful. Christopher Moore has been characterized as a "cult" author of what has been termed as "absurdist fiction." Now, clearly, when anyone uses the word "cult" to describe something that I subsribe to, then I start to get a little concerned about the future safety and well-being of me and my family. But, in this case, I think its quite okay to be part of an ever expanding cult of Moore readers.Absurdist fiction, while a rather vague characertization, roughly sums up what Moore is all about. His other offerings, Practical Demonkeeping, the Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove and Lamb offer an interesting perspective on the more stickier aspects of befriending a demon, conjouring forth a sex-starved ancient lizard of the Pacific, and being J.C.'s childhood pal, respectively. Thus, armed with this background, it is no small surprise that Moore finds himself devling into the world of the undead in Bloodsucking Fiends.In this novel, chronologically the third of Moore's eleven novels, C. Thomas Flood (the "C" added for hip factor) is an aspiring novelist from Indiana who comes to San Franscisco seeking literary inspiration when he happens to meet up with Jody; a newly inducted vampire. Its your basic story of small town, midwestern boy, meets big-city vampira and love ensues. Well, maybe not so basic, but the fact remains that the big-city vampira needs a day walker to assist her in the stickier points of being undead, such as finding a windowless bedroomed apartment.The story begins with Jody, after being attacked, awakens to find herself under a dumpster, armed with a wad of cash, a seriously burnt hand, heigtened senses and increbible strength. It doesn't take long for her to realize that her attacker was really a vampire recruitier. Jody, being newly undead and all, is still trying to make sense of her new "life" and adjust to a schedule dicated by sunrise/sunset, as well as coming to terms with her near immortality, when she meets Tommy and sees an opportunity to fill the recently open position of "minion." Tommy, on the other hand, is busy trying to find authorial inspiration in the new City, avoiding marriage proposals from his Chinese roommates, and ascending to the throne of turkey bowling champion, when Jody becomes the all-meaningful first relationship in his life. All seems to be progressing, until blood-drained bodies start popping up around the City. Now its up to Jody, Tommy and his wanton band of turkey-bowling, night stocking buddies to find out whose behind the attacks before one of them becomes the next victim.All in all, while not a literary masterpiece tome on the same plane as, say, War and Peace, Bloodsucking Fiends, like other Moore novels, is fun, absurd and downright hilarious! Dialogue and an interesting perspective on common, everyday occurences is what sets Moore apart from contemporary novelists, and this novel is no departure. Pick-up, read and enjoy!

"It's not like I came to the City saying, "Oh, I can't wait to find a woman whose only joy in life is sucking out my bodily fluids.' Okay, well maybe I did, but I didn't mean this."This is not my first experience with Christopher Moore. I loved  A Dirty Job , and wrote up a review on it, but it never posted and I never rewrote it. Loved  Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal . I read part of  Fool  as part of a self-designed plan to really understand King Lear from different angles -- the play, different performances, the Moore book -- then I cleaned and now I can't find anything.Anyhow...Moore has a very definite outlook and it's pretty funny. People who read him are always talking about him as a great humor writer, but his strength is writing about how humor battles sadness, copes with tragedy, keeps people going. The moments when the books are just serious are pretty rare, but his topics even in his funniest books are deeper than they seem.Flood in dealing with his girlfriend being a vampire reads a lot of books, most of them fiction, although he's sure that Stoker or Rice must have known a real vampire or two.  The Vampire Lestat  is mentioned often and that book and this one don't seem all that similar. However, TVL was largely about loneliness, of losing loved ones and everything falling to ruin around you -- at least that's what I got from it when I was sixteen ::grin:: -- and this becomes one of Jodie's sources of angst too. She loves Tommy (Flood), but she can't share with him the way the world is for her now, because there are no words for it. Tommy wants to share his world with her too, but there never seems to be time, and there are so many barriers. Only Moore makes you laugh when he's sharing this in a way that Rice never does, at least not intentionally. :)I read Moore and am torn between laughter and queasiness, because some pretty grim events happen but the quips don't stop. I guess I'd like to see what he'd be like with 30% of the humor dialed back, just out of curiosity, but I think that says something about the way I handle the things Moore tackles with humor. A book as a Rorschach.Moore's best characters are lovable, er, rear holes. Good people saying weirdly inappropriate things and occasionally being pretty dumb in strangely realistic ways. See Flood's plan to stick Jodie in a freezer and how that all worked out -- but it makes a strange bit of dumb sense and anyone spending time around other people or even with an understanding of self can see how most of the crazy choices happen. I think that's one of the author's strengths -- the acknowledgment that fairly smart people do crazy things as opposed to intelligent people in books usually benefiting from the calm mind of the author as God. No, Moore's characters are just allowed to make bad decisions or not think things through. I always get the impression Moore likes people -- maybe not big crowds of them, but the individual quirks.Anyhow, all of this is a disjointed way of saying Moore is a writer that readers gush about and recommend for a reason. I've started the sequel,  You Suck  but one of my preorders showed up and is taking precedence. Besides, good authors are the ones you want to savor. :)

La tapa es bastante fina y malilla, pero por el precio...El libro ya lo había leído y es maravilloso.

Overall it's a fun read. The story itself isn't earth shattering but I had a chuckle none the less.My only issue is that there's a lot of American referneces. Not being from the US, some of them went over my head. For example, I couldn't work out why the number 49 kept getting mentioned. Why 49 out of all the numbers! Finally worked out that it's the name of an American football team.

Nachdem einem nächtlichen Überfall erwacht die junge Jody neben einem Müllcontainer und muß zu ihrem Entsetzen feststellen, daß sie sich in einen Vampir verwandelt hat. Um vor sich sowohl vor ihrem Angreifer als auch vor dem Tageslicht zu schützen, versteckt sie sich bei Tommy, einem 19jährigen aufstrebenden Schriftsteller aus Indiana. Jody versucht mithilfe ihres Mentors, dem Vampir Elijah Ben Sapir, ihr neues Leben in den Griff zu bekommen. Doch leider hinterläßt Elijah immer mehr blutentleerte Leichen in der Stadt und Tommy gerät als möglicher Killer in das Visier der Polizei...Moore erzählt die Geschichte in einem angenehmen Plauderton. Und auch wenn es seinen bunt zusammengewürfelten Charakteren manchmal an ein wenig Tiefe fehlt, gibt es genügend unterhaltsame amüsante und satirische Momente in diesem modernen, fantastischen Märchen.Das englische Original ist für Erwachsene mit guten Englischkenntnissen geeignet, da sowohl der Satzbau als auch das Vokabular gut verständlich sind. Allerdings verwendet Moore an einigen Stellen auch Amerikanismen und Umgangssprache, die jedoch den Lesefluß nicht behindern.

I was maybe expecting something totally different. It's not a proper vampire book, but not even an engaging metaphorical lovestory between two young people living in a big city. The first few pages are ok, then it just became a drag.

Like the rest of the world (ok most of the world making an average income), I am inherently cheap. I gasped at the electronic price of this book then held my breath clicked the buy button, opened the book, and couldn't put the damn thing down! Buy this writers work....that's my advice. If you want an evening of full-blown readers ecstasy buy it. This author has a wonderful way of weaving words together that leave you wanting more, more, more. To the writer, forgive my comment about the price, to the potential purchaser...just pay it and sit down knowing you're about to enter readers heaven.