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V Wars

A Chronicle of the Vampire Wars

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V Wars

Written by: Jonathan Maberry, John Everson, Yvonne Navarro, Gregory Frost, Nancy Holder
Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell, Gabrielle de Cuir, Roxanne Hernadez, Arte Johnson, Stefan Rudnicki, Wil Wheaton
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They are hunting us.

In this sweeping, threaded narrative of the global phenomenon known as the Vampire Wars, mankind is unwittingly infected by a millennia-old bacteria unknowingly exhumed by a scientific expedition in Antarctica. Now, in some rare cases, a person’s so-called junk DNA becomes activated. Depending on their racial and ethnic heritage, they begin to manifest one of the many diverse forms of the "others" that are the true basis for the legends of supernatural creatures. These aren’t your usual vampires and werewolves - it goes much deeper than that.

Conceived by Jonathan Maberry, V Wars features stories from various frontlines as reported by such contributors as Nancy Holder, Yvonne Navarro, James A. Moore, Gregory Frost, John Everson, Keith R. A. DeCandido, and Scott Nicholson - as well as Maberry himself, of course. The result is a compelling series of tales that creates a unique chronicle of mankind’s response to this sudden, hidden threat to humanity.

©2012 Idea and Design Works, LLC (P)2012 Blackstone Audio, Inc. Anthologies & Short Stories Fantasy Fiction Genre Fiction Horror Science Fiction Scary War
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I think I liked this book? Maybe? Idea was interesting and some of the characters were interesting. Reading was overly dramatic at points and made it hard. Felt like it trying to be like “The Power” just not as good.

Still can not decide

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This is a Jonathan Maberry-headed compendium of short stories expounding on a central theme (an epidemic lycanthropy/vampirism virus triggering genetic changes - sort of like a Zombie Apocalypse but with blood-feeders instead of undead). Each contributing author plays with the idea of ordinary people transformed into flesh-eating/blood-feeding monsters in a relatively straightforward set of horror-flavored/gory (but occasionally kinda silly) submissions. The innovation is in how the contributions are edited: broken up into bite-sized pieces (pun intended) and scattered seemingly randomly.
Based on the Publisher's Summary and Chapter headings, I was kind of expecting an epistolary storytelling technique (like 'World War Z') or maybe a 'Tarantino'-styled attempt to cross-over and bring the stories together. Instead, they're simply broken up. I was both annoyed by the loss of flow and pleased by the "palate-cleansing" results.

As to presentation: any anthology like this one has variable performances as expected. Among the 6 readers assigned stories in this one (Stefan Rudnicki, Arte Johnson, Cassandra Campbell, Wil Wheaton, Roxanne Hernandez, and Gabrielle de Cuir), some are incredible and some are merely "average". In toto, I enjoyed the performances.

Altogether, this first installment in Maberry's 'V-Wars' series rates 8 stars out of 10. The story quality is variable and the staccato storytelling method is undoubtedly unusual and occasionally confusing.. but I enjoyed the collection quite a bit. It definitely caught my interest. I won't personally be continuing with the series - my reading list is far too extensive - but you wouldn't be crazy to do so. Book 1 - 'A Chronicle of the Vampire Wars' - was a great find on the 'Plus' menu. It would merit a Credit for the right reader.


[Note: the introduction of variable phenotypic manifestations of the infection based on race (Mexican vs Eastern European vs Asian vs Celtic Vampires all being somewhat different) is a straight-up genius proposition. It gives the authors license to write basically whatever monster that they want to without limitations]

Variably Successful. Unusual Presentation.

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it jumped around to a number of different stories, and most had little or no connection to the others, maybe I missed something, but I really struggled to finish this book.

hard to follow

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