reading: Raven

This is the first of two novels under one cover by Steven Swiniarski (S.A. Swiniarski, to be precise), whose real name is S. Andrew Swann. The title of the book itself is Blood and Rust. (See the previous post about the other novel, The Flesh, the Blood and the Fire.) Both novels are vampire tales set in Cleveland.

The driver in this story is what it would be like to wake up from unconsciousness with amnesia and discover one had been changed to a vampire. How does one learn to cope with that? That's the protagonist's task, while at the same time discovering who he is and what was the mission he was on when it happened.

Like its companion novel, this one is set in a complex vampire society which, I suspect, was borrowed from or inspired by White Wolf Game Studio's Vampire: The Masquerade. I find it a little silly. Of course, politics and intrigue in any society generally make for good stories, and of course there are some twists particular to vampirism.