Review of Black Dawn; Morganville Vampires

Amazon summary:

Ever since the draug—mysterious creatures that prey on vampires—took over Morganville, the lives of student Claire Danvers and her friends have been thrown into turmoil. Most of the town’s residents have evacuated, but Claire, Shane, Eve and Michael have chosen to stay and fight.

Using the city’s water system to spread, the draug have rapidly multiplied. Things in Morganville look grim, especially since vampire Amelie—the town founder—has been infected by the master draug’s bite. 

Now, if Claire and her friends don’t figure out how to cure Amelie and defeat the draug, it looks like Morganville will become little more than a ghost town…

The Morganville Vampire books by Rachel Caine are a great way to lose yourself for an hour or two. They are quick and easy reads, and Caine really knows how to write fast action and make the reader's pulse race with excitement and anticipation. 

The plot for the 12th book of this series, I felt, moved in circles. Morganville is being terrorized by a vampire-eating monster called the draug that showed up in the last book (Last Breath), and for some reason Claire, Shane, Eve and Michael are the only (semi)normal people still in town. Morganville Founder Amelie is dying from getting bitten by the Master Draug, Magnus, and no one knows how to fight these water-infesting monsters. The fights between the main characters and the draug got very repetitive very quickly. 

The self-hating Shane that we experience for the better half of the book reminds the reader that Shane's character has addressed most of these issues in other books, and I wondered how much those dreams/nightmares really could have messed up his head in such a short time. 

The sidelines story with Naomi and Oliver fighting over power that supposedly hasn't been relinquished yet came out of no where. Naomi wasn't really in many of the books, despite Claire meeting (rescuing) her in, like, book 4 or 5. So this sudden run for the title of queen seems random, and a radical change of the character she's been the few times we did hear from her after first meeting her. That demi-plot also went in a wide circle, as well, with Naomi saying she deserves to rule and being shot down, to trying to kill for it -then being shot down again, to thinking she has a little more power than before -to being shot down yet again. To me this just looked like a roundabout way to make a new possible enemy for Claire (and Eve, due to Naomi's weird obsession with Michael) to have to worry about later.

The final twist with Myrnin kidnapping Claire to use her as bait for Magnus came out of no where. I don't understand why Claire couldn't have been forewarned about his plan, if nothing else than for her own safety. What if Magnus had showed up and killed everyone before Claire regained consciousness? Then everything would have been ruined. 

The added bit with the teen psychic Miranda read like it was a last minute inclusion. It looked like Caine needed a way for Claire's friends to all get to the Glass house without just "guessing" that's where Myrnin took her. Oh, and she needed someone else to die that wasn't one of the Glass house roommates. I don't like the idea of Miranda being the new ghost/spirit of the Glass house. I personally didn't like Miranda's character and internally groaned whenever I saw her name coming up on the pages throughout the books.

Overall, I still like Caine's writing, and she really has a talent for making me feel the action of what is happening in these stories, but I think Morganville has run its course.

Personally I give this new edition of the Morganville Vampires 2 out of 6 stars. 

I think the draug-plot had the potential to be a big Morganville finale, but instead we "found" a new attitude in Amelie to be afraid of. I am still interested in where this story will end up, especially if someone else is influencing Amelie's new attitude and how the town will be rebuilt. 

One Giant Summer 2011 post

Hello all,

So...... I've been pretty much AWOL since the semester ended, and I wanted to apologize for that. This was supposed to be a way to help me keep writing a little bit every day, but I'm not very good at keeping up with it. I'll try to work on that.
On the upside, I haven't really had time to update the blog very often because I've been -dun-dun-DUN! -distracted!! That's right, for almost four months, I've been distracted by a large number of things that have prevented me from updating my posts. For example, I have two jobs to juggle this summer; I've been helping a dear and wonderful friend through a tough time in her life; I'm constantly keeping track of the weather so I know when I can spend all day at the beach; and let's not forget the recent liquidation of my favorite store, Borders.

Mini-Post I: Retail "Therapy"

People suck.
Let's just make that clear.
You are probably thinking that I'm just a hermit holed up by her computer all day, but really I like being with my friends, and going out, dressing up, and having fun just as much as the next person. I'm not exactly a social butterfly (in fact I'd classify myself as socially awkward), but I put myself out there, so it's not like I hate the world or anything dismal like that.
But I do hate people. Especially people who go into stores and think that it's "okay" to steal, or leave things that fell off their hangers on the floor, or ask for a thousand different shoes to try on, then dump all of the boxes on the floor and not buy a single thing (despite a great sale), or return a shirt you bought ten minutes ago because you "wouldn't have enough money for the train ticket home" if you kept it. (All of these are true scenarios, btw, experienced firsthand by yours truly).
I love working at Charlotte Russe, I really do. I love the clothes and the shoes, and the people I work with are very diverse and interesting in their personalities and habits (they're chill). The time passes quickly when I'm working, especially if I happen to be working the register. But come closing time, I remember (if I hadn't been physically reminded face-to-face) just how much I don't like customer service.  I don't like working for other people because those people are dumb. Seriously, if you pull out a shirt to get a better look, put it back WHERE YOU FOUND IT and in the condition you found it it. Don't let it drop to the floor, or put it down on the shoe bench, or place it back on the rack sideways. That is making my job harder, and it makes everyone working there that day lose faith in humanity just a little bit more. The worst part: until you are out of earshot, I have to pretend like I enjoy kissing your ass, and if I can't, I at least have to be polite when I'm telling you to get lost.
For example, when I work with the shoes in the store, I have no choice but to interact with no less than (but not limited to) 20 to 80 people in a single shift, because the customers cannot get a full pair of shoes themselves. I don't know how many times I've had someone come up to me and ask "can I have this -shoves shoe in my face- in a size 8 and a half?" I tell them we don't stock any half sizes in our shoes because WE DON'T. They say "oh, well then can I have the 6?" That's quite the size difference in what you're asking, besides, the smallest size we have in that one is an 8, like the one in your hand. "oh....can I have a 5 and a half?"
Dumb dumb dumb dumb.
That has been more than half of my summer. Dumbass people spending way too much money on clothes they don't fit into.

Mini-Post II: Books

I'm a writer, so obviously one of my favorite pastimes is reading books. Mostly I stick to young adult novels (it's what I write, so I should experience as much of it as I can -that's my justification, at least). At the beginning of the summer I had a list of all of the books that I owned that I was going to read before going back to school in the fall. I got to maybe four of those books before the news of Borders closing hit me, and now I have more books than I have room for, and no time to read most of them.

I do, however, have a new fascination with Rachel Caine's YA series, The Morganville Vampires. It's an interesting new way to do vampires, similar to Charlaine Harris's mainstreaming vamps, but normal humans only know about vampires in this one town, Morganville, and it's because the vamps rule it. They're more like mobsters, or the mafia than police and politicians, and there's about an equal mix of the old vampire lore and new Caine-vamp "science" to make these monsters seem new and exciting. Definitely worth a trip to Morganville if you enjoy vampires and twisted, semi-political fiction power struggles.

I didn't get a lot of reading down this summer aside from what's been released of the Morganville books, but I did read "Girl in the Arena" by Lise Haines; "Along for the Ride" by Sarah Dessen; "Crescendo" by Becca Fitzgerald; "Living Dead in Dallas" by Charlaine Harris; and a variety of graphic novels, including "From Far Away", "Ouran High School Host Club", and "Pandora Hearts."

That's all I can think of updating right now (it's 3am, so I really don't want to be thinking anymore) so,

Thanks for reading!
Amy Liz