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A review by vigil
Lightfall by Ed Crocker
Did not finish book. Stopped at 20%.
I received this as an E-Arc on NetGalley. Unfortunately I DNF’d this one, but I still have a long review for it.
I’ll start with the plot. It seemed fine enough on its own, and I wasn’t overly bothered (except for the class oppression vampires plot, more on that later) by anything. It was slow moving in the beginning and not giving much indication as to what the novel was about. I can make several guesses, presumably the gray’s will be involved at some point, and there is definitely something shady going on with the death of the lord’s son, but Crocker isn’t even attempting to hide either of those things. Sam, the maid, is clearly going to be up to something class related. Plot wise, I was fine.
Prose wise, I had several issues. Ed Crocker has a style and formula that makes itself apparent almost immediately. Short, quick, direct sentences that have more telling than showing, followed by 1-3 longer sentences with a longer description, but not necessarily greater detail. This worked best during the action scenes, but was more ineffectual for all of Sam’s POV chapters, even if she is sneaking in and out of libraries. The tone is flat and unemotional. This sometimes works for the vampire lord, except when Crocker expected me to believe and understand his grief, something we are occasionally told but never quite shown. The language is simplistic yet declaratory, calling forth a YA fantasy style than one suited for an adult epic fantasy about vampires.
On characters, I’ll keep things short. You could tell me that Sam was a 2010s YA fantasy heroine a la Throne of Glass or Shadowhunters and I would believe you, She unfortunately suffers from the same affliction that they did back in the day, where she managed to be nosy, snobbish, and obnoxious while also having no ostensible personality. The vampire is existent, and not particularly engaging. I’ve spotted attempts to make him seem layered, but they read more as discrepancies than development. There are more characters I’m sure, but I didn’t stick around long enough to find out.
My longest and arguably biggest problem was with the world building. This is the most boring depiction of vampirism I’ve ever read. In this world they supposedly started out as mindless beasts roaming the land before being granted intelligence by an event called the Great Enlightenment. I have issues with that in and of itself, but I’ll move on. Vampires are ageless undead immortal beings who use the blood of others to maintain their existence. They are generally the figure of the Other, beings who existence transgresses natural and societal laws and customs. So why is their culture and society identical to that of 1800s England? A beat for beat recreation of the class system, racism, and misogyny which makes no sense in a super race of beings. Many vampire tales utilize these things in their stories as well, but they are interfacing with human society at the same time. In Crocker’s attempt to remove all traces of humanity (yet still deal with human society) he has erased the contexts of their existence. This could still be a compelling novel and take on vampirism with that, but Crocker still insists upon pre existing human social standards without regard for what led to or influences their existence. What does gender, wealth, and sexuality even mean to a race of immortal beings? Lightfall doesn’t seem to have any interest in finding out. This is not a fresh new take on vampires, but a limp incoherent depiction of them, robbed of nearly all their vampiric traits. Even the blood drinking occurs from vials and glasses. As I read through the book I honestly got the impression that the book was not written with much interest in the vampires themselves.
The lack of thought given to whether or not this “class system” adequately maps on to vampires grows almost hilarious when in Sam’s POV, a clear underdog of the story lamenting that the wealthy vampires hog all the wolf blood while she and other’s of the lower class have to drink cow blood. The problem is of course, werewolves are real and are presumably having their blood being harvested from them, which does little to endear me to Sam’s cause. Blood drinking is really not a one-to-one allegory for hoarding wealth.
This is to say, I DNF’d this one. It’s a crying shame because I absolutely adore epic fantasy and vampire fiction, but I don’t think either of those elements were utilized to their fullest potential. Thank you to the publisher to providing me with this e-arc, even if I didn’t end up loving it.
I’ll start with the plot. It seemed fine enough on its own, and I wasn’t overly bothered (except for the class oppression vampires plot, more on that later) by anything. It was slow moving in the beginning and not giving much indication as to what the novel was about. I can make several guesses, presumably the gray’s will be involved at some point, and there is definitely something shady going on with the death of the lord’s son, but Crocker isn’t even attempting to hide either of those things. Sam, the maid, is clearly going to be up to something class related. Plot wise, I was fine.
Prose wise, I had several issues. Ed Crocker has a style and formula that makes itself apparent almost immediately. Short, quick, direct sentences that have more telling than showing, followed by 1-3 longer sentences with a longer description, but not necessarily greater detail. This worked best during the action scenes, but was more ineffectual for all of Sam’s POV chapters, even if she is sneaking in and out of libraries. The tone is flat and unemotional. This sometimes works for the vampire lord, except when Crocker expected me to believe and understand his grief, something we are occasionally told but never quite shown. The language is simplistic yet declaratory, calling forth a YA fantasy style than one suited for an adult epic fantasy about vampires.
On characters, I’ll keep things short. You could tell me that Sam was a 2010s YA fantasy heroine a la Throne of Glass or Shadowhunters and I would believe you, She unfortunately suffers from the same affliction that they did back in the day, where she managed to be nosy, snobbish, and obnoxious while also having no ostensible personality. The vampire is existent, and not particularly engaging. I’ve spotted attempts to make him seem layered, but they read more as discrepancies than development. There are more characters I’m sure, but I didn’t stick around long enough to find out.
My longest and arguably biggest problem was with the world building. This is the most boring depiction of vampirism I’ve ever read. In this world they supposedly started out as mindless beasts roaming the land before being granted intelligence by an event called the Great Enlightenment. I have issues with that in and of itself, but I’ll move on. Vampires are ageless undead immortal beings who use the blood of others to maintain their existence. They are generally the figure of the Other, beings who existence transgresses natural and societal laws and customs. So why is their culture and society identical to that of 1800s England? A beat for beat recreation of the class system, racism, and misogyny which makes no sense in a super race of beings. Many vampire tales utilize these things in their stories as well, but they are interfacing with human society at the same time. In Crocker’s attempt to remove all traces of humanity (yet still deal with human society) he has erased the contexts of their existence. This could still be a compelling novel and take on vampirism with that, but Crocker still insists upon pre existing human social standards without regard for what led to or influences their existence. What does gender, wealth, and sexuality even mean to a race of immortal beings? Lightfall doesn’t seem to have any interest in finding out. This is not a fresh new take on vampires, but a limp incoherent depiction of them, robbed of nearly all their vampiric traits. Even the blood drinking occurs from vials and glasses. As I read through the book I honestly got the impression that the book was not written with much interest in the vampires themselves.
The lack of thought given to whether or not this “class system” adequately maps on to vampires grows almost hilarious when in Sam’s POV, a clear underdog of the story lamenting that the wealthy vampires hog all the wolf blood while she and other’s of the lower class have to drink cow blood. The problem is of course, werewolves are real and are presumably having their blood being harvested from them, which does little to endear me to Sam’s cause. Blood drinking is really not a one-to-one allegory for hoarding wealth.
This is to say, I DNF’d this one. It’s a crying shame because I absolutely adore epic fantasy and vampire fiction, but I don’t think either of those elements were utilized to their fullest potential. Thank you to the publisher to providing me with this e-arc, even if I didn’t end up loving it.