REVIEW: Dhampir

It’s been a long time since I picked up a fantasy of this weight – the saga. I also rarely go into a store and randomly choose a new author I’ve never tried before, but a couple of months ago, I saw an installment which is actually quite far down the line and decided to start at the beginning instead. While the cover itself makes me want to turn in the opposite direction (even while actually picking it up to read each time), I couldn’t resist the cover blurb, which promises a mixture of Lord of the Rings and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I know we’re all different as readers, but where the hell that came from I have no idea still.

So take that blurb on the cover with a grain of salt, because this isn’t coming close to being a Lord of the Rings/Buffy hybrid. In fact, I feel it does the book a disservice, when the book should be considered on its own merits. So I tried to chuck that disappointing blurb and do just that.

I found myself wondering right off the bat how it was intended for me to feel about these characters, this seemingly selfish Magiere and Leesil (horrible name for a male elf – anyone up for The Sound of Music?), partners in crime, essentially. Billed as the protagonists, or so I thought, I wasn’t sure at all if they’d come across as so when they were surviving by basically raping villages of precious assets, money the peasants would need to raise next years crops, and so forth. On top of it all – neither Magiere nor Leesil actually believe these Noble Dead – the chief amongst whom are powerful vampires – exist. They’re merely tall tales to scare people, yet the fear of these legends is so enormous that the two can pull off one vampire slaying after another, with Magiere doing the slaying and Leesil playing the vampire. Really, their art is down to a science.

So right off the bat, wham, we have a conflict. How to redeem these two? Well, Magiere’s working on that and about to execute a plan she’s had for a long time – retirement. She’s tired of fooling people (I wondered if I was supposed to feel sympathy for her at this point) and wants a place of her own in a village. And she already has it. While she and Leesil have been going from village to village, she’s been hording her share of the profits. Through a little bit of genuine confusion and bitterness on Leesil’s part, the two reconcile this decision of Magiere’s and they agree to continue their partnership at the new establishment, a bar she’s purchased in the village of Miiska.

But reputations are hard to escape, and before they even arrive, news of their intentions to settle in Miiska reach the ears of a small band of Noble Dead that already claim the village as their home. Three vampires – Rashed, Teesha and Ratboy – and one ghost by the name of Edwan.

Before we go any further, Noble Dead are this legendary and secretive group of supernatural creatures like vampires. A secondary character by the name of Welstial explains it best:

“The highest order of the dead, or rather, the undead,” he answered, “the Noble Dead possess the full presence of self they had in life, their unique essence, so to speak. Vampires are but one type, as well as liches, the more powerful wraiths, and the occasional High Reverant. They are aware of themselves, their own desires, intents and thoughts, and can learn to grow through their immortal existence, unlike the lower-ranking undead, such as ghosts, animated corpses, and the like.”

So Rashed, Teesha and Ratboy are Noble Dead, vampires that each attain a certain ability or talent once made vampire. Not all vampires gain the same abilities, and some may have similar traits, but one might be stronger in it than the other. Leaves room for lots of possibilities and ranges of strength and weakness within them. Now, what exactly is “noble” about them, I never did find out. Maybe it simply sounds cool.

We learn just as much about these Noble Dead and their ghost compatriot as we do about the protagonists. The thing that is interesting about the book character-wise is how hazy the line between good and evil is. On one hand we have protags that cheat villagers of money without any real regrets, yet long for a normal life, too, and on the other we have “bad guys” that are clearly so, yet we’re let into their lives before they were turned and see they were, for the most part, good people or ones that deserved help at the very least at one point. We are given the means, no matter protag or not, to question each and every one of them and their choices that have brought them to this point in the book. It’s not as simple as a straightforward set to cheer for and another to wish death upon.

As a result, what I find interesting about the Noble Dead description above is I didn’t come to really agree with it. It implies that the dead don’t change much once becoming a vampire, etc. However, after reading how Teesha, for example, was brutally inducted into the club, I found in my opinion that while they do retain a sense of self, it seems they can lose that original sense of self and become someone else entirely. Perhaps it could be explained by Teesha’s harsh new reality, her prison she found herself in as a result of being forced into vampirism. I don’t think it was entirely that, though. I have a feeling there’s a lot more to it than that, that becoming vampire turned a woman that was at one point sweet, innocent and so very happy, into a cold, selfish and calculating individual that had no conscience when it came to killing to survive, whether for nourishing blood or perceived enemies. If vampires truly retained a sense of self, then I believe that Teesha’s sense of right and wrong when she was human would have still played into her personal logic and actions as a vampire.

One other aspect of the Noble Dead, or the vampire side at least, is the feudal way their small circles of members are ranked. One vampire creates “servants” of sorts. These servant vampires are bound to him/her in that if the master should give a verbal order, the servant cannot disobey; it’s a compulsion that cannot be ignored. While this seems foolproof, obviously Teesha, Ratboy and Rahed’s master had to have killed his own master at one point. It’s really a very interesting concept, these Noble Dead and I’m actually looking forward to learning more about this aspect of the world begun in Dhampir.

Bringing it all back to Magiere and Leesil, at times they were slightly dull compared to our Noble Dead characters. Both, however, do guard secrets and soon enough we’re treated to just as in-depth of a background check of them, too. For Magiere, this book is her awakening – and at times I wanted to thump her skull to encourage it to happen faster. She spends an exasperating amount of time fighting the possibility of vampires and other such creatures. No matter the proof that dangles before her, she scoffs at pretty much anyone that tries to convince her that vampires do exist.

Throughout much of the book, she’s not a very favorable heroine, but she’s not just denying vampires, she’s denying that anything happens to her physically whenever she encounters a stranger that appears to be more than a mere human. When she does so, her jaw aches, her reflexes improve and she is overwhelmed with a hatred of her opponent so strong she has no genuine idea how or why she feels so. We do learn how she came to exist, and compounded with the fact that, as readers, we know Noble Dead exist, it’s a little frustrating to watch her sloooooowly come into full awareness of herself. What we learn of her background is interesting, and Welstial is often around to pester her (rather damn unhelpfully) into opening her eyes. I am pretty keen to learn more about Magiere and see her grow into her powers.

Leesil was also a bit colorless till we learn more about his background. Up until that point, he appears competent enough, but when things wind down, he’s an alcoholic wastrel that can’t keep out of the wine. Then we learn why he’s chosen to be a money-squandering whino of a wastrel and it’s a heartbreaking story of a child that was never allowed to be a child. It’s something he’s ashamed of and has nightmares from and is therefore driven to forget in any way possible. His background, however, serves him and the other “good” characters well when the final conflict comes into play, even if Leesil is loath to call upon his ill-begotten skills. There’s also a small beginning of a personal discovery between Leesil and Magiere that hints at a romance, but I don’t expect it to ever really effect the series much as a main element, not for a while anyway.

For now, this is very much what I’m coming to call a Getting to Know You book. Because we learn a great deal about other minor secondary characters as well, more than I expected as we actually get lots of points of view in this book, not just the protagonists. We see this world through many, many eyes and minds and at times it was a bit overwhelming. I wished more than once that we didn’t have to hear from so and so, or even that someone like Welstial had been much more forthcoming with his sudden appearances and “advice” for Magiere that turned out more like petty, short outbursts of impatience rather than a mentor, which Magiere clearly is in sore need of. As a result of all these POV switches, and the getting to know you factor, the book moves pretty slow. It’s not really till several chapters in, when we learn Teesha’s background, that the book begins to move at a somewhat satisfactory pace. So it suffers somewhat, I think,  from a lack of action. Action doesn’t come much into play until the last few chapters, with a slight bit a the very beginning of the book as Mageire and Leesil forge ahead to Miiska.

I had a pretty hard time figuring out how I felt about this book ultimately. In the end, though, I realized that the book does make me think about all the characters, since it obviously is a character-driven novel. Worldbuilding is so well done in this one that I can readily imagine their surroundings, the mood of the commoners, etc. That’s a non-issue with me as a result; I’m happy with it. It’s the characters, and back to that issue of not being clear on who exactly is the good guy/gal at any given moment. Magiere IS the protagonist, but she’s a severely flawed one. Then we have our Noble Dead Cast, one of whom was forced into the life and was at one time such a sympathetic character. I actually felt bad for Teesha and found it consuming to read about her once happy human life. I honestly did not know how I felt about the possibility of her being killed off, even with her ruthless and careless ease in killing when they “needed” to.Because I found the moral ambiguity to be so interesting, I have to give the authors a lot of credit for their character. I think because this is a long saga (six books in series 1), we are having to wait for a lot of the answers that this book begins. And I do mean a lot.

Word to the wise – do NOT read the blurbs for subsequent books at the back of this and others in the series. I guarantee they spoil some installments. I read a spoiler for the second or third book at the end of this one that downright infuriated me as it was definitely a major part of learning more about one of these characters. It was completely unnecessary and plain irresponsible.

In the end, I was entertained. I wanted to keep coming back any time I had to put it down. I thirsted for more information on the characters. I wanted to learn more about these Noble Dead and how that part of the worldbuilding is constructed. The pace was way too slow and the amount of POVs is overwhelming to the point of discouragement at times. Ultimately this was a fairly decent entry and I already have the second book waiting for me. As the first in a series, Dhampir stumbles somewhat but serves its purpose well enough if I’m still interested in continuing.

Rating: Three and a Half Scoops

Series 1 order:

1. Dhampir
2. Thief of Lives
3. Sister of the Dead
4. Traitor to the Blood
5. Rebel Fay
6. Child of a Dead God

For more information visit the authors’ site.