This is a thing I was doing on Tumblr for awhile, only now I can't be bothered to go on Tumblr because it sucks up huge chunks of my life. Essentially, it's odd thoughts about books from the perspective of a wannabe author-lit theory lover-avid reader-sf fan.
The book: The Medium by M.R. Graham
A brief summary, pulled from the series website:
Lenny is good at teaching physics. He is good at fixing things, making friends, and not attracting attention. He is good at being a medium, helping spirits pass beyond the Veil. But as a vampire incapable of violence, he has always been a bit of a joke.
All it takes is a drink in a hotel bar, a stumble into the wrong place at the wrong time, to run him afoul of Sebastian Duran, a lunatic who controls other people’s minds better than he can control his own. Torn away from everything he knows, trapped and starved and under constant mental assault, Lenny’s best hope is Kim Reed, a wizard tasked with bringing down Duran. Kim cannot believe that Lenny is evil, but neither can she hide him, and while she battles for his freedom, Lenny is forced to confront his own potential for monstrosity.
I am a huuuuge fan of M.R. Graham, because (a) she has this INCREDIBLE eye for detail that makes her fantasy worlds real and immersive, and (b) she self-publishes (which means she is her own agent, editor, cover artist, marketer, and goodness knows what else, unless she hires someone out of her own pocket) and I am generally in awe of anyone who can produce a nuanced and polished work while doing the work of entire departments. If this post piques your interest, I'd encourage you to give her books a try (and review them so she gets more exposure!).
Anyway: On to the vampires.
(no major plot spoilers below, but includes a discussion of the book's major characters)
One of the things that fascinates me about The Medium -- and something, I think, that carries for the other Books of Lost Knowledge -- is that it sits in this grey space between adventure fantasy and horror*. It carries some of the earmarks of an adventure story: the adventurous wizard and her cohorts, the Battle against Evil, characters working together in hope of a brighter future. But where there are vampires, there is also horror: in addition to the usual horrific elements of a vampire story (graphic violence, loss of control, blood blood blood, death and the undead) we have a warped and broken psyche that does its best to wreak the same destruction on another.
I am not fond of horror stories. Fear isn't thrilling to me, and I don't find the fear of others to be cathartic if the fear is what wins out at the end. Specific to vampire horror, I'm not drawn to problems of humanity/bestiality, control and desire, self-hate, or all-consuming relationships.
Except, oops, The Medium has all of those things. And I sort of devoured it.
Many of the horrific elements of the novel come together in the character of Sebastian Duran. Many of the things that makes vampires terrifying form the strongest elements of Sebastian's personality: desire to control others, low impulse control, sadism, lust for violence. And as the book progresses, we are forced to watch Sebastian wear away at protagonist Lenny's mind, exerting all that is horrifying about himself in order to make Lenny his creature. It is graphic and violent, and the readers are led to empathize with Lenny even as he ceases to know himself as an independent creature.
But, unusually, I did not find this at all alienating. I think it has to do with the role of adventure in this story, and of hope. Kim Reed acts as an imperfect parallel to Sebastian for several reasons (which are very spoilery, ergo not up for discussion in this post), but I think she serves as the most useful/least spoilery example to illustrate this.
Kim Reed is a wizard. She's tough, knowledgeable, and resourceful. While she's not always in control of her situation, she has the quick wits and creativity to make the best of a bad deal. She is always striving to do right by others and never fails to hope that things will work out right in the end. She is, in this sense, the quintessential adventure protagonist. And she pitches in for Lenny. As long as Kim is in the picture, Lenny has hope of being more than Sebastian's pawn.
Of course, Kim can't be present every second of the novel, and in some ways Sebastian's shadow reaches farther than hers -- he, after all, is the one who has kidnapped, tortured, and enslaved Lenny, claimed ownership of him. But this balancing act between hope and horror is not limited to these three characters -- it's pervasive throughout the narrative. Other characters are threatened by Sebastian's actions, and Sebastian is not the only possible propagator of horror; Kim is not the only one to offer, and Lenny not the only one to receive, hope.
...and now, I'm afraid, I'm going to have to bring this essay to a rather unsatisfying and ambiguous end: This is about as far as I can go without delving into explicit spoilers, and I want this post to be accessible for people who haven't read the book. I'll just have to say that hope won out, for me. ;)
Up next: Redshirts by John Scalzi!
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