Slave of My Thirst - Hardcover

Holland, Tom

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0671540521 ISBN 13: 9780671540524

Publisher: Pocket Books, 1997

Synopsis

After investigating the spoils of a vampire attack, Dr. John Eliot returns to London to find an old friend missing, and his search brings him face-to-face with the seductive Lilah, who will not rest until she releases John's hidden impulses

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Reviews

The author of Lord of the Dead (1995), the story of the wildly bipolar Lord Byron becoming ruler of the planet's vampires at age 19, returns with a sequel and a fresh look at London's bloodsuckers. The story opens as a satirically rip-roaring 19th-century boy's adventure modeled on Gunga Din. A small group of ramrod British soldiers attack a temple of Kali high up in the Himalayas, only to find themselves facing Russian zombie/vampires enthralled by the goddess of destruction-and-bloodlust: She takes the form of a ravishingly beautiful vision of sexual horror named Lilah, who later turns up in London. The very amusing first 70 pages--as stiff-lipped British noncoms battle flesh-eating ghouls, and as Dr. John Eliot, also in India, investigates a horrible infection that melts brains and wastes the body, as well as a princely fortune that suddenly vanishes--are worth the ticket price. Eliot's research eventually sets him on Lilah's trail. Back in London, he's joined by theater manager Bram Stoker, who has not yet written Dracula but becomes knowledgeable about vampires while playing muddle-brow Watson to Eliot's Holmes. Eliot is enjoined by a young actress, Miss Lucy Ruthven, to look into her brother Arthur's murder and the disappearance of her guardian, Sir George Mowberley. The two men had been heading a parliamentary bill that would have a major impact on India. Trailing the lost jewels of Kalikshutra at last leads Eliot to Lilah and to a ghastly facedown with this supremely corrupted immortal who bathes in blood in a golden tub. Then come the real surprises--and Byron's return. The Victorian voice used throughout may have been fun to mimic, but Holland's own voice would have given him more intensity. Even Dracula's epistolary style can stultify. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

In his previous book, Lord of the Dead (1995), Holland turned Lord Byron into a vampire; in this one, he uses the vampire myth to explore reason versus passion in Victorian England. An introductory note by "Abraham Stoker" (the book is full of literary jokes) sets the mood by warning the reader of the danger in this "body of papers," which includes chapters from a book about India and excerpts from letters and diaries. The section in India is told by a charmingly pompous British officer sent to Kalikshutra on India's border, where Russians are infiltrating. There, he meets an English doctor studying a local "disease" that seems to turn people into vampires. The action moves quickly in this section, but after 75 pages, the scene and teller shift to London and the English doctor John Eliot. He is a less humorous storyteller, but the tale builds new momentum when an old friend asks him to investigate the disappearance of her husband, who just happens to be presenting a bill in Parliament about Kalikshutra. His search leads him through the real Victorian London (meeting Conan Doyle, Oscar Wilde, and some surprises) and the spiritual world behind it. Holland does a good job of pacing the discoveries in this page-turner. Fans of vampire stories, mysteries, spiritual musings, and Victorian London will clamor for this one. Kevin Grandfield

These days, what can a writer do to make his vampire novel stand out from the pack? In Lord of the Dead (LJ 1/96), Holland made Lord Byron one, and he brings his vampire Byron back in this new novel, narrated in part by Bram Stoker. Like Stoker's masterpiece, this book is arranged as a series of letters, journal, and diary entries. Stoker here plays Doctor Watson to a Doctor John Eliot's Sherlock Holmes. The book's opening section, though, comes right out of the movie Gunga Din, complete with a deadly battle atop a tower against the forces of Kali. But in this novel, those forces are not thugs but zombies, and Kali is not just a statue but a supernatural power who summons Jack the Ripper into the book. Holland mixes all of these associations together and serves up an entertaining concoction all his own. Literary junk food, perhaps, but you won't stop after just one bite. Highly recommended.?Charles Michaud, Turner Free Lib., Randolph, Mass.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Pocket Books
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0671540521
• ISBN 13: 9780671540524
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 432