Sunday, June 17, 2012

Review - Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter


Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter
AUTHOR: Seth Grahame-Smith
PUBLISHED BY: Hachette Book Group
ISBN: 978-0-446-56308-6
RELEASED DATE: 2010
PAGES: 340

    After his mother’s death, an eleven-year-old Abraham Lincoln is told the truth about vampires from his father. His grandfather, who was also called Abraham Lincoln, was killed by a vampire. To make matters worse, he learns that because his father could not pay a debt, his mother was given a high dose of vampire blood, resulting in her death. From that day forward Abraham vowed to kill every last bloodsucker that came into his path.

    At the age of seventeen, he befriends a vampire Henry Sturges, who informs him that there are good vampires and then there are evil ones. Henry sees potential in the young Abe and spends the summer training him to become a vampire hunter, especially on how to use an axe.

    For the next several years they worked as a team, with Henry providing Abe with vampire names and addresses, and Abe killed them one by one. Abe learns that vampires own slaves and  they use them not as workers, but as meals. He is horrified of this and realizes that there is only one way to get rid of vampires - starve them by ending slavery.

    As Abe got older he started a business and political ventures, and at night he continued to track down the vampires that Henry wrote about in letters. After the love of his life, Ann Rutledge, is murdered by her ex-fiance/vampire John McNamar, Abe hangs up his axe.

    Abe marries Mary Todd, raises a family, and purses his political career. He reunites with Henry who tells him that the vampires plan on starting a civil war so they can enslave the human race. Abe eventually becomes the sixteen President of the United States and must deal with the newly erupted Civil War.

    Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter has been sitting on my bookshelf for nearly two years and with the movie version coming out, I thought it would be the perfect time to read it. The novel uses a diary type approach, as a fictional Seth Grahame-Smith is given the journal of Abe by a vampire Henry Sturges, resulting in Seth writing the novel. It’s better written that I originally thought; throwing in a bit of history facts here and there, while telling the fictional vampire tale. Lincoln admires may not be impressed by the sixteenth President being used in this manner, as some might find it insulting, and I have a feeling that Abe is actually rolling in his grave over this. Overall, it was better than what I expected, just a vampire romp with Abraham Lincoln thrown into it for fun.




CymLowell


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