The Vampire Angel Viking Romance, A Novel

[lacuna]

I still don't get it - is this book an intentional parody or not? It seems so over the top that I can't imagine anyone writing it as anything but a joke, but the covers don't send that signal at all.

I think it's intentionally worse than it really needs to be, so that the reader knows it's bad. Then they can laugh at their own silliness, and let the eyes slide over the words while the brain is in hibernation mode. It's a pre-written daydream. You could improve one or two of the umpteen things that is "wrong" with this book, but that would probably make it even worse, an actual insult to "real" literature, rather than being funny at its own expense.

...or maybe the author views herself as a real author discussing important human themes. What do I know?

[Datepalm]

I'm really not sure - it's humorous, that's certain, and in some places the exagerration of romance tropes is part of the humor (Vampires AND Vikings AND Angels) but I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a straight up parody. We are genuinely meant to think that Vikar is hot, Alex is cool, and will, at some point, be genuinely expected to be rooting for them to get together.

[Maithanet]

I'm really not sure - it's humorous, that's certain, and in some places the exagerration of romance tropes is part of the humor (Vampires AND Vikings AND Angels) but I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a straight up parody. We are genuinely meant to think that Vikar is hot, Alex is cool, and will, at some point, be genuinely expected to be rooting for them to get together.

And yet at this point I'm mostly just hoping that Vikar turns out to be both gay and the villain, Alex exits the story to start a career doing something else and the previously introduced torture villain is either written out completely or killed by Lizzie Borden within a few pages.

I expected this story to be a mix of :drool: and :lol: . Instead it is mostly :blink: :eek: :rofl:

[Sci-2]

Chicken and the egg, eh?

I was thinking more how awesome of a feedback loop that would be.

[Datepalm]

So it's later that evening and Vikar and Trond are making spreadsheets and organization charts and waiting for another brother to show up from 1943.

Harek wouldn’t arrive for another few days, and Vikar knew from past experience that it would take a week or more for his brother to overcome the depression that enveloped him after having been in the Holocaust death camps. They’d all been there, done their jobs, and wept afterward. Yes, Vikings did weep when the atrocity was great. Needless to say, Hitler occupied a special suite in Hell.

I'm...kind of offended? I dunno. Holocaust, 9/11, torture-rape...they're just tossed in there as neat little asides, for the heck of it. Thats what's working against a straight up parody categorization here. We are supposed to take these people seriously. The holocaust makes them cry. Aw, but Hitler!

Another note - theres this recurring mention of Vikar being in charge of all the logistics for this upcoming gathering thing. He's got a lot of work to do and he's constantly fretting about repairs and the help and supplies and making charts and not having enough beds and feeding the work crew, who include Michael Jackson Vampire Guy and Lizzie Borden and a witch from the 1200's named Regina (I dunno, she just showed up), so you can kind of understand him. It's got a very slight tinge of that kind of (usually SF) book all about A Man Building A Thing, kind of like the literary equivelant of playing Civilization. It is, by a long shot, currently the most compelling element of the book.

Until it goes on for like six pages.

“Mayhap we could go to that mountain retreat we rented years ago.”

Vikar had to laugh. Retreat was a glorification of what had been ten excruciating days in tents, eating over open fires, in the forests of Upper Mongolia.

Sorry, Sciborg, I think she's homing in on you.

After half a chapter of this, we find out where Alex is - they've got her up in the tower room, in a room which ominously contains nothing more than a bed. If you're thinking that she's been out for a while - don't worry! She woke up, and they gave her a glass of water with tranquilizers. It's OK!

Vikar gets rid of Trond, who goes off to watch the three stooges marathon (really) and then makes up a tray of food for Alex and brings it up to her 'with trepidation', worried - FOR SOME REASON! - about the kind of reception he might expect. Fortunately, she's still asleep chloroformed:

He stood at the end of the bed and watched Alex for several long moments. She looked so peaceful. Mayhap she wasn’t really hungry. Mayhap he could put off the cleansing until morning to avoid her inevitable distress. Mayhap she wouldn’t mind if he lay down with her, just to rest, just to soak in some of her peace. Mayhap he was an idiot.

Thats...almost decent. Theres an inner conflict and he displays awareness of another person and there was a nice, understated domesticity to the bit where he makes her food and it undercuts the whole macho...no, wait:

So, with a cluelessness ingrained in men through the ages, he kicked off his flip-flops and arranged himself carefully against her back, spoon-style

And then proceeds to get off slightly with her unconcious body. Yes, really. Tinglings, sparks, thickenings and all.

To add insult to narrative injury, theres some sort of vague implications that if Vangels ever stop sinning and being all bad and stuff, they'll get wings and redemption, which Vikar never has. (I think, it hasn't really been spelled out, but I really should have known better than to assume he was talking metaphorically when he complained he would never get his wings a few chapters back.)

So when he's done groping the woman he assaulted, drugged and locked up in the attic (Yes, theres some serious-corny gothic elements in the whole thing as well) the text presents up with...

Just before he closed his eyes for a short rest, his nose tickled and he barely suppressed a sneeze. Putting a hand to his face, he found—surprise, surprise—a white feather.

So close, Vikar, and yet so, so far.

[Datepalm]

IN DEFENSE OF THE TEXT, it now occurs to me that another possible reading of the white feather is that it belongs to Angel Mike, who is setting them up. NEVERTHELESS, it clearly signifies textual approval. Headdesk.

[Lummel]

In my country...white feather is sign of

[MinDonner]

So they can time travel... but what the hell is all this "I'm off to Nazi Germany, see you in a few weeks"? Why can't this Harek travel back to the present NOW rather than in a few days' time? I mean, both time travel and logistical delays are reasonable enough plot points, but not when they contradict each other within the same sentence.

But all this is eclipsed by the theological WTFery. So Hitler's in Hell, yay? Does this mean he's being tortured by Jasper in the mung-tunnel? And does that then mean that Jasper is sort of a good guy if he's doing valuable Hitler-torturing work? It's kind of hard to have a setting where Good Vampire Angels are trying to save Sinners from Being Tortured while at the same time celebrating the torture of Other Sinners Who Are Not Hot Chicks. Not to mention, fucking time travelling superpowered Viking Vampires who have some Minority Report type ability to detect future sins... why the hell was there even a Hitler at all? Were they all too busy at their Michael Jackson costume parties?

But, the fact that we apparently have an Upper Mongolia (and a Lower one as well?) rather than the more traditional Inner and Outer, suggests that this whole universe is at right angles to reality, and I should probably stop trying to make sense of it...

[Datepalm]

Re Mongolia - I was curled up in the corner for a little while, weeping, a world atlas clutched to my chest like a white guy from Western Nebraska with a Mitt Romney sign...but then I looked it up and there are apparently some forests in Northern Mongolia, and google did turn up a few hits for 'upper Mongolia'. Just a few but...I try not to think about it.

Yeah...the theology doesn't bear thinking about. Except they suck at their job, apparently. And I didn't even catch the absurdity of the time traveller who's running late!

Interesting about the white feathers (I didn't know that! Now that episode of Downton Abbey makes sense!) but I do rather want to watch the movie now...Isn't cowardice one of the seven sins? Wheres the coward brother?

[MinDonner]

Now I've gotten over the initial shock of that chapter, what the hell is up with a badass Viking being so precious about TEN WHOLE DAYS of (gasp!) sleeping in a tent and cooking over an open fire? Darlings, I'm simply LOST without room service!

[Galactus]

Interesting about the white feathers (I didn't know that! Now that episode of Downton Abbey makes sense!) but I do rather want to watch the movie now...Isn't cowardice one of the seven sins? Wheres the coward brother?

The seven sins classically are Wrath, Lust, Gluttony, Envy, Avarice, Sloth and Pride. So oddly enough, no cowardice. (although it might be covered by sloth, lots of things are)

[Datepalm]

“What can I say? You are snuggly.”

“Snuggly? A Viking who snuggles?”

He shrugged again. “Must be the angel in me.”

“Or the vampire?” she scoffed.

“Vampires do not snuggle.”

So Alex waked up and knocks him out of bed, onto his "sans fat padding ass", (Oh, English. Almost flexible enough. A for effort) and without much preamble he announces that he's going to suck out her demon infested blood. By biting her some more, of course. And then replacing it with his blood. This is necessary because it is necessary. She refuses so he grabs her, pours (her own) vodka down her throat by force and they go to it and it's predictably sexualized and tingly and pretty boring.

She could tell that he was aroused by the hard ridge pressing into her thigh, but she didn’t feel threatened. Truthfully, she was also aroused

Sorry, that's the best I could eke out of that paragraph. 'Ridge' kind of makes me thing of something jagged and with at least one acute angle, so thats a little wtf, but maybe it's just me. Anyway, this bit is weirdly weaksauce. You win some, you lose some.

While she watched, he used a penknife to slash his wrist, first one way, then another in an X, or was it a cross?

Sex, death, christianity, the body, force, self harm, defilment, stigmata, chastity, blood, vampirism...this could be a potent brew, somewhere else. It's like a Lady Gaga video as staged by Enid Blyton.

He forces her to drink his blood:

“Shh. Don’t struggle. It will be over soon. Relax, sweetling. Relax. That’s the way. Suck. More. Good girl. Good girl."

Good girl.

[MinDonner]

*shudder*

That "good girl" is the creepiest thing so far.

[Lummel]

I started reading this thread from the bottom up. Still can't shake the feeling of my first impression reading this “Shh. Don’t struggle. It will be over soon. Relax, sweetling. Relax. That’s the way. Suck. More. Good girl. Good girl."

It was only later that I saw that blood was that which what was being sucked.

Must go and ritually cleanse myself somehow.

[Datepalm]

Must go and ritually cleanse myself somehow.

I recommend a strong dose of black coffee and few psychotic republican bad loser rants, followed by a very hot shower.

[Lummel]

Well I'm one third of the way there. I still feel unclean though!

[Datepalm]

"You are not to worry. Everything will be back to normal soon.”

But Alex knew—she just knew—nothing would ever be normal for her again. Especially when she awakened after dawn and heard the most incredible music. Truly, it was like angels singing.

Had she died and gone to Heaven?

What do you think? No, it's turns out the Vangels aren't just actively christian but...catholic, I guess. I wonder what you do if you're a Baptist or a Lutheran or something Vangel?

They and all the other karls, ceorls, and thralls had already been given the bread and wine of Communion by the elderly priest, Father Peter, as in Peter Jorgensson, a seventeenth-century cardinal from Denmark who’d failed to take his celibacy vows seriously enough. He had sired fifteen children. Enough said! You could say he’d earned his fangs the enjoyable way, and his name as well. Drinking the symbolic blood of Christ was an important daily activity for the VIK and their underlings, with many parallels to their vampire blood activity..

Wow, I never would have noticed that if it hadn't been pointed out helpfully.

Anyway, they sing in Latin for a bit, and Vikar thinks some more thinking about how awesome they all are ("They could make it big in the Christian music business"....book 2: Vikar Does Nashville....oh, who am I kidding, it's probably way weirder than that) and then Alex shows up.

“Are you all Catholic? I noticed a priest in there.”

He shook his head. “We are no precise religion. A bit of this and a bit of that.”

“Like Unitarians?”

“Hardly. We are way more conservative than that.”

“I don’t believe in God.”

He flinched at her words. Apparently, she was farther along than he’d thought.

That totally answers all those questions.

Vikar kicks everyone out of the house - well, except Michael Jackson Vangel and a few other random people, thank goodness - because he wants to get in a contractor to finish the renovations while they're all not cluttering up the place. This happens really fast - Alex goes to take a shower (in Vikar's bathroom, naturally. Theres not another one in the building with hot water or something) and whens she comes out they're all gone. Vikar doesn't even let them eat and tells the poor lot of them to stop at McDonalds!

The follows a bizzare-normal kitchen scene where they sort of domestically bumble around eachother, making food, putting on the coffee, Vikar on the phone with the contractor (in, again, that weird excess of detail about the renovation work) etc. You expect 2.4 children to show up, be given brown paper bags containing their lunches and be put on the yellow school bus any moment. <- I wrote this sentence, and read a few more paragraphs to find that then the skeleton crew shows up, sits down nicely in a row along the counter, and Alex makes omlettes for everyone. I just can't satirize this book, it keeps upstaging me. Anyway, they're getting along so well! Look how normal they are! MJ-Vangel knows how to use a toaster oven!

Well, except...

On her bare feet, he noticed pale peach enameled toenails.

Immediately his cock did a happy dance. Aroused by toes? What next?

What next?!?!

In fact he goes on to be aroused by her shampoo. And then by the color of her hair ("Not red, strawberry blonde") How long before he's aroused by the sight of her baking apple pie?

Alex points out that he doesn't just need to get the place renovated, he needs furniture too, which never occured to Vikar before! Oh noez!?! What will he do?

“What are you saying?”

“Honey, you have just met Ms. Super Shopper."

I don't know which of them I feel worse for.

“You should smile more often. You’re handsome when you smile.”

And I am not handsome all the time?

Still don't know. To be fair to poor Vikar, he immediately takes the thought back, cursing his pride. Thats not what i'd be cursing at that point.

[MinDonner]

I can't quite believe this book is really happening. Even that self-insert-auto-fanfic where Lin Carter went to Callisto to hang out with his main character was less weird than this. :stunned: Trying to snark at this is like standing up to an avalanche of WTF.

[Antonius Pius]

It's... Out there, I guess.

Didn't someone upthread predict the female-lead-barefoot-in-the-kitchen-cooking-for-everyone scene?

I just can't satirize this book, it keeps upstaging me.

It seems to have no discernible structure, other than a huge cringe-factor.

I'm feeling sorry for Datepalm for wading through this bizarro-spectacle.

[Lummel]

This is so strange. It's less a book than a mass of stuff happening with a pair of covers.

Will a plot emerge? Or possibly some more theology?