Thursday, July 15, 2010

On Media: A book review of Dying Light by D. Scott Meek



Let’s face it: you can’t swing a bat without hitting a book about vampires these days.

They’re everywhere – vampires glittering and sulking, staking and loving and enduring their forever lives. But in Dying Light by D. Scott Meek, vampires are doing something quite original and captivating: they are living among us humans side by side, working, healing, moving day by day in a future that is bleak and uncertain.

Meek’s vampires – a lot cursed by a viral epidemic that swept the Earth centuries before – walk among mortals blue-eyed and stealthy, working side by side in hospitals and offices in what was once the nation’s Capital and is now a den of corruption and rubble from wars of the distant past.

Meek’s writing style is immediately accessible, his characters sympathetic and interesting – especially the vampires, who are more fleshed out here than the mortals. These are vampires to take notice of, full of rage and loneliness and sadness and sexual deviancy. Their blues aren’t the only way they stand out in a crowd.

And such as in other vampire tales in Dying Light there is a battle, but it, again, is not your typical blood-thirsty war – it doesn’t suck. This psychological thriller - this puzzle of who is really on who’s side, who wants to change and who wants to die - is more of a puzzle to unravel slowly (and flip back pages to search, hungrily, for clues) and follow to its climax… which may or may not involve a certain, very interesting, chair.

For an intelligent take on a vamp tale take on Meek’s Dying Light. And keep at least one light burning through the night.

3 comments:

  1. I look forward to getting my hands on a copy. Thanks, Tomi.

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  2. Wonderfully glowing review, Tomi. It will be hard to follow you.

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  3. This sounds like an interesting book to me. so, where can I get a copy? any chance of getting a hard copy signed by the author?
    Let me know?

    reminds me of those damn lizards....

    Kat

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