Book Review: Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter
It’s going to be an awesome movie. The book is absolute shit. Possibly less than shit, considering the genuinely interesting facts you can learn about a person by analyzing their shit.
I’ve thus far shied away from this trend to take classic works of literature in the public domain and inject random bits of Zombie-this, werewolf that, VAMPIRES AS HISTORICAL FIGURES OMG!!!! there, and call it something original, interesting, and entertaining. The funny thing is that this trend more or less started with Grahame-Smith, as he also wrote Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. I haven’t read that one, and I probably never will, now that I’m so horrifically aware of what a hack he is.
The Google thus far won’t confirm this for me, but it reads as though Grahame-Smith took a biography or six about Lincoln and then stuck random bits of his own work in between the paragraphs that are mostly made up of what I like to refer to as gore porn. Gore Porn is simply gratuitous violence lifted to the level of Bad Cheese, i.e., super-graphic video game or B-movie with spouting neck style beheadings. It has been explained to me that that is basically what this stupid writing trend actually encompasses.
This book would possibly be less painful to slog through if I had never gone to college, or paid any attention in either high school English or History. Unfortunately, I suffer from both a thirst for knowledge and most of a double bachelor’s in English Literature and Archeology.
If you’re smart and you like to read smart books, you will HATE this stupid excuse for a novel that I can’t even wipe my ass with because they printed it as an expensive trade paperback with stiff paper.
It’s like reading something a sophomore in college might present with the vague hope that they changed enough to not get caught committing plagiarism. It’s a constant shift every few paragraphs from what sounds like solid scholarship to whining journal entries about how sad Lincoln is- to genuine prose that is obviously part of the story- back to scholarship- back to emoboi journal… The constant change of pace makes it impossible to get into the story even as a bit of escapist nonsense. And that pisses me off. Why the hell would I ever read an obviously gimmicky vampire story if not for a little escapism? I want my $14.00 back, and I don’t say that often about books.
I will think less of anyone I know who defends this trash as an enjoyable read. I might stop being your friend over it. I was irritated, and swearing under my breath, the entire time I tried to read crap so that I could review it. I was able to be forgiving for a while because I stopped reading it as a book and tried to look at it as a badly organized screenplay, but eventually that just pissed me off too.
Now, I absolutely intend to go see the movie. I know what to expect, and that is a visually stimulating Gore Fest of Awesome full of fantastic effects, and poorly written, nearly irrelevant dialogue I don’t have to pay attention to. Also, it’s being directed by Timur Bekmambetov, the guy who brought Night Watch to the screen.
Please don’t read this, or anything else by Seth Grahame-Smith. He’s a hack, he’s a lazy writer, and he is not clever. I may punch him if I ever meet him.
-Red
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