March 2021 – Christina de Vries

I read a digital edition of Prince of the Vampyres that I received for free from Reedsy Discovery in exchange for an honest review.

Genre: Fantasy, Science Fiction

Publisher: Lulu

Publication date: June 4th, 2021

Pages: 105

Synopsis by the publisher:

This work leans more towards science fiction than fantasy unlike many vampire books. Prince of the Vampyres tell the ‘true’ story of how the first vampire was created at the fringes of the Milky Way galaxy. It is a tale of a young boy’s fascination with a coven of vampires whom he secretly observes as they feed at night.

The creatures of the night feed on bovine herd animals, not humans. That is, until one fateful night one of them creeps into the walled enclave the boy calls home. It covers the history of how his people crash landed on an M-Class moon, terraformed part of this hostile environment, and made a deal with the enigmatic original vampire they would live to regret.

Through a series of adventurous encounters, the young hero ends up on earth, in the 15th century as Vlad the Impaler. Rather than focus on the usual vampire lore, I show the reader how it all came to be in the first place.

My thoughts:

Over the years, I have read my share of vampire stories, and I don’t often come across ones that surprise me. But when I read the synopsis for Prince of the Vampyres, I was immediately intrigued! It sounded like a very different and new approach to the subject of the living dead. And it turned out that that was exactly what it was!

Rohb Victory writes an engaging, funny, and original story that looks at vampires in a totally new light!

Following these characters was such an interesting ride into a world where space and vampires meet, and it’s a perfect match! The characters had some depth to them, and the book covered a lot of ground even though it was quite a short read.

I really enjoyed Rohb Victory’s writing and world-building. Sci-fi novels can sometimes be slightly confusing when introducing new worlds, characters, and systems, but that didn’t happen here. It was easy to follow along with both the whereabouts of the story and the characters as well. He has a seamless way of telling a story where a lot is going on, and the characters had unique voices that made them feel real and relatable.

It is a bold move to write a story about a subject like this that has been done so many times before, but I think Victory did a fantastic job with this one! It’s original, different, and definitely worth the read!

I would have loved for it to have been a little longer and follow some of the characters for a longer period of time, but maybe there’s hope for more stories? If so, that is definitely something I would pick up.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed for that!