Narrated by:  Christopher John Fetherolf
Length:   33 hours 33 mins

Check out my review for Bill the Vampire book 1 here.

It’s the 1st book in the series, and I enjoyed it so much I decided to get Volume 1 which is the 1st 4 books combined together.  Mainly because it’s cheaper, but also because then I don’t have to change books etc.

Story

Essentially Bill is a geeky computer game programmer; he plays dungeons and dragons, and lives with his best friends Tom & Ed, who are also programmers who are into Transformers and such.  I say IS, because even though he has been turned into a vampire, he still continues to work as a programmer (just at night), still has his same friends, still…I think, plays dungeons & dragons.
But he is a bit different than normal vampires, in that he is a ‘free-will’, meaning he is able to resist the compulsion from senior vampires to do their bidding, and has a few other tricks up his sleeve.  He has been provided some sort of protection from a very senior vampire called James who finds Bill funny with his witty & sarcastic comebacks and who is keen to propagate rumours and rumblings that Bill is the legendary vampire from prophecy, even if he has no idea of that, but is instead just bored.
Things get hairy as James sets Bill up as such, but then gets called away on business, leaving him without protection and to fend for himself.

Book 1, Bill the vampire – concentrates on bill becoming a vampire, adjusting to his new situation, , and the slow take-over of Village coven making him coven leader.  Note the narration on this 1st book is really weird.  Narration for the main character is annoying as hell, but for all the others is perfect.  Just a bad choice I think.  Gets better for the next books.

Book 2, Scary Dead Things – Starts off with Bill realising some of his more obscure powers such as the power to drink other vampire’s blood and add their power to his own, something which would normally cripple other vampire.  Sally (his vampire number 2) getting him into awkward situations which he ultimately benefits from.  Him visiting China to meet Genghis Khan’s son which turns out to be one of the ‘Draculas’  ie. The ruling body of vampires otherwise known as the 1st coven.  And the knock-on effects that the Khan’s daughter brings upon Bill.

Book 3, Mourning Woods – (& yes, immature pun on morning wood)
Bill is tasked as being the ceremonial head for the Vampire nation in a meeting to broker peace with ‘the foot’, otherwise known as the Grendel, or Sasquatches, which are apparently the ancient enemies of the vampire nation.  Set in the forests of Canada, Bill must take on more than the role he was initially given, deal with an arising conspiracy and hopefully stop the 1 sides from coming to war, all whilst not knowing the 1st thing about the supernatural world & the creatures that live in it, or the diplomacy that is often required.  He relies on his human friends Ed & Tom, his 2nd – Sally, a skilled diplomat sent from the 1st coven all whilst trying to side-step political manoeuvrings with the vampire hierarchy for which he doesn’t particularly care about.  Introduces an old French Nazi loving vampire called Francois, and makes a lot of French jokes.

Book 4, Holier Than Thou – Turns out Bill IS responsible for the rise of the Icon, the fabled figure of prophecies destined to be the Free Will’s eternal enemy.  Yet Bill doesn’t believe in all this destiny crap, and is determined to go in a different direction.  Aided by his friends, former enemies, his ‘beloved’ 12 year-old physically (300 year old actually) future wife Gan, the Khan’s daughter, and of course his ever more faithful 2nd in command – Sally, he must face a team of vampires & Magi (witches/ wizards) that wish to see the Icon exterminated.

Honestly, the stories are amazing, they’re funny, they’re obscure, you end up chuckling to yourself… they’re un-politically correct, and they flow.  Each chapter flows seamlessly from one to the other, the writing is of great quality.  The writing is not soaked with adjectives that are often unneeded yet are just there to show an author’s writing prowess… the author allows gives you freedom to understand the situation with more of your imagination.

The individual stories are great, with great details, but the over-riding long story is amazing, and I’m really looking forward to listening to the other books in the series.

The exploration of Bills powers, the discovery and use of them, the proving of his intentions to people around him and the addition of his unlikely bunch of friends I think moves at the right pace.  There are no plot holes, I think sometimes you ever rewind 30 seconds just to hear important lines or whatever.  Its honestly amazing.

There are a couple of ‘filler-books’  ie. Books 1.5 (Night Stalker) & 4.5 (Sunset Strip) which gives a bit more perspective and obviously sit between the main stories which aim to fill in thoughts from other points of view, I’m listening to 1.5 now, and will listen to 4.5 which focuses on Sally’s perspective.  Really great.

Narration?

The choice of voice for the main character for the 1st book is pretty damn annoying, although, this was clearly something that others responded to, and this has been changed for subsequent books. Essentially though for the 1st book the style of voice for the main character is very bubbly and seems to have too much variation.

That being said, all the other characters are great, in fact the narrator proves to be really good.
The range he has for them is fantastic, and because of this, the story comes together seamlessly.

One thing I did notice is that it sounds like parts of the 2nd, 3rd & 4th books have been re-recorded a few times, and the voices are slightly different at times.  You can really notice is, but it doesn’t detract from the story… It’s just strange to be honest.  Bills voice changes around 6 times….sometimes you think it’s because it’s now Bill as ‘the narrator’ , & it needs contrast with Bill as he’s speaking, but other times, it’s just random.  So that’s a little weird.

So recommendation?

Yes, definitely.
Get and listen to this book series.
Although, of course… your style of humour has to be one that enjoys sarcasm.

I like a bit of fantasy & mystery, and I love the way that all these books set up different worlds of what is meant to be the same concept (vampires, witches, and all the other characters of the supernatural world), and then go about exploring this world.  And this one does it very well.

I’ll be systematically going through all the other books in the series.  I wish there was a ‘Tome of Bill Vol.2’ combing the next 4 books.  But apparently there’s not.  So I guess it’s going to be expensive.

If you click the banner below you can get at least 2 of the series for free, and then see where it takes you.