Narrated by: Drew Campbell
Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
Release date: 08-23-16

Decent enough book.

Story

Explains the story of Yulric. Who is woken up by a young 20 year old girl (Amanda) with her very knowledgeable 8 year old brother (Simon) to a world in which vampires have become something of fashion, something beautiful and to be admired…And relatively well know about due to a TV series made and starred in by actual vampires ABOUT vampires…in a drama serial kind of thing.

After a brief time of investigating this new world and becoming disgusted with it, he decides to wake up other known vampires.

In the books setting, vampires aren’t “turned” like in modern references they simply become vampires due to certain, usually violent events.

All vampires in this way are slightly different, with Yulric seemingly the more intense or traditional version. But others breathing fire, zombie like etc.

Yulric, a vampire of 1,000 something years became a vampire through a bloody war. Can turn into many scattering creatures (moths, rats, etc.) to avoid detection, can turn into a bat and fly, can turn into mist. Can survive a stake through the heart, and can implicitly tell when someone is lying. He likes causing chaos destruction and shaping the minds to encore chaos in others.

The new age vampires are the ones that are turned. They DO die from a stake through the heart, have become much leaser versions than Yulric and the other vampires that simply became vampires in their own ways. And have had a journey of selection , training and plastic surgery before being turned to make sure they are as beautiful and as “noble” as possible.

Structure

The story jumps around a bit from the past right before Yulric went to sleep his last time before being woken up in the present. There seems to be a whole back story there of him corrupting people, an inferred presumption that he killed a bunch of monks for not truly following his ways and it pointed in a direction that you assumed he was going to turn a young female follower…. But this part never seemed to culminate to anything, neither was it returned to in any of the story afterwards.

There seems to be a few things that are written as a potential direction…And then just never returned to.

Also the timeline seems a bit off.

There’s a part where the Amanda  is being held captive, whilst Yulric and Simon go to wake up coma girl, and then travel around the world to wake up a bunch of other vampires to raid the new vampires hideout. They travel to several different places around the world and obviously travel for a number of days… Trekking to get to far underground places etc, yet when compared to what’s happening with the Amanda.. only a few days have passed.

Certain things could have more description behind it. For example, the hospital scene where Yulric finds a woman that’s been in a coma for a number of years…It’s not explained very well before-hand that the girl is a nurse in that hospital.

Overall it would seem that the author had some great ideas and constructed /imagined an interesting world / new take on vampires, but it isn’t as polished as it could have been.

For the ending I can’t even remember, but it didn’t have a massive impact on me obviously.

This is the official description from the publisher:

After three centuries trapped underground, thousand-year-old Yulric Bile, also known as The Cursed One, The Devil’s Apprentice, He Who Worships the Slumbering Horrors, awakens only to find that no one believes he is a vampire. Apparently he’s just too ugly. Modern vampires, he soon discovers, are pretty, weak, and, most disturbing of all, good. Determined to re-establish his bloodstained reign, Yulric sets out to correct this disgusting turn of events or, at the very least, murder the person responsible.

With the help of part-vampire wannabe Amanda; Simon, the eight-year-old reincarnation of his greatest foe; and a cadre of ancient and ugly horrors, Yulric prepares to battle the glamorous undead. But who will win the right to determine, once and for all, what it truly means to be a vampire?

©2016 Jim McDoniel (P)2016 Audible, Inc.

I don’t think it’s ever referenced that Simon is the reincarnation of his greatest foe.

Narration

Pretty decent, slow , but relatively ok range of accents and voices. No problems here.

Recommendation

Would say if you’re wanting to write your own story one day or…Just love the immortality concept / vampire concept then you should listen to it.
The author re envisions and old concept with a sorry different than “normal”. And for writing pointers it’s pretty good.
But I would say it needs further refinement to make it a truly enjoyable and polished story.