Narrated by: Christopher John Fetherolf
Series: The Tome of Bill,

Just plain awesome!

If listened to each book individually. 7hrs 44 mins, 2hrs 44 mins, 7hrs 30 mins, 9hrs 16mins, 9hrs 12mins, 6hrs 20mins, 9hrs 58mins, 12hrs 4mins, 15hrs 2mins, 5hrs 40mins, 18hrs 40mins.
Total length = 104 hours 10 mins

If listened to compilation books + filler books. 33hrs 33mins, 2hrs 44mins, 6hrs 20mins,  55hrs 56mins, 5hrs 40mins  TOTAL: 103 hours 13 mins

Essentially, all of the books in this series are amazing.  The only reason why its longer if you listen to them individually is because of the licensing messages at the end of the book.

Cost & recommendation for buying
I would recommend buying the Tome of Bill (compilation) books.  Ie. Books 1-4 together, + books 5-8 together.  This way you save many credits on audible.

Or alternatively you can download from a different source, but for me I like the way audible separates their chapters, and the audible app making it easier to navigate rather than 1 big audio file.

If bought all books individually it’s a total of 11 credits.  (14.95 x 11 = 164.45 USD)
If bought as the compilation books, it’s a total of 5 credits. (14.95 x 5 = 74.75 USD)

So obviously for actual cost, you should go for the compilation books,

Is it worth it?   Yes definitely.  I would say, if possible you could try to get some of the shorter books from different sources.  But I could only find 2 from different sources and 1’s quality was not great.

Below I’ve listed out a short summary of each of the books, done in sequence of the writing.

If you want a more detailed summary & review of each of the books, which include spoilers in some cases on the premise of using [****Spoilers****] brackets with white text inside, then you can click here to see the list of Tome of Bill individual books on this site.

Basic 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.

Individual book premises
You can listen to samples of all books by clicking on the link which will take you to the audible.com page where you can read other reviews if you wish.

—Bill the Vampire (1) 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.

—Night Stalker (1.5) When Bill gets annoyed after stipulating that the vampires he now apparently governs should not kill random people & try to diminish their baser instincts a bit, and them clearly disregarding his wishes…he decides to give them something to fear.

Bill and his friends Ed & Tom decide that he will adorn a motorbike helmet, black cladding and oven trays under his clothes for armour and take to the streets saving people from the vampires of his own coven.

—Scary Dead Things (2) 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 vampires.  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.

—Mourning Woods (3) 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 2 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.

—Holier Than Thou (4) 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.

—Sunset Strip (4.5) Is about Sally, Bill’s 2nd in command in the Tome of Bill series, and it explores her past… how she came to be a vampire, set in 1979, AND where she is presently which picks up right after Bill disappeared at the end of book 4.  (Which ended with a fight with Bill, the Icon, Sally, a group of Vampire icon hunters and some mages)

The book introduces you to Jeff aka – Night Razor, Colin (the personal assistant of James) which Sally despises so much, James aka the wanderer , the Las Vegas vampire coven called Pandora (maybe that’s the name of the club)  And an ancient enemy which doesn’t have a side in the upcoming war between the Grendals (sasquatches) & the vampires, and is instead only serves destruction… or something like this.

—Goddamned Freak Monsters (5) Picks up right after Bills rooftop fight with Sheila, we get to find out where he’s been for the time he’s been missing, we see more into the world of the draculas, and of course Bill manages to screw things up

—Half A Prayer (6) Bill is recruited into Pandora coven in Las Vegas for training with Sally & to help fight the Jahabish (rock monsters) Find out more about this by reading book 4.5 – Sunset Strip. This book is kind of split into 2 parts, the Pandora coven part & the meeting with the Dracs.
Memorable moment: Bill compelling Robert (Sheila’s new boyfriend) “you have erectile dysfunction”

—The Wicked Dead (7) Bill confronts his Dr Death personality and hopes to work with it to take down Vehyron the Destroyer. As well as any other enemies that may stand in his way. He truly starts to embrace who he is. There’s lots of action in this book, and it progresses the overall story a lot. Really interesting

—Shining Fury (7.5) Seen through Sheila’s perspective the story continues with Sheila (the Icon) traversing around another way around to Boston in tow with her team of witches, and the Templar knights after she decides to take a different route than Bill and his entourage.

—The Last Coven (8) Bill & his entourage need to confront their biggest enemy, the white mother, unravel more mysteries and bring everything to an end.

Narration & Performance
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.  Whilst you can notice it, it doesn’t really detract from the story… It’s just strange to be honest.

Bill’s 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. The voices of the Alma (Sasquatches are great)
The voice in particular of Francois is amazing. The French accent is like a cross between Monty Python & Blackadder inspired French characters.
All other characters are brilliant as well, it’s literally only Bill’s voice that is irregular due to different recorded versions I presume.

Big congrats to Christopher John Fetherolf as the narrator, because he really does an amazing job throughout.
Sunset Strip & Shining Fury are voiced by female voice actors, but are also very good.

Flow of writing
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.

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, you often find yourself rewinding 30 seconds just to hear important lines.  Its honestly amazing.

Many would believe the style of writing to be immature, but if you’re not really a fan of sarcasm, dark humour or…. any humour in fact… well this is probably not the book for you.
This is not a romance kind of vampire book, it’s a kicking ass kind of story with cultural references sprinkled throughout.
Awesome for me, and I’m sure for many others, but it’s certainly not for everyone.

What’s more, is that the ending tied up everything well, it made sense, and it was a fitting end which is great.  Nothing more disappointing than an ending that either just doesn’t end, or… its a lame excuse for an ending.

Not this, this was fantastic all the way through.

Recommendation
This entire series is one of my favourite.
If not my actual favourite.
I’m reluctant to listen to it again any time soon because it was just such an epic story.

Everything was good about it.
I would seriously, seriously recommend this series.


Get a free trial of audible with 2 free books, listen to books like this for free, & then if you want….just quit before 30 days & you get to keep everything… sounds like a pretty good deal to me.