Vamped » (Reprint)

David Sosnowski is the author of the novel Rapture and winner of the Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize. He grew up in Detroit, Michigan, and has worked as a university writing instructor and a gag writer. His fiction has appeared in numerous magazines, including Passages North, River City, and Alaska Quarterly Review. Vamped is his second novel.

So this vampire walks into a bar...Yes, it sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, but it's just another night in the never-ending life of Marty Kowalski. With his trademark slogan — "There's a sucker born every minute" — this blood-drinking bachelor has managed to talk half the mortal world into joining the graveyard shift. Now vampires outnumber humans, and Marty is so bored he could die — again. With modern conveniences like synthetic blood and Mr. Plasma machines, the thrill of the hunt is gone. Especially for Marty, who's starting to wonder if he should just settle down, maybe start a family. Hey, it could happen. But is this confirmed nightcrawler fully prepared to adopt — and raise — a human of his own?

Publishers Weekly

Set in an alternate world where vampires are in charge and humans nearly extinct, Sosnowski's (Rapture) mildly diverting novel will appeal more to mainstream readers than horror aficionados. Undead Martin Kowalski, killing time at strip clubs and surviving, like all vampires, off blood derived from stem cells, is considering suicide when he encounters a six-year-old human girl, Isuzu Trooper Cassidy. She and her recently killed mother were escapees from a hunting preserve. Unwilling to vamp her (child vampires, aka "screamers," tend to be disturbed individuals), Martin opts instead to provide a good home for the child until she attains adulthood. The author offers both distraction and food for thought, bestowing endless tidbits, inventive explanations and intriguing tangents (why vampires love laser tag; what's involved with air travel when it comes to an all-vampire passenger list and crew) as he fleshes out an otherwise simple, straightforward narrative. Most of the work's broader concepts, unfortunately, are in the hidebound, daylight-avoiding tradition. While it's nice to find out fun facts such as when vampire lunchtime takes place (midnight), the plot is pretty unlikely even in context and the characters essentially one-dimensional. The field of vampire fiction is well-trodden ground, and Sosnowski's tracks leave little lasting impression. Agent, Jane Dystel. (Aug. 4) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.