Vampire Nation »

Thomas M. Sipos traveled throughout Communist Transylvania in the 1970s visiting relatives. Vampire Nation was inspired by those adolescent memories. Sipos' short stories have appeared in Wicked Mystic, 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, and Horrors! 365 Scary Stories (the latter two published by Barnes & Noble Books). His articles & reviews have appeared in The Journal Of Horror Cinema, Tangent, Horror, Midnight Marquee, and Sci-Fi Universe.

A young American travels to Communist Transylvania on business during the closing years of the Cold War, discovering to his horror that Communism is vampirism, and a man is better dead than undead. A dark satire combining the vision of Ayn Rand with the black humor of Kurt Vonnegut.

Inner Sanctum - Quinn Tyler Jackson

Vampire Nation both is and is not a horror novel. Sipos has thoroughly messed about with the genre, and has pulled it off superbly, with a razor sharp class. The book reads as if written by Orwell, Stoker, Kafka, and Swift sipping spiked martinis over at King's place. What is more, Sipos has a unique voice, and although there is a sense of Animal Farm, 1984, The Castle, and Gulliver's Travels about Sipos's book, it holds its own as a Siposian creation. (A masterful and distinct enough work is Vampire Nation to coin a new adjective to describe it.)...

Somewhere between the howls of dying vampires, the political and social jabs, and the shots of guns, Sipos manages to guarantee it all falls together wonderfully as a page-turner. It might seem tempting to classify such a book as "enlightening," but Vampire Nation definitely is entertainment, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.