Book Review: The Nymphos of Rocky Flats April 1, 2009
Posted by kmcalear in Book Review, Book Series, Urban Fantasy.Tags: Felix Gomez, Mario Acevedo, vampires
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The Nymphos of Rocky Flats by Mario Acevedo
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Age: Adult
Content: Sexual references, sexual dialogue, sex-crazed-infected-women
Overall: Borrow or Scrap
Okay so if you follow this blog you know I like mysteries and I like vampires! You’d think a P.I Vampire would be right up my alley? Not to mention, the author is a Chicano which fits with my studies. Unfortunately… I still haven’t found “The Vampire Series”. I miss the days of the first 7 Anita Blakes, or the intrigue of the Harry Dresden Vampires. There’s tons of vampire series out there, but I still haven’t found one that gets that mix of mysterious vampire, intriguing world setting and great characters. The Felix Gomez series is good in one way: we’ve returned to a more classic blood drinking, hypnotizing, wolf-shifting, Dracula style vampire. But… the characterization is flat and annoying on all the characters, and I have trouble following any of their motivations. Felix runs around hypnotizing people willy-nilly, and bites (but doesn’t drink) to subdue them, all while belly aching about having shot civilians, by accident, in Iraq. There’s a Fae thrown in for good measure, who seems to have nothing better to do than hit on Felix and get kidnapped. And then there’s a couple other vampires who have nothing better to do than be over sexed and… hit on Felix. And sex-crazed women who have nothing better to do than… hit on Felix. Sigh. Do we sense a pattern? Oh… I forgot the male sex crazed clerk who… hits on Felix! They are minorly excused for being infected with a strange plague, but still. The sensualism is low, and the bluntness is high in the descriptions and the character relationships never work for me. Finally the end of the book annoyed me as well, because Felix doesn’t act with any lick of sense, running into an obvious trap… while weakened, no less. The one truly good scene in the book was the turning of two vampire “slaves”, because it was openly /creepy/.
<SPOILER ALERT>
The other moment that stood out as truly good because I laughed out loud was when the alien revealed himself to Felix, to which the Alien and the Vampire stare at eachother. The alien says to the vampire “We didn’t think you existed” the Vampire (Felix) responds “likewise”. That twist is intriguing, and I probably would have liked it better if I had liked the characters better. I’m willing to check out his sophomore effort, perhaps the characterization improves and I’ll put an update here.
