| Title | : | Vampire Junction |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0812525965 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780812525960 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Mass Market |
| Number of Pages | : | 384 |
| Publication | : | First published September 1, 1984 |
Vampire Junction Reviews
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I was surprised to discover that this is not the only vampire novel that ends with the vampire being absorbed into a lady's cavernous vagina.
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Rock 'n Roll vampires? Yeah. I know. Except Vampire Junction predates The Vampire Lestat by a year and Timmy Valentine is more like Justin Beiber with a cape and a blood obsession. It's a rollicking yarn and it has a nice bent on the Vampire angle.
Update: Another goodreads reviewer reminded me what makes this novel stand out from the other vampire books. (It's been awhile since I've read it) Vampire Junction is from a Jungian aspect rather than the usual Freudian. So now we have these four schools of vampire philosophy.
Freudian: Dracula and most others
Jungian: Vampire Junction
Existentialism: Interview With a Vampire
Harlequin Romance Psychology: Twilight
Yep! All covered.
One more thing. I own the ninth copy of Vampire Junction ever sold. How do I know this?...
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I admire Somtow's operatic depictions, and his knowledge of classical music is put to good use here. 3 stars for enjoyment, rounded up to 3 for the pure spectacle.
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I stopped reading horror fiction years ago. With few exceptions, the genre seemed full of implausible characters in generically tense situations making the stupidest choices possible. Vampire Junction is an exception. Vampire Junction has restored my belief in the horror genre’s potential to explore the unexplainable dread we feel when everything is going well and we think we should be feeling only contented and pleased.
It is my favorite kind of read – ambitious storytelling with multiple storylines converging into one final, satisfyingly cataclysmic ending. The story itself veers from the sublime to the absurd and back again. I could have done without the boy rock star trope and all the video games and toy trains. The best scares here aren’t about bloodsucking vampires. The fright is existential; it is metaphysical. And there are real surprises. Somtow isn’t afraid to kill seemingly major characters in the service of advancing the story.
This is the book that birthed the splatterpunk movement. Having read Poppy Brite and Kathe Koja, I worried a bit. But the gore serves its purpose and is not gratuitous for someone who grew up reading Clive Barker. I enjoyed it much more than I expected. Not recommended for the squeamish or the easily offended. It brims with vile acts of cruelty and repugnant deeds, but the novel offers a sincere contemplation of redemption that prevents the filth from being mere entertainment. -
Not all that many months ago, I posted a "placeholder" review for this book, intending to update it when I re-read it. Having now re-read it, I don't have very much to add, so I'm going to leave that in place. All I would say now is that some intriguing concepts get drowned in a sea of gratuitous blood, leaving only a slight impression on the mind.
I know I read it, but I don't remember much about it at all. I did look it over a bit to refresh my memory about it, but that only drew my attention to how much I had completely forgotten it. The main thing I remember from the time is that I asked a friend why Somtow Sucharitkul would want to change such a great name to the far-less interesting "SP Somtow."
This book came out between the publication of
Interview With the Vampire and
The Vampire Lestat, and it seems to be partly a response to the first and an anticipation of the second. The first scene, in fact, is a sort of parody of "Interview," in which the vampire rapidly seduces and kills his interviewer. A lot of the book focuses around the doings of the vampire-as-rock-star, which is the theme Rice would explore in "Lestat." This may explain why this book is so forgettable (and forgotten), it treads a bit too close to better-known ground.
The most intriguing aspect of this book, as I looked at it again, was the idea that the vampire was a kind of Jungian archetype made manifest, called out of the collective subconscious by the power of the human will. I don't recall whether this idea is explored fully, but it has great potential. Also, Somtow's hero is a conductor, which is his own profession as well, giving him a chance to discuss the world of classical music from the inside. -
Two stars for interesting ideas, but the pacing and writing didn't really grab me. The exploding bodies at Timmy's final concert were a bit much, but then I read the scene in Bluebeard's castle and had to stop.
I read a short story by Somtow in
Mothership: Tales from Afrofuturism and Beyond that I enjoyed, so I would read something else by this author, but I just couldn't finish this one. -
I read this book when it first came out back in the 80's. I think it is that rare combination of horror and black hunor that Robert Bloch was so well known for. That Timmy is a vampire is really just a device to take the reader on a wild ride that manages to satirize everything from bubble gum rock to psychotherapy to characters in history while delivering a truly horrific story. Somtow is a prolific, award winning Thai writer, musician and composer. This book has been rated as one of the top horror novels ever written and tho I usually don't pay much attention to ratings,I would second this one.
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An average vampire tale that, as so often happens, devolves.into way too many pages of philosophical claptrap and musings, making it about a hundred pages too long. Decent at first, but a slog to finish.
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OK, I like books about vampires. Bram Stoker hooked me into the genre when I was a child, a long time ago. This book stands out because of its concept of a boy vampire, made 2000 years ago and having Greek as his first language who manges to stay alive until present times, having gone through so many identities and languages that he has difficulty remembering them all.
Enter Timmy Valentine, 12 year old rock star whose voice is so unearthly he doesn't seem to be breathing. Well, he isn't. One way and another Timmy, as he's now known, takes us back through time to Germany under the Nazis and, via a brief stop with Gilles de Rais, to an ancient Sybil at a time when Greek had so many tones it sounded almost like singing.
The ending is apocalyptic, resulting in the complete destruction of a town by fire and Timmy's disappearance. But this is only the first book of a trilogy. If you're reading this, then read Valentine and Vanitas as well. -
2000 year old in 12 year old body vampire eunich singer: intriguing
hot 40 year old analyst-to-vampire: intresting
plot: awful.
what an awful book. I'd say it was a ripoff of The Vampire Lestat, but it was written 2 years earlier. it gets an extra star for the interesting characters, but probably only deserves one. -
This novel and the two that follow it are about Timmy Valentine, who goes by many names, is a 2,000 year old vampire who looks like a 12 year old boy and in the present is a rock star. Like Saint Germain, he is not evil, but the vampires he makes are. Also like Saint Germain, Timmy and some of those who he is surrounded by for a very long time are musicians.
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Eh, it could have been a fun romp if it didn't drag so much. I felt like so many passages were unnecessary. The writing isn't bad. I just wish the author would cut the fat out as it drowns out a lot of the important details and plot points while making certain character traits bland or just annoying.
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I first heard of Somtow and this book in the additional recommendations at the back of Horror: 100 Best Books, his name stood out but so did the word "Junction", which is nothing like the words generally used in vampire titles. This is his most famous book (considered by many to be an early splatterpunk book), not his best, I've only read 4 of his books but the Inquestor series is on a higher plane.
Timmy Valentine is a 2000 year old vampire stuck with the body of a 12 year old boy, now he's an extremely successful pop star. We frequently visit previous eras of his life and the various characters connected to him. Jungian archetypes are central to the story and the more it gets into them, the more hallucinatory the story is. Vampires can change form based on the fears and desires of the people who see them and somehow Valentine's home has same ability.
This is very much set in the modern world (or the early 80s) with all the cultural references, videogames, famous brands and preposterous merchandise. Vampire films are often referenced and I think one scene was a nod to Stephen King's Salem's Lot. Somtow's classical music background is used even more extensively than in Inquestor.
The best scenes have an incredible energy, I really like the way it developed the archetypes concept, it's frequently funny. Stephen Miles is such an odd character.
Some complaints: the writing is not quite as refined as the other Somtow books I've read. As much as he executes his imagery very well (and he can do this brilliantly), there's still lots of scenes that I think needed more fleshing out and description, because so many things that seem ripe for a juicy description just pass by without conjuring much of a vivid picture or just land awkwardly (a scar that moves like a worm), Inquestor didn't have this problem often. It isn't a long book but I think quite a lot of scenes of relatively ordinary stuff could have been trimmed a bit (especially the vampire hunters getting supplies).
I don't think Somtow aims for realistic dialogue but some choices are just head scratching. This particularly in the chauffeur scenes that are told only in dialogue, it doesn't work very well, the scenes (as I say above) could have had more impact if they were more conventionally fleshed out and the characters describe what they see at such length that I wasn't sure if their dialogue was to be taken as completely literal.
Why couldn't Valentine escape the wooden cage? What does an "irish face" look like? Why does the shoshone mother let the children out so easily? In what way did Brian being with her resemble what his awful brother was doing?
But all in all it's an admirably ambitious, frequently fun and violently energetic novel with lots of fractured, hallucinatory images. I'm looking forward to the sequels but more excited about getting to many of his other books.
Just a warning: Somtow can be disarmingly light hearted and earnest before he plunges you into taboos and extreme horror, Valentine (remember he has the body of a 12 year old boy) has sex with a handful of adults, is raped and butchered and lives through and repeatedly dies in the holocaust. Enjoy! -
This was the first book I ever threw in the bin. In fact, possibly the only one! I don't like throwing books away! Especially ones given to me.
But this book left me feeling sullied and disturbed. No doubt that is partly the author's intention - it is, after all, a horror story. But this was one of the first "splatterpunk" novels, filled with gratuitous violence and far too much sex and deviancy. All this is mixed in with a kind of musical snobbery - the author's other trade - which clearly seeks to lift the novel out of the gutter into something more literary, but in fact it just grates horribly.
There is also pop psychology. In fact the whole premise of the story revolves around some rather dubious pop psychology - and again that grates.
This is not a book I am proud to have read. One to studiously avoid. -
If you love vampires (yes vampires, not weird sparkly things that are overly romanticised) then this one and
Valentine are the books for you. -
amusing schlock with a talking bowel
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HOO BOY. What I can say in favor of this novel: it's ambitious, it goes all-out, and Somtow isn't afraid to plumb taboo or disgusting territory. In general, I'm more sympathetic to literary sins of excess than sins of restraint: over the top disasters always get more artistic points from me than timid, boring slogs. And there are some scenes in here that are genuinely very good, with lush description that makes gore almost beautiful, an amoral empathy for even the worst human beings (or vampires), and an overwrought but earnest romanticism that reminds me of Poppy Z. Brite. At other times, Somtow veers into intentional black comedy and satire that lands pretty well, even if it's tonally incongruous with the novel as a whole.
However, there are a lot MORE scenes that rise to unintentionally hilarious levels of unbelievable absurdity and campiness, all delivered in a weighty self-serious tone that just makes them funnier.
And there are EVEN MORE scenes that simply come off as horror cliches, sub-Stephen King depictions of minor, soon-to-be-vampirized-or-killed characters' working and middle class lives, or unearned, clumsy, gratuitous forays into subject matter like the sexual abuse of children and the Holocaust. (Also, yes, the treatment of race, sexuality, gender, disability, etc. etc. etc. in this novel is...what you would expect from a horror novel written in the early 1980s. Get ready for uncomfortably sexualized pre-teens, flamboyantly gay pedophile serial killers, women whose personalities are defined entirely by their relationships with and effect on men, Magical Native Americans, and a thoroughly unnecessary "village idiot" character named Cherry Cola who's described as having "the mongoloid features of Down's syndrome".)
Obviously I found the novel compelling enough to finish, but I can't recommend anyone read it; everything that's good here, you can also find in better books.
Another review, most of which I agree with, by Will Errickson of Too Much Horror Fiction:
http://toomuchhorrorfiction.blogspot.... -
I wanted to try to enjoy it... but I won´t exactly recommend it. Especially if you´re a really squicked. The writing was too confusing. Plus Castle Bluebeard scene, just Castle Castle Bluebeard. If you´re familiar with Gilles de Rais reputation as a child murderer and rapist yeah.
I read this because I thought this would be a fresh new take (well old take) on the vampire genre. Especially considering since it´s from the perspective a vampire stuck with a child body since most vampires are usually adults/or teens. But yeah kinda disapointed. I think I´ll just stick to Let the right one in as my go-to horror story involving a childlike vampire. -
There were some interesting ideas in this story, but I thought it was too disjointed. It didn't seem like a singular cohesive story. It seemed like the author had a few different stories to tell, but decided to squish them all together without any real connection. All the weird psychology was boring too.
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I read this way back in HS. I think it was my first Vampire Novel and I found it equal parts harrowing and thrilling. To this day it stands out in my mind as the standard for vampire lore. Disturbing but oh so good!
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Interesting concept and groundbreaking in a way, but too over the top regarding the absolute craziness/violence that's on display. It seems the author wanted to hit every possible pop culture reference and as a result it's a lot of cheese-whiz, but not so much likable characters.
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Oddly, my copy, with the same ISBN, is a hardcover "Starblaze Edition".
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didn't actually read this. started it and was bleh about the writing style and disturbed by the pedophilic stuff.
