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The Dancing Valkyrie
Blood and sex. Of course love, but not the way humans think about it.This is the recurring theme throughout The Dancing Valkyrie, a story about Mary Hoffman, librarian by day and exotic dancer by night. Mary, needing some time alone takes a hike along a secluded upstate New York trail. She is saved from two predatory young men by Beth, a beautiful woman slightly older than Mary. The two join together for the rest of the trail, becoming romantically involved along the way. Beth, it turns out is a vampire, and quickly introduces Mary to the mystical world she lives in. After inviting Mary back to her castle, built by her brother, Joseph, in a remote area, Mary is seduced into becoming a vampire as well. Joseph and Beth are hundreds of years old, and pose as brother / sister, but are husband and wife, or, in vampire terms, father and daughter. Thus begins the fascinating story of Mary's transition from human woman to vampire.
292 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2006
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May 19, 2007
Peter Klein's novel The Dancing Valkyrie has a lot of potential. It has a title that sounds smart and a cover that could easily scare anyone who would think of approaching you on the subway. It's also a vampire novel, which is always interesting. Unfortunately, these redeeming qualities become moot once you actually start to read the novel.
Supposedly the author wanted to write an original vampire novel. No reincarnations of Dracula or Nosferatu here. Instead the vampires are very similar to real people-they can go out in the sun, they need food. However, since they are vampires they also need blood and are immortal. This idea is interesting but personally the traditional vampires seem more believable, if you can call fictional creatures believable.
The novel centers on Mary Hoffman as she learns how to be a vampire from her Beth and Joseph (her mentors if you will), recruits Renfield-like underlings, and runs into Van Helsing-a vampire who kills other vampires. Along the way she also has more sex than is really necessary outside of a racy romance novel. The first strike against Klein's story comes from his main character. Aside from choosing to write from an unconvincing woman's perspective in the novel, Mary is not a character that I was able to like. She's a stripper-because she likes to dance nude-and she moonlights as a librarian, which offends my sensibilities because I work at a library.
Foibles aside, Mary-like the rest of the characters appear one dimensional throughout the narrative. Klein throws in some random curse words now and then, to make the characters more authentic perhaps. Instead it just seems out of place. Worse still, the characters all sound the same. Mary's dialogue sounds so much like Joseph's that I actually confused the two at one point.
This lack of individuality brings me to the main problem with The Dancing Valkyrie, aside from its being thin on plot. The writing is flat. The story starts with Mary adjusting to being a vampire and first meeting Joseph. From there Klein takes six chapters to explain how Beth found Mary and bit her. To his credit, Klein tries to create a vivid story by being descriptive. Unfortunately he fails miserably. The result is the feeling that you are reading the same lines over and over and over again-because that is basically what you are doing.
Supposedly the author wanted to write an original vampire novel. No reincarnations of Dracula or Nosferatu here. Instead the vampires are very similar to real people-they can go out in the sun, they need food. However, since they are vampires they also need blood and are immortal. This idea is interesting but personally the traditional vampires seem more believable, if you can call fictional creatures believable.
The novel centers on Mary Hoffman as she learns how to be a vampire from her Beth and Joseph (her mentors if you will), recruits Renfield-like underlings, and runs into Van Helsing-a vampire who kills other vampires. Along the way she also has more sex than is really necessary outside of a racy romance novel. The first strike against Klein's story comes from his main character. Aside from choosing to write from an unconvincing woman's perspective in the novel, Mary is not a character that I was able to like. She's a stripper-because she likes to dance nude-and she moonlights as a librarian, which offends my sensibilities because I work at a library.
Foibles aside, Mary-like the rest of the characters appear one dimensional throughout the narrative. Klein throws in some random curse words now and then, to make the characters more authentic perhaps. Instead it just seems out of place. Worse still, the characters all sound the same. Mary's dialogue sounds so much like Joseph's that I actually confused the two at one point.
This lack of individuality brings me to the main problem with The Dancing Valkyrie, aside from its being thin on plot. The writing is flat. The story starts with Mary adjusting to being a vampire and first meeting Joseph. From there Klein takes six chapters to explain how Beth found Mary and bit her. To his credit, Klein tries to create a vivid story by being descriptive. Unfortunately he fails miserably. The result is the feeling that you are reading the same lines over and over and over again-because that is basically what you are doing.
Displaying 1 of 1 review