Forever Konrad: A Vampire's Vampire

by Martin Goodman

A baby boy is plucked from the deck of a North Sea ferry. He’s any mother’s dream. Adopted into a family in the village of Cherry Burton, his infancy becomes a rampage. He’s not mean, he’s just inquisitive, his new mother insists.

It’s his 18th birthday. News of the boy’s existence spreads across Europe. Konrad, charged with writing the true stories of his kind, is roused from a century long Bavarian nap. He tracks the boy’s parentage across Belgium and then heads for East Yorkshire. It’s a race: claim the boy for the Vampire Council before an ancient species can take him as its own.

266 pages, Hardcover

Published October 1, 2017

Reviews

[D.D. Johnston · Rating 5 out of 5]

Martin Goodman turns his talents to the vampire novel in his latest creation, Forever Konrad. The beginning feels like Rosemary’s Baby and We Need to Talk about Kevin, as a very human couple from Hull, Richard and Susan, struggle with their unusual adopted son. But this is a novel that consistently surprises in form as well as content. We are introduced to a hidden vampire society, in which even a contemporary of Isaac Newton is today considered a naïve youth by ancients. The narrative soon crosses borders of time and space and consciousness. We meet vampires with a range of mind-bending powers, all of which are extensions of human capacities. Through their eyes (and projections) we confront the limitations of regular human experience, and are reminded of Goodman’s earlier work on shamanism and altered states of consciousness. Meanwhile, the plot moves breathlessly forward, bringing the characters together in Hull for an explosive climax. Forever Konrad is at times edgily erotic, at times powerfully gruesome, and always totally fearless.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like vampire novels and am always happy to find a well written one which does not wade through waters bloodied by countless inferior works.

To my delight Forever Konrad is well written ... and, and, AND a take on the vampire which is -- can one say "fresh" when talking about vampires?? -- refreshingly unexplored. Kudos.