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Fangland
Traveling to Romania on behalf of her popular television news magazine, Evangeline Harker investigates a notorious crime boss named Ion Torgu, only to disappear and awaken several months later in a Transylvanian monastery with no memory of what happened to her.
387 pages, Hardcover
Published January 11, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 227 reviews
July 28, 2024
Un magnífico reteling de Drácula; si disfrutaste del libro original creado por Bram Stoker, definitivamente, te encantará esta obra.
October 24, 2022
I just don't enjoy this trend I seem to be in with the books I've read that had a promising premise. I've been disappointed more than I care for and this one was no different. But I had high hopes for this as it sounded like it could be a real winner for October.
March 25, 2014
See the shelves I placed this book on class? That's right I placed the book on the "read" shelf. It was on my currently reading shelf... So what does that mean?
This means that I'm finished with the book (believe me I'm REALLY finished with this book).
I've also placed the book on my horror shelf boys and girls. So that means that the book is a horror story.
In this case it also means that the book is a "horror" in other ways...like plot, characterization, pacing.
Do you understand those words children?
It's okay if you don't as the standards expected of the reader here aren't all that high anyway.
So, not such a great read children. If you've read a book titled Dracula then you've read a book told through documents so that we find out what is happening and get to know the people who are characters by reading their letters, journals and diaries. This book seems to be an attempt to do something like this in a modern broadcast setting.
That sounds interesting doesn't it class....it might be an interesting way to do a good new vampire book. Maybe someday someone will.
Anyway children don't feel bad if you lose interest when you're reading this novel. There's a reason...well actually there are multiple reasons.
Class dismissed.
This means that I'm finished with the book (believe me I'm REALLY finished with this book).
I've also placed the book on my horror shelf boys and girls. So that means that the book is a horror story.
In this case it also means that the book is a "horror" in other ways...like plot, characterization, pacing.
Do you understand those words children?
It's okay if you don't as the standards expected of the reader here aren't all that high anyway.
So, not such a great read children. If you've read a book titled Dracula then you've read a book told through documents so that we find out what is happening and get to know the people who are characters by reading their letters, journals and diaries. This book seems to be an attempt to do something like this in a modern broadcast setting.
That sounds interesting doesn't it class....it might be an interesting way to do a good new vampire book. Maybe someday someone will.
Anyway children don't feel bad if you lose interest when you're reading this novel. There's a reason...well actually there are multiple reasons.
Class dismissed.
June 1, 2011
I cannot honestly say that Fangland is the worst novel ever written, but I grant Marks the benefit of this doubt solely because I have not read every novel ever written. (In private, however, I maintain my suspicions.) The characters are foolish, inarticulate, pompous, and criminally overwritten (this is the only real horror the book contains), and the plot is so unnecessarily convoluted and fragmented that a reader can be forgiven for harboring the paranoid conviction that Marks is trying to drive him crazy. Personally. The main problem? That you will not care, you simply will not care one tiny bit, what happens to Marks’ main character, Evangeline Harker. You will, instead, begin to wish for her early and painful demise and for surcease of her vapid, pointless, breathless musings, her lunatic mood shifts, her non sequiturs. How many dozen times can a character declare some version of “That is simply beyond my powers to describe” before the reader is justified in saying, “Fine, don’t describe it. I'll go find a book whose author understands what his job is”? (In fact, with regard to Harker, let me amend my earlier statement about Marks' inarticulate characters: Marks makes Harker that girl who has memorized a lot of big, recondite words, but who doesn’t necessarily know how to use them properly. This artifact cannot be on purpose, because it is diametrically opposed to the building of Harker’s character, and thus one suspects that Marks is the one who doesn’t know how to use those words properly.) And you will especially not care about the painstakingly rendered snake pit of egos, hacks, and buffoons that populate the television news show where Harker is employed—nor, most of the time, will you have the slightest notion what they are talking about, why they are talking about it for 10 pages, or what it has to do with the story (other than Marks taking the opportunity to get 60 Minutes payback). I listened to this book on CD, and can faithfully attest that it is the exception to the golden rule: that bad books generally get better if one hears them read out loud. In this case, the cast of actors (so to speak) resembles a third-rate high-school drama club: Not only are there too many voices and too many incoherent, delirious shifts of point of view, but the narrators also choose to do imitations and accents (mostly badly; the only exception is Clemmie, who actually sounds as though she could be from Austin), which raises the whole affair to the level of a raving cacophony—both in terms of the performance and in terms of the plot, already a rambling, tedious mess. The fact that they mispronounce common words doesn’t help: visage, e.g., is given a French spin so that it rhymes with “mirage.” Other than assuming that the director of the recording came from the same third-rate high school as the cast, one where they don’t have money to learn words like “visage,” I can discern no logic behind this choice. (By the way, John. I’m sure you could barely stand how cool and with-it and all twenty-first-century Facebooky it must have seemed when you came up with the strategy of giving long sections of your book over to email messages, but I'm here to tell you: it's a stupid, lazy idea. And it's not just a stupid, lazy idea for you, it's a stupid, lazy idea for everyone--and I'm thinking specifically about that person who is out there right now wondering whether it's possible to write a novel in tweets. Yes; it is possible. No; no one wants to read it.) The absolute best you can say about this miscarriage is that it started off with a marginally interesting premise: a modern re-writing of Dracula. That, accompanied by contemporary VampireMania, was likely sufficient to earn Marks an advance and to move a respectable number of units. But, like so many advertising promises these days—and it is essentially and only that, a publicity stunt—this one isn’t maintained. Marks is no Bram Stoker, and he doesn’t even appear to understand what made Dracula an entertaining book and his nothing more than a bungling, irritating kludge.
March 7, 2008
While some of it was fun . .the Don Hewitt character yelling "the Network" at the time when consummate evil was overtaking the pseudo-60 Minutes television show. . it was a bit of a misfire. I didn't even really understand what Torgu was doing? was he the physical embodiment of eviL? And really the lead character doing a striptease is what undid him? I mean on one hand that is terribly funny as men do stare dumbly at naked girls but really, that's all she had to do? And what happened to her afterward? She disappeared? Did she take up his role as the seeker of mass death?
On the onset a fabulous and funny and chilling idea--evil attacks the correspondents and staff of 60 Minutes but the execution was terribly flawed.
On the onset a fabulous and funny and chilling idea--evil attacks the correspondents and staff of 60 Minutes but the execution was terribly flawed.
July 27, 2019
I really enjoyed this. It was dark. Sinister. Nasty. I liked all the different points of view. The story told from a series or journals and emails. Its easy to keep up with who is who. Is it a reatelling of Dracula in some modern setting....no. I don't think so. Torgu is no Dracula. He is something more horrific, terrible. I like that we get a glimpse into the world of news.
February 13, 2008
What a disappointment! The pacing left a lot to be desired, for all the suspense that Marks was trying to create, I left feeling like not much really happened. I get what he was trying to do with the different points of view and journal/email/first person formats, but there wasn't enough grounding in each point of view character to make me care about what they had to say. Also, some wildly inefficient use of language- I don't need two long sentences about a pashmina scarf to get that a character is scared.
June 26, 2013
-Entre el homenaje y la desubicación pero con momentos notables.-
Género. Narrativa fantástica.
Lo que nos cuenta. Evangeline Harker es una periodista de televisión que viaja a Rumanía para investigar a Ion Torgu, miembro destacado del crimen organizado en Europa del este. Allí conocerá a una joven religiosa con muchas cosas que contar, algunas bastante inquietantes.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
Género. Narrativa fantástica.
Lo que nos cuenta. Evangeline Harker es una periodista de televisión que viaja a Rumanía para investigar a Ion Torgu, miembro destacado del crimen organizado en Europa del este. Allí conocerá a una joven religiosa con muchas cosas que contar, algunas bastante inquietantes.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
June 26, 2013
-Entre el homenaje y la desubicación pero con momentos notables.-
Género. Narrativa fantástica.
Lo que nos cuenta. Evangeline Harker es una periodista de televisión que viaja a Rumanía para investigar a Ion Torgu, miembro destacado del crimen organizado en Europa del este. Allí conocerá a una joven religiosa con muchas cosas que contar, algunas bastante inquietantes.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
Género. Narrativa fantástica.
Lo que nos cuenta. Evangeline Harker es una periodista de televisión que viaja a Rumanía para investigar a Ion Torgu, miembro destacado del crimen organizado en Europa del este. Allí conocerá a una joven religiosa con muchas cosas que contar, algunas bastante inquietantes.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
February 17, 2010
What a strange, ambitious, and frustrating book. Fangland is a retelling of Dracula in the present, with the twist of adding a tv news show as the novel's focal point.
The Dracula version is interesting for readers of Stoker's novel. The similarities are numerous. Fangland begins with a character named Harker who travels to Transylvania to connect with a mysterious, powerful man about a business deal, then things go awry. The villain travels to a powerful imperial city - here, New York - and begins to wreck havoc. Both books cast themselves as collections of documents, although Fangland falls short on this score (little use of tech; some "documents" lack materiality, and one is openly made up by the editor). There's a Renfield in the Marks version. In both the villain .
The differences are intriguing, beyond the updating of time and place. The focus on The Hour(clearly a parody of/tribute to 60 Minutes) returns to Stoker's use of technology, and implies an unremarkable argument about tv replacing empire. Jonathan and Mina Harker are replaced by one protagonist, Evangeline Harker, and her husband, who's useless, uninteresting, and removed from the plot. Evangeline breaks from Stoker in her post-Romania sojourn. Instead of merely recovering in a nunnery, as with Jonathan, this heroine has surreal adventures around eastern and central Europe, culminating in .
The focus on a tv show ultimately breaks the book. Marks dwells on it lovingly, giving us a vivid lesson on modern tv news production. It soaks up most of the book's action, characters, word count, and emotional intensity. Half the time this feels like another novel, a satire of tv news... but that satire never really connects with the Dracula plot. Are tv news shows vampiric? Perhaps (I'm persuaded), but Marks doesn't go in that direction. We can forget there's a vampire for chapters.
Another difference is the nature of the villain. Ion Torgu initially appears as a Dracula-style vampire: charming, scary, mysterious, removed, powerful. But Marks turns him into something unusual and noteworthy. It's a also, and more to the point, a fascinating riff on that great Stoker passage beginning:
I wish Marks had done more with this idea. It never progresses, simply repeating, much as Torgu and his victims repeat a litany of atrocity place names. Worse, this new vampire mechanism makes plot actions hard to follow.
Another twist to the Stoker novel is the book's 9-11 theme. I was initially ambivalent about this, as it seemed gratuitous in the beginning, then possibly acceptable given the nature of the villain's curse. But it went nowhere by the end, save for giving some unnecessary background color to the tv crew.
The plot proceeds at a fairly compelling pace. The opening quarter is exciting, then things slow down in New York (a/k/a Whitby and London). The final crisis ramps things back up.
The haunted media aspect is good. Torgu records some interviews, and everyone who sees them
Some small things irked me, like the division of the novel into books. Too many. 385 pages isn't enough for 15 "books", especially when some "books" are composed of a single chapter. The British star chamber wasn't an 18th-century thing (266).
Overall, a novel with an interesting concept. Worth reading for those interested in vampires of the non-sparkly sort.
One quick note: the villain's last name is Torgu. I can't help thinking of Torgo, from the splendidly bad movie Manos: the Hands of Fate. Sigh.
The Dracula version is interesting for readers of Stoker's novel. The similarities are numerous. Fangland begins with a character named Harker who travels to Transylvania to connect with a mysterious, powerful man about a business deal, then things go awry. The villain travels to a powerful imperial city - here, New York - and begins to wreck havoc. Both books cast themselves as collections of documents, although Fangland falls short on this score (little use of tech; some "documents" lack materiality, and one is openly made up by the editor). There's a Renfield in the Marks version. In both the villain .
The differences are intriguing, beyond the updating of time and place. The focus on The Hour(clearly a parody of/tribute to 60 Minutes) returns to Stoker's use of technology, and implies an unremarkable argument about tv replacing empire. Jonathan and Mina Harker are replaced by one protagonist, Evangeline Harker, and her husband, who's useless, uninteresting, and removed from the plot. Evangeline breaks from Stoker in her post-Romania sojourn. Instead of merely recovering in a nunnery, as with Jonathan, this heroine has surreal adventures around eastern and central Europe, culminating in .
The focus on a tv show ultimately breaks the book. Marks dwells on it lovingly, giving us a vivid lesson on modern tv news production. It soaks up most of the book's action, characters, word count, and emotional intensity. Half the time this feels like another novel, a satire of tv news... but that satire never really connects with the Dracula plot. Are tv news shows vampiric? Perhaps (I'm persuaded), but Marks doesn't go in that direction. We can forget there's a vampire for chapters.
Another difference is the nature of the villain. Ion Torgu initially appears as a Dracula-style vampire: charming, scary, mysterious, removed, powerful. But Marks turns him into something unusual and noteworthy. It's a also, and more to the point, a fascinating riff on that great Stoker passage beginning:
“We Szekelys have a right to be proud, for in our veins flows the blood of many brave races who fought as the lion fights, for lordship. Here, in the whirlpool of European races... (link to passage)
I wish Marks had done more with this idea. It never progresses, simply repeating, much as Torgu and his victims repeat a litany of atrocity place names. Worse, this new vampire mechanism makes plot actions hard to follow.
Another twist to the Stoker novel is the book's 9-11 theme. I was initially ambivalent about this, as it seemed gratuitous in the beginning, then possibly acceptable given the nature of the villain's curse. But it went nowhere by the end, save for giving some unnecessary background color to the tv crew.
The plot proceeds at a fairly compelling pace. The opening quarter is exciting, then things slow down in New York (a/k/a Whitby and London). The final crisis ramps things back up.
The haunted media aspect is good. Torgu records some interviews, and everyone who sees them
Some small things irked me, like the division of the novel into books. Too many. 385 pages isn't enough for 15 "books", especially when some "books" are composed of a single chapter. The British star chamber wasn't an 18th-century thing (266).
Overall, a novel with an interesting concept. Worth reading for those interested in vampires of the non-sparkly sort.
One quick note: the villain's last name is Torgu. I can't help thinking of Torgo, from the splendidly bad movie Manos: the Hands of Fate. Sigh.
March 31, 2024
I really should have dnf'd this. It was just bad all around. Bad writing, bad pacing and bad plot. The characters are either just annoying or completely uninteresting, I couldn't care less about any of them or what was happening. In short it's a jumbled mess with no pay off.
Would never recommend.
Would never recommend.
May 26, 2017
Evangeline Harker travels to Romania to vet a reputed crime boss for an interview for the show The Hour (ha, ha, I get it, you're so clever, Mr. Author Who Used to Work for 60 Minutes) and instead winds up potential prey to a vampire.
I DNF'd at the end of the first section, page 104, and there are two major reasons why.
First, it's wordy. Ridiculously so. I didn't mind so much in the early chapters when that wordiness was devoted to describing the bleak landscape and Evangeline's reactions to it--though there were occasional stereotypes/prejudices that made me cringe--but during her attempted escape from the creepy hotel, what was supposed to be pulse-pounding, terror-laden action was mere shuffling along, the pace weighed down by descriptions of Evangeline's every thought and move.
"I experienced a long shudder."
No, you didn't, you shuddered. It's a two-word sentence, damnit, just say "I shuddered."
Second, and much worse, Marks has cemented his place among male writers who haven't the faintest clue how to write a female character. I was actually pleased that it took several chapters before she described herself--usually that happens much sooner--but when she finally did, the description was definitely skewed for the male gaze, and not at all how women talk about their own looks.
But okay, that's minor, right? But there's more.
Say you're a woman traveling alone in a foreign country for work. When you arrive late due to traffic, instead of meeting the contact you expected to, who would give you information and possibly set up a later meeting with the purported crime boss, you instead come face-to-face with someone claiming to be the boss himself.
A person whose appearance and demeanor disgusts you on more than one occasion.
A person you have reason to believe, if he is who he says he is, has allegedly committed crimes from money laundering and gun running to outright murder.
He says you can have your interview, but you must come with him right now, in the middle of the night.
Do you go?
I wouldn't. Every instinct I have for self-preservation as a woman was screaming at me DO NOT TRUST THIS MAN.
Evangeline, on the other hand, was remarkably blasé about the potential dangers to her person, and went. Without calling her fiancé, or her boss at work, or anyone at all to tell them where she was going. And of course, once she got to the creepy hotel in the deep dark woods, no cell reception and she'd made an agreement to keep their "negotiations" about the interview private until he'd decided to do it or not, forbidding her contact with anyone.
Seriously. I don't care how much she wants to land that interview--and at this point she'd already considered turning him down as an inappropriate subject several times, so she clearly wasn't too invested--no potential kudos at work would make me risk my safety like that. Absolutely unrealistic.
But if she doesn't go, there's no story, because then she can't find out the man's not a crime boss, he's a vampire. Because of course he is.
I DNF'd at the end of the first section, page 104, and there are two major reasons why.
First, it's wordy. Ridiculously so. I didn't mind so much in the early chapters when that wordiness was devoted to describing the bleak landscape and Evangeline's reactions to it--though there were occasional stereotypes/prejudices that made me cringe--but during her attempted escape from the creepy hotel, what was supposed to be pulse-pounding, terror-laden action was mere shuffling along, the pace weighed down by descriptions of Evangeline's every thought and move.
"I experienced a long shudder."
No, you didn't, you shuddered. It's a two-word sentence, damnit, just say "I shuddered."
Second, and much worse, Marks has cemented his place among male writers who haven't the faintest clue how to write a female character. I was actually pleased that it took several chapters before she described herself--usually that happens much sooner--but when she finally did, the description was definitely skewed for the male gaze, and not at all how women talk about their own looks.
But okay, that's minor, right? But there's more.
Say you're a woman traveling alone in a foreign country for work. When you arrive late due to traffic, instead of meeting the contact you expected to, who would give you information and possibly set up a later meeting with the purported crime boss, you instead come face-to-face with someone claiming to be the boss himself.
A person whose appearance and demeanor disgusts you on more than one occasion.
A person you have reason to believe, if he is who he says he is, has allegedly committed crimes from money laundering and gun running to outright murder.
He says you can have your interview, but you must come with him right now, in the middle of the night.
Do you go?
I wouldn't. Every instinct I have for self-preservation as a woman was screaming at me DO NOT TRUST THIS MAN.
Evangeline, on the other hand, was remarkably blasé about the potential dangers to her person, and went. Without calling her fiancé, or her boss at work, or anyone at all to tell them where she was going. And of course, once she got to the creepy hotel in the deep dark woods, no cell reception and she'd made an agreement to keep their "negotiations" about the interview private until he'd decided to do it or not, forbidding her contact with anyone.
Seriously. I don't care how much she wants to land that interview--and at this point she'd already considered turning him down as an inappropriate subject several times, so she clearly wasn't too invested--no potential kudos at work would make me risk my safety like that. Absolutely unrealistic.
But if she doesn't go, there's no story, because then she can't find out the man's not a crime boss, he's a vampire. Because of course he is.
March 1, 2017
"...Treblinka, Nanking, Somme, Masada, Gomorrah, Hiroshima, Chickamauga, Lubyanka, Dien Bien Phu, New York City..."
A creative and ultimately heartbreaking take on the classic vampire tale. Many of the Dracula elements are there: an employee of an important first-world firm invited to Romania/Transylvania (a Harker, no less!), a chance meeting with a stranger who gives them a cross, a decrepit castle with absent servants, mysterious crates of suspect contents and unknown origin that arrive from overseas, a woman with three suitors (though in this case she's the Texan), a Renfield analogue, even mention of the town of Whitby. These familiar elements are remixed and stitched together in different and very 21st-century ways -- e.g., the diligence to Bukovina is now a rental BMW, and September 11th becomes not a unique occurrence but a single link in a millenia-long chain of violence.
In the end, what hurts the most is the whispered truth: no supernatural demon can match the horror that homo sapiens has inflicted on itself. "I am the defender of the offended dead," says Torgu, and indeed he is. Whether humanity's persistent inhumanity can be defeated is still an open question; the author seems to suggest there is hope. I'm not so sure.
A creative and ultimately heartbreaking take on the classic vampire tale. Many of the Dracula elements are there: an employee of an important first-world firm invited to Romania/Transylvania (a Harker, no less!), a chance meeting with a stranger who gives them a cross, a decrepit castle with absent servants, mysterious crates of suspect contents and unknown origin that arrive from overseas, a woman with three suitors (though in this case she's the Texan), a Renfield analogue, even mention of the town of Whitby. These familiar elements are remixed and stitched together in different and very 21st-century ways -- e.g., the diligence to Bukovina is now a rental BMW, and September 11th becomes not a unique occurrence but a single link in a millenia-long chain of violence.
In the end, what hurts the most is the whispered truth: no supernatural demon can match the horror that homo sapiens has inflicted on itself. "I am the defender of the offended dead," says Torgu, and indeed he is. Whether humanity's persistent inhumanity can be defeated is still an open question; the author seems to suggest there is hope. I'm not so sure.
September 16, 2018
7 días y 507 páginas después. Por motivos inciertos esta semana mi vida se relacionó muchísimo con vampiros, así que me pareció ideal leer acerca de su Tierra.
Hay muchísimas cosas malas en este libro: el exceso de paja, los personajes irrelevantes que parlotean, haber llegado a la mitad y que aún no se le viera un camino y la falta de un objetivo conciso. Podría quejarme horas y horas, pero lo hecho esta.
Sí disfruté algunas escenas, sobre todo las de la personaje principal, pero la intromisión de tantos personajes secundarios y tantas historias a la par (mortalmente aburridas) mataron al libro.
Muchísimo parecido a la saga de "Oscura", es un tono parecido, no tan gay. Hay guiños curiosos empezando por el apellido Harker.
Me emocioné por partes pero pronto me desilusioné. El final aunque es rápido me agradó. Definitivamente no leería más del autor. Ni nada relacionado a este volumen.
No habrá reseña. Las tres estrellas porque en general puede haber libros peores.
Hay muchísimas cosas malas en este libro: el exceso de paja, los personajes irrelevantes que parlotean, haber llegado a la mitad y que aún no se le viera un camino y la falta de un objetivo conciso. Podría quejarme horas y horas, pero lo hecho esta.
Sí disfruté algunas escenas, sobre todo las de la personaje principal, pero la intromisión de tantos personajes secundarios y tantas historias a la par (mortalmente aburridas) mataron al libro.
Muchísimo parecido a la saga de "Oscura", es un tono parecido, no tan gay. Hay guiños curiosos empezando por el apellido Harker.
Me emocioné por partes pero pronto me desilusioné. El final aunque es rápido me agradó. Definitivamente no leería más del autor. Ni nada relacionado a este volumen.
No habrá reseña. Las tres estrellas porque en general puede haber libros peores.
March 29, 2021
I tried, but I couldn't get past the first 50 pages or so. I'm all for a good reimagining of Dracula, but I couldn't connect with the heroine. It was almost like watching paint dry. I just didn't care. It seems the author tried too hard.
January 12, 2009
As a huge fan of the Stoker original, the premise of the novel intrigued me -- an updated "Dracula" story? Excellent! Gender-flipping the Harker character into a female lead? Great! Lots of high reviews on Amazon and other places? Clearly this must be the Holy Grail of vampire novels!
Sadly, not so.
The first half of the novel starts out well enough-- where Marks stays true to the Stoker original without being a complete carbon-copy. The modern adaptation concept worked really, really well. Marks updates the old epistolary format, popular in the 18th and 19th centuries using therapy journals and e-mail, and it's all really engaging.
Unfortunately, it all falls apart halfway through. For one, by avoiding all of the trappings of the vampire mythology, Torgu seems less and less like a vampire. In fact, by the end of the novel, I wasn't entirely convinced that Torgu WAS a vampire (in fact, when he DOES in fact drink blood, it seems like a total nonsequitur -- he collects it in a bucket after slashing the victim's throat, and then proceeds to cup it in his hands and drink it). He's essentially described as human suffering made manifest, and there is a distinct emphasis ON human suffering and the dead, but its significance never really clicks with the rest of the book.
The main character, Evangeline Harker, is completely unsympathetic -- we're never sure what kind of person Marks wants her to be, and eventually her behavior is nothing short of pointlessly erratic -- not a trait you want a protagonist to have.
For that matter, the cast of characters is far too large, and it not only becomes difficult to keep track of them all, it becomes impossible to care about any of them. (Besides that, most of them aren't likeable in the least, which makes it doubly difficult to give half a damn about them.)
The POV changes that some of the other reviewers complained about is consistent with Stoker's original, but what Marks fails to do with this tapestry of correspondance is make all the pieces fit together to create a coherent whole. Stoker's novel, while flawed in its own way, consisted of newspaper clippings, journal entries, and letters, that all fit together, like a mosaic, and when you stepped back, as a reader, you saw how the pieces fit and what kind of picture it made. Marks pays homage to the format without fully understanding it, it seems, and so it all falls horribly flat.
And as a personal pet-peeve: people simply do *not* talk the way Marks portrays, I don't care how worldly and well-educated they are. The dialogue is at times painful, and the winding monologues are best skipped over entirely.
In short? I wouldn't recommend it.
Sadly, not so.
The first half of the novel starts out well enough-- where Marks stays true to the Stoker original without being a complete carbon-copy. The modern adaptation concept worked really, really well. Marks updates the old epistolary format, popular in the 18th and 19th centuries using therapy journals and e-mail, and it's all really engaging.
Unfortunately, it all falls apart halfway through. For one, by avoiding all of the trappings of the vampire mythology, Torgu seems less and less like a vampire. In fact, by the end of the novel, I wasn't entirely convinced that Torgu WAS a vampire (in fact, when he DOES in fact drink blood, it seems like a total nonsequitur -- he collects it in a bucket after slashing the victim's throat, and then proceeds to cup it in his hands and drink it). He's essentially described as human suffering made manifest, and there is a distinct emphasis ON human suffering and the dead, but its significance never really clicks with the rest of the book.
The main character, Evangeline Harker, is completely unsympathetic -- we're never sure what kind of person Marks wants her to be, and eventually her behavior is nothing short of pointlessly erratic -- not a trait you want a protagonist to have.
For that matter, the cast of characters is far too large, and it not only becomes difficult to keep track of them all, it becomes impossible to care about any of them. (Besides that, most of them aren't likeable in the least, which makes it doubly difficult to give half a damn about them.)
The POV changes that some of the other reviewers complained about is consistent with Stoker's original, but what Marks fails to do with this tapestry of correspondance is make all the pieces fit together to create a coherent whole. Stoker's novel, while flawed in its own way, consisted of newspaper clippings, journal entries, and letters, that all fit together, like a mosaic, and when you stepped back, as a reader, you saw how the pieces fit and what kind of picture it made. Marks pays homage to the format without fully understanding it, it seems, and so it all falls horribly flat.
And as a personal pet-peeve: people simply do *not* talk the way Marks portrays, I don't care how worldly and well-educated they are. The dialogue is at times painful, and the winding monologues are best skipped over entirely.
In short? I wouldn't recommend it.
December 9, 2012
While moments in this book shine with artful displays of metaphor, adjectives and melodramatic scenes that just cry out for cinematic translation, somehow it fails to add up to a coherent or even enjoyable storyline.
The book is a swamp of deceit, misdirection and obfuscation. It’s even unclear just what kind of novel it is. Is it a horror novel about vampires? A ghost tale? A satire about the stress and backbiting in the broadcast industry? A cautionary tale about computer viruses that can attach themselves to human beings? A horrifying testament to humanity’s tendency to butchering its own?
On the surface, it seems to be about vampires. But Ion Torgu, the mysterious crimelord and prison survivor, doesn’t seem like your typical vampire. He has no allergy to crosses, garlic or sunlight. He has a reflection (although he may not be able to be seen on videotape) and collects holy relics.
However, he disappears from the book about a third of the way into it and reenters only shortly near the end chapters; that is a blessing. If he’s a vampire, he’s one of the least interesting ones you’ll ever encounter in the printed medium. He’s a rambling, ugly, shrunken butcher who travels around with a clanking bucket and a knife stuck in it. He has no wit, sophistication, intelligent conversation or visible style. He’s just a miserable raver…with bad teeth.
The rest of the novel becomes a sprawling, meandering, disjointed and protracted mess about mental disintegration in a New York broadcasting building. What exactly is happening? Why are people mumbling about places of human atrocities, murders, wars, massacres and mass graves? Why are people getting sick or committing suicide? Why have three big coffin-like boxes been delivered and why doesn’t anybody get upset enough to have them removed? When the answers come, you really don’t care.
While each page ratchets up the growing sense of unease and alienation, none of it ties together into a solidified whole. This book reads like a messy script in which several interesting characters are fighting viciously to be allowed a chance at center stage. Only nobody really gets to make himself heard properly because everybody’s shouting at once.
There’s a good novel in this somewhere…or perhaps two or three good novels. It’s too bad it got swamped under its own murky quirkiness.
The book is a swamp of deceit, misdirection and obfuscation. It’s even unclear just what kind of novel it is. Is it a horror novel about vampires? A ghost tale? A satire about the stress and backbiting in the broadcast industry? A cautionary tale about computer viruses that can attach themselves to human beings? A horrifying testament to humanity’s tendency to butchering its own?
On the surface, it seems to be about vampires. But Ion Torgu, the mysterious crimelord and prison survivor, doesn’t seem like your typical vampire. He has no allergy to crosses, garlic or sunlight. He has a reflection (although he may not be able to be seen on videotape) and collects holy relics.
However, he disappears from the book about a third of the way into it and reenters only shortly near the end chapters; that is a blessing. If he’s a vampire, he’s one of the least interesting ones you’ll ever encounter in the printed medium. He’s a rambling, ugly, shrunken butcher who travels around with a clanking bucket and a knife stuck in it. He has no wit, sophistication, intelligent conversation or visible style. He’s just a miserable raver…with bad teeth.
The rest of the novel becomes a sprawling, meandering, disjointed and protracted mess about mental disintegration in a New York broadcasting building. What exactly is happening? Why are people mumbling about places of human atrocities, murders, wars, massacres and mass graves? Why are people getting sick or committing suicide? Why have three big coffin-like boxes been delivered and why doesn’t anybody get upset enough to have them removed? When the answers come, you really don’t care.
While each page ratchets up the growing sense of unease and alienation, none of it ties together into a solidified whole. This book reads like a messy script in which several interesting characters are fighting viciously to be allowed a chance at center stage. Only nobody really gets to make himself heard properly because everybody’s shouting at once.
There’s a good novel in this somewhere…or perhaps two or three good novels. It’s too bad it got swamped under its own murky quirkiness.
September 6, 2010
1.5/5
Evangeline Harker, producer for a popular news show, The Hour, is sent to Transylvania to investigate a renowned crime boss, Torgu. She discovers that Torgu is not who… or what… he seems, and she is in grave danger. Back home in New York, months have gone by with no word from Evangeline who has mysteriously disappeared. Then she shows up, wandering in Transylvania with total memory loss. Once she returns, very strange things start happening at the office of The Hour, including strange sounds on their recordings, the appearance of large mysterious crates at the office, and very odd and frightening behavior from several of the employees. Evangeline, though frightened, knows that the dangerous Torgu must be involved, and that he’s in New York. This has been hailed as a modern retelling of Dracula.
Okay… how to begin. Well, this story was quite disorienting for me… not from fear though, like is intended, but from total confusion. This book was a bit of a jumbled, dragging mess and very strange, though not in a good way, because believe me, I LOVE strange and different novels, just not this one. The characters were not well drawn out, and I felt no connection to, or understanding of, any of them. So much happened in this story, and much of it made no sense and left me with a feeling of “wtf?!,” such as Evangeline’s strange striptease/seduction of Torgu in order to save her life in a moment of danger which made him run off for some unknown reason. The vampires didn’t really seem like typical vampires, more like some random combination of vampire/monster/creature of some sort. Anyways, this book was really quite slow and took me far too long to read, as I never really wanted to read more than a few pages at a time. Much as this book didn’t capture my attention, and confused the heck out of me, I did want to know the ending. I do give the author props for stepping out of the norm, and shooting for something different; it just didn’t work for me, and mostly left me with a feeling of “hmm?!”
Evangeline Harker, producer for a popular news show, The Hour, is sent to Transylvania to investigate a renowned crime boss, Torgu. She discovers that Torgu is not who… or what… he seems, and she is in grave danger. Back home in New York, months have gone by with no word from Evangeline who has mysteriously disappeared. Then she shows up, wandering in Transylvania with total memory loss. Once she returns, very strange things start happening at the office of The Hour, including strange sounds on their recordings, the appearance of large mysterious crates at the office, and very odd and frightening behavior from several of the employees. Evangeline, though frightened, knows that the dangerous Torgu must be involved, and that he’s in New York. This has been hailed as a modern retelling of Dracula.
Okay… how to begin. Well, this story was quite disorienting for me… not from fear though, like is intended, but from total confusion. This book was a bit of a jumbled, dragging mess and very strange, though not in a good way, because believe me, I LOVE strange and different novels, just not this one. The characters were not well drawn out, and I felt no connection to, or understanding of, any of them. So much happened in this story, and much of it made no sense and left me with a feeling of “wtf?!,” such as Evangeline’s strange striptease/seduction of Torgu in order to save her life in a moment of danger which made him run off for some unknown reason. The vampires didn’t really seem like typical vampires, more like some random combination of vampire/monster/creature of some sort. Anyways, this book was really quite slow and took me far too long to read, as I never really wanted to read more than a few pages at a time. Much as this book didn’t capture my attention, and confused the heck out of me, I did want to know the ending. I do give the author props for stepping out of the norm, and shooting for something different; it just didn’t work for me, and mostly left me with a feeling of “hmm?!”
January 19, 2009
What a strange little book Fangland is. I was initially intrigued because Audrey Niffenegger had a blurb on the back, but quickly got caught up in the actual story once I started reading it.
Don't get me wrong, it does get off to a slow start, and is confusing at points in the beginning. As the story winds on, though, it's easy enough to figure out that you're supposed to be a bit confused, as it adds to the atmosphere.
The first half of Fangland reminds me of Dracula, as far as suspense goes. I was actually a little frightened in that good horror way as I got closer to the second half of the book, while the story mostly remains in Transylvania.
When the focus switches back to the US and the offices of a 60 Minutes clone known as The Hour, the suspense lightens up a little and the story isn't as... believable, I guess, as it was in the first half. I'm not sure why. It might be the diffusion of focus, from one person (Evangeline, the reporter stuck in Transylvania) to a multitude (a greedy handful of people who work in the offices of The Hour). It's still an enjoyable read in the second half, just not as gripping and creepy.
One minor complaint: calling the offices of The Hour "Fangland" seems like a shoehorned-in explanation of the title. It doesn't feel organic at all, and I wish it was just mentioned in passing, once, instead of clumsily "explained" twice (that I counted).
All in all, a good read if you're a fan of vampire novels. If you're just a suspense fan, you'll probably still enjoy it, but I think it's made more enjoyable by the allusions to standard vampire lore sprinkled throughout the novel, especially in the first half.
Don't get me wrong, it does get off to a slow start, and is confusing at points in the beginning. As the story winds on, though, it's easy enough to figure out that you're supposed to be a bit confused, as it adds to the atmosphere.
The first half of Fangland reminds me of Dracula, as far as suspense goes. I was actually a little frightened in that good horror way as I got closer to the second half of the book, while the story mostly remains in Transylvania.
When the focus switches back to the US and the offices of a 60 Minutes clone known as The Hour, the suspense lightens up a little and the story isn't as... believable, I guess, as it was in the first half. I'm not sure why. It might be the diffusion of focus, from one person (Evangeline, the reporter stuck in Transylvania) to a multitude (a greedy handful of people who work in the offices of The Hour). It's still an enjoyable read in the second half, just not as gripping and creepy.
One minor complaint: calling the offices of The Hour "Fangland" seems like a shoehorned-in explanation of the title. It doesn't feel organic at all, and I wish it was just mentioned in passing, once, instead of clumsily "explained" twice (that I counted).
All in all, a good read if you're a fan of vampire novels. If you're just a suspense fan, you'll probably still enjoy it, but I think it's made more enjoyable by the allusions to standard vampire lore sprinkled throughout the novel, especially in the first half.
August 8, 2010
This novel started out with so much promise. I really liked the fact that Marks was telling the story with emails, journals, newspaper clippings, etc. in the style of Bram Stoker. Unfortunately, it was soon apparent that EVERY character spoke in the EXACT same voice. Even worse, emails were so lengthy and written in such elegant prose that it was just unbelievable. And a personal journal that one of the characters was being FORCED to keep as a therapy tool by his psychiatrist, (again, written in the same voice as every other character - are they ALL mental?) was also written eloquently - as though it was something he expected to publish it rather than something he was writing under duress.
Even though the "vampire" was quite different than Stoker's Dracula, and the way to render him helpless was sort of interesting (if you don't have too puritanical a mind-set), reading this novel finally became too tiresome because of the "one voice" writing style and slightly annoying due to numerous plot holes
Not only did this book not go back on my shelf to take up precious space, I could not even in good conscience donate it to Friends of the Library. I put this one in the recycle bin.
Even though the "vampire" was quite different than Stoker's Dracula, and the way to render him helpless was sort of interesting (if you don't have too puritanical a mind-set), reading this novel finally became too tiresome because of the "one voice" writing style and slightly annoying due to numerous plot holes
Not only did this book not go back on my shelf to take up precious space, I could not even in good conscience donate it to Friends of the Library. I put this one in the recycle bin.
July 20, 2010
Fangland was a very slow read. Usually when a book includes emails, journal entries, and other forms of communications, it helps to move the story along. While these inclusions brought other viewpoints into the story, they didn't do anything to actually liven up the story.
The main character, Evangeline, was all over the place. She was unreliable and unsympathetic. She wasn't the only one. None of the characters gave much of a reason for the reader to care about them at all.
Fangland's version of vampires had weird rules that were hard to understand. They drank blood and were immortal, but even this was strangely different from the norm. They didn't bite their victims as much as bleed them into a bucket to drink after the killing. They chanted place names, which turned humans into their minions. It wasn't explained as to why these things were done.
The idea that a vampire takes over a 60 Minutes type show was much better in theory than it was presented here. For all the intrigue that could have taken place, I found myself largely disappointed. Too much of the "why" was missing to make Fangland a worthwhile read.
The main character, Evangeline, was all over the place. She was unreliable and unsympathetic. She wasn't the only one. None of the characters gave much of a reason for the reader to care about them at all.
Fangland's version of vampires had weird rules that were hard to understand. They drank blood and were immortal, but even this was strangely different from the norm. They didn't bite their victims as much as bleed them into a bucket to drink after the killing. They chanted place names, which turned humans into their minions. It wasn't explained as to why these things were done.
The idea that a vampire takes over a 60 Minutes type show was much better in theory than it was presented here. For all the intrigue that could have taken place, I found myself largely disappointed. Too much of the "why" was missing to make Fangland a worthwhile read.
December 6, 2015
I did not really care much for Fangland: A Novel by John Marks. I listened to the audio version performed by the author John Marks, Ellen Archer, and Simon Vance. The audio book is performed as best as can be with such weak tea.
This is supposed to be a “reimagining” of the classic Dracula story. I don’t mind over much an author updating a novel if it brings something new, but this novel was just boring. The characters were so random and inconsistent it was absolutely impossible for me to care a whit about this story at all. To me this was a story about a man who hated his chosen profession and now that he is no longer doing the job wants the entire world to know how horrible it was. I was just not interested in the listening to that kind of passive-aggressive nonsense.
If you are really interested in the story of Dracula, just read Dracula.
1 of 5 stars
This is supposed to be a “reimagining” of the classic Dracula story. I don’t mind over much an author updating a novel if it brings something new, but this novel was just boring. The characters were so random and inconsistent it was absolutely impossible for me to care a whit about this story at all. To me this was a story about a man who hated his chosen profession and now that he is no longer doing the job wants the entire world to know how horrible it was. I was just not interested in the listening to that kind of passive-aggressive nonsense.
If you are really interested in the story of Dracula, just read Dracula.
1 of 5 stars
May 28, 2008
I was expecting a far more light-hearted story here. The title, cover image, and plot line which sounded like a modernization of Dracula reset in a NYC production studio (heroine even surnamed Harker!) led me to expect a cute and perhaps somewhat humorous, fairly traditional vampire story. This is not that. If you want that, don't read this because this is a morbid, dark, rather gruesome exploration of the human potential for violence and destruction and the relationship of life and death. Which is not to say it is bad. The philosophical/spiritual ideas could have used some refining, and the narration drags in places (especially in the middle where there is lots of description of how a tv studio functions), but otherwise it is a decent book. Just don't expect to feel cheerful at the end.
August 17, 2020
I'm giving up at 14% in because Harker is still alive and I truly wish she wasn't. Pro tip: If you want your readers to care what happens to your protagonist, don't start your "horror" book with her complaining for PARAGRAPHS about how her rich fiancee doesn't want her to have a honky tonk band at her wedding.
Also, the audio narrator is so painfully bad I don't understand how they could have employed her.
Also, the audio narrator is so painfully bad I don't understand how they could have employed her.
Did Not Finish
February 18, 2026I have almost 400 books on my physical TBR. It's an issue. In an attempt to knock some out quickly I decided to start with a few of the lowest rated to weed the herd. I was baffled for the 53 pages of this I read, it took me that long to figure out if it was good baffled or bad baffled. I landed on bad. One down!
May 16, 2020
Ugh, that was terrible. The worst vampire book I've ever read.
December 27, 2019
3.8 Stars
Good novel...Wrong crowd.
John Marks crafts resplendent prose. Marks weaves multiple metaphors into a unique braid of horror, history, media commentary, and philosophy. So what went wrong? Why all the one and two star reviews? Simple. The title Fangland attracted vampire enthusiasts, however the novel isn't really a vampire novel. So, what is Fangland?
First, it's insiders view of the iconic news program 60 Minutes. John Marks was a producer for 60 minutes. Marks changes the name to "The Hour". Fangland mostly documents Mark's take on early 2000's slow decent of 60 Minutes into mediocrity. For decades, 60 Minutes was deemed untouchable, the network left it alone. That changed in the early 2000's as the pillars of 60 Minutes aged and greyed.
Fangland is also about death, mostly historic genocide. It's about how each of us imagine world history's mass graves and the unfortunate individual's interred. Most of us experience fleeting thoughts, imagining the fate of victims of Nazi concentration camps, or Stalin's slaughters, or even medieval massacres. What would happen if the dead forced their stories into our heads, obsessively? Like it was a contagious disease. Fangland explores that question at length and in detail.
How does tragedy change us? Do you know a happy couple, whose relationship was destroyed by an external disaster- a car wreck, death of a parent, or loss of a job? Fangland is about that too.
John Marks should have chosen a different title for his novel. Fangland attracted the wrong audience. A title like "The Genocide Hour" or "Death Disease" would have worked better. Oh yeah, there's some vampiric themes woven thru Fangland. Marks utilizes the Dracula template to tell his story. Diary, e-mails, and prose. There's Evangeline Harker and a Dracula like character. Analogues for Renfield, Lucy, and Van Helsing abound. But then again, there are analogues or 60 Minute's correspondents too. I had a good time matching fictional Hour correspondents up with real life 60 Minutes TV personalities.
If Marks had titled Fangland differently, thus lowering the vampiric expectations, then Fangland would have probably been be rated higher. Under a different title, the reader would have discovered the Dracula Easter Eggs on their own. Fangland's a good novel. However, it's not a good vampire novel
Good novel...Wrong crowd.
John Marks crafts resplendent prose. Marks weaves multiple metaphors into a unique braid of horror, history, media commentary, and philosophy. So what went wrong? Why all the one and two star reviews? Simple. The title Fangland attracted vampire enthusiasts, however the novel isn't really a vampire novel. So, what is Fangland?
First, it's insiders view of the iconic news program 60 Minutes. John Marks was a producer for 60 minutes. Marks changes the name to "The Hour". Fangland mostly documents Mark's take on early 2000's slow decent of 60 Minutes into mediocrity. For decades, 60 Minutes was deemed untouchable, the network left it alone. That changed in the early 2000's as the pillars of 60 Minutes aged and greyed.
Fangland is also about death, mostly historic genocide. It's about how each of us imagine world history's mass graves and the unfortunate individual's interred. Most of us experience fleeting thoughts, imagining the fate of victims of Nazi concentration camps, or Stalin's slaughters, or even medieval massacres. What would happen if the dead forced their stories into our heads, obsessively? Like it was a contagious disease. Fangland explores that question at length and in detail.
How does tragedy change us? Do you know a happy couple, whose relationship was destroyed by an external disaster- a car wreck, death of a parent, or loss of a job? Fangland is about that too.
John Marks should have chosen a different title for his novel. Fangland attracted the wrong audience. A title like "The Genocide Hour" or "Death Disease" would have worked better. Oh yeah, there's some vampiric themes woven thru Fangland. Marks utilizes the Dracula template to tell his story. Diary, e-mails, and prose. There's Evangeline Harker and a Dracula like character. Analogues for Renfield, Lucy, and Van Helsing abound. But then again, there are analogues or 60 Minute's correspondents too. I had a good time matching fictional Hour correspondents up with real life 60 Minutes TV personalities.
If Marks had titled Fangland differently, thus lowering the vampiric expectations, then Fangland would have probably been be rated higher. Under a different title, the reader would have discovered the Dracula Easter Eggs on their own. Fangland's a good novel. However, it's not a good vampire novel
August 8, 2011
This book is Dracula updated. Set in the present day, using current technology, it shows that your not safe from ancient evil even in the modern age. In the book, Evangeline Harker is a producer for the long running, New York-based, television show The Hour. She isn't happy that her current assignment is to go to Romania, and do background on a well known, but little seen, criminal, Ion Torgu. Part of the unhappiness is that she just got engaged. The other part is that she is an associate producer - one of the lowest rungs in television news. And then she has issues trying to get to the appointed meeting on time. After meeting with Torgu, Evangeline goes missing for several months, but she does turn up - a long way from her earlier destination and without her memory. While she was missing, some strange items were delivered to The Hour offices. And the employees are slowly losing their minds. The book is told from multiple perspectives and via different means--Evangeline's first-person account, a production assistant's emails, another producer's journal much like Stoker's Dracula with its journal entries approach.
Overall not a bad book or a great book. Worth checking out if your a fan of Dracula or like vampire fiction. Everyone else should just pass on it.
Overall not a bad book or a great book. Worth checking out if your a fan of Dracula or like vampire fiction. Everyone else should just pass on it.
January 17, 2020
Tierra de vampiros es una versión moderna de Drácula, de Bram Stoker, que a mi gusto, no funciona.
Debo decir que la primera parte del libro me gustó. Evangeline y el terror que siente al llegar al hogar de Ian Torgu, me pareció que estaba bien descrito, era creíble, y me puso la piel de gallina. Asimismo, las conversaciones que mantiene con Torgu son todo lo crípticas y espeluznantes que uno espera que sean.
Sin embargo, la razón por la que esta historia no funciona, es porque la obra de Bram Stoker es casi perfecta. Original, con diversos puntos de vista, terrorífica y llena de imaginación. Nadie puede discutir que supuso un antes y un después, y de hecho sus personajes ahora forman parte del folclore actual.
Así pues, la idea de contar parte por parte la historia de Drácula, cambiando lo suficiente para ambientarlo a la actualidad, pero no tanto para que cualquier lector sea capaz de reconocer la obra de Stoker, me parece un error. No me aporta lo suficiente como para sentir que no estoy leyendo una copia mediocre del original.
Debo decir que la primera parte del libro me gustó. Evangeline y el terror que siente al llegar al hogar de Ian Torgu, me pareció que estaba bien descrito, era creíble, y me puso la piel de gallina. Asimismo, las conversaciones que mantiene con Torgu son todo lo crípticas y espeluznantes que uno espera que sean.
Sin embargo, la razón por la que esta historia no funciona, es porque la obra de Bram Stoker es casi perfecta. Original, con diversos puntos de vista, terrorífica y llena de imaginación. Nadie puede discutir que supuso un antes y un después, y de hecho sus personajes ahora forman parte del folclore actual.
Así pues, la idea de contar parte por parte la historia de Drácula, cambiando lo suficiente para ambientarlo a la actualidad, pero no tanto para que cualquier lector sea capaz de reconocer la obra de Stoker, me parece un error. No me aporta lo suficiente como para sentir que no estoy leyendo una copia mediocre del original.
February 15, 2012
I hated this book. I understand that the author was trying to give a new perspective on vampires, but honestly? A vampire that has been around for centuries and seen all different kinds of massacre and death, has to use a bucket for blood drinking? You would think he would've figured out something a bit more sophisticated than that. There are characters that are brought into the story that are never explained or expanded upon. Can someone please tell what was with the Greek brothers that Torgu had in his hotel? This story seemed choppy at best. Nothing is ever fully explained and none of it flows very well. The author jumped perspectives, which is normally good to bring the story more detail but why change the perspective if you aren't going to say anything worthwhile. I was very disappointed and would not recommend this book at all.
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