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Night of... #2
Night of the Vampire
COME BACK...COME BACK...
Surely, surely the vows they had taken so long ago had been meaningless, simply been part of a game--an ignorant, childish, and yes, an obscene game, but a game nonetheless. They could hardly be called to reckon for such foolishness now, could they?
COME!... COME BACK TO SANSCOEUR!
Yet they knew. They all knew that something foul and deadly awaited them, had in truth been waiting for them through the years--yes, something not human, something which called and called and called with eerie insistence...
COME BACK, COME BACK, COME BACK!
Surely, surely the vows they had taken so long ago had been meaningless, simply been part of a game--an ignorant, childish, and yes, an obscene game, but a game nonetheless. They could hardly be called to reckon for such foolishness now, could they?
COME!... COME BACK TO SANSCOEUR!
Yet they knew. They all knew that something foul and deadly awaited them, had in truth been waiting for them through the years--yes, something not human, something which called and called and called with eerie insistence...
COME BACK, COME BACK, COME BACK!
176 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1969
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 10, 2021
No one who picks up this novel is going to be expecting literature. It is in that Guy N. Smith and Harry Adam Knight milieu. Which means it is right up my Straße. I love some trashy schlocky horror novels me.
Does it have melodrama? √
no character development ? not a bit
Does it telegraph itself from a mile away? like a runway train coming down a mountain
Are there vampires? After a fashion
Does it have a teenage love triangle and impossible handsome bloodsuckers who just need to be loved? Hell no. See it does have it's positives!
I
Does it have melodrama? √
no character development ? not a bit
Does it telegraph itself from a mile away? like a runway train coming down a mountain
Are there vampires? After a fashion
Does it have a teenage love triangle and impossible handsome bloodsuckers who just need to be loved? Hell no. See it does have it's positives!
I
November 25, 2013
Raymond Giles, Night of the Vampire (Avon, 1969)
[originally posted 6Nov2000]
I picked this up because it had the same cover scheme as another Avon horror paperback of the time, Helen McCloy's much-loved (at least by me) Mister Splitfoot. Don't know whether they used the same
brutally red cover scheme for all their late-sixties horror novels [ed. note 11Sept2013: probably, as I have another half-dozen of them now], but that's the only reason why McCloy's charmingly quirky mystery and this rather second-rate Harvest Home ripoff would be lumped together.
Thirteen years (ooh, nice touch) after "swearing an allegiance to Satan" in the house of a supposed family of werewolves, the swearers of that allegiance find themselves back in the town of Sanscoeur (ooh, nice touch) again, despite having scattered to the corners of the earth. One of them has married the last doyenne of the werewolf clan, to toss in an extra twist. It would all be easily put down as coincidence, if they weren't being murdered one by one. THAT could be put down as coincidence, as the area around Sanscoeur has one of the highest violent crime rates in the nation (this is obviously before Washington DC became the murder capitol of the world), if Mrs. Werewolf didn't keep smelling odd dead things every once in a while, and of course the whole place has the requisite 'creepy atmosphere.'
The whole thing could have been taken for a great campy ride, if Giles weren't so bloody serious. The ending of this book is a howler beyond mention, as naively serious and awful as Plan Nine from Outer Space. If you stumble upon this in a used bookstore, it's worth picking up for the unintentional humor alone. Just don't expect a good novel. * ½
[originally posted 6Nov2000]
I picked this up because it had the same cover scheme as another Avon horror paperback of the time, Helen McCloy's much-loved (at least by me) Mister Splitfoot. Don't know whether they used the same
brutally red cover scheme for all their late-sixties horror novels [ed. note 11Sept2013: probably, as I have another half-dozen of them now], but that's the only reason why McCloy's charmingly quirky mystery and this rather second-rate Harvest Home ripoff would be lumped together.
Thirteen years (ooh, nice touch) after "swearing an allegiance to Satan" in the house of a supposed family of werewolves, the swearers of that allegiance find themselves back in the town of Sanscoeur (ooh, nice touch) again, despite having scattered to the corners of the earth. One of them has married the last doyenne of the werewolf clan, to toss in an extra twist. It would all be easily put down as coincidence, if they weren't being murdered one by one. THAT could be put down as coincidence, as the area around Sanscoeur has one of the highest violent crime rates in the nation (this is obviously before Washington DC became the murder capitol of the world), if Mrs. Werewolf didn't keep smelling odd dead things every once in a while, and of course the whole place has the requisite 'creepy atmosphere.'
The whole thing could have been taken for a great campy ride, if Giles weren't so bloody serious. The ending of this book is a howler beyond mention, as naively serious and awful as Plan Nine from Outer Space. If you stumble upon this in a used bookstore, it's worth picking up for the unintentional humor alone. Just don't expect a good novel. * ½
April 17, 2015
Man, I wanted to like this book so much more than I did. I wonder if I didn't enjoy this book more because I read the majority of it on a crowded subway car with hideous odors, heat, and a crush of humanity that was truly soul killing.
In a nutshell: Thirteen years ago a group of kids bound themselves in a pact with Satan. Now they are summoned back by vampire devil worshiping bat morphing baddies. In addition the novel features a werewolf who is married to a totally pretentious psychiatrist (are there any other kind?).
The best parts of the novel are:
the villains (of course).
The original cover art is evocative and epitomizes everything good about sixties paperback art.
The novel starts off with a real bang. The writing is punchy and full of life: descriptions, characters, action all fall into place nicely and the plotting is well handled. Around the half way mark the writer seems to grow bored with the material. The primary relationship in the book is an endless slog of repetitious dialog and action.
I think what makes the novel difficult is the main female character comes across as having no agency at all (all of the female characters are pawns in male hands one way or another). I understand the point, that the husband has stripped her of all of her vital energy; but, it seems like this could have been presented in a far more interesting way than having her sit around the house or being concerned that people are staring at her at the grocery store. I remember reading a review of the remake of Nosferatu (remember with Klaus Kinski) and the review stated that one of the main points of the film was conveying the idea that immortality was boring. The filmmakers decided that best way to convey the point was to make a boring movie. Well, Night of the Vampires conveys powerlessness by making the reader feel powerlessly trapped in a novel where people spend about a third of novel being boring.
The dullness of the middle section really sucks because the whole plot action of characters being stripped of their self control and will is truly terrifying in the abstract. Too bad the novel only halfway succeeds in getting that point across in a compelling way.
Fortunately, the novel picks up in the final inning and that basically wins the game for Giles.
All in all, this isn't a terrible book, its still far more interesting that the crap passing itself as vampire fiction at our contemporary Barnes and Nobles. I certainly don't regret having read it, but I can't enthusiastically recommend it either. Final verdict, if you see it pick it up, if for nothing else than the great cover.
In a nutshell: Thirteen years ago a group of kids bound themselves in a pact with Satan. Now they are summoned back by vampire devil worshiping bat morphing baddies. In addition the novel features a werewolf who is married to a totally pretentious psychiatrist (are there any other kind?).
The best parts of the novel are:
the villains (of course).
The original cover art is evocative and epitomizes everything good about sixties paperback art.
The novel starts off with a real bang. The writing is punchy and full of life: descriptions, characters, action all fall into place nicely and the plotting is well handled. Around the half way mark the writer seems to grow bored with the material. The primary relationship in the book is an endless slog of repetitious dialog and action.
I think what makes the novel difficult is the main female character comes across as having no agency at all (all of the female characters are pawns in male hands one way or another). I understand the point, that the husband has stripped her of all of her vital energy; but, it seems like this could have been presented in a far more interesting way than having her sit around the house or being concerned that people are staring at her at the grocery store. I remember reading a review of the remake of Nosferatu (remember with Klaus Kinski) and the review stated that one of the main points of the film was conveying the idea that immortality was boring. The filmmakers decided that best way to convey the point was to make a boring movie. Well, Night of the Vampires conveys powerlessness by making the reader feel powerlessly trapped in a novel where people spend about a third of novel being boring.
The dullness of the middle section really sucks because the whole plot action of characters being stripped of their self control and will is truly terrifying in the abstract. Too bad the novel only halfway succeeds in getting that point across in a compelling way.
Fortunately, the novel picks up in the final inning and that basically wins the game for Giles.
All in all, this isn't a terrible book, its still far more interesting that the crap passing itself as vampire fiction at our contemporary Barnes and Nobles. I certainly don't regret having read it, but I can't enthusiastically recommend it either. Final verdict, if you see it pick it up, if for nothing else than the great cover.
May 2, 2025
teenage satan vows
mean coming back to cruddy
small town...and murder
mean coming back to cruddy
small town...and murder
September 16, 2026
It has a decent plot but it's a really slow build. I really wanted to like this one more but I can't get over a few plot holes. The characters also could have been built out more.
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January 26, 2021
Bad horror novels come in two varieties: boring and unintentionally funny. Fortunately, this one falls into the second category. Concerning a group of people who had entered a pact with Satan as teen-agers, the book goes on to involve cultists, werewolves, and giant bats as well. The overall tone is similar to some of the b-movies of the era, which is never a bad thing. The ending is truly one of the most ridiculous in anything I've read, in particular the final line. I'm quite interested in these old Avon paperbacks with the red covers, even though both of the ones I've read so far have been pretty bad; unfortunately, I'm uncertain as to how many there were, although I'm aware of at least nine. Recommended for fans of trashy 60s horror paperbacks.
January 27, 2017
This book was strange and a little bit all over the place. Also, there are no real vampires in this book. They are witches that have bargained for the power to turn into giant bats. Another issue is that the book starts with a scene that is interesting and dramatic, but then when we see the characters they are in completely different scenarios and the scene is never again mentioned. The most interesting character is killed in pretty short order, even though they talk of him having some kind of power, but that never happens. Needless to say that this story is convoluted and feels trite.
July 30, 2013
Vampire bats, werewolves, and witches' covens collide in this crazy late 60s relic. A group of high school friends with a dark secret are mysteriously drawn back to their hometown after 13 years, and bloody mayhem erupts.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews