So you’re looking for a little something different in a vampire novel? In the vampire genre (which at one time was just a subset of the horror genre but now, with the popularity of the blood-sucking undead at an all-time high, can be considered a genre unto itself), something different is hard to find these days. Even gay vampires are a dime a dozen.

But with Vampire Vow, Michael Schiefelbein does manage to produce a vampire tale that is, if not entirely unique, at least a little rarer than the usual fare.

But first you gotta get past that awful book-cover. Talk about the ultimate gay cheese, the shirtless, muscle-bound guy looking like a model from Blue Boy with his come-hither stare and his five o’clock shadow. And superimposed over his polished pecs a blood-red inverted cross.

Subtle, that.  

Vampire Vow is the tale of Victor Decimus, a Roman officer who falls in love with Jesus Christ. Oh, hey, did I mention the blasphemy?

Anyway, Jesus, though he loves Decimus, spurns his physical affection. Out of spite, Decimus runs off and embraces an eternity of blood-imbibing evil. I never said Victor was the smartest guy. After all, he’s got a totally cool boyfriend who can offer him eternal paradise, but instead he runs off and becomes a vampire. Meh.

Flash foward a couple of thousand years, and we find Victor posing as a monk, going from monastary to monastary, despoiling the holy brethren and wreaking destruction upon all things sacred. Talk about carrying a grudge.

In a secluded monastary in Appalachia, he meets Brother Michael. Experiencing love for the first time in a couple of millenia, Victor determines to corrupt Michael’s christianly devotion and turn him into a fiend such as himself.

Okay, when I put it that way, it doesn’t sound so great. And indeed, Vampire Vow isn’t a great book, however it is a good book. The plot is intriguing enough to keep your interest, and most of the characters are engaging. However I found Victor to read like some gay characature, all muscle-bound with a rough-trade attitude, and dreadful lines like, “Nature had given me a square jaw, cleft chin, a dark mane, eyes that could bring a vestal virgin to her knees - and a cock that could keep her there.”

Uh, yeah… put it on your resume, dude, I’ll get back to you.

And anyway, wasn’t it punishable by death to despoil vestal virgins?

Victor does become a more believable character within the modern-day context, and I wonder if the author simply had difficulty in portraying the historical context with liveliness.  

I found the underlying premise of vampires to be both refreshing and perplexing. The theory behind the vampire’s existence seemed out of place in this book, a little too fantasy-oriented for a novel otherwise so raw and violent. But it made an interesting contrast, and was certainly different than the usual vampire fare.

The prose was even-handed and for the most part well-crafted (except maybe the above cock line, which really… was that necessary?), but maybe a bit too even-handed. The tone of the writing rarely shifts, and scenes of intense emotion or intense violence end up reading like a laundry list.

I’d like to be able to give a warning about gratuitous sex and violence, but as stated above, the violence is rendered ineffective by the blandness of the prose, and the sex just isn’t all that graphic. Its there, its describe in reasonably clear detail, but its almost like a distraction. Like a porn movie playing in the background while you’re trying to discuss something else.

But despite its flaws, the premise alone makes Vampire Vow a worthy read. Who couldn’t enjoy a novel about the forbidden love between Christ and a Roman Centurion? 

Frank Peretti , probably.