Hello my Beautiful Watchers and welcome back to...well, not Lost in Adaptation, because
we’re doing a straight up book review today, namely The Company of Death by Elisa Hansen.
If that sounds familiar it's because it's the real name of Maven of the Eventide, a
youtuber primarily known for her video discussions of vampire themed literature and movies. If
that sounds like something you might be interested in there’s the thing, maybe check it out
when we’re done.
Because I’m not AT ALL jealous about Elisa being multi talented enough to be a successful
youtuber AND a published author I thought I’d check out her book and let you guys
know what I think.
Before we get really into this I should put some cards on the table: I had some baggage
that I brought into this one with me though it wasn't all negative. Wait, can you have
positive baggage? I’m already mixing up metaphors let's pretend so for the sake of
being expeditious.
On the negative front I knew that this book heavily involved zombies and I’m soooo not
into them walking corpses. I’ve never been particularly into them as a concept and I
feel what little potential they did have has been THOROUGHLY used up since the Night of
the Living Dead popularized them in the 1960s.
But on the positive side I am a huge fan of Elisa’s channel so I was predisposed to
wanting to give this book a fair chance.
So, maybe these things cancel each other out or maybe this is going to be the most convoluted
combination of conflicting subjectivity ever seen in an Internet book review.
Because I’ve gravitated away from Zombie themed books as much as possible until now
I may not be the best person to be making this review. I might end up mistaking things
that are actually so common they might be considered tropes as originality. I’m sure
someone will let me know in the comments if that happens, though.
I’m also going to make more than the usual amount of effort to stay spoiler safe on this
one. So, I’m not going to be doing my usual comprehensive plot synopsis or hyper focus
on any particular twist but I will have to explain the basic setup of the world and the
characters, so if you would like to go into this one completely blind and just want to
know if I recommend it, yes, yes I do. The links to where you can buy it will be in the
video description.
Ok onto the review: The first thing you should know about this book is it’s the first of
a trilogy so it’s NOT a complete story. I’ll talk more about that in just a bit.
One of the things that I noticed early on in this book is that the world building is
superb; it's perfectly balanced in how much backstory is provided so it seems intriguing
and you’re not confused by anything while simultaneously avoiding dumping too much information
on us so there's no mystery left.
I was very relieved to discover that this book utilises zombies in what I consider to
be the only good way, as a constant background menace and world feature but not as the main
antagonists.
Ok very basic teaser synopsis so you have the jist of what I’m about to talk about:
The entire world has been overrun with zombies with most of the population falling victim
to the undead hordes.
What little of humanity that's left has mostly fallen into two competing factions. The Life
Preservation Initiative, a paramilitary organization based in New York that’s attempting to preserve
humanity through the eradication of the undead.
And the Vampire Communes. Yup, Vampires are real in this book, shocking no one familiar
with Elisa’s channel, I’m sure.
Apparently blood suckers have always been around, but they only went public after the
end of the world, offering their protection to humans from zombies in exchange for lifelong
servitude and letting them feed off them on a regular basis.
So right off the bat Elisa has taken this particular zombie story in an atypical direction.
Mixing vampires and zombies isn't unheard of but I do like the fact that she’s also
factored in the almost political nature of their new relationship with humans.
More evidence that this isn't your run of the mill post apocalyptic zombie book is the
revelation that the outbreak didn’t occur in contemporary times. Unless I missed it
the exact date of the main event, referred to as the Ecuador Explosion isn’t specified
but the technology left over from the before times is significantly more advanced than
what we have now.
The most obvious example being one of the main characters is a freaking android so there's
that.
There also some pretty cool stuff like most cars coming with solar panels as standard.
It's the sort of grounded science fiction that comes from thinking logically about where
the tech is heading right now and how that might be implemented into everyday use so...
My favorite kind as it happens.
So yeah, this book is a pretty even balance of horror, fantasy and science fiction and
I found myself pretty into it.
There are three narrators that the book is unevenly split between. Emily, a junior member
of the LPI gets the most attention followed by a gentleman named Scott and a Vampire named
Leif.
Non-POV but still important characters include Carol, the powerful combat android, or gynoid
as her creator calls her because she built and programmed her to identify as female and
the personification of Death itself.
Yes indeed, the title of this book is way more literal than one might expect. The Grim
Reaper is one of the main cast.
Now I really don't want to give too much away but the general idea is Death loses a lot
of his powers, including his ability to travel instantaneously and as a result people stop
dying, kind of in a reverse Final Destination kind of way.
While this sounds good in principle they can still be turned into zombies so it's not all
fun and games plus it turns out there are worse things that can happen to humanity than
passing onto the next world so for this and several other reasons, Emily and Death team
up to try to get his powers back.
Emily makes for a good hero because she’s a very flawed character but in an interesting
way. She’s a big old bundle of issues but I suppose who wouldn’t be if they’d lived
through the zombie apocalypse and seen everyone they care about die horribly.
She also goes through some next level crazy shit near the start of the story which again
I can’t really go into for spoiler related reasons but holy crap does this poor girl
have a lot to deal with.
Leif is also an interesting character. This might not be exactly what was going on but
the impression that I got is that he’s more of an old school vampire, you know, the well
dressed and oddly charming despite their willingness to rip off your head sort of guy, but he's
surrounded by more modernized, gritty reboot style vampires obsessed with power and domination
so he really doesn't get on with them very well at all.
One of the things I liked the most about this book is the subtle way the writing style changes
when it switches to being narrated by a vampire character.
Leif’s thoughts are a lot more poetic and flowery than the human protagonist’s. He’s
got a bit of Louis from Interview with a Vampire in him though he’s much more cheerful and
optimistic.
It's a really nice touch that Elisa took into account that a 400 year old being would view
the world and think very differently to a mortal. You’d be amazed how many authors
DON’T do that.
Elisa has put to good use the years that she’s spent discussing the philosophical balance
of good and evil vampires represent, their potential sociological and economical impact
on the world, the theoretical psychological conditions that might result of their immortality,
the moral issues of their need to kill to live and how that impacts their right to exist
and a hundred other aspects of the concept of vampires.
What I’m saying is these are some fucking nuanced blood suckers.
Carol, the gynoid is kind of a badass and I very much like the description of her being
realistically human but also not so. Sort of an uncanny valley sort of thing. She’s
also described as having LED lights (eyes) that change colour with her mood or intention.
I’m also apparently a big fan of women who can pop lasers out of their arms and blow
shit up. I didn’t know that was a kink of mine but I’m always open to new things.
Our final POV character, Scott is, in comparison not nearly as interesting and truth be told,
I guess he’s the first real negative of this review because unfortunately I found
him intensely unlikable.
He’s incredibly sexist, entitled and immature and he spends most of his time slot griping
about ex-girlfriends and wishing for the finer things in life now denied him by the end of
the world.
He’s also prone to throwing tantrums and lashing out at his robot protector whenever
things don’t go according to plan.
A protector he often disparages, not for being inhuman but for being female, which he seems
to believe is the root of most of the issues he has with her.
However before we go any further I want to make it clear that I am 100% sure that this
is intentional on the part of the author.
This isn’t an EL James / Christian Grey sort of thing, Scott isn’t portrayed as
a hero, misunderstood or otherwise so I really don't think you're SUPPOSED to like him.
The fact that he’s the only immature person left on the planet actually makes a kind of
sense. Because he has such a powerful guardian shielding him from the ravages of the zombie
apocalypse he hasnt had to grow up like Emily and the rest of humanity have to survive.
It's a privilege rather unique to him I suspect.
I also don't think for a second that he’s going to stay this way. This strikes me as
very much a person at the start of his character arc.
He does look like he’s about to start making improvements when he realises what a butt
he’s been but unfortunately this happens right at the end of the book. Like I think
the second to last chapter.
Because this is book one of three we’re pretty much stuck with the douchebag version
of him all the way through it. Maybe once I’ve had a chance to read the other two
I’ll retroactively like Scott more. But we’ll have to see I guess.
Getting back to positive stuff, I think one of the nicest things I can say about any book
is it reminded me of the works of one of my favorite authors.
This book actually reminded me of my top three favorite authors at some point or another.
Making Death a strange but surprisingly human character was very Terry Pratchett esque,
the mostly professional but slightly chaotic nature of the LPI military gave me strong
Bernard Cornwell vibes and the way that the artificial intelligence interacts with humanity
reminded me of Neil Asher.
I was mildly suspicious about the revelation that the Life Preservation Initiative apparently
cleared out Manhattan and fortified the city.
I mean you would have thought that New York would be the absolute LAST place in America
you could completely de-zombie what with the insanely high population and all those buildings
you’d have to clear out and all the many many places zombies could be hiding plus,
even if you did destroy all the bridges and tunnels couldn’t they just walk along the
bottom of the rivers to get there, isn’t that usually a thing with zombies?
But perhaps that's going to be a plot point in later books, because you never actually
SEE Manhattan in this installment. It’s mostly set in southern California so perhaps
there's more going on there than the main characters believe.
I was impressed with the psychology explored in this book. In multiple areas.
Early on there’s a mention of something called phantom howls. Basically a person thinks
they can hear zombies even when there's none around because they’ve spent so long having
to be hyper aware of them.
The connection between vampirism and sexuality has been around pretty much as long as the
vampire mythos itself but Elisa takes it to an interesting level by mixing sexual hang
ups and control issues into the works as well.
It's not something I feel qualified to deconstruct in any detail because I lack the expertise
she has but I was impressed by it.
This is a very LGBTQ friendly book, though there are no overt romantic subplots within
it what with everyone being so indisposed staying alive. However multiple characters
mention having had both genders as lovers in the past.
Emily mentions that sex was something that she strictly did to please her partners and
got nothing out of herself so she might have been written as asexual like the author and
while I think it would be interesting to have an asexual hero for once I don’t want to
assume that based on so little evidence.
The use of tension and apprehension as writing tools is top notch in the start of this book.
It fades a bit when the supernatural stuff really gets going about a third of the way
in because it’s kind of hard to feel scared for someone who has Death itself watching
out for her but it was really good while it lasted.
If you're tempted to read this but are worried about the possible gore factor that comes
integral to most zombie tales fear not. While this book doesn't shy away from blood neither
does it revel in the grotesque to the point of being off putting. I consider myself quite
squeamish and I had no issues.
Satisfyingly, Emily asks Death all the questions I suspect the average reader would if they
were in her place. Is there an afterlife, does the soul exist, why do you look like
a skeleton in a robe?
Probably wisely she doesn't go the Bill and Ted route of saying “Yes heaven’s that's
way, hell is down there and that is your soul kicking about behind the bins as it happens.”
Instead, Death is unable or unwilling to describe these things in words humans can understand.
The supernatural is, not entirely surprisingly so far beyond a mortal being’s ken there
is no point him trying to explain it.
Right, I suppose I should probably talk about the negatives too, though besides Scott there's
not a LOT that I took issue with.
There's a of a couple of very very minor tiresome tropes and cliches in there and there MIGHT
have been a science fiction terminology mistake here and there though I could be wrong about
that, I’m not an expert.
One of Death’s character traits, being incessantly pedantic about the terminology of what he
is and what he does also grated on me after awhile but again, I suspect that was intentional
so I don’t know if it counts as a negative or not.
Gun to my head I would probably say that my single biggest issue with this book is that
an awful lot of it, possibly a little TOO much, is all set up. I personally could have
used just a little bit more pay off than we actually got at the end.
To me, it kind of reads like it’s a novelization of a pilot episode to a TV show. The team
gets together at the end but they don't make any real progress towards their final goal
aside from that.
You could of course potentially make the same complaint about any book 1 of 3 but I think
in this case it was exacerbated by its length. It’s too short to have enough of its own
identity outside of the trilogy in the way something like The Fellowship Of The Ring
did.
Yeah, I know, a comparison to Tolkien, a super fair thing to do to any author.
But like I said right at the start, and I hope I have justified saying, I do recommend
this book. Elisa has real talent, I think people will genuinely enjoy her work and I
hope to see a lot more from her in the future.
Thank you for joining me my Beautiful Watchers. Don’t forget to check out Elisa’s channel,
and until we meet again remember that I really would rather deal with a zombie apocalypse
than the unknowable horror of the Youtube algorithm but liking, commenting, sharing
and subscribing is a powerful shield against it. See you soon.
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