MORE THAN MORTAL

For the sake of argument, we can assume that rocker novelist Farren (Darklost, 2000, etc.) has pieced together his eerie saga of super-hip vampire Victor Renquist out of his fertile imagination and a passing acquaintance with the literature of the undead. But that doesn’t explain why he seems so to enjoy writing about the 1,000-year-old hemomaniac. In this installment, Victor has had to leave Manhattan rather suddenly, due to the political fallout (i.e., wooden stakes) that his binge drinking has aroused in the populace of that bloody isle. Back in Merry Old England, he learns that a prehistoric burial mound has been unearthed somewhere in or about the Home Counties that may be the final resting place of Merlin, the crafty old wizard of Arthurian legend. In fact, it is—but Merlin seems not to be any deader than Victor himself, and royally pissed off at having been woken after all these years. We get the usual Three Stooges mixture of sadistic idiocy that has become Farren’s hallmark (this time involving some Scots vampires who might have stepped out of a Monty Python episode that was deemed too subversive to be aired) but the best part comes with the ending, which leaves Victor undead—and ready for another sequel.

Sick minds of the world, rejoice: the story continues!