His tale is a little disturbing, and that’s a good thing. It functions somewhat as an allegory: The vampires are the 1 percent and everyone else is, well, everyone else ... Villareal brilliantly and stealthily examines how Gloamings have abandoned being human. Amoral in ways that normals can’t comprehend, the Gloamings only act to advance their situation.
Villareal’s cheeky blend of political satire and gothic thriller is enhanced by his background as an attorney and his deft use of convincing details: the science behind the NOBI virus; the Gloamings’ legal defense in their efforts to be recognized under the ADA; minutes from congressional hearings; copious footnotes; and three brief appendixes ... Aside from its ironic allusion to Howard Zinn’s classic, A People’s History of the United States, Villareal’s novel is somewhat reminiscent of Christopher Farnsworth’s Nathaniel Cade series, though Farnsworth is a better prose stylist ... With its doggedly unglamorous investigators pitted against a cabal of narcissistic, wealth-obsessed bloodsuckers, this wild ride of a novel proves that each era gets the vampires it deserves.
I wish I could say otherwise, but it really isn’t all that good. It sounds like it should be good—it sounds like it could be World War Z but with vampires—but in reality, it’s an overambitious mess without anything like a narrative arc, and filled with characters who are at best shallow caricatures of real people and at worst are unmitigated cardboard cutouts around which the author hangs incidents that in other hands might actually feel like they mean something, but here are just one damn thing after another ... it’s hard to be properly scathing about something so deeply mediocre.
What ultimately emerges is a thoughtful and finely-crafted work that reads as particularly insightful pop history ... The book is put together like a piece of smart-yet-accessible nonfiction, capturing perfectly that piecemeal approach of meticulous research that goes into blending disparate elements. The first-person accounts are most compelling—they’re the ones with the most leeway to advance the narrative while also giving Villareal room to stretch—but they benefit greatly from the sprinkling of additional material. The interview transcripts are great, but it’s the excerpts from magazines, newspapers and the like that really fill the gaps and contextualize everything. It’s all tied together beautifully ... entertaining as hell.
Raymond A. Villareal tackles vampires and their lore in the strikingly original A People’s History of the Vampire Uprising ... As with many globe-trotting thrillers with multiple cast members, there is a tendency to skimp on depth of characterization. Most of the time, the fast pace of the story distracts us... from the fact that the characters we meet, except for one dramatic exception, tend to remain exactly as we meet them ... These quibbles aside, true to his original approach, and stated purpose in the foreword, this is history told from boots-on-the-ground people. No one point of view is in control of the narrative or the framing. Nor is there any neat and tidy wrapping up for persistent and troublesome loose threads. It is clear the author respects the reader far too much.
The subject matter is somewhat familiar, albeit clever in exploring vampiric tendencies, and the story derivative at times. But Villareal smartly fleshes out an intriguing what-if scenario with civilization-altering turns and political gamesmanship ... Vampire Uprising is well worth a bite: The creature-feature crew will discover that recognizable tropes can feel fresh, and readers who aren’t horror fiends will find a beguiling entry into the thoughts of Dracula and his ilk living among us.
Villareal’s fast-paced debut blends the supernatural and questions revolving around the right-to-work, offering a satirical indictment of how a system favoring haves over have-nots can be detrimental to all humanity ... Using an oral history format, as in Max Collins’ World War Z (2006), the story builds momentum to a surprise-ending revelation.
Comparisons to Max Brooks's World War Z are inevitable but unworthy. This dense plot is best suited for hard-core fans of vampire fiction who will appreciate the relevant discussions on human (and vampire) rights.
Genre fans may have fun recognizing the influence of such notable predecessors as Charlaine Harris’s Southern Vampire series, Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan’s The Strain, and Max Brooks’s World War Z ... for this solid supernatural thriller.
Some of the story’s elements (read: religious conspiracy) may seem derivative, but overall it offers a wide-ranging, readable thrill ride for fans of the genre. While the book fails to match the sociopolitical insights of World War Z, it delivers a spectacularly creepy ecosphere, not to mention some genuinely horrifying frights. Interstitial elements like magazine articles and social media posts help augment Villareal’s ambitious worldbuilding. The start of a vampire epic and a strong contender in the genus of apocalypse fantasy.
