I, Vampire
Review by Katy Dickinson, submitted on 29-Jul-1991

Michael Romkey's _I, Vampire_.

The story is good. The plot is unoriginal. The writing is average. The structure is very good. The characterizations are flat. There are some memorable descriptive passages of very unpleasant situations. It is worth reading but probably not worth reading twice.

I was intermittently irritated with this book because of its view of history. At one point Mozart says to David Parker (the protagonist)

It's all in the history books. Or are you one of those twentieth century know-nothings who refuses to read?

Yet, the reader is presented with a view of history which is largely made up of very famous people. There are more people in history than those with whom a high-school student would be familiar. Yet who do we have representing the past but Tatiana (one of the the daughters of the last Russian Czar), Rasputin, Mozart, Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia, and Jack the Ripper. There are minor modern characters but (with one exception), all of the vampires of standing are also very famous people.

If I were going to write a vampire novel with historical characters, I would include at least a few people who lived interesting lives despite their obscurity. How about Katherine de Roet. She was the sister of Phillipa (waiting woman to Phillipa, Queen of England and wife of Edward III), the concubine and later third wife of John of Gaunt, and the sister-in-law of Geoffrey Chaucer. Now there is someone who would have an interesting story to tell.

I know, including only the very famous saves an author the trouble of giving too much background but I think if I were going to write a 360 page book, I might want to have a few original characters.