Jay KristoffFiction · Fantasy·b. 1973
Empire of the Vampire
Synopsis
Twenty-seven years after the last sunrise, vampires rule the long night and the holy Silver Order that once held them back is broken. Gabriel de León — half man, half monster, and the last silversaint alive — is a prisoner of the creatures he swore to destroy, and they want his story. What he gives them runs from his boyhood in Nordlund to the road that led him to the Holy Grail, humanity's final hope of calling back the sun.
How it reads
Prose complexity 7/10
Content warnings (4)
Graphic ViolenceGoreSexual ContentChild Death
Readers say (1)Tense
- went into this book completely blind. I had never heard of it before picking it up for a bookclub simply because vampires aren’t my usual go-to when it comes to fantasy. And for the first part of the book, I actually thought I might be pleasantly surprised. The gothic atmosphere, the religious imagery, the medieval setting, the illustrations, the whole aesthetic of the story, Jay Kristoff knows how to set you in the mood I will give him that. Unfortunately, an aesthetic can only carry a book so far. My biggest problem with this book is the lack of originality. And I want to be very clear about this because I don’t think inspiration is inherently a bad thing. Quite the opposite. Every fantasy author is standing on the shoulders of someone else. I don't care if a book is inspired by other books. I care about what you do with that inspiration. You can take familiar ideas and transform them into something new. You can combine influences in an interesting way. You can take an old trope and give it a completely different meaning. That is what I was looking for here. Instead, I kept recognizing things. The fellowship-style quest. The gothic medieval world. Religious mythology. The sentient weapon. The post apocalyptic setting. And then, increasingly, the story itself started feeling extremely familiar. Cuz the biggest problem was how strongly it reminded me of The Last of Us. If you’re going to borrow this heavily from things that already exist, I need you to bring something genuinely new to the table. Give me one original concept. JUST ONE!!! Instead, I got 700 pages of a beautifully decorated version of a story I already knew. SPOILERS FROM HERE ON (for empire of the vampire and the last of us) SPOILERS FROM HERE ON (for empire of the vampire and the last of us) SPOILERS FROM HERE ON (for empire of the vampire and the last of us) SPOILERS FROM HERE ON (for empire of the vampire and the last of us) SPOILERS FROM HERE ON (for empire of the vampire and the last of us) Let me explain why I keep comparing Empire of the Vampire to The Last of Us, because my issue isn’t that both stories happen to have vampires/infected monsters, a dangerous journey, or a found-family relationship. The actual plot is extremely similar. The major plot twist is extremely similar. And the ending takes that similarity all the way to the finish line. In The Last of Us, Joel is a traumatized man who has lost his daughter. He is tasked with transporting Ellie across a world destroyed by an infection. Ellie isn’t just some random girl. She is the key to potentially saving humanity. Over the course of the journey, Joel becomes emotionally attached to her and begins seeing her as a daughter. Then comes the big revelation: Ellie has to die. The people who are trying to develop a cure need to take her brain to develop a vaccine. And Joel has a choice: allow Ellie to die so humanity might be saved, or save the girl he has come to love. He chooses Ellie. He massacres the people at the hospital, rescues her, and potentially condemns humanity in the process. Now let’s look at Empire of the Vampire. Gabriel is a traumatized man who has lost his daughter (we find this out in the end of the book even though the clues were there from the beginning) He ends up responsible for transporting Dior through a world overrun by vampires. Dior isn’t just a random girl either she is the key to ending Daysdeath. Gabriel gradually becomes attached to her and starts seeing her as a replacement for the daughter he lost. Then comes the big revelation: Dior has to die. The Silversaints intend to sacrifice her because her blood is necessary for the ritual that could end Daysdeath. And Gabriel has the exact same choice: Let the girl die for the possibility of saving humanity, or save the girl he has come to love. He chooses Dior. He goes on a violent rampage through San Michon, kills the people trying to perform the sacrifice, destroys the ritual and escapes with her, potentially condemning humanity in the process. That is not one shared trope. That is the same central narrative dilemma and the same ending. And if that were the only similarity, I’d already have a problem. But then you start looking at the smaller scenes and character dynamics, and it gets even harder for me to ignore. Gabriel and Dior’s relationship follows the same progression as Joel and Ellie in ways that go beyond the basic “grumpy man + young girl” setup. Gabriel initially doesn’t particularly want Dior. He has his own agenda and would rather continue his revenge mission. He even considers handing her off to someone else rather than taking responsibility for her himself. Joel does essentially the same thing with Ellie. He initially treats transporting her as a job and later tries to hand responsibility for her over to Tommy before ultimately deciding that he will continue with her himself. Then there’s the banter. Gabriel and Dior spend their journey constantly arguing, insulting each other and gradually becoming comfortable with one another. The relationship slowly stops feeling like an obligation and starts feeling like family. Again, I am not going to pretend that sarcastic banter is exclusive to The Last of Us. It obviously isn’t. But then we get the horse. I am sorry I know it’s ridiculous but this is where the story officially lost me and confirmed that the ending of the book will be the exact same as the game. Gabriel and Dior have a conversation about naming their horse, eventually settling on Fortuna. It’s a tiny scene, but it’s clearly there as a moment of bonding between the two of them while they’re travelling together. And The Last of Us has Joel and Ellie travelling on horseback, with Ellie naming their horse Callus and the two of them having a small, teasing conversation about the name. But I’m not looking at the horse scene in isolation. I’m looking at it alongside the relationship, the journey, the daughter’s death, the father-daughter dynamic, the girl being essential to humanity, the sacrifice, the protagonist refusing the sacrifice and the ending. At that point, the little details start feeling less like random coincidences and more like echoes of the same source. And that’s exactly why I find the “The Last of Us didn’t invent these tropes” argument unconvincing. I know it didn’t. Joel didn’t invent the traumatized father figure. Ellie didn’t invent the chosen girl. The Last of Us didn’t invent post-apocalyptic worlds, found families, dangerous journeys or sacrificial heroes. But when you take this particular combination: traumatized man who lost his daughter \* young girl \* dangerous journey through a monster-ravaged world \* reluctant guardian \* constant banter \* growing father-daughter relationship \* girl is essential to humanity’s survival \* revelation that she must die \* guardian chooses her over humanity \* violent rescue \* humanity potentially doomed because of that choice …and then give me the same emotional conclusion? Yeah. I’m going to notice. And this is where the rest of the book becomes relevant too. Because The Last of Us isn’t the only thing I could recognize in Empire of the Vampire. There are plenty of other influences and familiar fantasy traditions throughout the book and I genuinely don’t have a problem with that. Inspiration is normal. I don’t expect authors to create fantasy in a vacuum. Give me Tolkien-inspired quest structures. Give me Gothic horror. Give me religious imagery. Give me a sentient sword. Give me vampire mythology that has existed for centuries. Take all of it. Just do something with it. Transform it. Remix it. Give me a story that becomes distinctly yours. That’s what I felt was missing here. And by the time I reached the ending, I wasn’t surprised. I wasn’t devastated I was thinking: how the f••• did you get away with this Jay Kristof????!!!!
- Rewelacyjna pozycja o Wampirach. Mroczna, mocna, z wciągająca fabułą, która nie pozwala się oderwać od kolejnych stron. Sposób prowadzenia historii Gabriela poprzez jego własną opowieść przeplatającą lata młodości, dojrzałości i teraźniejszości mistrzowsko wprowadza nas w ten mroczny świat, czas wampirów i walki dobra ze złem, chociaż należałoby chyba powiedzieć mniejszego zła z większym zlem, gdzie na koniec można mieć i co do tego wątpliwości. Z każdą stroną wsiąkałem w życie Gabriela, w jego rozwój jako ucznia Zakonu, w jego walkę z demonami, w jego chęć bycia kimś ważnym i zasłużenia się dla świata, stania się bohaterem. Dawkowałem sobie rozdziały z rozwagą, aby jak najdłużej przeżywać historię Srebroświętego, ale wszystko co dobre ma swój koniec. Może nie do końca taki jakiego życzyłbym sobie i Gabrielowi po pierwszych 200 stronach, ale równie dobry i dobrze podsumowujący całą historię. Na szczęście sama książka będzie miała swoją kontynuację, której nie mogę się już doczekać i być może szala przechyli się w niej na korzyść Srebroświętego i jego woli bycia kimś wielkim. W oczekiwaniu na to, sięgnę napewno po kolejne tytuły spisane ręką Jaya Kristoffa, bo naprawdę warto.
- This book is dark, grim, hopeless, and incredible. Don???t expect a happy story. The vampire mythos is handled superb.