phungus's Full Review: E. E. Knight - Valentine's Exile: A Novel of The V...
Valentine's Exile is the fifth book in E.E. Knight's excellent Vampire Earth series. It has much less action than the previous novels, and frankly I found it to be a little boring, save for the beginning and end. Even so, fans of the series will enjoy a couple of nice surprises.
The Vampire Earth series is set in the very near future, after the world as we know it has been overrun by an alien race that likes to suck out people's ‘life aura' like a vampire would draw blood. The people of the earth called them vampires, simply for lack of a better term. The main character in this series, David Valentine, is part of a small group of human resistors who travel the country finding ways to fight back against these aliens and give other humans a bit of hope. He's like a cross between Rambo and Robin Hood.
This book picks up right after the last one, Valentine's Rising, ended. Valentine is riding high after a major victory and there's a little bit of fighting at the beginning of the story when some reapers decide to start something. Things seem to be going well until some guards show up and arrest Valentine for the charge of murder. It appears he is being set up by an old rival, and the author spends a couple of chapters describing the twisted and hurried ‘justice' system in his post-apocalyptic world. Eventually, Valentine breaks out and decides to head up to Memphis in order to both hide out and fulfill a promise to a friend.
Most of this book takes place in Memphis, Tennessee, which is kind of interesting even though the Memphis in this book is a shell of what the real city is like. Except for a few locations, the story could have been set most anywhere. Valentine is able to infiltrate another group of humans and he soon discovers a scheme more horrifying than he could ever imagine. I think the events in this book will answer a couple of questions that have long been on the minds of many readers.
I thought this book meandered too long in the middle. While some of it was interesting and there were some very colorful characters introduced, I found a lot of it to be rather boring compared to the content of the previous novels. I suppose E.E. Knight wanted to take a break from all the action, but I was expecting a little more after all that happened in the previous book. Ultimately, the saving grace of this novel comes in literally the last two pages of the story. With one small incident, the author completely saved the story and really threw his readers for a loop with a big new twist to this ongoing series.
Valentine's Exile is full of complications for the main characters as well as the main plotline, and so it serves well to more the plotline along. However, it left me wanting just a little more. I'm going to take a short break in reading this series before I go on to the next book, as there are currently just two more after this one.
David Valentine is revered as a hero for his part in fighting to regain Earth's freedom. When a former Quisling traitor is badly wounded, he asks Vale...More at HotBookSale
David Valentine is revered as a hero for his part in fighting to regain Earth s freedom. When a former Quisling traitor is badly wounded, he asks Vale...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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