Hey, folks. Sorry for the radio silence – I’ve been a bit busy working on my capstone paper for grad school, and with Rorschach’s review/spork of the Maradonia movie, I figured I could take a break. But, with November (and NaNoWriMo) coming, and any number of other stuff, I figured I should try to get another review out before I get bogged down with other stuff.

So, today, and just in time for Halloween, I’m going to tell you guys about Blood Oath, the first novel of Christopher Farnsworth’s Nathaniel Cade series.

First, the blurb:

Zach Barrows is a cocky, ambitious White House employee until he’s abruptly transferred out and partnered with Nathaniel Cade, a secret agent sworn to protect the president. But Cade is no ordinary civil servant. Bound 140 years ago by a special blood oath, Nathanial Cade is a vampire. On the orders of the president he defends the nation against enemies far stranger-and even more dangerous-than civilians like Zach could ever imagine.

So yes, this is yet another Urban Fantasy series. But like most of the UF series I’ve recommended, this one takes a different approach to the sub-genre – instead of the people dealing with the supernatural working alone or with secret organizations, they’re actually part of the US government. Honestly, I’m a bit surprised that this is such a rare thing in the genre – how is it that no law enforcement agency notices all the crazy shit your typical UF protagonist gets up to?

There’s a lot I love about this series (currently consisting of three books and one novella). Part of it is the wonderful repartee between Zach and Cade. Farnsworth’s background is in script writing, and some of his dialogue is wonderfully reminiscent of Joss Whedon’s work. For example, here’s a bit from this book:

“Couldn’t you hypnotize her or something?”
“It doesn’t work like that.”
“I thought vampires were all sex gods with the ladies.”
Cade looked at him. “What gave you that idea?”
“Uh … late-night TV, mostly …”
“Humans are our food. Do you want to have sex with a cow?”

See? Not only is that funny, but it also raises a valid point – why the heck would a vampire be interested in sex with a human?

But I also love a lot of the background stuff Farnsworth included in the series. For a long time, his website had a fictional timeline of events from American history, which included references to conspiracy theories and folklore, as well as movies and other works of fiction. For example, events include the birth of the Jersey Devil in 1735, a report of a “headless horseman” supposedly killing a teacher in upstate New York in 1790 (reference to “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”), the disappearance of the Pabodie Expedition in Antarctica in 1931 (reference to HP Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness), something called the Grover’s Mill Intrusion Event in 1938 (reference to Orson Welles’s radio broadcast of War of the Worlds), and a “Pabodie II” expedition in 1951 (reference to the film The Thing From Another World – sadly, there’s no “Pabodie III” for 1982). There’s plenty more, if you’re interested. Though it’s no longer on Farnsworth’s website, a bit of Google-fu helped me find a copy here.

Finally, I love that Cade doesn’t seem to fall into any category of typical vampire behavior – he doesn’t spend his time brooding over his lost humanity, but he doesn’t revel in his undead state, either. Yes, he works to keep his vampiric nature in check, but he’s aware that there’s no going back for him, either. Cade isn’t human, and doesn’t pretend to be when he doesn’t have to.

And as for this book in particular (and I’m going into minor spoilers here), it managed to do something I hadn’t really thought possible – make both Frankenstein and his creation scary again.

My only complaint is that it’s now been four years since the publication of the last novel – important, because it centered around the re-election campaign of the fiction President Samuel Curtis. While Farnsworth has been working on other things, and has said he intends to return to writing Cade, I’d like to see what happens next before the 2020 election. But that’s good news for you guys – you can buy Blood Oath, and the sequels The President’s Vampire and Red, White, and Blood right now.

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Comment

  1. Juracan on 31 October 2016, 11:02 said:

    Not only is that funny, but it also raises a valid point – why the heck would a vampire be interested in sex with a human?

    Because fanservice.

    Well I think it’s also because people have trouble imagining creatures that aren’t fundamentally human. So of course they act like humans even when they’re not. Given that vampires are traditionally sort of part human or were once human it’s not too much of a stretch, but that depends on the piece of fiction and how vampires work in it.

    I’m putting way too much thought into trying to say, “Yeah, you’re right, good point this book sounds cool.”

    Honestly, I’m a bit surprised that this is such a rare thing in the genre – how is it that no law enforcement agency notices all the crazy shit your typical UF protagonist gets up to?

    Precisely. I think most Urban Fantasy handwaves it with “It’s not big enough/noticeable enough for the government to get invovled,” but then you have stuff like the TV show Supernatural where towns are wiped off the map or taken over by monsters. There’s no way that someone in the higher-ups of the government wouldn’t notice it.

    And realistically speaking, the government likes to have a hand in everything. For there to NOT be a government office to deal with the paranormal in an urban fantasy story seems a bit out-of-character.

  2. Apep on 31 October 2016, 14:42 said:

    I’m putting way too much thought into trying to say, “Yeah, you’re right, good point this book sounds cool.”

    It is cool.

    I think most Urban Fantasy handwaves it with “It’s not big enough/noticeable enough for the government to get invovled,” but then you have stuff like the TV show Supernatural where towns are wiped off the map or taken over by monsters.

    Well, with Supernatural specifically, there was an FBI agent who chased Sam and Dean for a while in the early seasons (I think it was either 3 or 4 – he ended up getting killed by Lilith). And I think there’s some implication that the Men of Letters were somehow involved with the government, given the whole WWII Judah Initiative from that one episode. But yeah, it is weird that stuff like that goes on, yet no one from the FBI, NSA, Homeland Security, or other alphabet-soup agencies ever show up.

    It’s especially egregious with series like the Dresden Files, because Dresden routinely causes massive amounts of property damage, yet the only law enforcement group that ever deals with him is the Special Investigations branch of the Chicago PD.

  3. Juracan on 1 November 2016, 14:11 said:

    Well, with Supernatural specifically, there was an FBI agent who chased Sam and Dean for a while in the early seasons (I think it was either 3 or 4 – he ended up getting killed by Lilith).

    There was, but he wasn’t interested in the supernatural events as much as that Sam and Dean have been connected to several unexplained crimes (killings, thefts, and of course impersonating federal agents several times over). After he’s killed by Lilith in season three, the federal government is not interested at all until two monsters impersonate them and go on public murder sprees. And even that is cleaned up remarkably quickly.

    I mean, especially during seasons four and five, when there are things like towns being destroyed, abandoned, or turned into war zones? I’d think the government would look into that.

    And I think there’s some implication that the Men of Letters were somehow involved with the government, given the whole WWII Judah Initiative from that one episode.

    Did they? That was around when I stopped watching I think. That’d explain quite a lot.

    It’s especially egregious with series like the Dresden Files, because Dresden routinely causes massive amounts of property damage, yet the only law enforcement group that ever deals with him is the Special Investigations branch of the Chicago PD.

    Well…yes and no. The series explicitly says that humans filter out weird stuff like we’re on autopilot. And we kind of do; people are happy to believe what makes them feel better even if it does contradict proven fact. That’s just how people work. But we also don’t know how the upper management works in the Dresdenverse. For all we know, the White Council has some sort of liaison to the UN, or some other way of covering stuff up, or there is a government agency dedicated to at least acknowledging it.

    Basically, I don’t think you’re wrong in this criticism as much as I’m not sure if it won’t be addressed at some later time.

    Question about the actual topic though: Is this book long? I’d like to look into it, but I don’t have a lot of time with grad school and all so I don’t know if I can take really long novels.

  4. Apep on 1 November 2016, 15:23 said:

    Did they? That was around when I stopped watching I think. That’d explain quite a lot.

    I think that stuff got introduced in season 8 (?). They found out their grandfather on their dad’s side was part of some secret group of Mason/wizard guys who got mostly wiped out back in the 1950s or thereabouts. It’s mostly interesting because it got them a home base for a while. (Unfortunately, getting there means slogging through 2-ish iffy seasons.)

    Is this book long? I’d like to look into it, but I don’t have a lot of time with grad school and all so I don’t know if I can take really long novels.

    My original hardback copy is 390 pages, and the current paperback is 486 pages. So, not that long for the genre. I felt like I got through it pretty fast, but I read fast and was maybe finishing/finished with college at the time.

  5. WarriorsGate on 11 December 2016, 04:56 said:

    See? Not only is that funny, but it also raises a valid point – why the heck would a vampire be interested in sex with a human?

    Uh, because Dracula was a metaphor for repressive Victorian sexuality, wherein a deviant European comes to England and immediately starts ‘corrupting’ fine young English women and putting them under his thrall for nefarious purposes?

    Sounds like the author of this book kept the technical details about vampires, but ignored the inherent subtext and symbolism surrounding them.

  6. Apep on 11 December 2016, 11:55 said:

    Except in this case we’re not talking about vampires as a metaphor for sex (and which you could argue goes back to Carmilla, with the lesbian subtext), but as actually wanting to have sex with (or just generally being attracted to) a human, which is a relatively recent development. While Coppola’s film adaptation might be the most accurate to the book, at no point does Dracula demonstrate any attraction to Lucy or Mina. At most, he maybe gets a bit clingy with Jonathan. But that’s it. For all intents and purposes, the Count is asexual.

    And yet for some reason, vampires being overtly sexual has become a staple of vampires, especially in Paranormal Romance. But there’s no logical, in-world reason for a vampire to have any sexual desires towards a human.

  7. WarriorsGate on 11 December 2016, 15:06 said:

    It’s not that recent; in Dracula, Harker explicitly wants Dracula’s Harem to jump him, and the whole scene is portrayed (at least, as far as I remember, as it’s been a long time since I read it) with an electric undercurrent of eroticism.

    While making a metaphor into a literal thing isn’t the height of subtlety, neither is it the out-of-left-field interpretation this book seems to think it is.

  8. Apep on 11 December 2016, 18:38 said:

    While Harker does seem to want Dracula’s brides (or whatever they were) to jump him (while also fervently denying so, because Victorian and British), that’s all on him. The brides aren’t treating it that way – it’s more like they’re arguing over who gets the first piece of cake.

    And I think this book is just pointing out how illogical it is for vampires to be even vaguely interested in sex with a human – again, for vampires, humans are food. A vampire wanting to have sex with a human (and not semi-metaphorical sex, but actual sex) is like a human wanting to have sex with a cow.

  9. WarriorsGate on 17 December 2016, 12:11 said:

    Except that human beings do not start off life as cows, and are not shaped into new human beings from a pile of processed meat. So already the analogy is deeply flawed.

    Sucking someone’s blood and turning them into a whole new person has more symbolism than just food. It can stand for abusive relationships, seduction, economic exploitation, induction into a subculture, a screed about evil college professors with a political agenda brainwashing their students, etc. Those are all symbolic acts of feeding, as well.

  10. Apep on 17 December 2016, 17:04 said:

    Firstly, I think we both need to back off from this. It’s a little joke poking fun at the current portrayal of vampires in popular culture, which is far from their origins, and isn’t really the focus of the book. If you want a work where that is the focus, I’d recommend An Unattractive Vampire, which I reviewed here.

    Also, I feel you’ve been conflating “being a metaphor for sex” with “being sexy”. Vampires in the Dracula vein can work as metaphors for sex. But I would not describe Dracula or similar vampires as being “sexy”. Any attractiveness is more a lure to draw in potential victims. And Dracula doesn’t even try to seduce Lucy or Mina; what he does is more akin to rape – forcing himself on them without any kind of consent. And after Van Helsing & co. kill Lucy, he goes after Mina, not because he wants a replacement, but because he wants revenge. He wants to prove that he’s still more powerful than his opponents.

    It’s only relatively recently that vampires became “sexy”, or that being a vampire was treated as something desirable, a trend that I think can be traced back at least to Anne Rice. Vampires stopped being blood-sucking monsters and became brooding bad-boys with hearts of gold.