Those Who Dwell in Darkness: A Vampire Thriller
The Assembly, Book 1
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Those Who Dwell in Darkness: A Vampire Thriller
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Narrated by:
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John Banks
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By:
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Steve McHugh
The hunt for a serial killer leads a vampire agent to uncover a terrifying conspiracy in this dark urban fantasy by the author of the Hellequin Chronicles.
Vampires and humans live side by side thanks to an uneasy peace maintained by the Assembly. As an Arbiter for the powerful organization, Miles Watson is authorized to act as judge, jury, and executioner for anyone—living or undead—who breaks the law. But now Miles is up against a threat more sinister than anything he's seen in his centuries as a vampire.
A criminal network in London is offering wealthy humans the chance to become vampires without the Assembly's consent. When the process goes disastrously wrong, the Boss wants to eliminate any trace of the fiasco. But a rogue enforcer refuses to play along, and trouble quickly escalates out of anyone's control.
As Miles sets off searching for the illegal vampires, he finds himself on the trail of a monstrous serial killer. The twisty investigation takes him from London's deadly underworld to the rural backwaters of the Pacific Northwest—where an even more devious criminal enterprise threatens all of vampire-kind . . .
Known for his terrifying tales of urban fantasy, author Steve McHugh goes even deeper into the shadows with this noirish vampire thriller, which masterfully combines suspenseful plotting and intricate world-building.
©2023 Steve McHugh (P)2023 Podium AudioContinue the series
Story
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Not for me
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Predictable story arc.
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Spoiler ahead:
So in the story humans and Vampires lives side by side with each other and for the most part it’s very beneficial for both the parties involved, but of course not everyone agree and there are some racial hate in subsets of both the “races” of people.
And im fully onboard on the concept, after all people can be stupid and in the story vampires are mostly vastly superior to humans so it would not be weird for humans being scared and vampires thinking themselves superior to the much weaker “race”.
But that is unfortunately not really what we got…
It is for the most part (only part really) humans who are played out as the “clique bigoted racist hillbilly” and where we are told they are stupid and have low IQ…
For humans nearly the entire story they are either classified as: “Racist and stupid” or “Vampires biggest defenders and super angry at the racist humans”, that is basically the personality traits we get or their purpose in the story is after their plot point is done.
And on the vampires part, they are set up in the story to be just the best or superior to humans in every aspect.
Vampires are both treated as a discriminated minority and also as people in charge of everything at the same time.
We have Vampires who complain about the stupidity of humans, how it never gets better and how stupid and scared they are.
But we never get someone to call out this sort of behaviour from vampires or any evil deed they do.
Hell we are even given MANY reasons Vampires can be a legitimate threat (for example if it is to cold they can become ravenous and if they smell to much blood they can be overwhelmed if they are young enough and ect…) but we never get this nuance or legitimate argument from any human who dislikes Vampires.
Humans who are racist or scared of Vampires are those things because they are stupid, petty or evil.
No one actually bring up any of the legitimate concerns when this is talked about, even the MC who hunts criminal Vampires seem oblivious why humans would be scared of Vampires or if there is a legitimate reason for it.
Hell it’s laughable stupidly simple how the racist humans are written, one of the main antagonist was racist because his wife cucked him with a vampire… Like…really?
Listen, im a person of colour and I have meet my fair share of dumb racists, but this isn’t a case of vampires being just a different shade of human.
They are actual super powerd creatures who can become ravenous and create monsters who actually can bring a plague of other monsters, humans with to much power can already be super dangerous and you think there isn’t good reason for some humans in that world to fear or be wary of Vampires?
And whenever there is “Vampire racism” they make sure to react strongly to it and tell how stupid those humans are, legit long conversations about how little IQ they have because every time the writer makes sure to play it up as much as they can.
They aren’t really imaginative with it or the dialogue about it, it’s for the most part “they are fucking stupid” and “their IQ is so low”…
Despite Vampires starting this whole criminal plot it is still treated as if humans are the problem or are the only ones who can be stupid as a whole rather then both part.
It’s a shame there where no nuances in it, conflicting ideals or morale grey characters (or relevant humans in power who weren’t evil, stupid and bigoted…) Every character was very one dimensional and everything was black and white.
The narrator was amazing though, 10/10!
Good concept but poor execution
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Narration was strange, very stilted and often sounded unsure as to what he was reading. The accents were a decent effort
A bit of fun
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