To be honest, I’m getting tired of recommending vampire books. I had this series for a while, meaning to read it, because I’d heard it spoken highly of and I know people who are friends of Barb and J.C.’s. Then I met them at the Rainforest Writer’s Retreat, run by our mutual friend, Patrick Swenson. I like them. So I picked up the first book, DAMPHIR. I proceeded to read the first four in series (six books, I think), and the only reason I’ve stopped is because I have to read something else I have a deadline for relating to my writer’s reading group that’s studying bestsellers. At least I get to go off and read something I like (George R.R. Martin).  But I already have the next book in the series, and it is burning a hole in my shelf.
Given that my love for these books isn’t the vampire bit (I really am tired of vampires), I had to sit back and think about the attraction in the books, which are page-turners, and series-turners. I burned right through from book to book – put one down, pick up the next.  So, it’s not the vampires. It’s not the line by line writing, which is good, but largely an invisible style, so I wouldn’t be reading the book for the sentences (like a Neil Stephenson). The main characters, Leesil, Magiere, Chap, and Wynn, are all larger than life and they all have depth and back-story. There villainy is multi-layered. The information feed is good. The world is detailed. And that combination makes the books a real escape – I go there in the way I fell into books and stories as a kid.
I’d have to say Damphir is the first thing to catch my interest so much since Anthoney’s Xanth books when I was about 12.
I bought the first one on a whim after thuming through it in a bookstore. A week later I bought the second… as I didn’t have money for the third I went back and read both again…all in about 2 weeks. I finally gave in and bought the third on saturday night, and was horribly dissapointed that it was done by monday morning and I had to go to work on about an hour sleep.
I think I like that the heros are not really heros. There is a lot about redemption, and the small reasons we make choices, its all in the details.
I love the detail in the wrighting, and the blur between right and wrong.
On the other hand my partner read half of the first chapter of Damphir and refused to go any farther because the main charactor wasn’t nice.
oh well.