Note: sorry about the sudden disappearance of the amusing vampire clip-art at the top of this page, but very strange things happened to it and it had to be taken down.
Christopher Pike is comparable to R.L. Stein in the sheer number of books that he churns out. “Last Act”, “Last Act 2”, “The Last Vampire”, “The Last Vampire 2”, “Best Friends”, “Best Friends 2”…I could take up my standard review space with titles. But I won’t. The point is, Mr. Pike seems to produce book after book after book in a never-ending parade. And like Mr. Stein, very few of them are worth reading. “The Last Vampire” really isn’t one of those very few, unless you’re very interested in the accumulation of knowledge on people’s varying vampire mythos (like I am). Mr. Pike’s history of vampirism as presented here is original by what I’ve seen. His story, however, is boring and pointless.
The main character (whom I will call Sita for convenience), is utterly uninteresting. As a vampire, she’s wonderful at everything. Archery, playing the piano, superhuman strength (understandable), photographic memory with 100% comprehension…other than her sad past, Sita is not presented as having flaws. And I do not consider having a sad past to be a flaw.
But she’s terribly self-centered and pretentious. Sita the Narrator brings up several things that have nothing to do with the rest of the story, but merely show off her amazing skills. Guess what, Mr. Pike? Makes for a terrible book. The other characters are stock: a private eye (who lives for about four pages), the boy who falls in love with Sita, the shy nerd who’s an excellent writer and has HIV, the jealous girlfriend, the all-consuming villian. The best characters in the entire book, Lalita and Vishnu, were shown only through flashbacks.
The story itself was weak. Following the same basic plotline of Amelia Atwater-Rhodes’ “In The Forests of the Night”, but not doing anything at all interesting with it, was very disappointing. “The Last Vampire” was written decidedly before “Forests”, and Atwater-Rhodes credits Pike as an inspiration, but “Forests” was better. Risika had flaws, vices, and weaknesses. Sita’s are unconvincing. Old-rivalry-dredged-up-to-be-settled (“The Lord of the Rings”, “The Daughter of Regals”, “In The Forests of the Night”, “The Queen of the Damned”, the “Godfather” movies…) is far too abused to be bothered with unless something really amazing can be done with it. And something amazing is exactly what Mr. Pike does NOT give us.
All I got from this book was a million ways I would have changed it. Unless you’re already a hardcore Pike fan (in which case I fear for you), or very devout in your accumulation of knowledge on vampire fiction, I encourage you to skip “The Last Vampire”.
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