I put my sick time on the couch to good use, reading Staked and Revamped by J.F. Lewis. I'd seen Staked in the store and had it on my mental list but hadn't gotten around to picking it up yet. Then I read an article on Tor.com the other day which mentioned that Lewis had gotten kicked out of his church for writing fiction they found unacceptable. His characters have sex and use swear words and are vampires and werewolves and demons and shapeshifters and magicians.

I clicked through to read the interview with more details, and while it didn't say exactly which church it was - and perhaps it is obvious to people who know more about religion than I do - it did say that he had talked to his priest (or whatever, head religious guy) while he was writing Staked, and the priest seemed to think the book was fine. Then once the book was published, the church freaked out on him and demanded that he not write any more stories like it or do anything to promote the book or he was out of the church. All I could think was here's this poor guy who has actually achieved the dream and gotten a book published, and they told him he had to choose between his work and his church because they didn't like some of the words he used. There is no way that God could be that petty. And seriously, is your religion so flimsy that fictional creatures in a fictional city doing fictional things can somehow threaten it or the purity of your followers? They can't actually run out and become vampires you know. Fiction.

So I picked up a copy of Staked and the sequel, Revamped, the next time I went to the book store. They're actually quite enjoyable. The main character, Eric, is an incredibly powerful vampire who is very hard to kill. He screws up a lot, has very little in the way of social graces, and is terrible at following rules. He kills people pretty regularly, and without much in the way of remorse. Even so, he has a moral code and tries to help plenty of people too. You know me. I'm a sucker for a story featuring a badass rule-breaker with a heart of gold. Lewis's vampires fall into different categories with the lower level ones being fairly standard in their abilities, but the higher level ones being almost impossible to kill, even with stakes and sunlight. In Staked, Eric may or may not have killed the son of an Alpha werewolf, and it has touched off a war with the werewolves. He keeps trying to stop it, but someone he trusts is betraying him, and keeps getting in his way. Plus he's just made his girlfriend Tabitha a vampire and her little sister Rachel is putting the moves on him. And he's got a business to run. Life is complicated for this vampire.

Revamped picks up seconds after the ending of Staked. I don't want to give that ending away, so I won't go into too many details. In Revamped, though, we get to see Tabitha making her way in vampire society and we learn more about how the universe Lewis has created works. Plus, more of Eric's mysterious back story is revealed. There's a great scene where he learns a vampire history that has to do with his family by seeing a series of stained glass panels. I had fun reading these books and watching the story unfold, and I look forward to the next one. And while I'm not a Christian, I can say quite sincerely that I didn't see anything in these books that was even remotely dangerous to church- going folks. I hope that J.F. Lewis's church comes to its senses and lets him back in, if that's something he wants.

Posted by Bad Penguin at April 29, 2009 6:46 AM