Date Finished: April 20, 2018
Page count: 336
Genre: Historical Fantasy
I’ve lived
in the United States of America my entire life and have endured it without
knowing the truth about one of our most famous presidents. The strife he
underwent, the misery he felt, (almost) all his suffering, happiness, and
troubles finally brought to the surface in Seth Grahame-Smith’s (let’s call him
G-Smith for now on) book and it was a whole lot better than the movie. I think.
See, I haven’t actually seen the movie but
I think.
The movie seems way edgier than the book and while I’d probably see it as an
good adaptation in its own right, I feel like it might skip over all the juicy
character development that I really love about the book for edgy, edgy, melancholy
Abe and vampires. Just look at this trailer! Is it CGI or live action,
historical fantasy or edge lord of all the edge lords?
Aside from
that, this book was amazing. Sadly my review for it won’t be as long and in depth
about it like other book due to it being historical fantasy (say that’s not a
real genre if you will but I say it is because of all the vampires) and lots of
the stuff that happened is historical and what do I do with that, review the
actions of people who have once passed and judge whether they did something
smart or not? Heck no, that’d be a WHAP essay and I am not writing one of those
unless I have to. But yeah, with the few fictional elements and authors craft
here’s my two cents on Abraham Lincoln
Vampire Hunter (the book).
Abraham was
a well fleshed out character for starters. While he’s probably the only
character other than Mary (his wife), or Henry (his vampire mentor that was
probably a real person) and I usually feel that main characters are often
lacking in the No. 1 developed/best character in the books I read (back stories
to side characters are just more diverse and interesting) Abe was truly my
favorite character in the book. We start with him from day one, see him live in
a log cabin and cut tree with his oh so famous axe, and fudge he’s killing
vampires now. This transition was not jarring or uncharacteristic of the image we all hold of Abe in our imaginations, as G-Smith write Abe in a way that’s familiar (but probably
inaccurate) to us. He was a man of honor, a man of nobility, a man who recognized
the true meaning of the US constitution and vowed to uphold that, even if it
meant going again half the Union and a heck of a lot of Vampires. We saw him
happy, we saw him depressed, we saw him grapple with his purpose and the horrors
of his situation. Abe would not expect disparity, he stayed true to the very
end; a character I could truly root for to success even though I knew he’d soon
be dead. In some ways he reminds me of Allen Walker from D. Gray-man but better and so much more interesting. The problem
with Allen is I have no idea what he’s fighting for and his personality is
bland as diluted apple juice to the point where it taste like (what I assume to
be) oil and makes me want to vomit. Then there’s the Noah clan and God dang Nea
and why in the world would you stop hunting Akuma and go on this Nea discovery
trip while leaving all the cool characters from the order behind Allen? Hoo
boy, I need to stop before I got back to D.
Gray-man hell, the story progressively gets worse over time that I jokingly
(but seriously) refer to the series as “D. Grade-man” now.
Now for
authors craft (gosh, I hardly ever talk about this), a real gem this time
around and it kinda had to be since historical fantasy demands it. So for
starters I really liked the introduction of the book which started with the
author being greeted by Henry in the present day (of the book or whatever) and
getting the assignment of writing the book. I found this oh so lovely as it’s
quite clear that this book is a creation of the imagination (hence why I refer
to this genre as historical fantasy) but the way G-Smith writes it makes it out
to be a truth. Perhaps if this were a parallel universe this book would be
truth suddenly brought to life and by the revelation of vampires to people we’d
start to be at war with them (starting to sound like Hellsing here, makes me want to read it again.), but neither the
less, I love how the story is made out to be real; it helps to keep in mind the
historical part of this genre which can be easy to forget when we’re reading about
Abe cutting down some vampires.
Speaking of
vampire hunting, I like how spaced out it was in this book, allowed for enough
time for Abe’s character to be developed in the beginning, for us to see how
Abe’s political career took shape, and for us to see what Abe was like around
his loved ones and the effects of being a vampire hunter in his private life. The
moments where he was vampire hunting were parts where there was an open
opportunity in his busy life to do so, and the explicit parts were always there
to push the plot forward, keep thing interesting, and develop character. It
created a lovely homeostasis of sorts, something comfortable that I was able to
roll with.
Other cool
things include the “historical” photographs of vampires and evidence pointing
to them, the fact that most of the story was “quotations from Abe’s journal
telling the things he experienced first person, Henry, the three section
division of the book into boy Abe, vampire hunter Abe and president Abe, and
that oh so wonderfully satisfying ending we got. I don’t want to spoil it but I
love that this ended like history should have but with a twist that was all too
fitting. I do wish it could have been elaborated though, was it like Attack on Titan with Eren? It’s okay
though, I may want to know but can live without knowing (though I do so wish I
knew what happened).
Overall, I loved this book.
Historical fiction is my jam, (high) fantasy is my jam, of course meshing them together
is going to be my ultimate jam (even I like to think up historical fantasy
stories in my head). There’s something enjoyable about the merging of
historical events with fantasy elements as you know what happens but you also
want to see what’s different and what kind of world the author has crafted with
what they have and what they mix in. I recommend this book to all vampire
lovers, to all historical fiction lovers and all fantasy loves, heck even
nonfiction lovers. This book as great character development, lots of tasty side
dishes, and a wonderful writing style that can’t help but drag you deep into
the pits of procrastination on your homework but it’s okay because
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