***SPOILERS ALERT!***
I had picked up The Last Vampire by Christopher Pike a short while ago after seeing a co-worker reading the book. Since the vampire craze is still going strong, I figured it was worth a go. While I bought it as Thirst, a collection of the first 3 books of the series, I decided to write a review of the first book, rather than the whole collection in Thirst. My reasons for this? I’m interested, but not interested enough to continue reading at this point.
I don’t know if it’s the fact that it’s a man writing from the perspective of a woman, or if Christopher Pike thinks this is how vampires should act, but the main character in the novel, the vampire Sita, is just so … bland.
The story started out well enough – Sita is sitting in the office of an investigator, Michael Riley, who has been looking into her story. The “Why does she have so much money for an 18 year old?” situation. Sita really shows no emotion, but as the book goes on, she shows less and less. After killing the investigator too soon and realizing that she needs more information about who was actually wanting information about her, she decides to go after his son, Ray.
But then they fall in love. I guess.
It all happens so fast that I was just so turned off by the book. Sita enrolls in high school to become friends with Ray and was there for, like, a day where she meets Ray and his girlfriend, and then BAM! They’re in love. No explanation, no reason – they’re just in love. Apparently, Ray looks like Sita’s old husband from back in the day before she was a vampire, so I guess that’s reason enough.
Sita learns that it is her maker, Yaksha, who is out to get her. Well, actually he’s out to kill her after making the promise to their god, Krishna, to kill all of his terrible species – the vampires. Sita just happens to be the last one. However, she’s under Krishna’s protection so long as she doesn’t make another of her kind. Yaksha ends up wiping out the rest of the species, just leaving him and Sita, by the middle ages. If that was the case, why would anyone even know about vampires in the present day?
Oh, but wait, then Yaksha injures Ray who, for some reason, was way to close to a window, by crashing the glass and making Ray tumble to his near death. Out of the unexplained love for Ray, Sita turns him into a vampire and her protection is shattered.
The ending turns out to be stupid (maybe just my opinion) – Sita figures dynamite would be the best way to kill Yaksha and sets up a triple suicide in her living room, but actually ends up making a contraption that will save her and Ray, but kill Yaksha. When Yaksha agrees that this will be a good idea (not knowing that Ray and Sita will survive), him and Sita decide to tell each other what Krishna told them both so many years ago. Turns out Krishna told Sita that “where there is love, there is my grace.”
So, it turns out that Sita does in fact still have Krishna’s protection and when realizing this, Yaksha tells them to leave and he’ll die.
Really? That was just way too … easy.
One thing I do like is how the vampires came to be and I really think that Christopher Pike did a good job setting up the background and history. Of course, I don’t know when I’ll get around to reading the remaining books in this series, but I do hope that they keep my interest more than The Last Vampire did. If you feel the urge to read everything that’s in the vampire genre, go ahead, read this series. If you’re looking for something that is well written and intriguing with well-developed characters, find something else.
