|
Midnight Mass
|
| Price: | $6.99 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details |
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com
121 new or used available from $0.01
Average customer review:
Product Description
In a town on the New Jersey shore, the vampires have just arrived, along with their human henchmen, the cowboys, who round up human cattle for the overlords in return for the promise of eternal life---later. For the vampires wish only a few of their own kind to rule, and feed. The rest of humanity are to be helpless herds, the source of the blood of life.
Falsely accused of abuse, Father Dan is drunk in a basement waiting for the end. His superior has betrayed the local Catholic congregation and become a vampire. Sister Carolyn has become a formidable killer of cowboys and vampires. Dan's niece, escaped from the conquest of New York, has made her way south to find him. Brought together by Rabbi Zev Wolpin, who is shaken by the vampires' fear of the cross and holy water, they plan their resistance. Against all odds, they discover that there just might be a way for humanity to really fight back. But first they will have to kill the vampire king of New York.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #539672 in Books
- Published on: 2005-11-01
- Released on: 2005-10-27
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Mass Market Paperback
- 416 pages
Features
- ISBN13: 9780765346346
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
- Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Professing (in a brief author's note) his fondness for thegenuinely evil Nosferatu of classic vampire fiction, Wilson(Gateways) concocts a garish B-movie scenario, an expansion ofa 1990 novella with the same title, in which armies of the un-deaddecimate Europe and later make the New York metropolitan area theirprivate feeding trough. An organized human insurgency begins whenFather Joe Cahill, a recovering alcoholic, reclaims his desecrated NewJersey parish and joins forces with his activist niece, Lacey, andCarole Hanarty, a nun who makes explosives for her own vendetta withthe "Vichy" (i.e., human collaborators). When vampires chomp FatherJoe to suppress the revolt, he knows he has only two weeks before hisfull vampire conversion to launch a counterattack. All the novel'scharacters are as outsized and engaging as comic book heroes andvillains. Though Wilson intentionally invokes well-known vampireclichésâ€"the repellant power of the cross, grisly death by sunexposure, etc.â€"he also works crafty new angles on his theme,among them vampire bloodlust paralleling the selfish excesses of humanMe-Generation types. Still, but for a few twists, there's little herethat hasn't already been attempted in novels ranging from RichardMatheson's I Am Legend (an acknowledged influence) to YvonneNavarro's Afterage (1993).
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
*Starred Review* In Wilson's creepy, terrifying thriller, vampires are rapidly taking over the planet. They've got Europe, and now they're encroaching on the East Coast of the U.S. In New Jersey, Carole, a nun, witnesses the death and transformation into a vampire of her best friend. After killing the vampire who used to be her friend, Carole becomes a vigilante, killing vampires and "cowboys," the humans who have aligned themselves with the vampires. She saves a rabbi, Zev, who is seeking Father Joe, hoping to enlist him in the fight against the vampires. Joe's niece Lacey has turned up with the same idea, but Joe himself is trying to drink away his problems. Zev and Lacey, however, succeed in drawing him into the fight, and all three head to St. Anthony's Church to retake it from vampires led by Father Palmeri, a corrupt priest-turned-vampire. But when the vampires capture Joe, the stakes are raised in ways neither side could have imagined. Wilson makes his vampires truly frightening and the eerie atmosphere of the book not unlike that of the movie 28 Days Later. The undead might have every advantage, but the likable, compelling mortals in this gripping read aren't giving up easily. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
“Though Wilson intentionally invokes well-known vampire clichés—the repellant power of the cross, grisly death by sun exposure, etc.—he also works crafty new angles on his theme.”
—Publishers Weekly
“This one starts big . . . Far-out, fresh, and gripping. And better than the movie.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“In Wilson’s creepy, terrifying thriller, vampires are rapidly taking over the planet. . . Wilson makes his vampires truly frightening and the eerie atmosphere of the book not unlike that of the movie 28 Days Later. The undead might have every advantage, but the likable, compelling mortals in this gripping read aren’t giving up easily.
—Booklist
“Wilson, creator of literary icon Repairman Jack, poses a number of intriguing questions about faith and the supernatural, but refuses to get too bogged down in philosophy. Instead, we are propelled into the compelling plot of a desperate bid to reverse what appears to be a hopeless situation . . .The stakes here are high, and there are no guarantees on who will survive. Isn’t it about time you went to Mass?”
—Vampirella Magazine
“If you’re a lover of horror fiction, vampires, and early Stephen King novels, take note: Midnight Mass is the best thing to come along in years.”--Rocky Mountain News
Customer Reviews
Great horror tale by a master writer
There were vampires living in Eastern Europe that nobody knew about and when the Iron Curtain fell, a power vacuum developed. The vampires were quick to feed on the vacuous world leaders turning political, industry, and religious figures into vampires. Next they shut down electricity and telephone service leaving humans isolated and fearful. Finally they recruited humans to act as their watchers in the daylight hours, promising to turn them into vampires after loyal servicing of ten years.
They overran Western Europe, Asia and Africa and now have turned their attention to the eastern seaboard of the United States. They used the same tactics they did in the old world and it looked like they were winning until a resistance was started by father Joe. He and the members of his parish join forces to throw the vampires out of the church making it a place of refuge from the creatures of the night. He, a commando nun and his lesbian niece form a plan that if it succeeds will give hope to the rest of humanity that vampires can be eradicated from the earth.
This is not in any sense a Repairman Jack novel but in tone and substance it will remind reader of THE KEEP. This is a true horror novel because the vampires are so evil with no redeeming equalities see human beings as a food supply for their blood hunger. F. Paul Wilson creates a new world order with vampires as the leaders, the human collaborators tantamount to Quislings with other humans on the bottom of the food chain. MIDNIGHT MASS is horror at its very best.
Harriet Klausner
everything old is new again in this page turner...
I have enjoyed Anne Rice's vampiric, pained aesthetes and Tanya Huff's funny, noble vampires as much as the next reader...but loving the boogeyman or laughing with him gets old after a while. I still love Tanya Huff; don't get me wrong...though I think I have outgrown Rice. I want to be horrified by my horror these days. In this horror show of a world we've been dropped in to, it's...comforting to dwell for a time in a world worse off than our own.
I was overjoyed that Wilson (obviously one of my favortie writers if you've seen my other reviews) decided to make vampires scary again. I believe he has succeeded admirably in this page-turning thriller. Vampires have taken over Europe and are now they are sweeping across America...or they're trying to. Life as we know it has ended on the east coast. Roving bands of mortal henchemen calling themselves "Cowboys" hunt during the day for their undead masters. Wilson's vampires are eerie and scary (monsters with enough humanity to magnify their nastiness). Those few who fight both Cowboys and vampires are a great set of characters themselves: Father Cahill and his tough-as-nails niece Lacey. Rabbi Zev and Sister Carole...a seriously scary nun (who used to teach science).
The Booklist review above was right to compare this to 28 Days Later. There is a definite similarity. Really the best new take on vampires since...well...The Keep by Frances Paul himself! Why isn't this man on the top of the bestsellers lists? You'll wonder too if you give this or Sims or The Select a try.
They're baaaacckk!
I just finished reading the book today and almost felt a sadness at its end - the problem was, I didn't want it to finish!
The book is a bit rocky, prose-wise, but that doesn't stop it from being an compelling read that offers engaging characters and a great fight against the undead.
As Wilson makes clear in his all-too-brief author's note, he's bringing back the evil, cross-fearing vampires of old - represented too far and few between by standouts like the "From Dusk Till Dawn" flicks - and crapping all over Rice's "Byronic aesthetes" (as depicted in "Interview With the Vampire", et. al.)
It was quite a joy to read this book for that reason alone.
Bring back the *real* vampires and a sequal to this great book!
