Wm. Mark Williams Habeas Corpses

Habeas Corpses

Wm. Mark Simmons

Baen, Nov 2005, $22.00, 466 pp.

ISBN 1416509135

Nobody knows quite what the Doman of the East Coast Enclave of Vampires actually is. A blood transfusion gave Chris one of the two viruses needed to become a vampire, but the donor never gave him the other virus founded in his saliva. At best the master vampires, who want to challenge his position as Doman, think he is a hybrid, but every day Chris is becoming more like a vampire. However, the werewolf, vampire, and Loa blood he has drunk, has changed him in ways that make him subtly different from a creature who is supposed to be a vampire.

Dr. Pipt wants Chris's blood because he thinks it is the last step in his quest for immortality; he sends a cybernetic monster to collect it, but Chris and his bodyguards kill it. His pregnant werewolf vampire can't abide his touch because the silver in his body has become stronger and dangerous to her. He travels to New York to consolidate his power base, but is almost killed by a traitor. Next he takes an astral journey to the home of Dr. Pipt to retrieve something that the mad scientist has, that rightfully belongs to him, while fighting this human evil who performs atrocities worse than any of the ugly deeds the monsters commit.

Wm. Mark Williams has written another witty irreverent and serio-comic urban fantasy novel, starring a hero that is easy to like. He wants to be a Doman, not for the power, but for the chance to convince the vampire not to kill humans when they drink their blood or turn them into creatures like themselves. There is plenty of action, just as there are plenty of laughs, because the protagonist can't take his situation too seriously, because if he does, he knows the stress of being a target and wondering what he will eventually evolve into, would make him useless to himself and those who depend on and believe in him.

Harriet Klausner