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Choice Of The Cat (book 2 of The Vampire
Earth) by E.E. Knight check out website: www.penguin.com
Humanity is roughly divided into three 'classes' (my own term): slaves, freedom fighters and Quislings - those who have sold out their own species in return for safety and a life of relative ease. Some early technology still exists.
Some telephones still work, furnaces, a few vehicles, even a small plane - all in Kuranian hands, of course - but the world has been mostly reduced to a fairly primitive level with horses and horse-drawn wagons replacing cars. Weaponry - guns, rifles, grenades, bomb-making material - has become both an essential for life and a means of trade. Around the same time (at least, so I infer) came the Lifeweavers - 'a grotesque mixture of octopus and bat' (p114) - whose psychic abilities allow them to appear human and who are the enemies of the Kur. The Lifeweavers are capable of 'invoking' changes in humans, bringing to the fore qualities that appear to be inherent but are not used in the normal course of events. The hero of the series, David Valentine, starts out as a Wolf, which seems to include enhanced sense of smell, great stamina, strength and speed. In this book, he becomes a Cat - feline sense of sight and hearing and both mental and physical agility. Wolves run in packs, while Cats seem to work mostly alone. They use their abilities in the war against the Kur. 'The Choice Of The Cat' details Valentine's mission to investigate the Twisted Cross. Yes, the Swastika. It seems the Kur were behind Nazism as well and may well, in fact, have been interfering rather more in humankind's history than was first apparent. This involves a lot of travelling with his mentor Cat 'Smoke' Duvalier through dangerous territory, in disguise much of the time, enduring hardships and perils, dodging Reapers (who can sense the heat-patterns of living bodies), Grogs (a variety of different aliens the Kur have imported to earth to serve as labour) and traitorous Quislings and a rather nasty Reaper-human hybrid, created by one very ancient human. I found it a curiously unsatisfying read. Events and dialogue are given in straightforward descriptive mode, with no hint of the underlying emotions. The action is described in great detail and while this might appeal to readers who want to know the exact specifications of the weaponry used, it does nothing for me except slow the story down. Even the fight scenes seem to be enacted in slow motion. The idea of 'Lifeweavers' (cousins to the Kur) who can 'open' certain animal characteristics in humans is fascinating in concept, but seems somehow underplayed in the book Of course, I haven't read the first in the trilogy, 'The Way Of The Wolf'. Perhaps the author goes into more detail there. Reading the book felt like embarking on a long trudge through a hot, humid landscape and reminded me of the Western films I've seen (not being a Western aficionado, this isn't many) where not a great deal happens for much of the time. This is a purely subjective view of course and I may be being unfair to the book. It's fundamentally well-written, and the wealth of realistic detail is sure to appeal to a great many readers, but it simply wasn't stirring enough for me and if I'm going to subject myself to the grimy, smelly and often painful experiences of freedom fighters in a post-apocalyptic world, then I'd prefer the encounter to at least provide me with some excitement. Joules Taylor
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OTHER REVIEWS - June 2004
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2067
and the 45th year of the Kuranian Order. The Kur - who feed on 'life
force' gathered for them by their slave Reapers - came to Earth
in the aftermath of the apocalypse (a combination of natural disasters
followed by Ravies - a sort of rabies-like plague - in 2022), ostensibly
to help mankind, in fact to enslave it. 
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