Empire of the Vampire (Empire of the Vampire, 1)
THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES, USA TODAY, AND WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER
From New York Times bestselling author Jay Kristoff comes Empire of the Vampire, the first illustrated volume of an astonishing new dark fantasy saga. From holy cup comes holy light;The faithful hand sets world aright.
And in the Seven Martyrs' sight,
Mere man shall end this endless night. It has been twenty-seven long years since the last sunrise. For nearly three decades, vampires have waged war against humanity; building their eternal empire even as they tear down our own. Now, only a few tiny sparks of light endure in a sea of darkness. Gabriel de León is a silversaint: a member of a holy brotherhood dedicated to defending realm and church from the creatures of the night. But even the Silver Order could not stem the tide once daylight failed us, and now, only Gabriel remains. Imprisoned by the very monsters he vowed to destroy, the last silversaint is forced to tell his story. A story of legendary battles and forbidden love, of faith lost and friendships won, of the Wars of the Blood and the Forever King and the quest for humanity's last remaining hope: The Holy Grail.
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Community Reviews
I gave this 4.75 stars on StoryGraph. Overall I did enjoy this book but after a while it really starts to feel like Jay Kristoff just wanted to torture a main character repeatedly lol I mean this guy gets his guts ripped out like 30 times.
Anyways this book is like if Van Helsing met Walking Dead met Last of Us. It’s super dark and gory and apocalyptic and has major gothic tones. Religion is a huge theme in this one, I really wasn’t sure half the time if the author really hated Catholicism or if he sort of embraced it in a weird way. Lots of zealots and religious elitism but also lots of god-hating. If you find yourself sensitive to either end of the spectrum I would steer clear of this book. This book also includes LGBTQ+ characters but those characters suffer biases and hatred because of religion so warning there too.
As I momentarily mentioned earlier this book is also super gory so I would go into it with a strong stomach. And finally, if you have a very hard time with authors taking time to set up a story then this book is not for you. This book is literally one big quote, as the main character is telling his story to a character in the present. Like every line starts with a quote because he is technically talking the entire time. Which I found it weird that he detailed his spicy scenes to the guy taking down his story…
I realize all of these sound like complaints so why so high a rating? Because none of these things (aside from the repetitive destruction of the MC) bothered me. I liked reading a dark and gory vampire book where vampires are villains and evil and blood thirsty instead of being cute and glittery and the subject of everyone’s desire. I didn’t think I’d ever read a vampire book again but this has changed my outlook on that!
Anyways this book is like if Van Helsing met Walking Dead met Last of Us. It’s super dark and gory and apocalyptic and has major gothic tones. Religion is a huge theme in this one, I really wasn’t sure half the time if the author really hated Catholicism or if he sort of embraced it in a weird way. Lots of zealots and religious elitism but also lots of god-hating. If you find yourself sensitive to either end of the spectrum I would steer clear of this book. This book also includes LGBTQ+ characters but those characters suffer biases and hatred because of religion so warning there too.
As I momentarily mentioned earlier this book is also super gory so I would go into it with a strong stomach. And finally, if you have a very hard time with authors taking time to set up a story then this book is not for you. This book is literally one big quote, as the main character is telling his story to a character in the present. Like every line starts with a quote because he is technically talking the entire time. Which I found it weird that he detailed his spicy scenes to the guy taking down his story…
I realize all of these sound like complaints so why so high a rating? Because none of these things (aside from the repetitive destruction of the MC) bothered me. I liked reading a dark and gory vampire book where vampires are villains and evil and blood thirsty instead of being cute and glittery and the subject of everyone’s desire. I didn’t think I’d ever read a vampire book again but this has changed my outlook on that!
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