Review: The Morganville Vampires, Vol. 3 (Rachel Caine)

The Morganville Vampires, Volume 3 by Rachel Caine
Publisher: NAL Trade (2011)
Format: Paperback | 444 pages
Genre(s): Young Adult, Urban Fantasy

Description (GR): "Now in one volume-two of New York Times bestselling author Rachel Caine's Morganville Vampire novels. 

Lord of Misrule

In Morganville, violent black clouds promise a storm of devastating proportions. As student Claire Danvers and her friends prepare to defend Morganville against the elements the unexpected happens: Morganville's vampires begin to vanish. Discovering why leads Claire to one last choice: swear allegiance to the evil master vampire Bishop- or die...

Carpe Corpus 

An underground resistance is brewing, and in order to contain it Bishop vows to obliterate the town and all its inhabitants. Claire and her friends are the only ones who stand in his way. But even if they defeat Bishop, will the vampires go back to the old rules, after having such a taste of power?"

WARNING: Contains some SPOILERS

This book (which is actually two books, "Lord of Misrule" and "Carpe Corpus") neatly wraps up the current story 'arc' in the Morganville vampire series.

In book 4 (or if you want to be technical, at the end of book 3), Mr. Bishop, Amelie's vampire (and apparently real as well) father appeared in Morganville for reasons mostly unknown (still) and promptly started to create havoc. He dethroned Amelie and turned Morganville into a mini-dictatorship.

These books, just like the first four are consistently ok-ish. Which should be a deterrent for me to keep buying the rest of the series. But somehow it isn't. That is mostly because while Caine likes to make readers think they have bought a full novel when in fact they've bought a short-story, she does know how to write a book in a way that will keep you hooked. She has, for the lack of a better word or expression, a great sense of pacing. Her books may lack content, proper character, story and world development but they are very (and I mean very) well paced.

That is the series' strongest point. As for characters? Still mostly walking clichés and not nearly as well developed as they should be by book 6 in a series. Some of them were so stereotypical I just had to roll my eyes at them... like Mr Bishop... he was a "mwahaha, I'm so evil" sort of villain. No depth.

The story was stretched by six books when it could have been told in two (or for marketing reasons... make it a trilogy).

The world building is weak at best, with many questions still unanswered and some inconsistencies popping up from book to book. Like, at first Amelie was the oldest vampire in the book/world and then Mr Bishop appeared out of nowhere and he is possibly the oldest... the justification for this was murky at best but mostly, just plain unbelievable.

Overall, this series is, as I said before, consistently mediocre. Which isn't very flattering. But! But it's one of those series that will keep you reading because the pacing is great, the writing is good enough and the core idea is interesting... and you're always hoping the author finally develops her world and explains things. Recommended for light, beach reading. Not the best YA series ever, but I've read worse. It's... ok.

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