Digital Knight

This has become one of my favorite books to reread. What I like -- the voice of Jason Wood, the narrator, is an engaging one, with a sense of humor. And he acts intelligently. When faced with evidence of the weird, he doesn't say "impossible", he says, "um, if that's the case, how do I deal with it" and comes up with a way to handle it. In a clever and original manner. :) Jason knows his limitations -- he doesn't try to be an action hero, he uses his brains, saving the action for when absolutely necessary. And he isn't afraid to let others help him. Including his girlfriend. Which is good, because there are things he can't beat without the help of his friends... While the world of _Digital Knight_ starts out looking like our own, the differences begin to accumulate. While only those relevant to the story are explained, there are enough hints dropped that I eagerly await more books from Ryk Spoor to elaborate on them. I've read this book at least twenty times in the last year and a half, and my favorite bits even more often. If you are looking for an angsty dark vampire book, this isn't it. This is a book that ignores genre pigeon holes, cheerfully mixing mystery, horror, fantasy and science fiction tropes with wit and charm.

Sometimes I'm just in the mood for fun, and this book suited that mood perfectly. It had just enough meat in its ideas to keep my brain in gear, and it romped through ideas from vampire and werewolf mythos to the Gaea hypothesis with bravery bordering on foolhardiness.Jason is an engaging character, and Verne is by far the most promising vampire character in years.This is NOT a typical "modern vampire" book. It is a detective novel and a comedy and punnalicious.

I picked this book up after dinner one night, expecting to just read a while before bedtime. At about 2 AM my wife called out "Do you realize how late it is?" Uh, no.The story involves both diverse types of superhuman and human characters, who interact together in an entertaining adventure.The *main* protagonist is a information specialist who can research most types of data, including graphical enhancement. He has become a police consultant because of those specialties, and that is what ends up getting him involved with vampires, werewolves and other superhuman entities.The main supporting cast includes a psychic semi-girlfriend, a vampire who is more than a vampire, and the king of werewolves.The book is really a series of interconnected stories. In the first story the hero, the super-vampire, the girlfriend and other characters are introduced along with a problem obviously involving a vampire.Later stories introduce werewolves, a basilisk, an unidentified hostile demon. All the stories and characters are fun and consistent throughout the book.You wont want to put it down, so start early in the day.Oh, bye the way, the vampires are a little different from the Saberhagen and Rice versions of vampires, so don't expect it to be a rehash of those older legends.

This was a fun romp, well thought out for a first novel! Maybe because it's set up as a series of vignettes, I never got the feeling that he was desperately scrambling to fill pages like I do with so many first novels. The main character isn't supernatural at all, which I liked, and the secondary characters are interesting. The Verne character is a little overpowering, but overall, Mr Spoor does a pretty good job of reining him back.

What's not to like? Vampires, werewolves, and computers, together with enough other plot lines to boggle the mind. I couldn't put it down.