Fiends of the Eastern Front

This is going to be a long review, three books to review. Now, war and horror mixes are rare in horror prose, and Black Flame aims to remedy this with this omnibus of these three really weird war novels. In "Operation Vampire" we are introduced to the Vollmer brothers, each one of them representing three arms of the German military. Youngest and most idealistic, ex-Hitlerjurgen Hans is a foot soldier in the Wehrmacht, Ralf, the oldest, is a cynical Panzer commander; while Luftwaffe Staffelführer Stuka pilot Klaus is the middle brother, in both attitude and birth, with each brother having his own story and set of supporting characters. "Operation Vampire" starts in late June of 1941, and soon the war for these three brothers starts going south as Romanian officers, led by Hauptmann (Captain) Constanta, arrive to help on the Russian front. Ralf's story is potentially the most interesting as he not only has Constanta to deal with, but Constanta's underling Gorgo, who is assigned to Ralf's Panzer to learn about tank warfare. The nature of the Romanians is obvious, as they only fight at night, and enemy bodies constantly turn up drained of blood. Wisely, Bishop doesn't dwell on the clichéd Romanians, who fear religion, daylight, and holy water, are killed by silver and stakes, are evil and arrogant, and turn instantly to dust when they die. Oh yeah, and they want to take over the world. Bishop instead dwells more on the politics and reactions of the German soldiers that have to alongside the Romanian dead-and then against them, as it soon becomes obvious that the Romanians are more of a threat than the Russians. Gradually the brothers plan a revolt against their Romanian "allies," gathering supporters from fellow soldiers and pilots, and silver from the pillaged countryside. While not skimping on the action, Bishop wisely builds the suspense gradually until "Operation Vampire" climaxes with an, almost too, rousing firefight involving all three armed services and the Romanians. "The Blood Red Army" is told from the Russian viewpoint in 1942, and introduces a new cast, this time starting with Danilov Zunetov; a young commissar who brashly makes a mistake and ends up in the "shtrafroty", a Russian penal colony. Here he meets a varied and interesting bunch of prisoners who already know about Constanta. Soon after Zunetov's arrival, Sophia arrives, and everything starts going to hell. Constanta starts whittling down the shtrafroty. Including a battle with the swarming undead that Constanta has risen from their graves. Eisenstein, a Russian Jew, who is Zunetov's mentor, is bitten and starts to change, and can only hold the changes off by the direct application of a Star of David implanted directly onto the bite marks. By the three-quarter mark, the survivors have been transferred to one of Russia's "smert krofeet" vampire assassin teams, and the Germans have lost the Siege of Leningrad. Like before, Bishop takes his tim

If you liked Sven Hassel books and enjoyed movies like The Keep then you will like this trilogy of WW2 Russian Front stories filled with Vampires. Its a novel-form of the 2000AD story by the same name. The basic plot was taken and filled out greatly. Its no afternoon read, the book runs through 3 stories, from 1941 to the end in Berlin.......and then..... Certainly a trip down memory lane for anyone who liked the original comic story and reminiscent of books like Legion of the Damned and Wheels of Terror.