Habeas Corpses, 3

By far the best one yet. All of what you have come to love is back. The wit,humor,horror,romance and detaled plot. If you read the previous two then you are in for a real treat. There are some major additions to the cast of characters including a baby on the way, a bat demon and one of the characters now had two heads. With each book the characters get better and better,the plots get richer and they leave you wanting more.

Chris Csejthe may well be one of the best, and certainly one of the quirkiest, heroes in genre literature, and the character's latest adventure, third in the Half-Life Chronicles, does not disappoint. With the patented Simmons combination of mythical and real good guys and monsters, pop culture references (the Buffy/Anita Blake riff is a scream), whiplash-inducing turns, and some truly chilling premises, this is a first-rate thrill ride. And did I mention the puns? A solid, enjoyable read that makes me eager for the next one.

Chris Cséjthe is now Doman of the New York vampire enclave. However, his problems are far from over as repeated assassination attempts show. When one attempt is successful enough to part Chris's spirit from his body he learns more about his own abilities and the afterlife than he ever bargained for. He also finds out that not all the horrors in the world are birthed from normal "monsters" or have fangs attached. This has been an enjoyable third outing of Chris's half life adventures. The story has some unexpected twists and turns. Chris's character also grows and learns and the story is chock full of pop culture references, puns and literary quotes. It makes me look forward to more books in this series. For a reasonably light hearted, semi-vampire novel with a likeable central character these books are worth picking up for a read.

The headline isn't mine. It belongs to page 228 of one of the funniest, strangest, and scariest books I've read in a long time. With "Habeas Corpses", Wm. Mark Simmons extends the run of Chris Csejthe, a half-finished vampire who also has other problems - things like a touch of demon blood in his veins, a smattering of dissolved silver in his body, a fiance who just happens to be a werewolf, and a neighboring graveyard in which the dead come to life at night and want to borrow his books. Add to that the growing knowledge - among all the 'wrong people', of course - that his blood contains a rujuvenating factor - perhaps even an immortality factor - and you have a novel in which the hero spends a lot more time being chased by the bad guys than the other way around. Even more interesting than a marvelously contorted plot line, a cast of characters that would make most horror moviemakers pull their hair with envy, and a plethora of puns that can only be described as ranging from the good through the bad to the ugly, Simmons overlays the story with a philosophy of life - and death - that finally becomes downright frightening. "Habeas Corpses" is the third novel in a series that gets better with each iteration, and should provide several hours of prime-time entertainment to anyone who enjoys an inspired mix of fantasy and science fiction.

Nobody knows quite what the Doman of the East Coast Enclave of Vampires actually is. A blood transfusion gave Chris one of the two viruses need to become a vampire but the donor never gave him the other virus founded in his saliva. At best the master vampires, who want to challenge is position as Doman, thinks he is a hybrid but every day Chris is becoming more like a vampire. However, the werewolf, vampire and Loa blood he has drunk has changed him in ways that make him subtly different from a creature who is supposed to be a vampire. Dr. Pipt wants Chris's blood because he thinks it is the last step in his quest for immortality; he sends a cybernetic monster to collect it but Chris and his bodyguards kill it. His pregnant werewolf vampire can't abide his touch because the silver in his body has become stronger and dangerous to her. He travels to New York to consolidate his power base but is almost killed by a traitor. Next he takes an astral journey to the home of Dr. Pipt to retrieve something that the mad scientist has that rightfully belongs to him while fighting this human evil who performs atrocities worse than any of the ugly deeds the monsters commit. Wm. Mark Williams has written another witty irreverent and serio-comic urban fantasy novel starring a hero that is easy to like. He wants to be a Doman not for the power but for the chance to convince the vampire not to kill humans when they drink their blood or turn them into creatures like themselves. There is plenty of action just as there are plenty of laughs because the protagonist can't take his situation too seriously because if he does, he knows the stress of being a target and wondering what he will eventually evolve into would make him useless to himself and those who depend on and believe in him. Harriet Klausner