Clan Novel Toreador was no _To Kill a Mockingbird_. It was no _The Catcher in the Rye_. It was no _Catch 22_. It was no _The Grapes of Wrath_. Now these are all books I'd give five stars. Hopefully at least one of them on the previous list is one that you would too.

Similarly, Clan Novel Toreador is not _Interview With the Vampire_, _Jurassic Park_ or _The Firm_. All books I would give three or four stars.

I am a fan of the Vampire role playing game, but I still recognize trash when I see it. Now and again there is an excuse for trash. Pulp fantasy. Romance novels. Still, having an excuse for trash does not make it anything more. Sadly, not having an excuse for trash makes it something much less.

With depressingly shoddy writing, a laughable plot (complete with annoying subplots and obvious plot-twists) and characters deserving of hate, this book deserves one star. Especially loathesome are the writer's sad attempts at erotica. The only thing that got hard while I was reading this book was attempting to continue reading this piddling example of literature.

I give it two stars because it is what it is. Game fiction. There isn't much out there in the genre of fiction based on RPGs (or television shows, really) that rises above the bottom half of any scale. So I give this a two, signifying that it is unadulterated mediocrity, but that such tripe is readily acceptable in a genre that is, itself, utterly mundane.


Slow Start, but I think it gets better down the road.   November 29, 1999
 7 out of 8 found this review helpful

Well, I am a bit disappointed on how the Clan Toreador just comes out as completely weak. I could have sworn that white wolf clan book claimed the clan to be potentially the most dangerous clan of them all. However and on the bright side, the series does start with a very interesting plot, the book does not completely focus on the clan Toreador. Probably because the author wishes to introduce the series. I have read till Setite before I wrote the reviews, I think the book is good over all.


Clan Novel : Malkavian   May 14, 2000
 5 out of 7 found this review helpful

I am an avid reader of all things Vampire, I have read all the Clan novels as they are released. This latest entry into the series is the first one I felt was just not very good. I understand that Malkavians are all mad but this book is enough to drive you over the edge. The story line was not advanced in this piece except to kill off a few more characters. Perhaps I'm missing something but you could of told this story in two pages, the rest of the book was just a wordy jumble of confused prose written in the first person then switching over to dialog between an ego and his ulterego. I know this is fantasy but give me a break, this series has been so good what has happened? I hope the last four novels in the series are as good as the previous eight, I guess thirteen great novels was just too much to ask.


Poor. Tell a story, don't try to be an artist.   May 29, 2000
 5 out of 9 found this review helpful

This was a sad book -- sad because the author tried to become William Faulkner and write in stream of consciousness. Unfortunately, unlike Faulkner, it ends up being unintelligible babble. This gets further complicated when the author misuses words (such as using the word "debtor" to indicate the person to whom a debt is owed, rather than the person borrowing). Mistakes like this kill the credibility...


Poor characters saying poor dialog   November 3, 1999
 4 out of 5 found this review helpful

Basically it's a book to set up the 12-book plot. Only a very few of the mainly peripheral characters are interesting. If you're looking for a better White Wolf vampire novel, try the Masquerade of the Red Death trilogy. I'll admit that there were some good scenes though, but for what was told it should have been cut down to a short story. I'm just hoping the series gets better.