The Bloodsucking Brady Bunch

So, I'm running behind, because last week was a little...off kilter. I technically finished Clan Novel: Anthology edited by Stewart Wieck over a week ago.

Anyway, this closes out the now 14 volume Clan Novel Saga, mostly checking in on characters after the Camarilla takeover of New York city, with a brief moment or two to talk about the fall of hour Goratrix in the Sabbat, as well as a brief reminder that [Tzimisce] is now fitfully dozing under Manhattan, instead of being fully asleep. Also shows that while Anatole might have undergone Final Death, it hasn't slowed him down much.

Most is it is about what you'd expect, with a few of the stories following an artist beloved by both Toreador and Tremere clans, who's final masterpiece is carved into the back of a Nosferatu. Said Nosferatu meets his end in the last story, encouraged by Anatole to fly through the gates of hell and feed the thing under the city in hopes of putting off its awakening. 

Some of it, like Fatima's entry, show how the characters have grown since their novel. (In this case, The path of Allah takes precedence over the path of Ur Shugli, who speaks for Haqim.) Or showing Ramona whine more about not being able to save her Sire and the Buffalo Gangrel.

While it really doesn't do much beyond tie up a few loose ends, it's a fitting conclusion to the occasional disjointed saga.

Wow, that's an ugly way to wrap things up.

So, the Clan Novels proper end in Gherbod Fleming's Nosferatu, the ugliest clan in the Final Nights. (Technically, there are a couple of blood lines that are just as ugly, but Nosferatu remain the undisputed champions of beasts under the bed.) According to clan legend, the clan's Antediluvian was beautiful and vain, so when Caine cursed his grandchildren, he got cursed with with uglies. Mind you, he had one child he couldn't destroy, so he created more to go hunt them down and destroy those he couldn't find. Thus why half the characters in here are convinced there's a Niktuku living under Manhattan. They're incorrect, and what's under Manhattan is just a teensy bit worse, although we don't find out what's under the city quite yet. (I think that particular reveal is in the Anthology that serves as the last volume.)

So, our signature character here is Calabros, the leader of the Camarilla Nosferatu of New York. (Sabbat aligned Nosferatu aren't generally enemies of the main clan, clan generally takes precedence over sect affiliation.) We've met Calabros a few times in previous volumes, as he directs his clan mates and collects information to type out on an old typewriter in the NYC sewers.

As such, we spend much of the book flashing back through the 12 preceding volumes, filling in gaps in the narrative as to what's actually been going on. Such as Benito's kidnapping back in Toreador. Seems old Benito was one of those involved in the death of the Nosferatu Justicar Petrodon a few years prior, and the original intent had been to kidnap him in Atlanta for information. When he cancelled, they were forced to kidnap him in Boston.

As events proceed, we find that Nikolai, one of the very few Sabbat Tremere (technically House Goratrix) to survive the ritual in Mexico City, is actually Leopold's sire, embraced for his part in the death of Petrodon. Given Leo was a sculptor, is wasn't that hard to brainwash him into thinking he was a Toreador and send him away, particularly since he had to talent for Thaumaturgy.

We wind up in November of 1999, in the middle of the Camarilla coup of New York, as Lucinde and Pascek are found to not be the only Justicars in the city. Indeed, Cock Robin, the Nosferatu Justicar is in town after Calabros solves the riddle of Petrodon's death.

So, let's see, Leo killed Bentio in Vegas a few books back, a really odd fight occurs in this volume involving Theo, Hesha, Ramona, and Victoria ends with the death of Leopold, and Nikolai gets burned out of his haven by Aisling, and then found in the deepest sewers by Cock Robin and Calabros, after Calabros solves one of Anatole's riddles. His death, which is almost right out of the last segment of the old movie Creepshow, is one of the more disturbing things in this book. (Frankly, there's a lot of disturbing stuff in this book, like the kennels and the thing under the city.)

End result, Victoria gets offered the title of Prince, the role she was seeking in Atlanta when this started. However, Paseck's nomination has 6 paragraphs, so she turns it down in her attempt to thwart fate. As such, Calabros becomes Prince of New York, unaware of what lurks in his home.

A good ending to the series, and probably the best entry over all. One only wishes the plot unveiled within would have been better hinted at in earlier volumes, since half of the overall plot in the series feels like they added it in after the series was already being published.

20 years on, and it's still a mess

So, I hit one of the volumes in the Clan Novels I remember being problematic, and unlike some of the other ones, Eric Griffin's Tremere remains a train wreck from start to finish. This is not to say that Aisling Strurbridge, Regent of the Chantry of Five Boroughs in New York is a boring character or that her arc is is silly, it's more that the plotting that ensnares her makes no sense and is never particularly explained. Also, more than a few passages appear to be lifted directly from prior volumes, and the entire thing ends before the time frames previous volumes did. Which means it really doesn't progress the timeline at all. Indeed, it's almost as if it should have been an earlier release.

Aisling runs the under siege Chantry of Five Bouroughs, complete with a Regent Secundus who's been investigating Hazimel's other eye. Said Secundus gets killed by an Assamite in the chantry during a ritual gone wrong. (A brief history of the Tremere clan. The clan got its start in a system that predated the modern World of Darkness as a human Hermetic magical order. As the system expanded, they became a House of the Order of Hermes, who were losing access to magick during the early medieval period. As such, Tremere's disciple Goratrix found a way to turn eight of the disciples into vampires. Which was all well and good, until they realized that they lost access to true magick, the Order now hated them, and the rest of vampire society hated them. The seven disciples diablerized themselves up to Fourth generation, while Tremere himself ended up eating an Antediluvian, Saulot, who at the time was Vampire Jesus. [Saulot got revamped a lot the longer the game went on. Indeed, he started becoming much less the Enlightened One, and much more sinister.] Of the Originla Seven, about 4 are still active at this point in the Novels. Goratrix joined the Sabbat in the Victorian Era, Meerlinda runs North America, Etrius runs the Clan from Vienna.)

Anyway, we do fill in gaps as to how Sturbridge got the sketch of Leopold that she presented in Baltimore. But that's really about it in the greater scheme of the plot. For the most part, she (and just about everyone else at the chantry) is dealing with Tremere internal politics and one poorly defined Acolyte who evidently has connections in Vienna.

So yeah. It's readable, but that's about the best I can say about it.

Set, hut, kick em in the butt!

So, I technically finished Gherbod Fleming's Brujah earlier this weekend, but a birthday celebration in Cincinnati left me with few options to update on here.

Anyway, we're mostly concerned with Theo Bell, loyal Brujah archon under Jaroslav Pascek, and his defense of Baltimore from the ravaging hordes of Sabbat. Which goes better than expected, once he and Jan Pieterzoon find and kill the traitor in their midst, deal with Hesha's interrogation of Malkavians about Anatole's last prophecy, and invade New York City. That would be the big surprise in this one, along with Vykos using her Assamite turned fake ghoul to take out Cardinal Polonia, former archbishop of New York.

So, yeah, as one would expect from the rage filled clan of philosophers and iconoclasts, it's fairly action packed, with Theo trying to get around politics to get stuff done. that his boss is in town, as is Lucinde, the Justicar of Clan Ventrue, and one gets an idea Theo's in a bit over his head, particularly when Jan and Theo find out their plot was already in motion under different auspices when they arrive in New York.

At the end, they let slip that there's a third Justicar in New York, acting independently.

Fun read, and a welcome relief from some of the awkward plotting in previous volumes.

Freaking Putanescas...

So, finally finished the slog through Justin Achilli's Giovanni, which while a solid entry into the series, still involves probably my least favorite clan in the entire setting. Because, really, a clan of vampires who are financial masters, organized crime lords, and necromancers is kind of like drunken attempts at making peanut butter cups with mud and sediment.

Anyway, in this one, we're following Chas Giovanni Tello or the mafioso side of the family and Isabel Giovanni, who's a necromancer. Both of whom are looking for Benito (who got kidnapped back in book 1), and getting caught up in plugging plot holes from the previous volumes. On the other hand, it is a decent introduction to the clan that the Giovanni supplanted not long after the Dark Ages, who evidently managed to hide in the Underworld before coming back to take care of the upstarts.

But that happens towards the end of this.

Anyway, we end up in Vegas looking for Benito.

Chas's ghoul buys the farm due to Hunters from that game line.

Isabel gets involved with negotiations with the two major sects about the state of Boston, which Chas screws up by getting a secretary made parts of a concrete bridge.

Isabel tries to convince the Tremere Justicar declare a pogrom on the Ravnos before they get the bright idea to create a new Antediluvian.

Benito dies when Leopold shows up in a bathroom outside Vegas.We find out Benito knows Leopold, but Leopold is quite nuts.

Chas and Isabel track down one of the "Old Clan" in a swamp outside New Orleans. It kills Chas with a wave of its hand, but lets Isabel survive to pass on the witch hunt is coming. Which makes no sense, since the Harbingers of Skulls (aka the Cappadocians) had been going after direct lines, of which Isabel is one, verses Chas, who had no real family connections prior to becoming a vampire. (Although frankly, given he was written like Joe Pesci, I can't complain about his chump death.)

As I said above, it's a solid entry, it's just that I dislike the clan.

When falling into madness, DIVE!

I'll admit, back when I first read Stewart Wieck's Malkavian, I skipped chapters here and there, mainly due to the nature of one of the narrators. That would be Anatole, the so called Prophet of Gehenna. Given that the weakness of the clan is that they all suffer from some form of insanity, this may explain why this one takes a bit to get through. Particularly since one of the two major narrators is one of Anatole's personality fragments, and it's the one that actually makes sense. 

We actually get 3 lunatics in this mix, as both Prince Bennington and The General from Atlanta show up alive and well. And they indeed dance on Anatole's strings, as he has visions of them and provides them with other visions. (It's worth noting that the Malkavians have a special ability in game call the "Malkavian Madness Network" or "Cobweb" that allows them something akin to telepathy. Not quite that, but close enough for horse shoes and hand grenades.) 

So, anyway, Anatole comes to the States from Serbia towards the beginning, following his visions. (He's evidently been following them for some time, as he has the Concorde to himself, having booked the flight years earlier.) All the characters of note seem to have Animal representations in his visions, with the other puppeteers showing up as nightmarish predators. 

This leads first to New York City, then to Atlanta, where he leads the General to a newly returned Victoria Ash and Bennington to the Tremere chantry to get the robe that killed Heracles. With all the pieces in place, Anatole is free to travel to the Catskills where Leopold is still sculpting. (This is after revealing to Victoria that she sired Leopold. Which neither of them remember.) 

Anatole ends up sacrificing himself in the cave, using his own blood to scroll prophecy on the reborn Cathedral of Flesh. In an epilogue, Ramona and Hesha arrive together, wherein Ramona kill her Sire and clanmates stuck in the walls of the cathedral while Hesha takes pictures of and makes copies of Anatole's writings. 

So, upon rereading this, it's better than I remember, and the visions do make more sense, particularly since having read the series before (and reading them closer together), I actually can figure out what the heck he's actually describing. And added bonus is finally seeing Victoria use her combat prowess to take her revenge of Elford, who mutilated her so madly several books ago.

When paths diverge, which do you follow?

I was originally going to title this with the anglicized version of the shahada, since our signature character, Fatima, recites it several times during the course of Gherbod Fleming's Assamite, but then I figured it really doesn't have that much to do with the actual plot.

Or does it?

the Assamite clan is one that underwent several revisions as the different editions were published, and indeed, got hit again with the most recent (and likely the one getting ready to be published next month), going from a middle eastern clan of assassin vampires to a much more diverse clan with three different castes, cursed by the Tremere, and with the majority of the membership fighting to keep true to Islamic faith adapted to vampirism verses the older Path of Blood morality that is one of the hallmarks of the clan. Indeed, in the larger plot prior to this series, one of the oldest awakened, broke the Tremere curse on the clan, and started judging members of the clan based on whether or not he felt their faith was more in Allah or Haqim the founder.

It's into this situation we first meet Fatima, the first female Assamite, who's been active since the Dark Ages. Fatima is training a new generation, when she gets handed the assignment to take out her sort of girlfirend's sire as well as a reminder that Lucita (her sort of girlfriend) also is on the list of elimination. The Sire, Cardinal Monçada, nominally of the Sabbat, but honestly with one of the most twisted versions of Catholic heresy ruling his view of unlife in Madrid.

So, along the way to Madrid, we see Fatima dropping by DC to talk with the Greek Assamite (the one Vykos transformed into a copy of her ghoul back in Tzimisce), who she gives permission to kill Vykos. Then she heads up to Hartford to meet Lucita, to inform her of her plans. Lucita isn't exactly happy, since she has every inclination to beat Fatima to the punch and kill Monçada first.

Eventually, we end up in Madrid proper, where we find out Fatima's sire is up and active, and indeed, working on bringing in the Sabbat Assamites back into the main clan. Problem being, Lucita chooses the same time to come home for a visit. Which leads to a scene of vampiric sapphism, wherein Fatima and Lucita form a whirlpool, essentially drinking each other's blood while involved in other activities.

Anyway, Fatima does eventually descend into Monçada's lair, while Lucita is already inside. Eventually, Monçada's own guardian betrays him due to confusion, allowing Fatima the kill shot. We end with her letting Lucita loose in the night, while Fatima faces questions on her loyalty from her underlings for allowing Lucita to survive.

I seem to recall thinking the first time reading that this was an ok book, other than the relationship between Lucita and Fatima. While I still feel that their relationship is a bit overdone (both clans would consider such mortal passions from such elder vampires to be really strange), honestly, it's a really good read, filling in a bunch of gaps as to what's actually going on within the Assamite clan during this period. Also, the sheer audacity of taking out a longtime antagonist in the setting in such a spectacular way lends it an extra bit of momentum.

There will be a slight pause in these rereads, as something finally showed up at the library.

Bloody tricksters

So, When I finished Kathleen Ryan's Ravnos this afternoon, I found myself using unkind words towards the publisher, since I either forgot what happened when these were originally published, or missed a misprint somewhere, since Lasombra insisted that Ravnos was next at the end, but it seems in actuality, Assamite was published between the two volumes. And there's an awfully big spoiler for the events of Assamite in the discussion of the series following the text. So the clan of chicanery and trickery and illusions fooled me again.

Not that this particularly affects Ravnos, since it's almost a companion volume to Setite, also by the same author. In this case, we're following the gypsy Khalil Ravana, whom Hesha shipped off to Chicago from Calcutta towards the end of his book. In terms of the metaplot the Ravnos Clan founder woke up and was destroyed somewhere during the course of Setite, driving all of the survivors into a madness causing them to attack each other on site. Which seems to have passed by the time we catch up with Khalil getting off the luggage carousel at O'Hare.

Khalil, it seems, does have a surviving Ravnos Methuselah living in his head, one Hazimel, who's eye got this entire series started. Hazimel isn't exactly impressed with Khalil, and indeed, some of the terms he uses are unflattering to the extreme. Hazimel does manage to use Khalil to get Hesha headed back to the Eye. Which doesn't work well, since Hesha, who had the eye, ends up losing it again to Leopold in New York City in front of St. John the Divine.

He does save Liz, Hesha's childe who was chained to greet the sun at the end of Setite, but he's trying to use her and the Gangrel Ramona to track down Hesha and the eye on behalf of the voice in his head. Said voice knows where Hesha is, but can't exactly pinpoint him. (Hesha, after being attacked by Leopold with the eye, winds up as a guest with the Nosferatu under the city.) Let's see, Khalil manages to double cross the Sabbat AND the Camarilla, and winds up escaping back to Chicago without Hesha, Ramona, or Liz. Barely. And still with Hazimel in his head. On the other hand, Liz's sort of friend Kitteridge, is suggested to have been Imbued; that is, been gifted with powers in the Hunter line of games.

Not a bad book, although I will admit I'm amused that even if Khalil winds up ahead in several of his games, he's also failed quite miserably in others. This is one of the better ones in the series.

Now, the better question is how to proceed, since I had a book come in at the library today. I'll likely go back and read Assamite then continue into the Song of Achilles after that.

Darkness imprisoning me

Tonight will be a two-fer, or ever a three-fer, since the second entry is one of the 2-in-1 Tribe Novels.

Anyway, we'll start with Lasombra, by Richard E. Dansky. Lasombra could probably best be described as Venture with religion. Both tend to be highly organized, and the Sabbat's organization is largely based on internal Lasombra convention, including church titles and structures. Lasombra cast no reflection, and control the shadows, literally able to call shadows to come fights for them.  Our signature character here, who honestly is playing second fiddle to Sabbat internal politics and some Camarilla politics as well is on Lucita, Childe of Cardinal Monçada of Madrid. Lucita, who's been around since at least the Dark Ages, has more or less declared herself independent of sect and clan, preferring to work as an assassin for hire for the highest bidder, avoiding major consequences due to her Sire's intervention.

Anyway, her Sire has sent his Templar, Tully, to try to keep Lucita from taking out one of the triumvirate of Archbishops currently plotting in DC. Whom her target is among the three, along with who is employing her remains a mystery until the end.

Most of the politicking involves trying to figure out who Monçada is actually supporting in this, trying to figure out who the traitor in the Camarilla is, who in the Camarilla employed Lucita, the actual fall of Buffalo and later Hartford. Oh yeah, and the mention of our Assamite friend who shows up in more detail later, Fatima.

In the end, the Sabbat has eaten up more of New England, but one of the three archbishops is dead. And Lucita is planning a visit to Madrid to see her Sire. (I think we return to that in a few books.)

Hello, Baltimore

Well, we've made it to one of my least favorite clans in the World of Darkness, the corporate centered Ventrue, who's story here is told again by Gherbod Fleming.

And it actually turns out ok. Hardestadt the Elder (who's actually Hardestadt the Younger who ate his sire, but that's not really relevant here. He also is one of the major founders of the Camarilla.) sends his childe Jan Pieterzoon to the States to do what he can about the Sabbat advance along the East Coast. This is after Prince Garlotte of Baltimore, who's hosting refugees from the fallen cities, asks the Camarilla as a whole for help.

So, Jan arrives into a political mess as several chefs are being stirred up by the inimitable Victoria Ash, who's again maneuvering for political gain in council. While most of the story in here centers around the murders of several Tremere within the city and how to defend the Camarilla strongholds left in Buffalo and Hartford, we get glimpses into Jan's problems of how exactly the golden childe will be treated if he fails. Not that Prince Garlotte is exactly benevolent, he kills two of his childers' associates and tortures the third for siding with Victoria.

About two thirds of the way through, Xaviar, the Gangrel Justicar, last seen getting smacked around by a Toreador in Upstate New York, shows up speaking of Antediluvians and uniting with the Sabbat long enough to take down the threat. (Which, while Leopold isn't an Antediluvian, he does possess the eye of one. The one that woke up and destroyed the Ravnos in the last book.) It's here we get the closest to cannon as to what was said that led to the Gangrel clan leaving the Camarilla. Most of this has to do with Camarilla policy being that the Antediluvians are myths, and everyone being much more concerned about losing more territory.

Jan and Theo Bell (the Brujah Archon who we get to see much more of later on) decide to evacuate Buffalo and leave an army of newly created vampires to defend it as a bluff. Which doesn't turn out well at all. By the end, Hartford and Baltimore remain the only Camarilla cities still standing on the Eastern seaboard. But, we are assured, Jan has something up his sleeve. (Which we find out details on in book 13, as memory serves.) Victoria is sent back to Atlanta, since she has some odd connection to Leopold, whom she recognized from surveillance presented to the council.)

This actually has turned out to be one of the better books in the series, even if the focus is less on the signature character and more on moving along the greater plot. Which is fine, since Jan is a stuffed shirt.

Try to remember the snakes of September and follow follow follow

And welcome to the darkness, as we explore Setite by Kathleen Ryan, book 4 in the Vampire Clan Novels. As a bit of background, Setites claim descent from Set, the ancient Egyptian god of evil. (Interestingly, Egypt figures in to a number of game lines, since Set was a busy vampire back in the day. Not long after these came out, we got Mummy, in which the souls of the Egyptian dead started coming back after events in Wraith. Also, the werewolf tribe Silent Striders [who feature into the next Werewolf Tribe Novel] hail from Egypt, although Set banished them in antiquity.) The clan has a weakness more pronounced than others to light, and an obsession with serpents.

Hesha Ruhadze is a fairly well established Setite based in Baltimore. His junior partner Vegel was in Atlanta way back at the start to get the Eye of Hazimel, which wound up with Leopold. Hesha meets Elizabeth in New York, as she's restoring antiques for an upscale shop. Hesha's interest in her leads him to try to ghoul her (feed her his blood while she's still alive), but unknown to him, she doesn't drink his hangover cure.

Hesha's also doing favors for refugees from fallen southern cities. Unlike Ramona, Hesha's a mover and shaker among the vampires.

Anyway, eventually, Hesha winds up taking his entire team, now including Elizabeth (who's having visions) to Calcutta, looking for the source of the eye's power. (It's fairly ill defined in its purpose, plot wise. On the other hand, it gives us a nice view of what happens when Ravanna wakes up.) Any way, yes, the events that end the Time of the Thin Blood supplement do indeed occur in here, as Elizabeth starts having visions of Set, as does Hesha. And Ravanna, King of the Rakashas, wakes up, dies, and pretty much eliminates the Ravnos clan in his death throes. Somewhere after this, Elizabeth and Hesha have a conversation straight out of Twilight about him being a vampire.

Anyway, eventually, they all wind up in upstate New York, where Hesha does get the Eye, although how is left kind of blank, Elizabeth betrays Hesha, Hesha turns her into a vampire and chains her up to face the sun. At the last second, the Ravnos they saved in Calcutta breaks in and the book ends.

So, this is a major improvement over Gangrel, and Hesha is an interesting snake. I could have lived without the fake romance that threads its way through the novel, but I have to assume it was to add something to a character who's essentially a plot device. I'm also curious as to whether or not Leopold's fate gets resolved later on. (I last read these as they were released, and the plot details mostly fade over time.) I will say reading them now, without the gaps in release makes the plot a heck of a lot more cohesive.

20 years on, and the book doesn't hit walls anymore.

Around 20 years ago, when I first read Gherbod Fleming's first entry into the Clan Novels, Gangrel, I wound up throwing it against a wall several times. In hindsight, much of this had to do with the fact that the clan of beasts is the one I played the most often in Vampire chronicles, and this particular book, in a departure from the rest of the series, didn't focus on an important vampire of the clan at the center. I mean, there were more than a few Gangrel in the overall plotting that could have been focused on in this, but no, we get Ramona, who's only been a vampire for two years and has no idea what she's doing. Her discoveries of her powers are almost Bard-like, in the "Hey, I killed a kobald and wow look at this!" kind of way.

Ramona is currently in Sabbat controlled New York City with two other friends who ran from Los Angeles in the past year. Neither of them have defined clan traits, so one can assume they're Caitiff, aka clanless. Ramona has something of a ward she's looking out for in Harlem, whom she rescues from attackers early on. Zhavon, on the other hand, has a bad habit of becoming a plot hook, getting kidnapped by a suddenly resurgent Leopold.

Speaking of Leopold, the Eye of Hazimel is giving him visions of his muse, and leading him to upstate New York, where Zhavon the plot hook has been sent by her mother to be raised by her aunt. He stakes Ramona, and takes Zhavon at the urging of the voice in his head. Ramona's creator (sire, in game terms) comes along and unfortunately unstakes Ramona before the sun rises. Ramona grabs her might as well not have been named friends and leads an assault on Leopold's cave hideout, where we find out the eye has given the Toreador a few new powers, like Vicissitude. Both Caitiff friends wind up dead, and Tanner, Ramona's sire, leads her away, and tells her to stay until help arrives. Several of the Buffalo Gangrel answer the call, including one Cherokee Gangrel who teaches Ramona Auspex, I think. She basically sees the spirit world after the stereotype finishes his ritual with her.

So then Xaviar shows up with Tanner. Xaviar being the Gangrel's Justicar with the Camarilla. Who laughs when they find out the prey is Toreador, not Tzimisce as the Vicissitude would suggest. they all laugh, then proceed to get their butts kicked by a Toreador with Vicissitude and some kind of Earth control. In the end, just about everyone is dead but Ramona and Xaviar, who wants Ramona dead for witnessing his failure.

If you can't tell, this still is probably my least favorite in the series. (We'll see if this remains true when I hit Tremere, which has Aisling Sturbridge going on about the children in the well for eternity.) While it didn't fill me with the rage it did initially, I still feel that the plot and the main character deserved more attention.

Vykos's March to the Sea

Lesson learned, reading Eric Griffin's Tzimisce, the second of the Clan Novels, on lunch is a bad idea.

As a bit of explanation before we get into the actual review, the Tzimisce clan are one of the two founding clans of the Sabbat, and their signature power, Vicissitude, has such abilities as flesh craft, bone craft, etc. They have the nickname "Fiends" for a reason.

So, their Clan novel picks up about 2 days prior to the main events in Toreador, showing the planning involved in the Sabbat takeover of Atlanta, which means we're mostly concerned with a bunch of Lasombra from Miami, New York City, and Madrid backbiting for control along with the nomadic packs that are helping in the attack. Entering into this wretched hive of scum and villainy is the Tzimisce "signature character" Sascha Vykos. While her backstory gets covered in much greater detail outside of the Clan novels (she started off as Myca, a young man of African descent in the days of Constantinople, chose to become female sometime much later, and then became pretty much genderless in more modern eras. There's quite an extensive biography of her out there, if you really want to look. In later books, she starts using the neutral gender terms, or occcasionally "it".), here she's mainly presented at the outset as stirring up the various contenders for control of the raid before taking over events for herself.

Let's see, an Assamite she hired to take out Atlanta's Tremere regent kills her ghoul servant, so she uses Vicissitude to turn said Assamite assassin into a copy of the ghoul, all while turning him into her servant in other ways. It's really kind of creepy to read.

Anyrate, about halfway through, we catch up with the raid on the Camarilla of Atlanta that ended the first book. We get peaks into Prince Bennison's madness, as his power of Dementation transports both the Brujah Archon and the Sabbat pursuers into a battlefield hallucination around the time Sherman was getting ready to burn Atlanta to the ground. Which ends about as well for the Camarilla as it did for the Confederates.

Victoria Ash, winds up among the captured. She gets tortured and eventually gets rescued by Settites looking for Vegel, who died in the last book.

Vykos eventually supervises the fall of the Eastern seaboard as far north as DC, which is about where this volume ends, as the reason for her transformation of the Assamite becomes clear. He fails though, so Marcus Vital, Prince of DC becomes Prince in Exile. Vykos, on the other hand, becomes Archbishop of DC.

It's a well written, if mildly disturbing volume in the series. It does a good job of showing us what the Sabbat had been re-envisioned as in Revised. Unfortunately, the next volume, which I'll be reading after a detour into the Werewolf novels, is the one I kept throwing across a room because it annoyed me so much. Tune in in two entries to find out if history repeats itself. 

Toreador, en garde! Toreador, Toreador!

Sadly, the actual lyrics from Bizet's Carmen don't do the actual song justice, but it seemed an appropriate title for this.

I've reviewed a few things from White Wolf on here previously, but since I'm waiting on a slim line of reserves at the library and frankly, I re bought the Clan Novels for a paltry sum a while back, I'm back into re-reading the 13 Clan Novels plus the Anthology that followed. I'll likely be reading two, then switching over to the Werewolf Tribe Novels for a volume (for some reason, the Tribe Novels came as a two for one thing) to alternate things a bit.

A brief history here. The Clan Novels started appearing not long after the Revised edition of Vampire: the Masquerade appeared. Thirteen clans, thirteen novels, and they were supposed to release one book a month, serial style. As I'm sure other folks remember, it never quite worked out that way. And indeed, given that there were several different authors on the project, the writing varies from book to book, and not all of them are particularly readable.

The series starts off with Toreador, the clan of artists. Or what passes for artists, sometimes, as our "Signature" character in here, Victoria Ash, has some talent, but one of her other clan members' artistic talent is stripping. Victoria (who showed up in more than a few other White Wolf fictions, including the Victorian Vampire trilogy as well as Gehenna) is a recent transplant to Atlanta, following the ending of the Blood Curse. (Which was a previous crossover double trilogy from when the released Vampire: The Dark Ages. I recall very small bits and pieces of that one, since it was kind of silly.) Victoria is hosting Elysium (essentially a time and place when all may gather without threat of violence) at the High Museum of Art on the Summer Solstice of 1999. Her political maneuvering prior to the event (featuring several sculptures of Cain killing Abel, since ya know, in the mythology, Caine was the first vampire) is designed to set the African American Brujah and Ventrue vampires to take out Prince Bennison (leader of the city), a Confederate officer, who by virtue of being Malkavian, is also insane and mildly racist.

Also floating around the narrative is Victoria's clanmate Leopold, who's convinced his memory has been wiped and Victoria is his creator; Vegel, a Settite functionary who's there on business from his employer (whom we meet in book 4); Rolph, a Nosferatu who has somewhere to be before midnight; and Benito Giovanni, who's in Boston, and who's narrative arc seems mostly to be told to cancel his trip to Atlanta then being kidnapped by Assamites.

Victoria belongs to the Camarilla, the most populous sect of vampires in this setting. The Camarilla is essentially feudal in nature, with a Prince having near autonomy over a city, and Six Traditions enforced to preserve the secrecy of the society. The next major sect, who appear towards the end of this, are the Sabbat, who tend to use leadership titles taken straight out of the Medieval Roman Catholic Church. The Sabbat doesn't particularly believe in the Six Traditions, although they too tend to keep secrecy from mortals.(An Inquisition that kills off roughly 2/3 of the vampire population tends to make everyone a bit cautious.)

Anyway, Rolph points out to Vegel that the Eye of Hazimel (the origin of the Evil Eye, and what is apparently a very old vampire's actual eye) is hidden within one of the Cain statues, He plucks the eye out of said statue and provides Vegel with an escape route. Sadly, an unforeseen, by the characters in this book at least, even t occurs as the Sabbat descend en masse on the party and begin the slaughter of the guests. In the confusion, Leopold gets tossed out a window, finds Vegel dead on the street, steals the eye, and cannibalizes Vegel. Oh yes, and he plucks his own eye out and replaces it with the other one. The fate of the others at the party is left unresolved at this point.

In terms of readability, this one is pretty well written, providing enough backstory that someone not familiar with the setting would be able to figure out most of what's going on. There are other bits of the narrative that won't become clear until later volumes, and honestly, have little to do with the actual narrative of this volume, but have to be included here to keep the timeline straight. Of course, it isn't until the end of the series the bits about what's under New York City become clearer. So yeah. We'll see how this progresses, knowing that somewhere down the line a few of these will likely get thrown against a wall again.