Publisher: St. Martin’s Press.
Read on: December 2011—February 17th, 2012.
Hello and welcome to The Stone Cold Critique, where bad literature is given the cold shoulder! On the altar today we have Turning Midnight Guardian, written by Sarah Jane Stratford, the proud owner of a Master’s in Medieval History. Since the publishing of this novel in 2009, she has written and put out a sequel, The Moonlight Brigade. Weep for me, gentle readers; I’ll be getting to this one eventually.
The Gist:
I’ll be the first to admit that a catchy premise can lock my interest on something that otherwise I wouldn’t give a second glance. This is completely the case with this book. I usually don’t read historical fiction because I’ve never really found a premise I’d like. But the minute I picked up this book in Chapters? I read “London’s ancient tribunal of vampires… resolve to send five of their most formidable vampires to Berlin … to infiltrate, disrupt, and destroy the Nazi war machine,” and wanted to see what kind of hot mess this would be – I thought it’d be like a terrified B-movie, with cheesy gore and hilarious acting.
How does that not sound awesome, I ask you? It’s like the "Inglorious Basterds" of print, or so I assumed. Vampires hunting down Nazis and crackin’ wise, I thought it’d be. Not so much. See, our narrator and main character is Brigit, and she is loathsome. On the dust jacket, we get her main conflict of the novel: being separated from her lover and fledgling, Eamon. She just can’t bear to be away from him. And in the chapters that centre around him, we find out that it’s quite similar. As in, he spends 95% of his time whining about how he isn’t with Brigit and he wants to go to her and help. He’s stuck in London because he isn’t old enough to go Nazi-killing. Never does he try and help out on the home front. The time span of this novel is 1936-1940, though the novel doesn’t kick off proper until 1938. Our dashing love interest does nothing for the war effort back in England the entire time he’s there. Jesus, at least the women in that time period were working in factories and knitting socks!
Deep breaths, deep breaths. Right. So the story follows Brigit and Mors and three other vampires that never get any sort of character depth – and Mors barely squeaks by on that, too – and how they travel to Berlin to try and stir the pot and confuse and take down the Nazis. They do this with espionage and going to Nazi parties, instead of just killing as many of them as possible, as you would think vampires would be cool with. No, I don’t understand it either. I’m sorry to disappoint, but Hitler never makes an appearance in print, he’s only mentions. They never kill him. I lied.
But enough about that. Let’s get into why this novel reduced me to angrish and hate every thirty pages or so, like clockwork.
The Oh-God-WHY:
I will admit that the main beef I have with this novel isn’t the writing – which is … decent, nothing spectacular, mind you, but decent – but the characters. Now usually, I’m a character-girl over a plot-girl. If the characters are interesting, relatable, or awesome enough, I can overlook a lot when dealing with a shoddy plot or terrible prose. But when that’s reversed, and the writing is decent, but the characters are terrible? It’s like grinding glass into my eyes for all the enjoyment I’m having. And I don’t even mean, like, evil characters. I like the bad guys. I mean terrible like non-relatable, unrealistic, unredeemable characters.
And herein lies the problem with The Midnight Guardian: I hated our narrator and protagonist, Brigit. She is, to me, a complete Mary Sue, around only for the author to live through. Though she has her character flaws: wrath, hypocrisy and conceit being the most blatant, but they’re looked over and overshadowed by what we as the readers are supposed to like about her: her mouthiness, her beauty, her viciousness and love for Eamon.
I can tell you right now that every action this character committed, for the most part, left me wanting to punch her in the mouth. There’s something about her contempt and dismissal of every other character she has to work with that really grinds my gears. For instance, there’s a couple being sent along with her, named Meaghan and Swefred. Our Brigit dislikes them because they’re “humourless,” though we never get a display of this; as well, Meaghan is one of the only characters in the novel to disapprove of Brigit. At one point, she gets so tired to Brigit’s whining that she punches her in the face. It was amazing. Sadly, no one else sees it that way, and Meaghan is chewed out for her action against Queen B and the proper order is restored.
It doesn’t help that this character has Special Snowflake Syndrome. At one point, it is revealed that because Brigit was so angry during her turning that anger manifested as a physical trait in her vampire form: fire. She can make herself into a torch when she's angry enough, and has no control over it, with smoke bleeding from her eyes and flames shooting from her nose, mouth, ears and hair. Also, there’s some sort of lava oozing from her nipples. Which, for the record, isn’t terrifying. It’s hilarious. I read that line and laughed for a solid minute, picturing this character lactating magma. But yes, digressing, it is revealed after this trait that Brigit is the only vampire ever to have that power. As a side note, this character is cold – like, emotionally – to the point where she let her sire (who she never really liked) get killed, something that you aren’t supposed to do in this universe. She is never called out on this, and though her actions horrify her, she never shows remorse for it. It’s disgusting, and any sort of empathy I had for this terrible character was lost the minute I read that passage.
To add insult to the injury, Brigit reaches Mary Sue levels of gorgeousness. I don't mind an attractive character, but this is insane! Every single man in the novel either creeps on her, or admires her, or wants in her pants. Most women are jealous of her beauty. She thinks highly of herself as well, which really doesn’t help anything. There are pages and pages devoted to describing what sort of effect she’s having on the men. At one point, I did a tally, and it was...unpleasant. The woman had: her sire, her Eamon, Mors (her BFF), along with her prey, the German officer she'susing for information, the hunters stalking her, an Evil German Doctor -- it goes on and on.
Which brings me to my next point. You know, one of the first things that my writing profs taught me was that if you were going to decide on a point of view. You should stick with it. If you had to change it up, you’d separate the chapters. That doesn’t happen here. The point of view switches every few paragraphs, so we can get into other characters’ heads, and that doesn’t work here when we’re usually reading along attached firmly to Brigit. It’s not a first person story – thank God – but it is told from a closely written third. It’s jarring to keep switching characters, and generally makes me think less of Stratford as an author.
As a side note, if we’re going to touch on the actual mechanics of the writing in his … work: Show, don’t tell. Stratford spends far too much time “telling” us about her characters and the situations rather than “showing” and it is more than a little irritating. I’d like examples of why I should dislike characters, not you just telling me about them, thanks.
And one more for the road: I hate filler in novels. It’s why I can’t read the Eragon series. This book, all 293 pages of it, manages to have filler. Sure, it takes the form of Eamon-chapters, but it’s still there. This man spends all his time sulking and whining, and it doesn’t make for an interesting read. It could have been trimmed down with nothing lost.
Furthermore, the non-linear style of writing really got under my skin. I may have already touched on this, but it’s confusing as hell when a lot of the book takes place on trains. It’s easy to skip over the chapter title/ exposition fairy. As well, it leaves the reader with questions they probably shouldn’t be asking themselves. At one point, it is revealed that Brigit is smuggling two Jewish children away from German, and all you can think is “Why hasn’t she killed them? They’re German, after all.” As well, why she’s carrying them, and how they met isn’t explained until the tail-end of the novel. It’s not cute. It’s annoying.
There is one more thing that bothered me quite a bit about this novel, that I’m pretty sure I didn’t know about myself before I read this. It was the utter lack of humanity in the characters. And I’m not talking about the Nazis. Some of the allure from vampire lore comes from the fact that they’re romantic monsters; take Anne Rice’s Lestat for instance. He kills plenty of people and doesn’t feel remorse for it (after he freaks out about being a monster), but the readers still like him as a character because there’s a point to his actions, and a deeper working under the surface – there are issues with his abandonment by his sire and the loneliness he feels, and he is called out on for his behaviour later on. To contrast, Brigit loses her temper (after witnessing two Gestapo going to arrest a family of Jews; she kills them on the spot) and slaughters 200 German men giggling the entire time. This happens a few chapters after she tells a German that she later kills, “Because until you humans, we [vampires] don’t inflict pain for fun.” (pg. 98) Does anyone else see the hypocrisy in that? Good. Me too.
And finally, though I may be alone in this, I really disliked the amount of German bashing going on –don’t pull out your torches and pitchforks! What I mean to say is that every German man, woman and child in that novel, be when SS or just civilians trying to live their lives during a war, were scorned and looked down upon. It only makes me think of the German Resistance during the war, or Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz and Oskar Schindler – men who risked a lot in WWII German to rescues and smuggle Jews from German and into safer countries. What I mean to say is that while Germans in WWII were villains, not all of them were baby-eating, puppy-kicking evil. To simplify them in that way honestly just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
At one point, the vampires discuss how terrible all the Germans taste when compared with the English or French prey they’ve consumed. It doesn’t help that this universe seems to operate under the “Beautiful People are Good and Evil people are Ugly” terms, a trend that has always annoyed me. So we have an entire story where every German person is “thick” or “piggy” or ugly, while our narrator is repeatedly described as beautiful. It’s heavy handed, bad storytelling, and I dislike it.
At one point, the vampires discuss how terrible all the Germans taste when compared with the English or French prey they’ve consumed. It doesn’t help that this universe seems to operate under the “Beautiful People are Good and Evil people are Ugly” terms, a trend that has always annoyed me. So we have an entire story where every German person is “thick” or “piggy” or ugly, while our narrator is repeatedly described as beautiful. It’s heavy handed, bad storytelling, and I dislike it.
The … Decent:
Alright, terrible characters and telling-not-showing aside, this book actually has some high points. One of the most noticeable is the amount of research Stratford put into her work. The woman obviously put effort into nailing down all the little details, and it shows. Hell, it could stand to be shown a little more, in my opinion. It's one of the reaosns I like historical fiction, when I read it.
Second, I really liked the premise, as I’ve already stated. It’s just the execution of it that was throwing me off. This could have been a great dark comedy, or even a spy novel, just as long as it didn’t take itself quite so seriously. Personally, I think I would have picked up this book if it had been just a group of British, human spies sent to do the same job. Hell, I probably would have liked it better, because at least then the characters would have been relatable, and I wouldn’t be asking myself, “So if you can kill 200 people no problem, why not just start slaughtering everyone en masse? It’s not like you have morals or hang-ups about that kind of thing.”
It would have made for a more compelling read, I think, if it had been a group of humans trying to deal with how horrific the war is while juggling their duty to their country.
Third: The fact that the monsters are monstrous. I mean, the vampires are terrible protagonists, but you don’t sympathize with them, like you would with Lestat. If Stratford was going for inhuman characters, ones that you couldn’t relate to, she found them. With this lot. In the very first introduction of vampires in this novel, it had the vamp in question ripping apart two young German SS officers new to the beat. And I have to say, when you make me feel bad for Nazis three pages into a book set in WWII, that’s skill right there.
Fourth: Believe it or not, I actually enjoyed a character or two. Meaghan, for instance, called Brigit out on her bullshit, and that was a refreshing change of pace, even if the woman was smacked down for such talk.Also, there was one character, unnamed, only showed up for a page to give Eamon something to angst about, I really liked him. He was this breath of fresh air is such a dull book: an underage British soldier chatting and generally being a friendly, warm presence in such a cold book. I found I wanted to know him more, or at least get his name.
As a subset of that, I really enjoyed Eamon’s reaction to being turned into a vampire. We only get in as a flashback, but it’s also quite refreshing. He is seduced into it by Brigit, while the rest of his village and family is about to be killed for being Jewish (in the 12th century). Once he realized what has happened when he rises again, he’s aghast. He’s horrified that everyone he knows and loves is dead, and he did nothing to stop it. He’s furious with Brigit for killing him, and the desire he felt for her when she turned him has disappeared because he realizes that she’s “just a dead thing.” It’s probably one of the most human reactions we get out of a vampire, ever. It’s a decent bit of writing.
The final thing that I liked about this book was the ending. It’s so ridiculously bitter sweet and almost realistic that it nearly makes up for the rest of the piece. By the end of this novel, the vampires have been next to useless – they don’t get anywhere when they’re trying to scare the Nazis, they’re being hunted by the German vampire hunters, they’re generally just sort of flailing and incompetent for all their years and powers. To me, it was just showing that no matter how highly a supernatural creature things itself, humans are rat bastards who tend not to like being killed like cattle, and they will fight back. Even if the vampires are protagonists, after nearly 300 pages of listening to them lord over how superior they are than humans, it was nice to see their plans fall apart and their numbers cut down in a show of good, old fashioned human-style kill-it-with-fire.
All in all, this book seems more like a cash-in on the vampire-trend that it does anything else. The characters are horrific, the writing is shoddy, and it’s generally sort of painful to read. However, if bittersweet endings (and amoral, ridiculously overpowered supernatural creatures) are your thing, this one is definitely for you.
As always, if you have a book you think deserves the Cold Shoulder, let me know and drop me a line.
It would have made for a more compelling read, I think, if it had been a group of humans trying to deal with how horrific the war is while juggling their duty to their country.
Third: The fact that the monsters are monstrous. I mean, the vampires are terrible protagonists, but you don’t sympathize with them, like you would with Lestat. If Stratford was going for inhuman characters, ones that you couldn’t relate to, she found them. With this lot. In the very first introduction of vampires in this novel, it had the vamp in question ripping apart two young German SS officers new to the beat. And I have to say, when you make me feel bad for Nazis three pages into a book set in WWII, that’s skill right there.
Fourth: Believe it or not, I actually enjoyed a character or two. Meaghan, for instance, called Brigit out on her bullshit, and that was a refreshing change of pace, even if the woman was smacked down for such talk.Also, there was one character, unnamed, only showed up for a page to give Eamon something to angst about, I really liked him. He was this breath of fresh air is such a dull book: an underage British soldier chatting and generally being a friendly, warm presence in such a cold book. I found I wanted to know him more, or at least get his name.
As a subset of that, I really enjoyed Eamon’s reaction to being turned into a vampire. We only get in as a flashback, but it’s also quite refreshing. He is seduced into it by Brigit, while the rest of his village and family is about to be killed for being Jewish (in the 12th century). Once he realized what has happened when he rises again, he’s aghast. He’s horrified that everyone he knows and loves is dead, and he did nothing to stop it. He’s furious with Brigit for killing him, and the desire he felt for her when she turned him has disappeared because he realizes that she’s “just a dead thing.” It’s probably one of the most human reactions we get out of a vampire, ever. It’s a decent bit of writing.
The final thing that I liked about this book was the ending. It’s so ridiculously bitter sweet and almost realistic that it nearly makes up for the rest of the piece. By the end of this novel, the vampires have been next to useless – they don’t get anywhere when they’re trying to scare the Nazis, they’re being hunted by the German vampire hunters, they’re generally just sort of flailing and incompetent for all their years and powers. To me, it was just showing that no matter how highly a supernatural creature things itself, humans are rat bastards who tend not to like being killed like cattle, and they will fight back. Even if the vampires are protagonists, after nearly 300 pages of listening to them lord over how superior they are than humans, it was nice to see their plans fall apart and their numbers cut down in a show of good, old fashioned human-style kill-it-with-fire.
All in all, this book seems more like a cash-in on the vampire-trend that it does anything else. The characters are horrific, the writing is shoddy, and it’s generally sort of painful to read. However, if bittersweet endings (and amoral, ridiculously overpowered supernatural creatures) are your thing, this one is definitely for you.
As always, if you have a book you think deserves the Cold Shoulder, let me know and drop me a line.
This is Contemptus, the Stone Cold Critic, signing off. I’ll see you when I see you, gentle readers.
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