Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, by Seth Grahame-Smith
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is the second book by Seth Grahame-Smith. It tells the life story of Abraham Lincoln, starting at his birth and ending at his assassination, revealing our 16th president to have once been a vampire hunter. After a vampire kills his mother, young Abe decides to become their enemy and "kill every vampire in America." He works his entire life to accomplish this goal, saving the nation and meeting some friends along the way.
Warning: Spoilers follow here.
A whole bunch of famous people from history were vampires. Abe kills most of them, but befriends a few as well. The book follows Abe from a very young age, all the way to his assassination. (John Wilkes Booth is, of course, a vampire.) Early on in the book, it is brought to light that slaves are widely accepted as vampire chow. Once black slaves get old enough and are no longer useful, the owners feed them to vampires, apparently a well-known and accepted phenom. Upon hearing of the bounty of slaves to feast upon, vampires made their way over to America from Europe, nearly overflowing our country. At first, Abe decides to just go on a mass killing spree, killing any vampire that he can find with his trusty ax. Eventually, the killing spree turns into a highly developed plan to cut out slavery altogether, which would eliminate any possible free vampire food options. The fear is that once all the slaves are eaten, the vampires, now grossly outnumbering civilians, would turn to other things/people for food, resulting in the death of our nation. Thus, Abe becomes president and moves to get rid of slavery, wins the Civil War, and sends a large population of the vampires back to where they came from. Abe's best friend/vampire, Henry, plays a huge part in the book, at first offering names and locations of known vampires to Abe for killing, and then becoming the leader of the Union later on. After Abe is killed, Henry turns him into a vampire and they are presumably hanging around to this day, being awesome somewhere.
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I give the book a 4/5. I thought it was very well written, and I absolutely loved how Seth wove history and fantasy together. A few times, while reading the book, I began to actually question history because the book's explanations of vampires existing through history made so much sense and fit together seamlessly. There are two things I don't like about the book, one at no fault of the author. I will be the first to tell you, I am pretty much the exact opposite of a history buff. The book reads very much like a history book, and because of that, it took me a long time to read. Despite the fact that the book was exciting and fast-paced in its own right, I just couldn't get into it sometimes. The other thing was the absence of an epilogue. I had really wanted there to be a more defined ending brought back to modern times, like the introduction. I wanted to find out what Henry showed Seth at the beginning, and for Seth to confirm that Henry liked what he wrote, or something to that effect. I really liked how the book ended, but I wanted an epilogue so bad.
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For Next Time
The Postcard Killers, by James Patterson & Liza Marklund
Finally gonna get back to this book! I had to stop in the middle of it to read KK5, and then Abe Lincoln. First we were on a Disney cruise, and then fighting the Civil War against vampires, and now we're back to solving a murder mystery in Europe. Oh, I love books.
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