30 Days of Night - Book Review

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"This is how it is meant to be: Humans, like bottles, waiting for their caps to be popped."



The town of Barrow in Alaska is so far North that each winter the sun doesn't rise for thirty days. One year a group of vampires descend on the town to make it their playground during the month of darkness. The sheriff and his deputy, a husband and wife team, are all that stands between the vampires and the town's vulnerable human population.

I saw the film based on this comic a few years ago but only just finally got around to the book. To be honest, I was not missing much. It's a great premise for a vampire story, but it was let down by the writing. The events were supposed to take place over the course of thirty days, but it felt more like a week at most, and the ending was rushed and silly.



And then there is the art. The art is... weird. The book is illustrated by Australian artist, Ben Templesmith (Original Hate and Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse). The style reminds me a little of Dave McKean's work in The Sandman. Some of it is very interesting to look at, but it can be hard to work out what is going on, which is unfortunate when paired with bad writing. It's also hard to relate to characters who aren't drawn consistently, making them difficult to even recognise at times.





Some people must have liked this book more than I did because there are a lot of sequels, some of which were even nominated for awards. And much as this book annoyed me, I'm almost certainly going to check out volume 2 in the probably vain hope that the series will get better. Don't follow me. Save yourself!

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More articles by Jennifer Muirhead:
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I Hate Fairyland Volume 3 - Book Review
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