Vampirates est un livre dont je me suis retrouvée "propriétaire temporaire" il y à maintenant 2 ans. On me promettait une bonne lecture. Les seules chroniques de Livraddict sur ce livre me le promettait aussi, mais leurs auteurs se demandaient oh pourquoi, les éditions Hachette ont arrêté la publication au troisième tome. Faute de public, paraît-il. Mais pourquoi ? Après avoir lu ce premier tome, je crois avoir la réponse à votre question.D'un premier abord, le style d'écriture est déplaisant. Des phrases très courtes et mal tournées par moment, rendant la compréhension compliquée. L'auteur se répète énormément, il n'est pas rare de voir répété trois fois la même information dans le même chapitre. Les chapitres seraient long, ça irait. Mais là ils font entre trois et dix pages . Les prénoms des personnages sont trop souvent répétés même quand le chapitre ne parlent que de trois d'entre eux. Il est très rares qu'ils soient remplacés par des « la sœur de Connor », « son garde du corps », « son frère ». Bref, de quoi rendre la lecture... Insipide. J'ai eu l'impression de lire un livre pour enfants.Ensuite l'histoire. Replaçons le contexte. Nous sommes en 2505, dans le futur donc. Deux faux jumeaux vivent avec leur père dans un phare. Sept ans après, ce dernier meurt. Les autorités du village ne s'inquiètent pas de placer les deux enfants de 14 ans à l'orphelinat, ou même dans la famille qui se propose de les accueillir. Non, c'est à eux de choisir où ils doivent aller. Ils vont nargué la directrice de l'orphelinat et la mère qui se propose de les gardés, puis ils fuient sur un bateau, autrefois celui de leur père mais saisit par la banque, vers je-ne-sais-ou. Il y à une tempête, ils se font recueillir chacun par un navire différent. Le frère chez des pirates normaux, et la sœur par les Vampirates. Des vampires-pirates qui font tout pour contrôler leur soif pour pas la mordre... J'ai envie de crier au what the fuck tant cette histoire ne tient absolument pas debout ! (Comme le film Warm bodies avec l'humaine qui sort avec un zombie... )L'histoire serait creusée, elle avancerais, ça irait. Mais même pas. J'ai trouvé ce premier tome ennuyeux. À chaque chapitre, on passe de Connor à Grace. Les passages du frère sont totalement vides de sens et sans aucun intérêt, j'ai préférer à partir de la page 150 de ne plus les lires. Quand aux passages de la sœur, ils sont un peu plus intéressants, mais on tape dans l'illogique et l'incohérence totale.Bref, comme dirait mon chéri, c'est un livre-barbecue. Un livre qui sert à allumer le barbec' du dimanche, au moins les 10,50€ du bouquin ne seront pas perdus pour tout le monde... Vous l'aurez compris, je ne prendrais pas la peine de lire la suite.
Vampires and Pirates. Vampires and Pirates.VAMPIRES and PIRATES! Holy cow, this sounds awesome. I mean vampirates. Pirates and Vampires combined together. I don't know about you but this was a first for me and it sounded cool. But it disappointed me greatly. So the other day I was watching season 8 of Supernatural and this particular episode I was watching had Dean and a vampire named Benny destroy a nest of vampires. There's this one scene where they talk about vampires who live on the coast and feed off of humans who would take their boats out in the ocean. So Dean makes a little joke about how they were Vampire Pirates and naturally combines the two words, calling them 'Vampirates'. Dean, of course, thinks he's a hilarious genius while Benny is amused over the fact that no one thought of that.-_-Haha, Dean. That was totally original and I'm pretty sure that NO ONE has EVER thought of combining the two. One thing to note is that this book was published in 2007 while season 8 of Supernatural was aired on 2012. Do the math. But then again, this book doesn't seem to be very popular. At least were I'm from. Anyway, the point of this little story is that I realized that I had not done a review of this book when I watched that episode. I am so sorry and we'll get to that review now.So my thoughts on this book are all over the place but one of the problems that I had writing this review is that I barely remember anything about it. (It could also be due to the fact that I am writing a review of this book about 5 months after I read it.)The idea of vampires living as pirates is very fascinating and, dare I say, original. The problem was that the book hardly spent any time with them. We spend more time on the two kids who lost their father and they have no idea where their mother is. (view spoiler)[(How much you want to bet that their mother was a vampire? It doesn't say in this book but given their 'special' abilities, I'm willing to make that assumption.) (hide spoiler)]
What do You think about Demons Of The Ocean (2007)?
Pirates who are vampires! Sounds like the best book ever, right?WRONG.This book is so awful, so poorly written, so full of badfic cliches and cookie-cutter characters that I'm positively shocked that it ever made it out of the slush pile, much less spawned two equally lackluster sequels.I read this book while I was working in the children's section at a large chain bookstore, along with a kid of about ten to encourage him to read. I wouldn't be surprised if this book put him off reading for life.Vampirates: Epic Fail.
—Jaydee Faire
I thought this was quite a fun, easy read! I loved the cast of colorful characters and the intriguing concept, and I really liked how so many of the characters were friendly and nice to our heroes. I will definitely be reading more of this series.There were a few minor things I wasn't crazy about. I would have liked to learn more about Grace and Connor's world, to get a better idea of what it was like, what "technology" was available, etc. And, maybe it was just me, but it seemed odd how quickly Connor, the hero, accepted the pirates' actions (that is, looting, stealing, and attacking people).I had thought that he would have some qualms with what they were doing, and I guess he did--but that was only mentioned once, pretty late in the book. I mean, I expect looting and such from pirates and pirate stories ;-) and I really liked the pirates, but I just expected the morality of their actions to be addressed differently. At the end, one plot thread is wrapped up, but others aren't. There are elements of mystery in the book, and I sometimes shared the frustration of Grace, the heroine, who kept getting riddle-like answers in response to her questions. I was hoping that everything--or at least, a lot--would be revealed by the end, but it seemed more like a lot of the answers and action are being saved for the sequel, and this first book just sets you up for it. (Which, of course, is not necessarily a bad thing!)But those are all pretty minor problems, and of course, they aren't all going to bother everyone! I really enjoyed it, and am looking forward to more fun with the characters. The settings and costumes are nicely described and make for some vivid imagery, and I like how, in spite of the vampire and pirate themes, it isn't a gory book.
—Qt
1) I'm done; I'm not going on to the rest of the series. It was enjoyable, but I don't think there's enough here to sustain it, and I have a lot of other things to read before I could even consider "marginal, possibly interesting series."2) Note to future genre authors: do not set your work in the 25th (or 26th, can't recall) century, then use no technology more advanced than cannons and cutlasses; if you want to write a period piece, feel free to do so, but if you're going to go medieval on your audience, and it's actually the far future, there needs to be a very good explanation for it.3) There's conveniently magic when there needs to be, which is fine, but there's no mention of how it works, and the regular joe-on-the-street character who encounters it doesn't seem particularly surprised by it. Maybe it's really technology? See #2.4) "Vampirates" as a name is just... yeah. OK, so if you get past all that, there's a decent story of how orphaned and now destitute (since Only Parent Died, in significant debt), run away (grand theft boat in the process), get shipwrecked, and rescued by different ships, each of which is weird in its own way. The only real plot here is them trying to find each other, and neither really has any control over whether this happens or not, since each is just a passenger on their ship, not exactly up to the level of making command decisions. There are a few interesting scenes when the normal pirates engage in piracy of another vessel, and when the twin rescued by Vampirates figures out that they are in fact, vampirates, but these scenes can't make up for a bad framework.Recommended for: die-hard paranormal fans who also like the golden age of piracy.
—Carl Bussema
