Vampire Earth
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Vampire Earth is a series of science fiction/dark fantasy novels written by E. E. Knight, who also writes the Age of Fire series of novels.
In the Vampire Earth series, extraterrestrials called Kurians have taken over the Earth following a war around the year 2022 CE. The Kurians are immortal beings who derive their endless lifespans from draining the "vital aura" of sentient beings, released at the time of death. To facilitate this addiction to life energy, the Kurians employ deadly killing machines known as Reapers. These vampire monsters stalk the night, selecting victims for their insatiable masters. Each Reaper is an extension of its master, and when it pierces the heart of a victim with its long, flexible tongue to drain the unfortunate's blood, its connection to the Kurian controller transfers the vital aura. The Reapers are nigh-unstoppable; not only garbed in bullet-resistant cloaks but also possessing superhuman speed, agility, strength and resilience. Their blood is a powerful coagulant when exposed to air, sealing wounds almost instantly, and the bones of a Reaper are hard enough to deflect most bullets. The most terrifying aspect of the Reaper, however, is its ability to stalk prey by sensing out "lifesign", the energy given off by a sentient being. The greater the emotional distress of the target, the easier it is for the Reapers to find them.
The other non-human soldiers of the Kurians are known as "Grogs" and represent a variety of strange creatures apparently engineered in many cases by the Kurians to serve as shock troops. Amongst these are war-like ape-men sometimes called Gray Ones, and gigantic millipede-like beasts called legworms, used as troop transports.
Following the Kurian takeover, many humans made the decision to serve the new overlords. Known as Quislings, these traitors are set up as members of the police and supervisory government for the Kurian Order. Nearly every other human who is not a Quisling (also known as a Territorial) is either a slave or scratching out a living through various trades. The Kurian Order has reduced Earth to a technological and social Dark Age, with only the most rudimentary utilities and transportation networks surviving (and predominately under the Kurian Order's control). As incentive, there are "tenyear badges" which are earned through good and loyal service to the vampires; the possession of one of these badges means that the wearer is usually safe from the Reapers. Even more sought after by the Quislings is the Brass Ring. Wearing a brass ring given by the Reapers means never fearing being randomly taken by the Reapers at night, though it can be revoked and cannot be passed to one's children.
However, there are pockets of resistance. The main rebel group facing the Order at the beginning of the series is known as Southern Command. A formal military (though classified by the Order as terrorists) charged with the defense of the Ozark Free Territory, Southern Command would be doomed were it not for the Hunters.
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[edit] Hunters
The Kurians' cousin species, known to humans as Lifeweavers, developed a means of turning human beings into weapons to fight the vampires. These Hunters are divided into three castes: Wolf, Cat, and Bear. It is inferred that outside of North America, the castes may have different names, but the effect is similar. The Lifeweavers, through some mysterious process, alter the bodies of the Hunters to grant them enhanced senses, reflexes and endurance.
The Wolves are the most numerous of the Hunters, and it is to this caste that the protagonist of the series, David Valentine, initially belongs. The Wolves are long-range patrollers, able to run almost tirelessly for hours on end, and possessing the ability to "harden" their senses, shifting up from human perceptions of sight, sound and smell to sensory ability akin to a wolf. The Wolves engage in fierce, merciless guerrilla warfare against the Order, killing Reapers to weaken the Kurians, along with smuggling out humans, destroying resources of the Order and fighting in rapid hit-and-run engagements with the Grog and human soldiers of the Order.
The Cats are a smaller and even more elite caste than the Wolves. They are not part of the formal military hierarchy, although they are considered captains as a courtesy. They receive agility and reflexes comparable to a feline, not to mention incredible equilibrium. The Cats also possess cat-like night vision. Unlike Wolves, Cats do not often travel in groups; they work as solitary spy-saboteurs, gathering information and destroying assets deep within the Kurian-controlled areas, known to Southern Command as the KZ, or Kurian Zone. Although Cats are at least equal in combat to their Wolf brethren, to the point of some exceptionally skilled Cats such as the instructor Eveready in the first novel engaging and killing Reapers on their own, their job is generally not open warfare.
The very smallest of the Hunter castes is that of the Bear. When modified by a Lifeweaver to become a Bear, a human soldier becomes "a walking tank", fighting like a berserker of old and possessing tremendous strength and power. Bear physical capabilities are actually on par with the Reapers themselves, able to fight and even kill Reapers in single combat. They also possess an incredible faculty for healing, to the point of regenerating nerve damage and even, in one case, of reviving from beyond clinical and physical death, as in the case of Lost & Found, a Bear introduced in Valentine's Rising. They induce a trance-like state called "going Red", which seems to induce the berserker rage the bears are famous for.
Hunters are not limited to one caste. There are mentions of a few who have obtained all three types of alteration. Valentine's own trainer(after becoming a Wolf) was a Cat, but mentions how he was "A Wolf before you [Valentine was] born". Many cats , if not all, actually start out as wolves, much like Valentine.
[edit] Books in the series
There are six books in the Vampire Earth series of novels so far. Summaries are presented in chronological order.
[edit] Way Of The Wolf
This book begins with David's childhood and his first introduction to the Kurians and the Reapers, and continues to cover his experience in the Southern Command Ozark Free Territory labor battalion. This experience comes to a brutal climax as Harpies (flying creatures controlled by the Kurians) attack his posting and kill several people, including a close friend. Valentine tracks down the Harpies to their lair in an old boat and destroys it. This action earns him the promotion to the Wolves.
Working as a messenger he finds himself trapped behind enemy lines after visiting New Orleans. Disguising himself and an injured comrade he takes shelter with a family of Quislings, the Carlson's, and begins to fall in love with their daughter, Molly. A Kurian operative selects Molly for his own, and she subsequently kills the man and is captured and taken to The Zoo, a horrific place where many women labeled as criminals meet their end. David tracks down then rescues Molly Carlson from The Zoo, a center for Kurian operations in the heart of Chicago. The book ends as David and Molly finally reach the Ozarks again.
[edit] Choice Of The Cat
David, now a Lieutenant in the Wolves, is left in charge of men in an ambush by Grog cavalry. A Cat named Alessa Duvalier helps David and his men retreat. David is subsequently faced with a court martial, as his commanding officer attempts to obfuscate his own incompetence by sacrificing David's career. David is offered an alternative to the court martial; he can resign his officer's commission. While initially determined to face the court, David changes his mind when Duvalier offers to take him in as a Cat. David resigns and follows Duvalier to Ryu's hall, where he is again enhanced, and receives the training necessary to survive as a spy-saboteur behind enemy lines.
Following his training, Valentine and Duvalier venture into the Kurian Zone in search of a mysterious group called the Twisted Cross. The Twisted Cross is somehow connected to reports of Reapers that not only speak to one another (normally all Reapers in a given group are unified by the will of their Kurian controller) but also use firearms. The two Cats quickly bond on the trail, but their relationship is strained by his decision to help cattle-driving nomads, the Eagles, to fight against the Twisted Cross, rather than withdraw as a Cat would. Duvalier leaves him behind and continues her intelligence-gathering mission. Following the Eagles' victory over the Twisted Cross unit, Valentine continues his search for the Cross alone. In the ruins of Omaha, he encounters a badly wounded Grog named Ahn-Kha. Ahn-Kha reveals that he speaks English and that he is a member of a Grog tribe called "The Golden Ones". The Golden Ones helped the Kurian Order in taking over Earth, but were eventually betrayed by their former benefactors and now live as virtual slaves to the Twisted Cross.
David and Ahn-Kha become extremely close friends, to the point that they regard one another as brothers. The Cat joins the Grog in beginning a revolt against the Twisted Cross overseers and their puppet Principle Elder. During the battle, David stumbles upon the secret behind the new, strange Reapers: they are controlled by men, not Kurians.
David and Ahn-Kha's quest to free the Golden Ones ends in David leading a virtual one man assault on the heart of the Twisted Cross, destroying what appears to be the majority of the human Reaper controllers. Badly wounded in the battle, he is captured and brought before the mysterious leader of the Twisted Cross, a man known only as "The General". The General relates to David that he is an immortal, having been given the same ability to drain auras that fuels the eternal life of the Kurians. He offers David a choice: join him in immortality, or be shot. After a moment's hesitation, David defiantly chooses death, but is saved moments from execution by Duvalier and Ahn-Kha. The General is killed by David's Grog brother and the Twisted Cross is finished.
The book concludes with David returning to the Ozarks to recuperate.
[edit] Tales Of The Thunderbolt
David Valentine is working undercover, deep in the Kurian Zone living as an officer in the Coastal Marines. Duvalier is supporting him and posing as his wife. Valentine's goal is to take a ship which can be sailed to the Caribbean, where Valentine is supposed to meet up with someone who has a weapon deadly to the Kurians.
Valentine convinces Lieutenant Post and a few other members of the Thunderbolt's crew to rebel along with Ahn Kha and his grogs, although it goes poorly when the captain of the ship learns of the planned mutiny before it is scheduled to occur: Valentine and his men take the weapons locker and engineering department but fail to convince the majority of the crew to rebel or take them by surprise. Valentine and his men are saved when Lieutenant Carrasca of Jamaica attacks and claims the Thunderbolt. After explaining his cause David is told that until Jamaica is free the Kurian controlling it.
Valentine kills this Kurian and is allowed to meet with Papa Legba in Haiti, the one who claimed to have the information needed to kill the Kurians, though he turns out to be a Kurian himself. Papa Legba shows him Quickwood, which can kill a Kurian or their Reapers almost instantly. Valentine then begins to transport the Quickwood back to the Ozarks, and in doing so begins a rebellion which soon envelopes all of Haiti. The book concludes with an ambush in Texas which destroys much of the stock of Quickwood.
[edit] Valentine's Rising
The book begins with Valentine and his men learning of an invasion. Southern Command, once a bastion of freedom, has had its military strength broken and much of its territory overrun by a formidable army of soldiers borrowed from various Kurian lords, all led by Consul Solon. David encounters General Martinez, a man who has kept his own men hiding in the mountains and rules them like a mob. Martinez orders Ahn Kha's remaining two grogs killed, which precipitates Valentine to draw his own firearm on Martinez. A Mexican standoff occurs which ends in Martinez being tried for a court marshal by Styachowski, an officer. In the end the court marshal falls apart as the armed men outside begin to mob the court. Valentine reaches an agreement with Martinez to allow himself, Styachowski, a team of Bears and roughly half of Martinez's regular forces to leave the camp.
David and his men are unable to escape Solon's long-reaching grasp and choos instead to undertake a massive intelligence operation. They pose as a Quisling group sent to reinforce Solon's already impressive army. This leads to many tests of David's faith as he is forced to make horrific decisions. He and his men are forced to work under Brigadier General Xray Tango and work for the betterment of the Kurian Order. Soon, Valentines and his men proves themselves to Solon and are granted access to arms and munitions.
The finale of the book comes as Valentine launches a crippling attack from within Fort Scott taking and holding the area around it and completely halting Solon's forces and their ability to move while broadcasting a message to the scattered remnants of Southern Command, informing them that the mobility of Solon's forces was crippled and urging them to rise up and fight, which they do. Thus begins a long last stand effort as Valentine and his forces (now dubbed the Razorbacks) hold the area and prevent Solon's forces from effectively countering the actions of Southern Command's forces elsewhere.
Valentine leads a team of Bears (including Styachowski, now dubbed "Wildcard") into the Kurian fortress to kill the Kurian lords within, which they are mostly successful at doing. The book ends as forces from Texas come to reinforce Valentine and break him and his men free of the trap they'd willingly allowed to set around them. When a bewildered Valentine asks why the Texans would journey from another fort they'd trapped in a siege to rescue him and his men, he is told: "That could wait. You couldn't. We remember the Alamo."
[edit] Valentine's Exile
Valentine's Exile begins with the Razorbacks as they continue to lay siege to the desperate remnants of Solon's forces. The Kurians attempt a breakout which is stopped at great cost by the Razorbacks leaving WIlliam Post injured; but winning the day for the free territories.
Valentine is informed he has some time off and agrees to attempt to track down William Post's wife. He learns that some women were given tests while Solon's forces occupied the Ozarks, and that William's wife Gail was one of those who tested positive and was taken. While visiting Molly Carlson in an attempt to learn more about the tests, he is detained by Southern Command and informed he is being court-marshaled for the murder of Quisling prisoners.
While in detainment, Valentine learns that some Quislings are in the process of negotiating a truce, and that many of the more recent court-marshals have been a way of showing the Quislings that Southern Command doesn't encourage murder and looting. Valentine is also offered a deal which will see him in prison for several years in exchange for a confession of guilt. He learns that the deal is false and instead escapes with the help of some sympathetic guards.
Valentine, free of the prison (though knowing he will be judged guilty in absentia), decides to continue his search for Gail Post. This takes him to meet Eveready, who helps him with some supplies, and allows Valentine to eventually infiltrate the Kurian facility where Gail Post is being held. After spending weeks in the facility Valentine is able to escape with a pregnant Gail, though it requires Ahn Kha to draw off their pursuit.
The child is delivered, and everyone is horrified to discover that Gail has given birth to a Reaper. The book ends as Valentine wonders if the newborn creature has a soul, or if it's already a mindless killing machine.
[edit] Valentine's Resolve
Set a few years after the previous novel. Valentine has abandoned the cause, and is exacting revenge on the rape and murder of one of the Carlson girls which me met in Way of the Wolf. At this point Valentine is a loner scratching out an existence in the borderlands. A group of Southern Command Cats track him down and recruit him for a special mission. Even though Southern Command has faced several victories in the years since the Counter Attack and the alliance with the Texas freehol; the lack of lifeweavers is making the situation precarious. The lifeweavers who were previously allied with the free territories were either all captured or killed, and have yet to return to the Orzaks. Valentine is charged with a mission to seek out remaining lifeweavers and to entice them into coming to the Orzaks. Valentine reluctantly accept the mission after the cats use his "son" (reaper born Willam Post's wife Gail) Blake as leverage.
[edit] Cast of Characters
- David Stuart Valentine,
also known by the nickname Ghost is the main character and all the stories are told from his point of view.
When David was eleven years old he witnessed the aftermath of a Quisling attack on his home. All his family was killed in the attack, leaving him the only survivor of the massacre. Father Max, a Catholic priest and his father's old friend, took him in and raised him. David is brought up in Father Max's library, where books work to fill the void left in his life. David learns later that his father, Lee Valentine, was a soldier in Southern Command.
Valentine possesses a sixth sense which is sometimes referred to as the "Valentingle", first as a joke and later taken seriously. This sense allows him to feel the presence of Reapers being controlled by Kurians.
Valentine suspects that the changes in Hunters created by the Lifeweavers may be hereditary.
Valentine also has a daughter with First Lieutenant Malia Carrasca in Jamaica, and is raising the reaper who was born from Gail Post as his son whom he calls Blake.
- Malia Carrasca,
is the Acting Captain of the gunboat Thunderbolt. She lives on Jamaica, and met Valentine when he came to the island on his way to Hispaniola, searching for an unknown weapon against Kur (later revealed as "quickwood"). Valentine arrived on the Thunderbolt and convinced Malia's grandfather Commodore Jensen to let him use the powerful ship (one of the strongest still in existence) in his search, in exchange the ship became the property of the Jamaican resistance, and Malia became the new commander of the Thunderbolt. Over the course of their adventure, Valentine and Carrasca fell in love. When Valentine got back to the Ozarks, Ahn-Kha gave him a note from Carrasca, telling him he would be a father soon. Valentine looks forward to the day he can go to see his daughter. Valentine returns to North America being unable to find a home in Jamaica.
- Ahn-Kha,
is a Golden One who looks like a seven foot cross between a shorthaired bear and an ape with pointed, expressive ears. He is one of David Valentine's most constant companions. Valentine and Ahn-Kha consider each other brothers and would die for each other.
Ahn-Kha was born on Earth, forty-one years ago before the beginning of Choice of the Cat, one of the first of his clan to be brought to this world after his people had settled. The Golden One clans and the Gray Ones' tribes were brought to this world to do the dying while winning the victory for the Kur.
Although many people who encounter Ahn Kha dismiss his intelligence due to his resemblance to the Gray Ones, his own species of Grog is generally as intelligent (if not more so) than humans. Ahn Kha is a great source of wisdom, something David relies on almost as much as he relies on Ahn Kha's strength.
David and Ahn Kha are separated at the end of Valentine's Exile, Ahn Kha drawing off pursuit to allow Valentine and the others in their group which included Smoke and Gail Post to escape. Valentine believes Ahn Kha to be dead after several years without news. Valentine later hears rumours of a Golden One leading a rebellion in Appalachia, Valentine swears to investigate the rumours hoping to find his missing "brother".
- Alessa Duvalier a.k.a. Smoke
At age 16 Alessa ran away from the Great Plains Gulag after burning a police van and then killing two policemen, after one of them attempted to rape her. Taking all their possessions she could carry, she then escaped by crawling through a swamp and heading for the mountains. She is taken in by the Duvalier family. When a raid on Leavenworth is planned, she is recruited as a scout. She becomes friends with a Cat named Rourke and later becomes his disciple.
Eight years later, she meets David Valentine at the battle of Little Timber Hill where she helps him and his men escape their besieged position. After David's decision to resign from the Wolves, Alessa recruits him to be a Cat.
Alessa is one of the most fervent believers in the lifeweavers, believing them to be almost godlike. She is often shown to be in awe of her and willing to do anything for them. Although in later works she is shown to have the overall cause as foremost in mind. Alessa Duvalier is a higly divided character who is lead by both extreme passion and extreme pragmatism. She shows overt anti-social behaviour due to her traumatic childhood and has difficulty forming romantic bonds with men. Alissa Duvalier is among the Zealots of the new order, who will do anything for the cause with special emphasis on the Lifeweavers.
David Valentine first met Eveready in the Yazoo Mississippi, where Eveready was responsible for training Valentine and several other Wolves in how to mask their lifesigns and evade reapers. He himself has killed at least 71 Reapers (at the time of Valentine's Exile) counted by the sets of teeth he wears as a necklace, but believes that those who actually go after reapers without extreme advantage are fools.
He later appears in Valentine's Exile as a recluse, hunting Reapers and other Kurian operatives along a specific stretch of land he calls home. He gives Valentine and Duvalier the equipment necessary to help track down William Post's wife. Everready is shown to have at one time been one of the most fervent believers of the cause, converting several quislings and fomenting revolution. He lost his ardor after being betrayed by a trusted confederate and now operates a one man war against Quislings agreeing only to train new wolves, but not accepting any other specific assignments.
Eveready's name comes from the battery company by the same name. He uses the batteries as a calling card for the Kurians so that they know which kills are his.
- Narcisse aka Sissy
Narcisse is a woman David encounters in the Caribbean, and is disfigured: two fleshy stumps are all she has left of her legs, and one arm ends in a knob at her wrist. She got these injuries from trying to run away. She helps David escape and he takes her with him piggyback style.
Narcisse claims to practice voodoo, but it's more like hoodoo, with her herbs doing 'magic'.
- Will Post
William Post is a former Quisling officer that Valentine converted to the side of Free Territories. Valentine encountered Post while acting as the First Officer on the Thunderbolt, a Quisling ship. Post follows Valentine acting as his Lieutenant until he becomes injured in a manner that leaves him unable to fight. William Post carries guilt of leaving his former wife, and sends Valentine to look for his former wife once injured.
- Arsie or RC
Arsie or RC, supposedly named after the old Royal Crown cola truck she was found in as a baby, is a Blue Dome girl. The character Arsie or RC is notable because she was named for Merile (aka RC) of the Vampire Earth forum. She won a contest to have a character named for her.
- Blake
Gail's half Reaper son being raised secretly by Narcisse in Valentine's absence. Blake is having trouble fighting his natural urges to feed and is aging much faster physically than he is mentally. Blake is shown to possess the entire gamut of human emotions including love and attachment which he clearly feels for Valentine. Valentine has taken to calling Blake his son, and Blake returning the attachment calling him Poppa. Although Narcisse is the one who raises him Blake only acknowledges Valentine as a parent.
Blake is Valentine's only motivation to rejoin "the cause" and sets out to find Lifeweavers in order to buy Blake's freedom. As otherwise Blake will be sought out, captured and studied.
[edit] Locations of Note
- The Cave
Strategic Air Command's old headquarters at Offutt Air Force Base are the home of the Twisted Cross. Now some of the great hangars have been rebuilt, SAC's old underground catacombs reoccupied. A new general has come, with men in strange uniforms; the swastika flag flies, its spider-like black-and-white design stark and forbidding against the blue of Omaha's skies.
- Chicago
Chicago is a Kurian Stronghold. Chicago is not only one of the most secure and best organized Kurian city; it is also the most corrupt. It is the only Kurian Zone where one may buy a brass ring. Also, Chicago is one of the trading Hubs of the Kurian empire where goods are traded for humans which are the only commodity that the Kurians recognize.
- The Citadelle
Set in walls a hundred feet high and thirty feet thick at their base, gunports like shaded black eyes look out on the north coast of Haiti. This castle-like fortress, faintly resembling a giant ship, is the home to the Kurian known as Papa Legba. While here, David Valentine climbs down a well to find he has gone through a gate in the middle of the well, and is looking back at Papa Legba from Kur.
- The Consular's Place
Consular Solon is having a palace built on the north bank of the Arkansas. After Valentine's Rising, the Consular's Palace is taken and occupied by David Valentine and his 'regiment'.
- New Columbia
The city of Little Rock never recovered from the nuclear blast inflicted on it in the death throes of the Old World. Though the fires went out and the radiation dispersed, the only life to return permanently was nonhuman. The new rulers have a grand vision of a rail, road, and river traffic hub built on the ruins of the old. The Rocks have been renamed New Columbia with the motto "Crossroads of the Future".
- Omaha
The Old World transportation hub set in the wide, wooded valley of the Missouri is a sad shadow of its former self. Like its sister St. Louis, farther down the wide Missouri,Omaha is now the breeding ground for assorted Grogs and human scoundrels.
- The Ozark Mountains
The Free Territory had its genesis here, among the river-cut limestone, caves, sinks, and thick forests of America's oldest mountains. During his years of Cathood in the Kurian Zone, Valentine had formed a theory that the Ozarks were a useful bogeyman for the brutal regimes of the Kur. Death and deprivation could always be blamed on "terrorists" in the Ozarks, or the other enclaves scattered around what had been North America.
- The Residence
In New Columbia, formerly the city of Little Rock, stands the bone white, eleven story, Kurian Tower. It sticks there like a knife in the heart of the Free Territory. This is the home of the Kurian Lord of the area. Armored cars are parked before it, covering the cleared streets outside the beginnings of a wall.
- Ryu's Hall
At the headwaters of the Buffalo River,there is a place that is home to a cluster of Lifeweavers. Perched halfway up Mount Judea in the Ozark Mountains, a stoutly built A-frame lodge stands in a thick grove of mountain pine. It dwarfs any other building in the area. Southern Command calls this place Buffalo River Lodge, the Cats of Southern Command call this place home. This is where David Valentine is invoked by Ryu and is transformed by Lifeweaver techno-magic into a Cat.
- The Zoo
The Zoo is a recreational area in Chicago. It is a no holds barred Gomorrah, where any deprivation can be obtained for a price. Although its main attractions are anything sex related, from intercourse to snuff shows there is also the opportunity to gamble through a riverboat. The Zoo is a reward for good service. Although many Quislings find their end there it is considered an offense punishable by death to be out of money in the Zoo. One who is left without cash or barter is sent to the old financial downtown district which is now a feeding place for reapers.
