Suckers

By Anne Billson

Book Overview

'Everywhere you looked, there would be women dressed in black - white faces, black hair, mouths painted scarlet. It was The Look. You saw it on the street. You saw it on the covers of magazines. You saw it presenting arts programmes on TV. And some of us saw it in our nightmares...' Anne Billson's debut novel, described by Christopher Fowler in Time Out as 'dark, sharp, chic and very funny', is set at the end of the 'greed is good' era, and features a gothic love triangle between a man, a woman and the 300-year-old vampire they chopped into pieces a decade earlier. But now she's back, and this time she's building a bloodsucking empire... 'Billson honours the rules of the genre, then proceeds to have fun with them... Dark, sharp, chic and very funny' (Christopher Fowler - Time Out) 'A superb satirist' (Salman Rushdie) 'Merits a post position on everybody's reading list, even those who don't usually like vampire stories. It isn't splatter fiction; it's an honest piece of literature' (Michael Wood - London Review of Books) 'Enchanting and ominous at the same time: a rare and impressive piece of literary juggling' (Jonathan Carroll) 'A distinctive, original and refreshing debut' (Kim Newman - Starburst) 'A black and bloody celebration of wit, womanhood and slapstick, beautifully sustained to a thoroughly satisfying climax' (Chris Gilmore - Interzone)

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1502547503
• ISBN13: 9781502547507
• Release Date: October 2014
• Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 330 Pages
• Weight: 0.71 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.1" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

Vampirism = consumerism writ large

Yuppiea as vampires in thrall to a multi-national corporation,gradually taking over London from their Docklands base.They wear black,drink blood from their local hostelry and supplement it by exsanguinating passing tourists in messy fashion.While not short of the odd visceral shock with vividly rendered dismemberings the prevailing mood is dark comedy with a wit as black as pitch.The narrator is Dora,a "Creative Consulatant" for advertising agencies(meaning she invents survey results and doctors the findings--something I suspect,indeed know, is done all the time).When she and her friend Duncan ,for whom she has long nursed a wholly unrequited passion where menaced some years earlier by an opera loving vampire named Violet they killes her and scattered the dismembered body to all parts of London.They are somewhat taken aback to discover that Violet has not only returned from the netherworld but is now the head of a multinational conglomerate which is taking over the advertising and media industries Can Dora stop the tide of the designer nosferatu or will the whole land be taken over by people resembling extras from a Robert Palmer video?Tghe real delight of the book is Dora and we see through her eyes aspects of metropolitan life that helped make the 1980's the worst post war decade by a country mile-yuppies,penniless and pretentious art students,self centredness on an Olympian scale,the growth of the century's most pernicious practices -marketing and saturation advertising.(The devil does not look like Liz Hurley in Bedazzled;the spawn of Satan being an ad man or woman with no language other than jargon)The vampire code is efficiency and humanity must battle the accountants and number crunchers to maintain a toehold on the mountain of society.Yes Dora is a real heroine.Cynical.Amoral.Dishonest.But with a spark of decency and brio.Van Helsing meets Cindi Lauper.It is not a comfortable book and adherents of the traditional vampire fare may well not agree but I like its spirit and mordaunt edge.....

It's a great vampire book!

This is definitely one of those vampire books for the Dr. Van Helsings and romantics of the world. The atmosphere is very dark as it should be. The characters, Dora, Duncan Fender, Violet, and Lulu are a few of those who can be found in a warped love triangle, mortals vs. vampires. Who will win Duncan"s heart? Let's not forget Multigolm Corp. as it seems to be the center of this whole thing. So follow the vampire hunter in London on an adventure of love, power, and beautiful vampires.