A flawed but mercifully not Twilight vampire novel
Edit: I don't know if someone hacked into my account or what but somehow both my cut tags and the book pictures were removed from this post. I have just corrected it and I am very disturbed by this.
Re Edit: If you are reading this then this post has been revised to go into more detail about the flaws of the book for the Book Fails version of the review.
Demon under Glass is a very under-rated and unique vampire novel far unlike the works of Stephenie Meyers. Demon Under Glass was written at the same time as the screenplay for the film was being written (and by the same person). I have to tell you though that the novel is a far superior entity.
The author, Mrs. D. L. Warner, actually is a fairly popular fan fiction writer for certain genres on The Internet and this was her first non-fan fiction story and, in my opinion, she did really well.
The film Demon Under Glass was a low budget horror film of the early 2000s and the plot of the film is only about half the plot.
The novel is about double the length, in regard to story content. And once you get past the plot used for the movie the story really takes off and grabs you.
Demon under glass is a very unique novel.
An immortal, traditional, undead, nocturnal, blood drinking vampire going by the contemporary name of Simon Molinar gets captured by the U.S. Government. He is kept in a high tech laboratory cell where doctors study him in secret while the general public remains unaware that vampires truly exist.
Simon Molinar under-goes several cruel experiments which cause the reader to question: Who are the monsters here? The vampire actually befriends one of his captors, a Dr. Joe McKay. Dr. Joe McKay was a last minute replacement for a doctor who had been killed while they were trying to capture the vampire.
As the story progresses, despite being a killer, you start to see the vampire as the tragic anti-hero, reminiscent of Thomas Jerome Newton (the alien protagonist of Walter Tevis' The Man who fell to Earth).
Simon Molinar is unashamed of who and what he is and survives much as many other predators would survive and though classified as evil by the rest of the story's cast you come to realize he's not the most evil being in the story. He is merely a survivor.
Simon is cruely experimented on. His confinement consists of a small room with a glass two way mirror and a metal casket-type of box that is locked from the outside while he is sleeping. For safety reasons they keep him in the casket by night, completely throwing off his sleep patern, as to be certain he can't escape while they are studying him by daylight (which will burn him if he attempts to escape).
One particularly cruel test is when they expose a section of his arm to varying degrees of sunlight to see how severely it would burn him and then when it is over they refuse to feed him blood as to see how quickly he can heal without feeding.
After a time the group decide to destroy the vampire now that they have finished studying him. The fact remains that he is a killer and to be honest they would rather keep in captivity a specimen that has not taken the lives of other humans. It's mostly politics at this point.
Simon Molinar (our vampire anti-hero) manages to escape and this is where the film version ends. I feel at this point D. L. Warner felt her liberty as a writer and started to stretch her legs into the world of Gothic horror / Scifi.
The agency has discovered that their own employ, Dr. Joe McKay, has the rare genetic predisposition to be able to be transformed into a vampire by means of the samples they obtained from their former vampire captive.
After discretely studying Dr. Joe McKay in his day to day life, as a human, for two years, analyzing his typical habits they decide to make their move and transform him into a vampire.
Poor Dr. McKay has no idea of what is being planned for him as he has been living a relatively ordinary life until this point, unaware that every aspect of his life after Simon Molinar's escape, has been carefully studied and planned by the very people he works for, even the woman who claimed to love him.
It's actually by the mercy of his own former prisoner, Simon, that Dr. Joe McKay learns what is going on and must flee from the very people he used to work for with the blood thirsty vampire as his only ally...
The novel is intelligently written though a little heavy handed with some of it's messages, sort of like the film The Breed starring Adrian Paul. In general it's a refreshingly unique take on the vampire story. It's an obscure novel. I had to obtain my copy through amazon but it was worth the bother. I liked it very much. There's some great dark humour to it as well such as an explanation as to why so many vampires seem to shop at Walmart (something Anne Rice started with her novel Tale of the body thief). You can really tell that after writing the screenplay for the film (of which she was writing at the same time) D. L. Warner started to really have fun with the story with the portion of the novel that had nothing to do with the film. The style of writing drastically improves.
It's not a perfect novel but it is a good read and it's not bad for the author's first attempt at legitimate writing. The messages are a little heavy handed and some of the so-called science makes little sense or contradicts real science but this is more plot driven than actual scifi.
The novel used to be published as a simple, medium sized, glossy thin book with a dark brownish cover. The current cover now has a picture of the examination table from the film and the metal casket-like box the vampire was forced to sleep in by night.
The film is a low budget independent piece worthy of Mystery science theatre (now Rifftrax) but the novel is a very interesting read and I recommend it for anyone looking for something new in vampire lore besides the cliches and sparkles of Twilight. It's a worthwhile novel that I enjoyed and will read again.
Now to give you better detail about the flaws of the book:
The author uses science and technobabble in a false intellectualism / Scifi complexity. All it really reveals is her own limited knowledge of biology. Her terminology is flawed and out dated and her so-called Science doesn't hold up well under real evaluation. I know it's fiction but if you're going to use real science you need to have a certain plausability.
The symbolism is heaving handed. The characters like Joe McKay spell things out for you with dialogue that might as well be shouts of 'The vampire's not evil! My bosses are!'
The novel's ending was not as satisfying as it could have been. It felt like the start of an on-gong book series which never actually happened. And the 'sequels' (if you can call them that) are ultimately disappointing as they are really nothing more than published slash fan fictions about Dr. Joe McKay and Simon Molinar. The author of the first novel even gives an introduction at the start of the sequel books to say 'This is not canon to my story. It's fan fiction but it's good fan fiction.' I know she hasn't forgotten her fan fiction writer roots and his trying not to leave her old fan fiction writer friends behind but I'm not into reading sequels by different authors that look like they belong in the adult sections of fan fiction net. And it kind of spoils it when the books themselves begin with the author saying 'These are not canon.' Well, are we ever going to get the canon continuation?
Other than these flaws I really do like Demon Under Glass though I could never be so kind about it's sequels.
Re Edit: If you are reading this then this post has been revised to go into more detail about the flaws of the book for the Book Fails version of the review.
Demon under Glass is a very under-rated and unique vampire novel far unlike the works of Stephenie Meyers. Demon Under Glass was written at the same time as the screenplay for the film was being written (and by the same person). I have to tell you though that the novel is a far superior entity.
The author, Mrs. D. L. Warner, actually is a fairly popular fan fiction writer for certain genres on The Internet and this was her first non-fan fiction story and, in my opinion, she did really well.
The film Demon Under Glass was a low budget horror film of the early 2000s and the plot of the film is only about half the plot.
The novel is about double the length, in regard to story content. And once you get past the plot used for the movie the story really takes off and grabs you.
Demon under glass is a very unique novel.
An immortal, traditional, undead, nocturnal, blood drinking vampire going by the contemporary name of Simon Molinar gets captured by the U.S. Government. He is kept in a high tech laboratory cell where doctors study him in secret while the general public remains unaware that vampires truly exist.
Simon Molinar under-goes several cruel experiments which cause the reader to question: Who are the monsters here? The vampire actually befriends one of his captors, a Dr. Joe McKay. Dr. Joe McKay was a last minute replacement for a doctor who had been killed while they were trying to capture the vampire.
As the story progresses, despite being a killer, you start to see the vampire as the tragic anti-hero, reminiscent of Thomas Jerome Newton (the alien protagonist of Walter Tevis' The Man who fell to Earth).
Simon Molinar is unashamed of who and what he is and survives much as many other predators would survive and though classified as evil by the rest of the story's cast you come to realize he's not the most evil being in the story. He is merely a survivor.
Simon is cruely experimented on. His confinement consists of a small room with a glass two way mirror and a metal casket-type of box that is locked from the outside while he is sleeping. For safety reasons they keep him in the casket by night, completely throwing off his sleep patern, as to be certain he can't escape while they are studying him by daylight (which will burn him if he attempts to escape).
One particularly cruel test is when they expose a section of his arm to varying degrees of sunlight to see how severely it would burn him and then when it is over they refuse to feed him blood as to see how quickly he can heal without feeding.
After a time the group decide to destroy the vampire now that they have finished studying him. The fact remains that he is a killer and to be honest they would rather keep in captivity a specimen that has not taken the lives of other humans. It's mostly politics at this point.
Simon Molinar (our vampire anti-hero) manages to escape and this is where the film version ends. I feel at this point D. L. Warner felt her liberty as a writer and started to stretch her legs into the world of Gothic horror / Scifi.
The agency has discovered that their own employ, Dr. Joe McKay, has the rare genetic predisposition to be able to be transformed into a vampire by means of the samples they obtained from their former vampire captive.
After discretely studying Dr. Joe McKay in his day to day life, as a human, for two years, analyzing his typical habits they decide to make their move and transform him into a vampire.
Poor Dr. McKay has no idea of what is being planned for him as he has been living a relatively ordinary life until this point, unaware that every aspect of his life after Simon Molinar's escape, has been carefully studied and planned by the very people he works for, even the woman who claimed to love him.
It's actually by the mercy of his own former prisoner, Simon, that Dr. Joe McKay learns what is going on and must flee from the very people he used to work for with the blood thirsty vampire as his only ally...
The novel is intelligently written though a little heavy handed with some of it's messages, sort of like the film The Breed starring Adrian Paul. In general it's a refreshingly unique take on the vampire story. It's an obscure novel. I had to obtain my copy through amazon but it was worth the bother. I liked it very much. There's some great dark humour to it as well such as an explanation as to why so many vampires seem to shop at Walmart (something Anne Rice started with her novel Tale of the body thief). You can really tell that after writing the screenplay for the film (of which she was writing at the same time) D. L. Warner started to really have fun with the story with the portion of the novel that had nothing to do with the film. The style of writing drastically improves.
It's not a perfect novel but it is a good read and it's not bad for the author's first attempt at legitimate writing. The messages are a little heavy handed and some of the so-called science makes little sense or contradicts real science but this is more plot driven than actual scifi.
The novel used to be published as a simple, medium sized, glossy thin book with a dark brownish cover. The current cover now has a picture of the examination table from the film and the metal casket-like box the vampire was forced to sleep in by night.
The film is a low budget independent piece worthy of Mystery science theatre (now Rifftrax) but the novel is a very interesting read and I recommend it for anyone looking for something new in vampire lore besides the cliches and sparkles of Twilight. It's a worthwhile novel that I enjoyed and will read again.
Now to give you better detail about the flaws of the book:
The author uses science and technobabble in a false intellectualism / Scifi complexity. All it really reveals is her own limited knowledge of biology. Her terminology is flawed and out dated and her so-called Science doesn't hold up well under real evaluation. I know it's fiction but if you're going to use real science you need to have a certain plausability.
The symbolism is heaving handed. The characters like Joe McKay spell things out for you with dialogue that might as well be shouts of 'The vampire's not evil! My bosses are!'
The novel's ending was not as satisfying as it could have been. It felt like the start of an on-gong book series which never actually happened. And the 'sequels' (if you can call them that) are ultimately disappointing as they are really nothing more than published slash fan fictions about Dr. Joe McKay and Simon Molinar. The author of the first novel even gives an introduction at the start of the sequel books to say 'This is not canon to my story. It's fan fiction but it's good fan fiction.' I know she hasn't forgotten her fan fiction writer roots and his trying not to leave her old fan fiction writer friends behind but I'm not into reading sequels by different authors that look like they belong in the adult sections of fan fiction net. And it kind of spoils it when the books themselves begin with the author saying 'These are not canon.' Well, are we ever going to get the canon continuation?
Other than these flaws I really do like Demon Under Glass though I could never be so kind about it's sequels.