My Book Review: Hunter of the Dead by Stephen Kozeniewski

I read this in E-book form and just bought it in hard print, could not pass it up having this on my bookshelf. Below is my review of it:

My Review and Thoughts:

Well if you know me I am a huge fan of vampires. No not the glitter ones. I have been a fan of Stephen’s writing for a couple years now, and he always seems to push the boundaries’ and move beyond the basic mundane reality when it comes to the subjects he is using. If it’s zombies, he adds an originality to them, because trust me when say zombies are dead, literary, to many zombie stories that have no originality, but Stephen is one of those unique writers that creates a new fresh take. And now he has created the concept of Vampires in a new fresh, great read style. This is a book that is totally epic in the grand scale of it. This book could have easily been 1,000 pages or a multi-book form. There is so much story there.

I went into this a fan of Stephen’s and with high hopes, because he changed my attitude toward zombie books with his awesome Braineater Jones (Which you can read my Review for HERE), and I was hoping he changed my idea toward Vampires which sadly has become like the Zombies, overdone and repetitive. Thankfully that is not the case with Hunter of the Dead. He recreated the vampire reality for me just like he did with the zombies. I loved this book. Thought it was truly epic. Thought it had a great premise. Awesome characters. Great bloody violence.

The story is that there are many vampire houses. A total of 13. Someone is seeking out the vampires and killing them. The head Vampires believe it’s just mundane vampire killers. But Cicatrice the most powerful and ancient vampire in the world believes it is something far greater. Possibly a legend known as the Hunter of the Dead, or simply Hunter. Which is the truth. You then are introduced to Carter Price who happens to be a vampire hunter. He believes that the Hunter of the Dead is back and that the Hunter is killing both vampire and mortals. Price against all he stands for joins with the head vampire Cicatrice to hunt down and figure out the whole truth of what is happening. There is political unrest and war lingering, bringing this whole concept into one huge spiraling battle of Living, and the Dead.

This is a sharp tooth wonderment of splendid story telling.

A true deep twisted tale of bloodshed and legendary myths.

A fantasy of Houses of the Dead and legends of immortality.

Stephen gives the perfect example of character driven plot, and yet mixing a grand scale of history, myth and a present. Stephen can maintain the reader from the start to the end. I felt this was truly one of the greatest examples of mixing the world of fantasy with horror. It has all the epic reality of George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones saga, and the beauty and haunting violent mastery of Brain Lumley’s Necroscope saga.

On a quick side note and book ramble. I must say this is one of the coolest books covers ever. This is a perfect example of how to show pride toward your book. I have often stated that a book cover is 100 percent important. There are so many self-published or E-book authors that don’t take pride in their book and give it a crappy book cover and trust me there are some horrible ones out there. I recently did an article titled 3 Pointers from a book worm to Writers of New and Old which you can read HERE. That is something I noticed about Stephen’s books, is that all his books have amazing covers. He takes great pride toward his books, and that is a huge plus.

Stephen’s writing, particularly Hunter of the Dead is like a heroic poem. The way the story flows and comes together, is a complete journey that the reader is totally satisfied with.

Would I Return to it Again: Absolutely? I hope Stephen creates a whole world around these characters and creates a series of an epic reality that this is. I feel this is truly a flawless book of fantasy horror at its best.

Would I Recommend: Most-definitely. Any lovers of vampires, epic fantasy. This is a perfect reality dealing with all the mentality of story, characters, thick plots, underlying storyline that could be explored, mystery and suspense, massive bloodshed. It has everything a reader could want.

Year Published: 2016

Four Words: Epic, Surreal, Vast, Ingenious

My Rating: 4 out of 5