Emily D 2008-08-24
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A long-time master of mystery, murder and mayhem, Christopher Pike has been publishing what most people think of as "teen thrillers" since 1985. However, to label Pike's haunting, ingenious stories as "teen thrillers" is to miss what makes his work so unusual, for his stories occupy a strange liminal space between adolescence and adulthood. It is, perhaps, more accurate to say, as Pike himself admits, that he tends to write about teens, not to teens. Either way, he was decades ahead of his time, anticipating the subject matter and themes of today's best-selling young adult writers, albeit with one crucial difference: He is not afraid of copious amounts of blood and gore, and he is not afraid to kill off his creations. Indeed, in Pike's twisted world the only thing rarer than a happy ending in is a middle-age narrator.
Luckily for me, Pike began publishing his famous vampire series about the time I graduated from high school in the mid nineties. During that gloomy, pre-Amazon technological Dark Age, I was already an avid Pike fan, weekly checking the local drugstore for my next literary fix. What made me spend my hard-earned waitressing tips on his slim volumes? Pike was unlike any other writer I'd encountered, perhaps because his stories of teens facing down vampires, demons, serial killers, bloodthirsty aliens, and horrific, supernatural creatures touched a deep psychological nerve. I have forgotten many books over the years, but I have never forgotten Pike's exhilarating, fiercely unsettling stories.
This is especially true of his "Last Vampire" series (there are six books in all), which tell the tale of Sita (aka Alisa Perne) who is the last vampire on earth, or so she believes when we first meet her. An extraordinary being with the experience and wisdom of five thousand years, Sita is neither entirely evil nor entirely good, and as such she sometimes recalls the haunted, melancholy Louis (from Rice's 1976 Interview with the Vampire). She also prefigures such creations as Angel (from Buffy The Vampire Slayer), although she has no problem killing innocents when she is threatened, and Buffy, in that she is appears to be a petite, young, gorgeous blond, but is actually a killing machine of enormous strength.
Pike is a terrific storyteller and his "Last Vampire" series is a page-turner full of bloody chases, gruesome killings, big explosions and elaborate fight sequences. People die. A lot of people. I especially like how unpredictable Pike's plot twists are; Sita's tale starts off at a dead run and doesn't let up until the last sentence. Good luck trying to figure out where it's going; I certainly couldn't when I was re-reading it last week.
However, I also like how he often weaves myth, science, and religion into his stories, and "The Last Vampire" is no exception. One of the best parts about this series are Sita's flashbacks as she remembers key moments from her amazingly long life, especially the day she met God, or, as he was known at that time, Krishna. The Hindu beliefs, legends, stories and myths anchor Sita's tale and make a nice contrast with her experiences in the modern world. In addition, they allow Pike to speculate on spiritual matters, such as the nature of good and evil.
As an adult reader, though, I must admit that some aspects of his writing leave much to be desired. It's true that he does do a good job quickly developing protagonists you care about. Sita is a well-rounded, complex character capable of generosity, compassion, and love, but also cruelty, torture and murder. She is, in the words of Pike, "A lover who hates, a saint who sins and an angel who kills." However, sometimes minor characters are incredibly stereotypical and he tends to rely on types: "the school nerd," "the FBI agent," "the donut-eating cop," "the snuff-film, frozen-corpse-loving homicidal maniac," etc.
After a while such stereotypes just get old.
Also, Pike's prose is, well, unsophisticated at best, and, at times, downright bad. (This is the reason I reluctantly gave him four stars instead of five). For example, his series is full of vile descriptions, such as the following sketch of a serial killer from the second vampire book: "But it is his eyes that are the scariest. The green centers look like cheap emeralds that have been dipped in sulfuric acid and left out to dry in a radioactive dust storm."
Um, what?
But there are worse sins a writer can commit then an over-reliance on clichés, mixed metaphors and over-the-top descriptions. In the end, Pike's imagination makes up for his prose, and most of the time I can ignore his flawed writing because I am so caught up in his exciting tales. Certainly, "The Last Vampire" is a wildly original, breathtakingly suspenseful ride that will appeal to sci-fi, fantasy, horror and thriller fans alike.
Last week I was going through an old box of books and I found my carefully preserved Pike stash. Sitting there in the dusty attic I began to re-read Sita's tale and, although it was early in the morning, I found myself reading into the wee hours of the night. I just couldn't put her story down until I had read the last page. If that's not a testament to Pike's power, then I don't know what is.
