September 2018 Book Club: The Madness Season

The Madness Season by C.S. Friedman

My rating: 2.5 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Sci-fi, fantasy
Content: Strong Language
 

This was our book club read for September, and this book is not something I would have picked up on my own, although the idea behind it sounded a bit intriguing. The main character, Daetrin has a secret that he is keeping from the alien race that conquered earth 300 years ago. He's a vampire type creature who has been alive for centuries. One day the aliens come and take him and he realizes he's been found out. This sets into motion a whole lot of events. I won't go into what they all are in my review, but I will say that at times I found this book interesting and likable, and at other times it was a dry and boring read. There were points where I skimmed text that did not further the plot.

I like the addition of the other alien races, especially the Mara. They were interesting to me and I kept reading, wanting to know more about them. I also wanted to know more about Daetrin and whether he was really a vampire or if his origins were from another alien race. To be honest I don't know if this was ever really answered in a clear concise way, but maybe I missed something. I did find myself zoning out a few times as I read and listened to this. I did like the resolution to the problem of the other aliens who had conquered earth, but was also a bit horrified by something that happened after that.

The most annoying thing about the book was the way the story jumped from one perspective to another, or back in time with no warning. There were characters I wanted to like and almost did, but unfortunately I never really felt much of a connection to any of them like I wanted to. I liked the very end, it even employed some humor, which was a surprise since this book was not really a humorous book. Overall this was just an ok read for me. I feel like there was a little too much going on in the story with the dystopian type world conquered by aliens, the vampire-like creatures, and plotting by other aliens.