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Series: Vampire Dark Ages Clan Novel Series
Title: Assamite (Book 2)
Author(s): Stefan Petrucha
ISBN: 1-58846-818-6
Format: Paperback
Page Count: 276
Overall Concept 8
Execution 7

This book is a fictional component of a game system that I’ve tried my best to explain below, as some of this is necessary to understand the premise of the book. Please bear with the fact that the below explanation is a repeat from my review of the 1st book of the series (Nosferatu).

Simply put, the game, Vampire: The Masquerade, depicts that vampires are the children of Caine, using its own reworking of the Biblical story of Cain, and that vampirism is the curse that was laid upon him by God. All modern vampires are the direct ‘blood to blood’ descendants of the 13 members of the third ‘generation’ of vampires. From each of these vampires come the thirteen original clans of Vampire: Assamites, Brujah, Cappadocian, Followers of Set, Gangrel, Lasombra, Malkavian, Nosferatu, Ravnos, Salubri, Toreador, Tzimisce & Ventrue. Each clan has specific powers and weaknesses and typically culls humans with similar traits. As an example Nosferatu have great powers of obfuscation, are very adept at gathering information, are culled from the outcasts of society, and are cursed with being hideously ugly making them unable to intermingle with humans easily, whereas Ventrue are charismatic, able to influence the minds of others, are culled from royalty or aristocrats and can only drink blood from specific types of humans or under specific circumstances, which can often lead them to inappropriate times of weakness.After the initial success of the modern era Vampire: The Masquerade, the publisher tried taking the game into a new direction with Vampire: The Dark Ages. This takes the same 13 Clans and places them in Europe during the Dark Ages. This enabled the players to take on the roles of vampires in an era where they didn’t have to hide their existence from humans, and actually had the ability to sway the people more openly and effectively. Also it allowed for players of more fantasy based games to readily adapt to the tropes of this new game system.

And now on to the review proper……

This is the second book in the thirteen book series that begins with the sacking of Constantinople in the spring of 1204. Each book of the series uses a member of each of the thirteen clans, hence the thirteen books, as its protagonist. The first book dealt with a Nosferatu living in Constantinople and this, the second novel, deals with an Assamite (vampires who are adept as stealth and assassination) from Egypt, who happens to be a devout Muslim, who has been tasked with preventing the remaining crusaders from continuing into the Muslim territories.
The story revolves around Amala, the Assamite of the title, and her interactions with a Ventrue (charismatic vampire), Sir Hugh of Clairvaux, who is a devout follower of Christ and a member of the Knights Templar. Sir Hugh is having visions of the Blessed Queen (Virgin Mary) that is counseling him to take his retinue, and what ever other followers he can enlist, and continue this Crusade by taking Egypt. With Egypt taken, then it should follow that the Holy Land will fall easily as it will be cut off from a major supplier and shipping route. This is the reason why Amala has been sent by her elders, all follwers of the Muslim faith, to determine and act on the best method of preventing this incursion into their territory.

As with the first novel, this book is rather surprising in its religious overtones and content. And to further ‘spice the pot’ the author has thrown in the Muslim faith. I am impressed that the author, who I know not if he is Muslim himself, did an admirable job of representing the Muslim faith in a sincere, realistic and non-offensive manner. Atypical of the current North American world view of Muslims as radical terrorist extremists, the author has presented them as no or less violent or hostile than the Crusaders in the novel. If the author has presented the Muslim faith accurately, this book has been very enlightening into explaining various aspects of that faith.

One of the key concepts of this book seems to be that of religious truth and opposing dogmas. For there is a key scene in the book where a puppet master of the events is revealing the ‘truth’ by espousing quotes from various religious texts (Qu’ran, Siddhartha Gautama, Talmud, Bhagavad Gita) with the intent of showing that all are worthless when contrasted against each other. This concept if furthered in the book with various moments of the main and lesser characters having ‘crises of faith’.

Another literary technique applied in this book is that of the framing sequence. The book starts in the present day with an Assamite vampire trying to convince a human woman to perform some task that will prove both her worthy and desiring to be embraced (made a vampire herself). This happens as a conversation in the back of a University classroom in Turkey, where the professor is leading a detailed lecture on the Fourth Crusade. This sequence makes a few appearances throughout the book and again as its end. This is a neat idea as I think it being used to show that even though 800 years of time has passed, the questions, concerns, beliefs and actions of the people then are really the same as they are today. Which is one of the key fallacies of man, that because we have more knowledge and technology, that we are somehow more civilized and superior to our historical predecessors?

All in all a worthwhile read that can easily be recommended to either a reader of horror who is interested in history or to a player of Vampire who is interested in a fictional tale along the lines of the game. However, I must again caution that because the protagonists are vampires, it in no way de-vilifies them and as such this isn’t a book for those looking for heroes without morale ambiguity.