When I started reading Death Sucks, I absolutely loved it.  5 stars, and all that.  But as I read along, it slowly dropped stars in my estimation.

So here’s what I loved, and what I didn’t —

I love Patch.  He’s the star of the show and the clear strength of the story.  Anyone who likes cats, and likes vampire stories, will get a kick out of the melding of the two.

It’s a humorous story, and I found much to get a laugh, or at least a smirk, out of.

The writing is good, the story has plenty of adventures and narrow escapes and colorful characters.

What I didn’t care for was the satirical aspects.  After some initial adventures (the stuff I "loved") the plot begins to focus on politics.  Meg, Patch’s sire, decides to run for office and improve the unlives of vampires by convincing the living that everyone should just get along.

I found this whole concept rather boring.  I’ve come to realize that I don’t enjoy vanilla vampires.  Vanilla Vampires are what you get when you take away all that is cool about The Vampire.  When you make them all nice and normal and un-scary.  Rhamey’s vamps are just people, affected with a disease.  They’re not "killers" except when they’re unfortunate enough to be struck with bloodlust and are unable to find an alternative to chomping down on the nearest living thing.  Some rouge vamps try to live the whole "wild vamp" life, but aren’t really damned or vicious at heart, and get converted to happy-safe-nice living in the end.

Anyone who fears or loathes a vampire is considered bigoted and wrong.  In fact, very overt parallels are drawn between vampires, ethnic minorities, and homosexuals.

Which I found bizarre.  Because really, that just ignores the whole "dead, feeds on the living" aspect of being a vampire.

Then there’s the whole Reverend Bobson thing.  A more or less obvious satire on Pat Robertson, way too much story is devoted to lampooning Christianity via making Bobson as ridiculous as possible.  In fact it almost overrides the story and turns the whole thing into an anti-Christianity rant.  There were lots of corrupt stereotypes—reporters, lawyers, politicians, rich people, and I would have enjoyed a less propaganda-esque approach to the story.

But that’s not as bad as the "Trial."  I almost stopped reading during those chapters.  At one point, Patch kills a small, yappy dog.  He’s actually arrested and put on trial.  He’s tried for murder in a court of law.  Yeah, a cat is tried for killing a dog.  In a court of law.  My suspension of disbelief had pretty much snapped by the time the verdict came around—not guilty by means of self defense because the dog’s bark was annoying.

 . . .   . . . 

Griping aside, I read the entire story to the end.  Mostly because I liked Patch, a lot, and I liked the story being told from the perspective of a cat.  It’s an easy read, prose-wise, since the writing style is quite good.  And while the story dragged in parts because of the dogmatic aspects, there was always enough action and kitty derring do to keep me from giving up on it.

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Apparently I’m coming to the game late.  The author has retired the story and completely removed it from the site save for the very first chapter (despite the title being ‘The End’).

I’m disappointed because it looks like such a good, interesting and unique start to a story.  A vampire cat [more . . .]