Pangs Vampire Horror, LGBTQ Horror
Queer Space
Sept 23, 2021
Kindle
278
Amazon
"Cinematic and seductive from start to finish! A wholly unique addition to vampire mythology--one dripping with darkness and gay majick."-Tom Cardamone, author of the Lambda-award winning speculative novella Green Thumb and Night Sweats: Tales of Homosexual Wonder and Woe
Unlike their blood brethren, Warner and Seth are vampires who subsist on talent. They have been enemies for centuries, competing to feed on artists with the most prodigious musical gifts, and country blues singer Wade Dixon is no exception. But the pursuit and capture of Dixon unleashes unexpected forces that carry these combatants from the earthly realm to a dangerous land of eternal night where they must work together or die alone.
"There's magic in the pages of Jerry L. Wheeler's Pangs, and it's not just the paranormal goings on that taunt, tease, and push his characters deeper into adventure. The prose enchants, exposing the reader to bleak wonders and radiant dread, while sparks of humor crackle through the narrative. With a charming and fresh voice, Pangs lures the reader from the intoxicating streets of New Orleans across a shimmering threshold into another, fantastical realm. The story offers the erotic and the horrific, the vicious and the sublime. It is entertaining in every way." - Lee Thomas, Lambda Literary Award and Bram Stoker Award winning author
Review by Ulysses Dietz
Member of The Paranormal Guild Review Team
Although it starts in New Orleans, a classic setting for vampires over the years, Jerry Wheeler’s “Pangs” takes vampire lore in a fascinating new direction. His three-part novel focuses on two particular vampires, who are not blood drinkers, but feed on the essence of their victims. In the case of Warner and his arch nemesis of many centuries, Seth, they compete over musical talent—feeding on the raw talent of musicians. It’s a strange premise, but it largely works, especially with New Orleans as its backdrop.
The real core of this book is the difference between Warner and Seth. Warner is compassionate, and never drains all the talent from his sources. Seth, on the other hand, is cold-hearted, and unconcerned with what happens to his scores after he gets what he wants from them. This creates a fascinating dialogue in the first section, “A Thirst for Talent.”
These “essence drinkers” can kill—simply by draining the life essence out of someone. This potential deadliness comes to the fore in the second installment, “Pangs,” in which Warner finds himself dragged unwillingly into Seth’s ancient backstory and forced to confront the creature who made him. The shift in this part of the trilogy is into a bigger, stranger, more metaphysical world. Warner is forced to explore the other powers that vampires have—magic, which is something not usually linked to vampire lore beyond a few basic vampire tricks. The easy-going Warner has to fight for his life against beings he never imagined before.
The third and final part of the book is “Lord of the Land,” and takes the reader well beyond the realm of familiar vampire lore, into a place that is more of a metaphysical fantasy. Warner has to find his way back to the world he knows, in a “Lord of the Rings” kind of quest. He has to find out how far his own compassionate nature will take him. At first this finale felt abrupt and incomplete to me; because it didn’t give me what I wanted and expected. However, after considering it for a while, I realized that the author intentionallyconfounds the reader’s expectations in order to make a larger statement about compassion and forgiveness.