Certain Dark Things

I was given an advanced copy of this novel for free, and I'm leaving this review voluntarily. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Are you looking for a soft, sweet vampire love story? Well, look elsewhere. Certain Dark Things is a gritty and gruesome reimagining of vampire lore. Atl, the heir to the Iztac vampire cartel, is on the run in Mexico City. She's starving, aimless, and hiding from her past. When she meets Domingo, a teen living in the streets, she takes advantage of such easy prey. On the other side of the city, beat-cop Ana Aguirre finds a grisly murder scene that points to a vampire infestation. With both the police and a vicious, unhinged rival on her tail, Atl drags Domingo into the underbelly of vampire hierarchies and show more drug cartels.

In Silvia Moreno-Garcia's (Mexican Gothic and Velvet Was the Night) modern twist on vampirism, there are vampire subspecies, each with its own strengths, methods for feeding, and hierarchies. Between the factions, they even have codes of conduct and alliances. She takes the legends we've all known for years and turns them on their heads, creating more compelling and intricate characters. While the novel itself is in the third person, we still get to have a peek into each character's inner monologue. Each person has a unique voice, so to speak, so you can tell whose thoughts are being depicted. It fuels the tension because you get to see the collision course they're all on from each perspective.

Another great detail of Certain Dark Things is the allegories of the realities of poverty and colonization. Domingo is the perfect victim because he has almost no choice but to go along, even knowing the inevitable danger. And while Atl's ancestors had lived in Mexico since the time of the Aztecs, when the new factions were born in Europe and migrated, they took by force what the Iztac family had built for generations.

Because it is inner monologue-driven, sometimes the amount of introspection slows down the pacing of the story. Combined with the monotony of the sentence structure, it makes for moments when the writing doesn't flow in a way that feels natural.

With all this said, I rate Certain Dark Things four out of five stars. The storyline was unique, with high tension and beautiful imagery. Silvia's use of monsters to paint a picture of the cruelties in our world makes for an entertaining read that'll stay with you long after you finish.

There are casual discussions of sex throughout, nothing too graphic. But the violence entailed is gruesome, so I would only recommend this for readers who aren't afraid of a little blood. (haha, get it? Vampires? Blood? Okay.) If you like your fantasy macabre and your protagonist morally gray, Certain Dark Things is a must-read. show less

A whip smart, fast paced, urban fantasy that takes vampire lore to an entirely new level, CERTAIN DARK THINGS by Sylvia Moreno-Garcia is the debut offering from @torbooks new horror imprint, Nightfire, and it is a perfect book to launch with. Reading almost as much as an alternate history as it does urban fantasy/horror, vampires are discovered in the 1960s to actually exist. As the world struggles with this new knowledge, vampires and humans attempt to coexist, but of course this doesn’t work out. CDT takes place in a near-future Mexico City, one of the few vampire-free zones in the world. Told from multiple points of view, CDT follows young, naïve Atl, a vampire of Aztec decent, who is on the run after her family is murdered by a show more rival vampire cartel. She befriends street kid Domingo, who can help her navigate the unfamiliar streets of Mexico City as she tries to negotiate them passage out of North America before either the Mexico City police, the human mafia, or the rival vampire family finds her and kills her.

The way Moreno-Garcia creates such complex lore around each of the different types of vampires is fantastic. You won’t find sparkling vampires here, nor vampires that can change into mist. Instead, these are vampires grounded in the real world, with various subspecies and a history and lore to go with each. While being dark and gritty and bloody, it’s still refreshing to see a writer be able to do something original like this with vampires. Moreno-Garcia’s writing is slick and stylish; I’m sorry I haven’t read any of her other books yet. I’ll need to remedy that sooner than later. show less

I couldn't resist picking this book up at the con bookstore at ConFusion. I don't read a lot of vampire books, or really noir of any sort, but I have faith in Silvia Moreno-Garcia, and was interested in the Mexico City setting and Aztec influences.

I loved this even more than I expected. I tend to get very justice-fixated on any creatures/characters who have to harm others to survive, but I was invested in Atl right away. I loved the richness of the world-building -- the different sorts of vampires and their factions and grudges. With a whole encyclopedia of their origins in the back!

I really need to read more by Silvia Moreno-Garcia already. The balance of action/reflection, the texture of the world, the pacing are all so good.

I enjoyed this book, which surprised me because usually I find vampires tedious. The author introduces her own creative vampire mythology, including my new favorite subspecies the Revenants who do not even bother with messy blood--they utilize a clean, efficient, and terrifying method of directly sucking the life force out of their victims. I also liked how the story of vampires in (an alternate reality) Mexico City echoes Spanish colonialism as well as recent narco drug dealing gangs. Recommended for all readers, even reluctant vampire readers like myself.

Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia is an awesome work of horror, that takes familiar tropes and reimagines them. The concept is Certain Dark Things envisions a fascinating near future Mexico City with different types of vampire drug lords vying for territory. The story takes off when Domingo, a lonely garbage-collecting street kid, comes into the orbit of Atl, the descendant of Aztex blood drinkers, who is a smart, beautiful, dangerous vampire. Atl needs to escape the rival narco-vampire clan, and Domingo needs to get off the streets. They both decide they'll head for South America. So, the two team up, with Domingo becoming Atl's renfield (vampire companion) and even lovers, in attempt to escape the vampires, humans, cops, and show more criminals that are after Atl. What occurs next throughout the novel is a pulse-pounding chase through a neon-drenched, Blade Runner-esque Mexican City, that will keep you turning the pages.

Certain Dark Things is a wonderful, bloody, gritty vampire noir that reimagines vampire lore. I happy the Tor Nightfire decided to reprint this book. It's original, complex, and entertaining. You'll quickly become fascinated by the vampire lore that not only draws on European culture but Mexican culture as well. The characters are complex (for instance, Atl isn't particularly a good person - I mean she is a vampire after all - and Domingo still chooses to be her renfield), the setting is unique, and the dialogue in this novel packs a wallop (you can clearly see the influence of film noir in the dialogue).

I really liked Mexican Gothic, thought The Daughter of Doctor Moreau wasn't bad (was actually pretty good!), but this novel is just one of the best books I've read in a long time. show less

I'm not much of a vampire fan. At best, I dabble a bit in some White Wolf stuff. At worse, I like to endlessly moan about how cliche vampires are. Luckily, this book is making me a bit more interested in that genre. Maybe I should get into some Anne Rice? Maybe finally crack open Dracula too get to the roots? Either way, enough of my rambling, here the the three things I liked and disliked about Certain Dark Things.

+ The beautifully tragic relationship between Alt and Domingo. One criticism I lob at a lot of vampire fiction is that the relationships feel kinda predatory. You know, power imbalances and such. That is certainly a bit here with this relationship, but Atl does a nice job of not acting in a way that feels like she is preying show more on Domingo. Hell, at the beginning she tells him to go away forever in a nice way. But as the story progresses, Domingo and Atl have a relationship that is relatively healthy and sane for a vampire and a human. I also like how believable their relationship set-up is. No sense of fate, true love, or those other boring cliches. They are two lonely people with broken pasts and unpleasant presents who met up. (Sorry for the wall of text, I'm just really gushing hard.)

+ The world/setting is fantastic! Honestly, I'd hate for this to be the only book written with this setting. The mostly biological approach to not just one, but multiple vampiric races makes the world buzz with undeath. It really makes you wonder what else is going on outside of Mexico City. Bonus points for the obscure bits of vampire lore thrown in like the counting obsession. That little detail made me know I was enjoying a well-crafted world.

+ The local setpieces. The staggering detail put into the locations around Mexico City make me jealous as a writer myself. They beam with character and purpose while never failing to be gritty, vivid, dangerous, or all of the above.

- The main antagonist, Nick. I'm not the type to criticize a villain for not being "realistically flawed" or "sympathetic" enough. All I really want in a villain is interesting enough, and Nick is not that interesting. He's real terrifying and proactive in an almost mindless pursuit of Atl, but flatout, this isn't enough. All Nick does is come off as a sociopathic manchild who sucks blood. I think an exploration of his past would've made him a better character - Maybe.

- Ana's character. Another weak character to me. She's got gusto. She has some relatable goals (get the hell out of Mexico City). She even has killed a few vampires while her male colleagues remain sexist, subpar bastards. All these are nice features, but I don't feel like she has much depth and only reacts to the world around her. On the brightside, I did enjoy her interactions with a certain character (Avoiding spoilers here.)

- Lack of exploration/fleshing out the human criminal underworld. Certain Dark Things is a fantastical, hard-boiled noir story. Yet oddly enough, the cultures and attitudes of the main gang in Mexico City are underwhelming. Some of the deepest information I get about them is that one gang wears red and hate vampires. A lot. Then again, I might be missing out on some deeper meaning around here?

In conclusion: Certain Dark Things is a great mash-up of urban fantasy, horror, and a damn good heaping of romance. The fight scenes are uber vicious, too. show less

This is an interesting one.
It is a vampire story, but it feels original and unique among the thousands of generic urban fantasy stories.
In some regards, the vampires are very different than the common clichées, but that is not what makes this feel so different.

This book expertly handles POV in a very satisfying way. I never felt overwhelmed by how many characters I was supposed to learn about and empathize with. The POV is used to switch to the most interesting events and not away from them. I wasn't annoyed by a change of viewpoint even a single time which is usually my biggest gripe with multiple POVs.

The world feels much larger than the stage on which the story happens. The book manages to give the impression of a complex living show more world in which things keep happening without the characters being present.
And the world feels gritty. It manages to convey a visceral atmosphere where bad things can and will happen.
Many of the characters feel multi-layered with internal conflicts that don't fit neatly on a good and evil scale.

So why only 3 stars then?

Let's get to the biggest weakness of this book. Physical interactions between characters.
A lot of them just don't make sense. Especially in the latter half of the book, it becomes increasingly obvious how strange and disjointed many interactions are.
Let me give you an example from the end of the book. One character holds onto the arm of another tightly and claims that to make him release his grip the other person will have to break his arm.
She pushes him, and he falls and sprawls on the floor while she is unaffected. Like, why the whole shebang about him not letting go? Didn't he have a tight grip on her? This one example might seem rather petty but these kinds of contradictions happen all the time when characters interact. It seems the author is not able to actually visualize the scenes she is writing and play through them in her head. This is especially noticeable in fighting scenes. Most of them are honestly terrible at least from a choreographic standpoint. Interactions between characters that are currently trying to kill each other are strangely choppy and really make no sense whatsoever. This goes along with the classic character being completely exhausted and severely injured, about to die, and then pulling yet another burst of energy out of their ass to execute some incredibly far-fetched move befitting a martial arts movie. But worse than that, after these sequences, the character, that was about to die from blood loss for example is suddenly fine again, ready for another round. This is especially strange because the rest of the writing stays very high quality which I found incredibly jarring. I almost wish the fights were just all-around terrible so I could just skim over them and enjoy the rest of the story.
But as I previously wrote, this inability of writing sensible physical interactions between characters is present everywhere in the story, not only the fights.

My second big gripe with this book is how it starts out with this dark nuanced take on vampires that have done terrible things as that is in their nature and whatnot. It almost reminded me a bit of the feeling I got reading "Interview with the Vampire", how the book told a terrible story about all-around horrible characters that nonetheless manage to capture you emotionally in some strange way.
It also makes the story feel darker and grittier and gives the characters apparent depth.
But there are two problems with this. First, these characters are not centuries-old creatures that have lived through many lifetimes. They are in their early twenties.
The second problem is the emotional landscape of the protagonists, the vampire in particular.
The characters paradoxically degenerate from cynical, world-weary survivors that have seen too much of the world's cruelties far too early in life into innocent, idealistic, gullible, wide-eyed adolescents, and in the process, they also become dumber instead of smarter.

The book started out as a gritty story about survival and politics and war among vampires which then devolves into this cheesy teenage romance of a beggar boy and a vampire princess or something like that.
What is even stranger is that the book doesn't really lose its dark and gritty environment. People are just killed without much fanfare sometimes. Deaths without long death scenes feel infinitely more impactful than these drawn-out affairs of exchanging last words and expressions of grief and desperation, to me at least.
And the author demonstrates that she hasn't forgotten this either.

I guess you could say this is a book of contradictions. Full of genius writing mixed with utter terribleness. show less