Lord of Misrule

Spoilers for all previous books. Also, continuing my discussion of the historical aspects of 'Feast of Fools' the term, Lord of Misrule, is also associated with the celebration, but after some priests got a bit too jolly in Paris back in the 12th century heavy restrictions were placed upon the title (ordinarily the leader of the church) to keep the person in check.

I'm reluctant to put to paper (so to speak) my thoughts of Lord of Misrule because I'm honestly torn up. I don't think I can put words that don't involve 'freaked out' and 'oh gods no' and 'OH NO NOT THAT'. Bishop is...horrifying. Not just the vampire himself, but his whole ideology is so twisted and warped and inhuman I felt chills. And you know how some evil vampires have show more moments of weakness? Not Bishop. Oh no. He's kind of like a Vampire version of those Chuck Norris facts--you know the ones. 'Chuck Norris is the only man alive to slam a revolving door' those facts (which can be hilarious).

And it just gets worse as the book goes on.

Somehow this book makes the other four combined seem like Claire and Co. were merely having tea parties. Between friends who aren't so friendly, enemies who have no choice, neutrals who should know better and one person in particular Monica its Monica getting a nice comeuppance (let's face it with Bishop moving to take charge who needs her dad? No one was being nice to Monica because she was sweet after all) the entire power structure is torn down.

I felt kind of bad for most of the inhabitants--for the ones born there the way of life that they had become resigned to and understood at least was gone. For the out-of-towners (those poor college saps) the world just got a whole lot more terrifying.

And the teaser for the next book, Carpe Corpus? Only made me want to cry more.

(just to note, none of what I said is meant to be a negative criticism--I thoroughly enjoyed the book. It just also broke my heart a thousand different times.) show less

Another suspenseful installment of the Morganville series. This book is obviously building to the climax of the current conflict, which was why I felt it had a lot of buildup without quite as much action. But character interaction and suspense made up for that pretty well.

The arrival and rise to power of the vicious vampire Bishop has forced all of Morganville to take sides. But this time the lines aren't drawn between human and vampire; the two groups mingle warily in order to either protect the town or conquer it. Claire's connection to the defending leader, Amelie, means she and her friends are key players in the deadly game being conducted. And of course, unpredictable variables keep throwing off any plans that can be laid; Shane's show more cruel father, the rebelling humans of the town, and the half-mad half-brilliant Myrnin, who is still one of the greatest characters of the series in my opinion.

And of course, Claire lands herself in yet more terrible predicaments that will require trust, sacrifice, and desperate measures to deal with. The characters are still consistant, the story still fresh, and the cliffhanger still maddening. I hope to get the next book soon to watch the steadily building conflict finally play out. show less

I have to say that I was a bit frustrated with this book because it isn’t really a novel at all on its own. I don’t really like it when authors don’t give any kind of closure to their novels. Lord of Misrule picked up exactly where Feast of Fools left off and leaves off in the middle of the story for Carpe Corpus to pick up. If Rachel Caine felt the need to make this segment of the story longer she should have combined Feast of Fools, Lord of Misrule and Carpe Corpus into one novel, because on their own none of them are really full books, they’re merely parts. But anyway, now that I’m done complaining, I did think that the story was very good. Morganville is becoming more dangerous by the minute and the action is building as show more never before into the other novels. I do like the fact that Caine isn’t making her books short little episodes anymore but is really getting into the story. She may not be the greatest writer but she has a strong voice and an interesting story to tell. My frustrations are mostly the result of one of my own pet peeves rather than any fault with the novel so I would still recommend it to Morganville fans. show less

This series is absolutely incredible! I wish I had not waited so long to read it. I have had the first four books sitting on my bookshelf for what seems like forever and then when I received this copy for review it finally gave me the incentive I needed to start them. I have not written reviews for the other novels as of yet, but I hope to do it sometime. Although these novels could easily be categorized as vampire novels, there is just so much more going on, it’s easy to see why these books stand out among the other books in the same genre. And Rachel Caine is one hell of a story teller, I mean wow. I really never know what she is going to do next. I do have to admit out of the five novels so far, the fourth book Feast of Fools was show more my favorite, but Lord of Misrule definitely had its perks. The story line is gripping and the characters are impressive. While I thought the writing itself was only mediocre. The story itself far outweighs my particulars with the writing. The cliffhanger endings really kill me, and this one has got the be the worst of them all. I need some kind of closure! I’ll be eagerly awaiting the release of Carpe Corpus in June. show less

This book centered around a singular event, and the outcome of that event has the potential to change everything that the town of Morganville is about and how it is run. I found the plot of this book to be very unpredictable - which is a good thing - except for the fact that every book always centers around Claire and the choices she makes. The one-liners are as fantastic as always, and I love the introduction of a few new characters, such as Theo and his family, and the ex-Marine Hannah. I also found the introduction of a natural disaster as a major plot point to be refreshing - even though terrifying for the characters - since few books I read seem to work uncontrollable bad weather into the plot. For less than 300 pages, this book show more packs alot of sub-plots in, with the retribution against Monica, who I'm not convinced has learned from her mistakes yet, managing Mynin's bipolar behavior, and keeping track of what is happening with each of the four main characters/ Glass House residents. All of the possibilities in a town gone anarchic are explored to some degree, although I found that the lines that were used to control the college students to be less-than-believable. I am curious to see what happens to the human factions that were trying to exploit the mini-war by rebeling against the Powers That Be in the next book, Carpe Corpus (Morganville Vampires, Book 6), as well as how Mynin's disease plays out as it affects others en masse. The fact that Claire basically hardly ever goes to class and still manages to makes A's still bugs me, but I'm getting used to it. She has more exciting things to attend to! show less

All out war is now tearing through Morganville. Bishop and Amelie have gathered their forces and their factions and are feinting against each other in an underground conflict that could literally tear the town apart.

Parts of the town are burning, others in ruin. Refugees are flooding to the few safe spaces and among them many humans are finally seeing a chance to throw off vampire control and are lashing out and rioting in rage. But not all of their anger is directed against the vampires – humans who are seen as collaborators are also being targeted and all pretence of rule of law is threatened. In such chaos of course Shane's dad has to come back to town.

Even without the riots, humans have to wonder what the future holds – which show more vampire master or none at all?

And if that wasn't enough – the stress is accelerating the vampires' disease. The more they remain under pressure, the faster the disease spreads and the more confused, frightened and uncontrolled the vampires will become. A cure becomes more essential as the battle heats up.

And there's a storm coming, extreme weather rolling in to add more chaos and destruction to the already torn town



I actually had hope when this book started. The war was on and Claire was being taken into combat missions by Amelie (ok, not entirely sure why, but she was involved!) Then she was running around in the daylight checking in, keeping lines of communication open, securing supplies... She was involved in the story! She was part of the main plot! We were actually going to get a book of stuff actually happening!

Then she decided to go home and fret. Or go to university and fret. Or go to the coffee shop and fret. Or think about the medicine and fret.

And it was doing so well! But no, we quickly end up in the common pattern for Morganville Vampires – Claire sat around fretting and not doing anything relevant to the plot while stuff goes on around her. It's immensely frustrating. It's like reading a war story – from the point of view of people in the next country reading the news. Occasionally it will spill over into their back garden, but they'r ejust not involved in most of the plot at all. And it's annoying because there is something happening. There's an outright war tearing apart Morganville, two massive, powerful factions, humans rising up against vampires and vampire collaborators – aaand Claire is not really involved in any of it.

It makes it worse because when Claire does get involved it looks convoluted – inevitably because she's been targeted by the enemy (for no apparent reason) or because she has made a ridiculous decision to leap into the middle of events she barely understands. In this case she manages to do both – she's kidnapped (for no apparent reason) rescued, the super secret plans are given to her – including the fact that a building is going to be ground zero of a war zone and not safe – so of course that's where she goes.

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Review posted here: http://offbeatvagabond.blogspot.com/2011/06/book-review-lord-of-misrule-morganvi...

Lord of Misrule is book 5 into my new favorite series, The Morganville Vampires. This is yet another book from this series that I just can’t get enough of. This book did feel a tad bit different from the others. It was shorter and most of the action is in the end, but that doesn’t make this book any less enjoyable. Can’t stress it enough, if you haven’t started this series yet, get on it now.

Lord of Misrule picks up where Feast of Fools left off. The Glass House has become the safe house for the town’s vampires. They are all trying to figure out how to take down Bishop after he has made it clear; Morganville is his for the show more taking. All the housemates have been given tasks by Amelie. Claire, being that she belongs to Amelie, goes with her to rescue our favorite charismatic vampire, Myrnin. Michael, Oliver and Eve are to protect the school. But Shane has the worst job of all, he is basically bait; Amelie has given him the job of tending the bloodmobile and the book that all the vampires will kill for.

The people of Morganville are angry and are taking steps to rebel against the vampires. They are scared and know vampires like Amelie and Oliver are even scared of Mr. Bishop. But things come to a halt when there is a bad storm coming in that will tear the city apart. So everyone, vampires and humans, alike have to work together to fight another day against Bishop.

Another addition that makes me love this series even more. What I love is that this almost feels like a coming-of-age story. Claire is growing up before our very eyes. She was always brave I think, but in this book, she clearly has grown a pair. Her confrontations with Monica had me rooting. Monica really gets a taste of her own medicine in this book. This made me love Claire even more, no matter what because even though Claire had chance after chance to really rub shit in Monica’s face, she still helped her. I don’t know if that makes her crazy or not, but I love that she never stoops to Monica’s level even though I won’t blame her if she did.

We get more from our other characters as well. Shane and Claire are getting closer. Claire wants to rush things and Shane, surprisingly, wants to wait. I like that Caine has that in there. It makes it more likable and sweet to me. Shane and Michael are more on even ground since he is accepting Michael. Myrnin, my absolute favorite, is as crazy as ever. We see that once we get to the end. This made me put the audiobook on pause because I just couldn’t believe it; I needed a quick break to get my brain together.

Like I said this was another great addition. So much going on. The action does take a while to come to the light, but once it does, man it was good. This book probably had the best and worst cliffhanger ever. I don’t think I cursed that much out loud at the ending of a book since Dreamfever. Seriously Caine, you killed me with that. But luckily, got Carpe Corpus at the library just two days ago, so my anticipation was short lived. This will get your adrenaline pumping, trust me. show less