I like this book. Not necessarily because it’s urban fantasy, I mean, let’s face it, these preternatural interlopers have had a fair run since Uncle Bram first nailed one to a stake, but for once we aren’t sweetly indulged with the high school reunion shtick that’s inundated this genre since – I don’t know, since whenever. Lizzie isn’t a high school girl, not by any stretch of the imagination - she might have been – once. No, this femme fatale protagonist is a chain-smoking vixen with an eating disorder and a caustic sarcasm that cuts through everything – literally.
In Eden Gray’s Australian set fantasy world, laconic humour and petty vindictiveness seep through everything, from murder and mayhem for kicks, to fight nights and SWAT teams. Hunting vampires, or, as Stacey Wiley and her adulterous Texan lover call it ‘Waiting for emergence’, sounds like fun, if that is, your idea of fun is blood, guts and hard love. Buick Chalmers heads up the Dog Collar Demons, a Melbourne based biker’s gang long since infiltrated by werewolves – and these dogs just want to have a laugh and turn a buck in the process. Enter Lizzie, looking for a little fun herself to alleviate the humdrum existence of suburban life – and what better fun could a girl have than being the head dog’s moll? Well, to spice it up I suppose she could cheat on the dog with the leader of Adelaide’s techno geek vampire clan . . .
That simmering and petty parochialism between Adelaide and Melbourne is deftly portrayed by Gray’s regional knowledge – and transferred to his night-stalking characters with aplomb. Of course South Australian vampires would detest Melbourne werewolves, and almost as if it’s a footy grand final between opposing states, Gray lets his arbitrators run amok with cheap jibes, hearsay and put downs of competence – culminating in a twilight duel that spills across borders and into the lives of both the innocent and guilty.
In many ways ‘The Other State’ keeps the long-since defined plot of fantasy books close to its chest, adding where required, the sun-drenched frolics and lackadaisical ethics of a people more consumed with alfresco dining than homicide statistics. The old vampire, Lucian, does a fine job of provoking his charge into a fight that’s incidental to a greater cause and as in all fast-paced stories, Cobol, the newly-deposed vampire leader, enters the wolf’s den with his head held high and his physique suitably enhanced by a high protein diet. The end justifies the means however and there is no greater glory or resolution – carrying the dead dog’s pup and heir, Lizzie escapes . . . into the clutches of Cobol’s aides, now vampiric suburbanites themselves . . . leaving the coffin lid ajar enough to permit Gray the luxury of a later resurrection should he deem it just.
‘The Other State’ is, given its relentless pace and adult thread, not the kind of fantasy book where love breeds and the dead attend gym classes, in Gray’s world there is slaying for the sake of slaying and degradation on a large scale – oh, and there’s impotent police and corrupt forensic scientists, not to mention a girl hung up on sex with quadriplegics and married authors . . . all of which only ice the midnight cake Gray has baked.
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