oxblood

Oxblood is split into two sections, narrative passages focusing on Ethel's point of view, and a series of detours that (usually) lay out the specific rules of vampiricism in this world. Interestingly, the narrative passages are told with a third person point of view while the detours are told in the first person from a tongue-and-cheek narrator.

In truth, the detours did not do much for me. The vampires in Oxblood did not, in my view, need much explanation beyond the narrative itself, and the narrator's voice was not strong enough to carry some of these passages. I think the below passage is a good example of bad tendencies throughout some of the detours as the narrator explains the genre-typical notion that vampires like to live in spooky spaces:

Check local urban legends for places which are “haunted” or “cursed” — that’s the spot. If a human somehow walks in, well, you can bite and get them out, and they probably won’t remember. What? Aren’t we scared of the cops being called? Don’t make us laugh. You think cops can do anything at all?

By contrast, I found the writing in the narrative sections to be wonderfully evocative. There was a variety and depth to the characters and their experiences. The language of the closing to the story in particular was vivid and had the stylistic restraint I was missing from the other sections.