Rating:

“I Am the Land.”

Author: P.N. Elrod

In Vampire of the Mists, we gained a brief glimpse into the brutal history of Barovia’s vampire overlord, a history coated in carnage and torn by betrayal and perverted love. Following this history, P.N. Elrod gives the master of the land a chance to speak for himself, to tell the story of his fall from grace and the creation of the dark plane where demonic-demigods rule, distributing abyssal punishments to doomed peoples, and where the mists keep the trapped forever entombed.

It all starts with Strahd, an aging warrior who is increasingly dissatisfied with his life, despite all his acclaim in battle and all his glory. The problem is an old one. Strahd is finally meeting his younger brother, a happy-go-lucky lad who has never, literally, had to fight for anything. Just as Strahd is finding grey in his hair and thinking about how he put duty first, Sergie (the brother) is throwing the ties-that-bind to the wind, embracing joy and youth, doing what he wants, and falling in love. Strahd, well, he’s just getting cranky and old. Queue the jealousy, the lost chances, the bitter grapes, and the very literal devil-on-the-shoulder that takes advantage of this would-be-necromancer.

In true Ravenloft fashion, the villain here, Strahd, is not a multifaceted character. He’s straight-up evil. While Jander was the torn creature of light who, through no fault of his own, found himself befouled by a vampiric curse that he fought against, Strahd welcomes the fermented evil around him and glories in his own monstrosity. At times he is a creature with some slight humanity, but his pettiness, selfishness, and perversity are altogether consuming, making him someone with whom we can never empathize. If he feels guilt or remorse, his memoir showcases no indications. On first reading, I found this off putting. I like my villains suitably sinister, but the essential flame of humani

Image by Wolfgang Eckert from Pixabay

ty must shine through enough to make them somewhat seductive, or at least to allow me to find moments of connection with the monster. Not so here. This grizzly little story is merely interesting in an episodic manner, and Strahd himself is entertaining only in the depths of how low he will go. He is the catalyst, the true Dracula with no mercy, no emotion other than base animalism, and no nobler feelings beyond those of possession and power. He will disgust you and at times perhaps interest you, but he will never demand feelings beyond those.

I Strahd functions best as an audio book narrative. Since Strahd’s story only connects as a tall-tale and not as something deeper; we’re in it for what happens. The telling itself is simple. Strahd is a creature of military precision. He is unemotive and interested in bare, unadorned facts. The unraveling tale is one stark sentence after another. There is not much of beauty, and little of finesse. The audio book narrator then is left to create flow and diction, and he does. But read on its own, the writing seems simple and bleak, almost fake. The austere personality of Strahd makes the entire narrative seem sloppy – an outline that never became the full novel. I found myself enjoying this book far better when I listened to it being told instead of reading the sparse prose myself.

Overall, I Strahd is an enjoyable look into the dark creator of the demi-plane, but surprisingly not the best of the Ravenloft novels. For the very best, look at Vampire of the Mists or into the demi-plane’s other star sociopath, Azalin and all his books (King of the Dead, Lord of the Necropolis, and I, Strahd: The War Against Azalin).

I was not always a monster. Once, I was a man like any other, with dreams and desires, fears and failures. But now, I am something more… Strahd

 

– Frances Carden

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Frances Carden
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