A Book in Review: Midnight Mass

Midnight Mass By: F. Paul Wilson
Fiction: 403 pages 2004
Book Count: 30

This book is a vampire novel using mostly traditional European beliefs on vampires. As such it is a well written novel, that was a good read. The main problem is that as a traditional vampire novel it must include a lot of Catholic things in it. (Or, it could also have a lot of Orthodox Church things in it, but this one doesn't) This author adds to the necessary crosses and crucifixes, holy water, and Communion a priest and a nun as main characters. And that is where the issues come in. The author is an ex-Catholic, and like many ex-Catholics think that they know the religion, but there are things that they do not completely understand the Catholic beliefs on. The main characters are meant to be good Catholics trying to live in a time when vampires rule, but the inner thoughts of them often don't ring true. For example, murder is a mortal sin. However, there are times when killing is not. One would think that a nun that is killing people that help the vampires by protecting them and finding people for them to eat, would not only think about how she is committing a mortal sin, but questioning if she really is. As one: she thinks she may have gone crazy (which, would make any thing she did not a mortal sin) and two, you could see the situation as either a war or self defence situation. This would have been a lot more interesting to me to read. As then it would be a deeper thinking look into themselves. But, besides that I enjoyed the going back to the vampires being the soulless evil that have haunted the night since ages past. Also, I liked how it included some of the questions that have been asked about vampires for years. Things like, why don't they cast a reflection in a mirror, according to the laws of nature even if you are soulless and undead you should reflect light, they aren't invisible. Not, that this book answers all these questions, but it was nice how they pointed out the questions that a modern person would have about vampires.