The Madness of Priests is the second release in White Wolf's Victorian Age Vampire trilogy. In the first book we were introduced to Regina Blake and her quest to find her mother, whose dark past and family secrets have led her into being inducted into the world of the Kindred. Aided by another vampire with her own agenda, Regina became involved in the political intrigue and power plays so common to White Wolf vampires, and by novel's end found herself leaving Britain in pursuit of her mother, even as her living family and friends pursued her in hopes of saving her from the forces of darkness. The second book picks up almost immediately where the last one left off, and is one of those rare novels that keeps up the level of quality found in its predecessor.
As in the first book, the author is successful in keeping the tone of the tale like that of a novel truly written in the Victorian era, with appropriate behavior and thinking by the characters, without beating you over the head with it. Sometimes this attention to the period is very subtle—at one point I was confused and disappointed by a moment in which two characters act remarkably foolish, seemingly out of character with their actions in the previous novel, and nearly paying for that foolishness with their lives. It wasn't until I thought about the scene later that I realized that, given the morales and views of the time, it was totally appropriate for them to underestimate their female captive, simply for the fact that she was a female, and a lower-class one at that. Boulle does not stop, save for the most important moments, to explain taboos and societal customs of the era; while this may leave some unfamiliar with the time a bit confused, it does add to the tone of the story and keeps it feeling as though it's a tale from the Victorian era, simply because tales from that era would be written with those same assumptions about the reader's knowledge of society.
One of the nicest things about this book is the fact that it is open to newcomers. By that I mean not only does the author do an excellent job of summarizing what has come before for those who have not yet read the preceding book, but also explaining things unique to the vampires in the World of Darkness. The author has remembered the old adage that every book in a series is someone's first, and has written the book with that idea in mind. When things from the previous books are summarized they are done in fairly broad strokes, allowing a newcomer to read the first book at a later date with minimal spoilage of what occurs there. These recaps also help those readers whose memory since their reading of the first book has become a mite hazy, allowing them to recollect the previous book with ease. I was especially pleased with the discussion of vampire mythos, as it not only summed things up for new readers but also cleared up things that had been a bit confusing to this long-time WOD reader.
I commented in my review of the previous novel that it had a minimum of discrepancies between the way the undead protagonists of the novel were portrayed, as compared to how vampires work in the RPG. After reading the Madness of Priests I can say this is the first time that I've read a White Wolf novel where I found not a single discrepancy. I thought I had found one at first, but after looking through some other appearances of the character involved in it I realized it made sense with what has been established before about him. I can't say how impressed I was by this attention to detail.
In addition to that keeping with the game line, Boulle throws in an assortment of interesting tidbits regarding vampires and their servants through the course of the story. Some of them are truly unique ideas, things that I'm sorry to say that have never occurred to me in my years of reading White Wolf's books, along with answers to questions that I've had waited years for answers (or at least some better theories) for, and others some very unique applications of the natural abilities of Kindred. At no time is the main story over overtaken by these tidbits—they are interesting minor points which never take away from the main story.
I also have to say that I'm impressed with the author's ability to horrify the reader. There are two instances in the book where male characters' external genitalia meet rather nasty fates. Normally, these events on their own would have rated a big "whatever" on my part, having had read many gorefests over the years. But Boulle makes each incident a unique, horrifying event with his narration of it. With the first incident the victim's enforced acceptance of the act, along with the attitude of the molester, make it a very disturbing moment. In the second incident the unexpectedness of the act, combined with Boulle's description of the sounds that come from the action, make it for an uncomfortable read. I found that in both cases I had to put the book down for a while before I continued my read, something that happens very rarely.
The only negative thing I have to say about the novel was the sudden jump in font size at the end, but since it was only for nine pages it's not a big deal.
In the end I recommend The Madness of Priests to anyone interested in White Wolf's Vampire line, even if you're not normally interested in the Victorian era.
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